Tied to the Tracks

by Rosina Lippi

  Hours and hours and hours from now. Angie nodded.

  “Good.” He turned toward the door and then suddenly changed direction and came across the room in four long strides. He put one hand on the door over her head and leaned down and kissed her, short but sweet and thorough, a kiss that said the things she needed to know. She heard herself let out a shuddering sigh of relief.

  “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “It’s nothing about you. Nothing bad about us. I don’t want you to worry. I’m trying, Angie, I’m really trying. I don’t want to screw this up.”

  Angie nodded. “Good.” This time she managed a smile. “Good.”

  As president of the university, Karl Bray lived in the small mansion on campus that Captain Joshua Ogilvie had built in 1820 when he first settled the town and gave it his name. Karl was an excellent administrator and a nice enough man, but he was also a native of Vermont, an art historian, and an unapologetic atheist, so it was no surprise to John that after fifteen years in town, Karl had never really become part of the community.

  And still Karl should have known enough about how Ogilvie worked and the old quarrels not to seat Zula Bragg next to Button Preston Ogilvie. They both had to be included, that much was clear—Button’s husband, Harmond, was the chair of the board of regents, and she herself was an alumna.

  John sat across the table from the two elderly women who so studiously ignored each other. Miss Zula was as reticent as ever, answering politely whenever one of the guests addressed her but never allowing a conversation to go very long. The fact that the people around this table would each be contributing tens of thousands of dollars to the university impressed her not at all. Button, on the other hand, never stopped talking. She had gotten onto the subject of the town’s history and genealogy, the worst possible place to go when she was sitting next to Zula Bragg.

  “Your husband and son are the last direct descendants of the original Joshua Ogilvie, the man who built this house, is that right?” This from a middle-aged alumna who was president of a small bank in Atlanta.

  “That’s right,” Button said. “Most of the Ogilvies in town are descended from John Ogilvie, Joshua’s younger brother? Dr. Grant’s mother is an Ogilvie of that line.” She shot him a patronizing smile, which John pretended not to see.

  Button went on for a while about the Ogilvie lineage, fabricating where it suited her and skipping over the less savory bits, such as the fact that Zula Bragg was herself directly descended from both Joshua and John Ogilvie, who had been visionary men when it came to everything but slavery and the persons of their female slaves. It was exactly this kind of talk that had gotten Button Ogilvie written into Sweet-Bitter, the novel that had won Miss Zula the National Book Award.

  Karl Bray said, “To be completely fair, Button, you have to remember that Captain Ogilvie had children outside his marriage. Those descendants are here in town, too.” His gaze flickered toward Miss Zula and away again.

  Button smiled stiffly. “That’s a theory,” she said. “One without any sound proof.”

  The man to Karl’s right cleared his throat. He was twice Karl’s size, with a great slope of belly and jowls like the flaps on a rooster, and he had a deep, resonating voice that almost echoed off the high ceilings. “These days we can prove or refute such claims on the basis of DNA testing.”

  “But, Dr. Beasley,” said Button, “why? Why go stirring up all that dusty old history? We need to look forward, and forget this obsession we have with hashing over the past.”

  “Such as genealogy,” said John, but while her expression stiffened, she didn’t rise to the bait.

  “But his other descendants—” a younger man began, and then stopped when Button turned a glittering glance in his direction. Before she could launch into what John suspected was a set piece, her husband spoke up.

  “This is a matter of some delicacy,” he said in his high, breathy voice. “But really, if you don’t allow emotion to cloud the issue, it is quite simple. Outsiders who don’t understand the social nuances sometimes get the idea that we descendants of Joshua Ogilvie are racists, but the truth is, we’re just snobs. Not that the two failings are necessarily mutually exclusive, but they are in this case.”

  There was a ripple of vaguely uneasy laughter around the table, and John reminded himself that he had come back here knowing full well that he would be dealing with people like this, who dealt out such casual arrogance like loose change. There were fewer of them around these days, it seemed to him, and of course there was also Zula Bragg, who had never flinched at defending herself.

  Miss Zula said, “Mrs. Langley, have you been to the family cemetery on the grounds behind the mansion?”

  “Why, no,” said the bank president. “Now that you mention it, I never have.”

  “I’m not surprised,” said Zula. “It’s not generally open to the public. But I’m sure Dr. Bray could arrange for you to see it.

