Tied to the Tracks

by Rosina Lippi

  Later, unable to sleep, she came back down to the kitchen and began to make notes for the next day’s shooting. She was agitated and couldn’t say why, except that Caroline Rose didn’t have a suspicious nature, and thought she was pretty. Which made no sense at all; none of that should matter. What mattered was tomorrow, and the work she needed to do to get ready.

  A moth bumped softly against the window screen, and from down the block came a very satisfied postcoital tomcat screech. Angie listened to the scratch of her pen on paper, and contemplated Miss Zula’s devious mind.

  In the morning Angie found Tony in the kitchen when she came downstairs. He was trying to get the filter into the coffeemaker, one eye screwed shut. The other, red-rimmed, jerked fitfully. She took the filter out of his hand and shooed him away.

  “I take it you’re just coming in,” Angie said. “Where’s Rivera?”

  “She got lucky,” Tony said. “Really lucky. Luckier than me, at any rate.”

  “Looking for love in all the wrong places?”

  “Oh, I got some,” Tony said, yawning. “You know that blond woman with the chipped tooth who checks out at the Piggly Wiggly? DeeDee.”

  “I do,” Angie said with great seriousness. “I do know DeeDee.”

  “Well.” He slumped into a chair and ran his fingers through his hair until it stood up. “My Piggly Wiggly days are over.”

  “What was it this time?” Angie asked.

  Tony put back his head to study the ceiling. “Day-of-the-week thongs.”

  She considered for a moment, and then decided that Tony needed no coddling. “This from a man who owns not one but two pairs of Home-of-the-Whopper boxer shorts. No good ever came from looking into a woman’s underwear drawer, you mope.”

  Tony’s mouth twitched. He yawned again, loudly, but he was smiling. “Time for bed. We aren’t shooting anything important, are we?”

  “I’m afraid we are,” Angie said. “We’re getting on a train for Savannah at exactly a quarter to one this afternoon, with Miss Zula. To go visit a retired high school teacher. If you’ve got to sleep you’d best get to it, and I’d forget the coffee.”

  Tony groaned, heaved himself out of his chair, and headed for the stairs. Over his shoulder he said, “You’ve got a cruel streak, Mangiamele. Someday it will come back to bite you on the ass. Someday very soon.”

  When Rivera had neither showed her face nor answered her cell phone by eleven, Angie roused Tony out of bed and pointed him toward the shower. Then she stood outside the door and shouted questions at him.

  It turned out he remembered very little about the woman Rivera had left the bar with: dark-haired, lots of makeup, nervous laugh. “Your average closeted lesbian,” he said when he came out of the bathroom with a towel around his middle, water running down his face and chest. “Or at least she was last night. Today, who knows?”

  He leaned over to look at his face in the oval mirror over the dresser, pulled down an eyelid with a thumb. “Christ,” he said balefully. “No wonder I can’t get laid.”

  “Didn’t get her name?” Angie asked again, in desperation.

  “Meg,” he said patiently, rubbing his bristled cheeks. “But I don’t know her last name. We can do this without Rivera, you know.”

  Outside, the first rumbling of a storm echoed in the distance.

  “Of course we can,” Angie said. “No problem at all.”

  NINE

  Ogilvie Bugle NEWS ABOUT TOWN

  Mayor Smith and the Jubilee Committee ask us to remind everybody that the Fourth of July is just four days away. The final organizational meeting will take place in the public room at the library tomorrow at seven p.m., and will be broadcast live on OP-TV, channel 12. The official schedule is available online at www.ogilviejubilee.org, at any of the stores on Main Street, the Piggy Wiggly, and the library. Entry forms for the 5K walk/run, the chili cook-off, baking contests and parade floats must be turned in by noon tomorrow at the library. The editorial staff of the Bugle reminds y’all that Miss Annie doesn’t look kindly on lollygaggers.

  The flight from Atlanta to Savannah was one John had taken so many times that it made no more impression than getting in the car to drive to the store for milk. An hour in the air was just long enough to gather his thoughts and give himself another talking-to.

  He was good at making plans and sticking to them, but like so many other things in his life this summer, a simple plane trip was turning into something else, and quite abruptly. Within five minutes in the air, the weather had turned from threatening to bad, and the man in the seat next to him—a dignified, calm grandfatherly type in a three-piece summer-weight suit—had gone the color of his shirt. Trembling, he asked John in an embarrassed whisper if he could hold his hand.

  “I’m about to shake myself right to death,” said the old man, who introduced himself as Bob Beales. “Even if this plane doesn’t go down. I am that scared.”

  John was trying to think of something comforting to say when a flash of lightning lit up the small cabin and the plane lurched. He held out his hand in a fist and the old man grabbed it, his fingers slightly swollen and red at the knuckle. The hands of a man who had worked hard all his life, who did not ask for help lightly. John was not reminded, not in the least, of his own father or of the one grandfather he had known.

  “Don’t tell me how safe it is to fly,” said Bob Beales.

  As John’s own father had died in a small plane, he wasn’t likely to say any such thing. He said, “I’m too worried about losing my lunch all over your suit to do much talking.”

  The old man let out a squawk of a laugh and then yelped with the next lurch. His grip on John’s hand tightened.

  “Tell me why you’re going to Savannah,” John said. “Maybe that will distract us both.”

  “I’m going to Savannah,” said Bob Beales, “because my wife of forty-six years is there visiting her brother, and I couldn’t stand not having her in my bed even one more day.”

  The plane did a half roll in one direction and then the other. John’s stomach lurched into his throat, and he used his free hand to fumble for the airsickness bag while the old man continued talking.

  “. . . some of those years were a little thin, truth be told, but I have never wanted anybody else, and if I die today,” he said in a hoarse whisper, “I’ll have no regrets, not a one. And that will have to do for a prayer, because I’ve got nothing else to say to my maker.”

  Just as suddenly as the weather had gotten rough, it settled. There was a fraught silence in the cabin and then a woman called out, “Thank you, Jesus. Can I get a drink?”

  “Just a few bumps, folks,” came the pilot’s voice through the speakers overhead. “All’s well.”

  John drew in a deep breath and held it until he was sure he was back in control of his stomach. Bob Beales let go of his hand.

  “I apologize for my rambling,” he said, drawing his dignity back around himself. “And thank you kindly for your understanding and assistance.”

  “What’s your wife’s name?” John asked, and Bob Beales smiled, pleased, thankful, at ease again.

  “Josie,” he said. “Her name is Josie. Do you have a woman in your life?”

  John ran a hand over his face. “I do,” he said. And then stopped, because for a single instant he had forgotten the name of the woman he was about to marry.

  Miss Anabel turned out to be one of the more difficult people Angie had ever tried to interview. Far from the placid, chair-bound old lady she had imagined, Anabel Spate moved around her tiny house like a whirlwind, dispensing information and questions of her own at an alarming speed.

  “My students,” she said, pointing to a row of photographs that lined the staircase. “You’ll find Miss Zula Bragg in the very first one, there. The bright-eyed young woman who looks to be cooking up some kind of trouble.” And she was gone again, in the direction of the kitchen. Angie and Tony went to look at the photographs.

  A group of seven high-school-
aged girls, Miss Zula standing in the back row next to Miss Maddie, both of them wearing simple dresses with starched collars. Printed at the bottom of the photo were the words: Our Lady of Divine Mercy, Ogilvie, Ga., Freshman Class, June 1945.

  Tony’s eyes moved over the photograph. He said, “I thought schools down here were segregated until the sixties, at least.”

  “They were indeed,” said Miss Zula, who was standing in the doorway. “But Divine Mercy is a Catholic school, and back then the principal was a man of some backbone. And it was wartime, things were a little looser.”

  Miss Zula came up to stand on Angie’s other side. “There’s Miss Junie, and her twin sister, Alma. Alma married Harmond Ogilvie the June we graduated and died of a burst appendix not a month later. His mama told him it was God’s judgment. A boy whose family worshipped at Episcopal Christ Church and sat down to Sunday dinner with the governor should never have thought to marry a Catholic.”

  “How did old Harmond take that piece of wisdom?” Tony asked.

  “Bubba—that’s the name he went by in those days—married Button Preston a year later, and made his mama proud.”

  “This is Harmond Ogilvie, the chair of the board of regents?”

  “And Button Preston, who is president of the Junior League, like her mama before her.”

  “Ogilvie is a small town,” Angie said.

  “And don’t you ever forget it,” said Miss Zula.

  Tony was moving along the row of photos. He stopped suddenly in front of a group portrait. There were nuns in full habit, their faces framed by white wimples, two priests, and a half dozen laypeople, most of them male.

  “The younger priest looks familiar,” said Angie, studying the photo.

  “I’m not surprised,” said Miss Zula. “That’s Miss Junie’s uncle, Father Liam.”

  “Come on over here and eat, would you?” said Miss Anabel. “This humidity is playing havoc with my meringue.”

  There were many questions Angie wanted to ask Miss Anabel, few of which she got a chance to put to the fierce old lady, who immediately took charge of the conversation. “Zula,” she said, “tell me again why Caroline didn’t come along. And where is this Rivera Rosenblum I’ve heard so much about?”

  “Junie needed a ride to her house at the lake,” said Miss Zula. “And of course Caroline took her.”

  “Rivera was detained,” Angie said. “She’ll be sorry to have missed this visit.” It was the truth, so she could meet Miss Anabel’s watery blue gaze with complete ease.

  “Now, that’s too bad,” said Miss Anabel. “Maybe she’ll come sometime on her own. And what about Louie?”

  Miss Zula put down her teacup. “I didn’t bring Louie because he makes you sneeze.”

  Tony grinned at Angie as he spooned strawberry jam on his plate. He had a sweet tooth, and no objection to putting off work if the older women were set on a long visit.

  Miss Anabel said, “He’s the best dog you’ve ever had.”