  “My sister and I visit the cemetery a few times every year,” Miss Zula went on. “We’ve got four great-grandparents and four great-great-grandparents buried there—all but two of them in the section reserved for slaves.” Her tone was matter-of-fact, but there was a light in her eye that John knew better than to challenge. Apparently Button did, too, because she kept quiet.

  “Is that so?” The doctor looked interested. “I’ll bet your documentary people have been all over that piece of history.”

  Button made a tight little circle of her mouth and then said, “I’m afraid you’re probably right.”

  Such an opening was more than John could ignore. He said, “Mrs. Ogilvie, you don’t approve of the documentary?”

  Button Ogilvie’s papery-thin cheeks flushed, Miss Zula smiled at him openly, and John settled back. Not satisfied, exactly, but more comfortable now that he had cast a vote.

  “I’m sure I don’t care one way or the other,” Button said loftily, though John knew she had lobbied behind the scenes to keep the regents from commissioning the documentary. “The film people seem nice enough, though a trifle bohemian. Sooner or later I’ll have to let them interview me, but I wouldn’t mind so much if they weren’t so young and inexperienced.”

  “They came with the highest recommendations, my dear,” said her husband. “And Miss Zula chose them, after all. She has every faith in them, and so does the board of regents.”

  Button’s mouth went very small and round, a disapproving coin in the middle of her face. “Of course. I had forgotten.” She turned a stiff smile toward Zula. “Why this particular film company, if I may ask?”

  “I brought Tied to the Tracks to Miss Zula’s attention.” A guest at the other end of the table spoke up for the first time. Her name was Judith Parris, and while John had met her once or twice over the years, he knew her primarily by her reputation. She was a professor of film and women’s studies, a powerhouse in academia known for her razor-sharp critical work. Among other things.

  Judith Parris was somewhere close to forty, with a long face and patrician bone structure under a razored shock of prematurely white hair. She stood out among these frail, conservative older women like a Picasso among stolid still lifes, her long frame wrapped in a jewel-colored silk caftan over wide pants. There were loops of silver wire around her neck strung with great chunks of polished stone and amber and bits of what looked to John to be barbed wire.

  Miss Zula said, “Dr. Parris took creative writing with me when she was studying here, and then she had Rivera Rosenblum—one of the film company people, the tall young woman with very dark hair?—in some of her undergraduate classes when she was on the faculty at Smith. She’s kept track of Rivera, and I keep track of Jude, and so the wheel goes round. We are a very small world.”

  “Academics?” said the bank president.

  “Feminists?” said Button Ogilvie.

  “Academic women out of Ogilvie College,” said Miss Zula with a small smile.

  “With a weakness for gambling,” added Jude Parris.

  The tw
o women exchanged glances, and John thought: Oh. There was something going on here beneath the surface, and curiosity flooded through him. To Jude he said, “So we have you to thank for Tied to the Tracks?”

  “Essentially,” she agreed. “And now that you’ve raised the subject, I didn’t get a chance to talk to Rivera earlier, but I’m supposed to meet her and her friends a little later for drinks. If somebody can give me a ride to the Hound Dog?”

  The Hound Dog, which Angie had successfully avoided for so long, turned out to be just what she expected. Bars were bars no matter where you went. Right now in Hoboken there were a dozen that could be mistaken for this one, with adjustments for décor and musical tastes. The Hound Dog was underlit, overcrowded, smelly, and loud, and while her first and only beer had tasted very good after a long day in the editing suite and then at the stuffy reunion reception, she really wanted to be somewhere else. She glanced at her watch again and told herself that John wouldn’t be home just yet. And if he was, well, then. She had waited, and so could he.

  “You can’t have the keys to the van,” Tony was explaining to her in a ponderous tone. “You’ve had too much to drink.”

  “No, you’ve had too much to drink,” Angie said. “I’m sober.”

  “I knew it was one of us.” He pulled out his shirt pocket and crossed his eyes trying to look into it. “No keys. Ask Rivera.”

  “She said you have them. Check your rear pockets.”

  There was a hand on Angie’s shoulder, a firm touch that made her jump and her heart speed up. She turned her head.

  “Hey, Wyeth,” she squeaked. “How you doing?”

  Above his beard, Wyeth Horton’s cheeks were cherry red, from drink or dancing or both.

  He said, “Come on and dance,” and towed her through the crowd by the hand without bothering to hear her thoughts on the subject. There was no chance of making herself heard over the band, she thought, but she’d be able to get away once they reached the dance floor.