  “You say that about every dog of mine,” said Miss Zula. “But he still makes you sneeze.”

  “So does sunlight,” said Miss Anabel, scowling. “And I don’t let that keep me from stepping out of doors. Miss Mangiamele, why aren’t you married, a pretty young woman like you?”

  Angie inhaled a mouthful of iced tea. While Tony was thumping her on the back, she saw that Miss Anabel was watching her almost as closely as Miss Zula.

  “Pardon me?” she croaked.

  “I believe you heard my question. I asked why you aren’t married. Unless you consider the question impertinent?” Miss Anabel held out a plate of cookies to Tony.

  “Yes. No.” Angie pressed her napkin to her mouth for a moment. “Why does anybody stay single? It’s just the way things are.”

  “But you must be close to thirty?”

  “I’m twenty-eight. Women marry late these days, if they marry at all. I believe Caroline Rose must be at least thirty-five.”

  A light came into Miss Anabel’s eyes, one that Angie recognized. She had grown up with old Italian women who enjoyed a good argument.

  “So you haven’t met the right person?” Miss Anabel said.

  “Define ‘right.’ ”

  Miss Anabel let out a cawing laugh. “What about you, Mr. Russo?”

  “I’ve got one, too. A backbone.”

  “You’ve got to be fifty, and you still haven’t married.”

  “True on both counts.” Tony leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

  “Well,” said Miss Anabel, “Miss Mangiamele there is a bright young woman. She’s quite pretty though she doesn’t dress well, and she’s single.”

  Tony had always been a good poker player, unflappable. He raised an eyebrow in her direction.

  “Angie, hey. Want to get married?”

  “No,” Angie said, swallowing a hysterical laugh. “Well, not to you.”

  “That’s settled,” Tony said placidly.

  “So you don’t rule out the idea of marriage.”

  “No, Miss Anabel,” said Angie. “I don’t rule it out.”

  To Tony Miss Anabel said, “Miss Mangiamele isn’t the only available young woman of your acquaintance. Surely.”

  “I know a lot of women,” Tony said. “Of all ages and marital states. But I was inoculated against marriage long ago. At my father’s knee.”

  Without missing a beat Miss Anabel said, “Is that why you prefer to spend your time with married women?”

  Tony narrowed his eyes at her. “I guess that must be it.”

  “Well, then,” said Miss Anabel brightly. “Since I’ve asked my questions, you can go ahead and get out your camera and ask yours. Now that we understand one another.”

  Tony and Angie took a taxi back to the train station without Miss Zula, whose habit it was to spend the night in Savannah and do some shopping on Saturday morning before she took the train home to Ogilvie by herself. She neither needed nor wanted company.

  “It’s like an outdoor shower,” Tony said, peering out into the rain. Great sheets of it, warm as new milk. “And here I was planning on hanging around for a while, see what Savannah has to offer.” His cell phone rang.

  “Don’t let a little water stop you,” Angie said as he fumbled his phone out of his pocket. “I can get back to Ogilvie on my own.”

  Then he held up the phone for her to see the caller ID and flipped it open.

  “Rivera, baby, sweetheart, darling, you owe me one. What’s up?”

  Angie reached for the phone but he pushed her hand away.

  “Oh, yeah, good shoot. Excellent. Wild old lady, you would have liked her—”

  “You mope, let me talk to her,” Angie said, and he shook his head at her.

  “—except now we’ll have to figure out whether we want to out Miss Zula for national distribution. . . . You did not.”

  To Angie he said, “She says she already knew that Miss Zula was a lesbian.”

  “She doesn’t know any such thing,” Angie said, and took the phone from him. To Rivera she said, “You don’t know any such thing, and neither do we. And we aren’t going to deal with this, not unless Miss Zula specifically asks us to.”

  Rivera’s voice was harsh with static, but she was amused. “She takes a documentary film crew to meet Miss Anabel, what do you think she was doing?”

  “No,” Angie said, “we will not move on this, not yet. Probably not ever.”

  “Coward,” said Tony.

  “Wimp,” said Rivera.

  “I’m being cautious,” Angie said. “Somebody has to be.”

  “Caution,” snorted Tony dismissively. He scowled at the rain. “I’m going to throw it to the wind and go explore Savannah.” He leaned over and kissed Angie on the cheek, and then yelled into the cell phone, “Bye, Riv,” and snapped the lid shut, to Angie’s considerable annoyance.

  They were stopped at a red light and he put his hand on the door handle, watching her face.

  “Be back by Monday,” she said.
“We have to get ready for Tuesday’s shoot.”

  “Tuesday?”

  “The Fourth of July,” Angie said. “Independence Day, the Jubilee. Fireworks, parade, picnic. Pay attention, winkie. We’re here to make a documentary, remember?”

  He saluted as the cab moved away.

  John made the five-thirty train to Ogilvie, which was only fair of fate, given the reason he was taking the train at all. He propelled himself up the steps and into the last car just as the train started to move, to find that it was almost full, of course; it was the middle of the rush hour.