  Except there never was that chance, and after a while she stopped trying to make excuses. For an English teacher of considerable and ponderous girth, Wyeth could really dance. So could the other men who claimed her one after the other. Angie knew how to dance, too, for the simple reason that all four grandparents had been avid ballroom dancers. Through her childhood and much of her high school years they had dragged her to every competition on the East Coast.

  When the band finished its set and left the raised stage to take a break, Angie was breathless and laughing when she looked up to see John standing at the edge of the crowd. He was still dressed as she had seen him last at the alumni reception, but he had loosened his tie and had a long-necked beer bottle in one hand.

  Tony came up and draped an arm over her shoulders. “Aren’t you glad you didn’t rush away?”

  Angie shot him a warning look that didn’t even register.

  “Get this,” he was saying. “John brought Jude Parris with him.”

  Angie had been ready to disavow any interest in John Grant, but this last piece of news took her by surprise. “Jude Parris? At the Hound Dog?” And then: “The reunion. I didn’t even think about it: she’s an alumna.”

  “Who’s Jude Parris?” Wyeth asked, looking interested.

  “Rivera’s adviser from Smith,” Angie answered absently. She caught sight of the table where Jude sat with Rivera and Meg and—she sighed—John. Wyeth was looking in the same direction.

  He said, “Judith Parris? Author of Man of Pain?”

  Angie thought, Oh, shit.

  Wyeth said, “She’s got a new book coming out, I forget the title.”

  Tony said, “Studies in Sexual Indiscretion,” and Angie punched him, hard enough to make him yelp. He rubbed his arm and scowled at Angie, but he spoke to Wyeth. “Hey, Urban Cowboy. Stay away from Jude Parris. She eats her dead.”

  “John and Win look comfortable enough,” said Wyeth, and Angie saw that, indeed, John Grant and Win Walker had been induced to join Rivera, Jude, and Weepy Meg.

  “I’ll come with you,” said Wyeth. “Is she one of the Savannah Parris girls?”

  A half an hour later Angie had pretty much given up on ever getting away to be alone with John. There were eight of them crowded into a round corner booth, and somehow or another she had ended up between John and Tony, directly across from Win Walker and Wyeth Horton. Wyeth’s attention was mostly on Jude, but Win kept a close eye on Angie, and his expression was less than friendly. Of course, the last time they had talked to each other it had been in the presence of a loaded condom, which probably explained a lot.

  The table was crowded with glasses and bottles and open cans of Vienna sausages, at Wyeth’s insistence that they needed the full Hound Dog experience before they went back north and proclaimed themselves experts on the subject of drinking habits in the Deep South.

  “You really did miss something fantastic,” Jude was saying. Her thin cheeks were pale even in the heat of the overcrowded room, but her eyes flashed with pleasure, as they always did when she had a new audience. Jude was ignoring Wyeth to size up Win, and Win was not completely immune. Angie reminded herself that it wasn’t her job to protect the gentle souls of the world from the more predatory ones, and Win Walker was a big boy.

  “I can’t remember the last time I saw Miss Zula take somebody apart with such obvious delight. I almost felt sorry for the woman,” Jude finished.

  “I wouldn’t feel sorry for Button Ogilvie,” said John. “She provokes Miss Zula because she likes the excitement.”

  Wyeth said, “Sometimes I think they should just have an old-fashioned duel and get it over with.”

  “Gunfight at the Ogilvie Corral,” said Tony. “We could tape it.”

  “Oh, now, it’s not that bad,” said Win. “They just squabble a little.”

  Meg said, “If you ask me, it’s all about unrequited love.”

  Rivera’s head jerked up. She had been uncharacteristically quiet, sitting there between Jude and Meg. The problem was that Jude took some finessing at the best of times, and Meg was complicating matters considerably. She was leaning against Rivera’s arm, radiating a combination of satisfaction and smugness that was bound to get on Rivera’s nerves. Angie, who had watched Rivera negotiate her fair share of relationships over the years, could see that her interest and her patience were close to exhausted. Meg might have sensed that herself, because she was working very hard to impress.

  “Are you saying Button Ogilvie is a lesbian?” Win asked, looking more amused than shocked.

  “Not Button,” Meg said in an aren’t-you-silly voice. “Miss Zula.”

  “Meg,” Rivera said in a weary tone. “Shut up.”

  “I second that,” said John.

  There was a small and very tense silence. “Why would you say that to me?” Meg said finally, blinking hard. “Aren’t I entitled to an opinion?”

  “You’re not entitled to spread false rumors,” said Win, his smile gone now. “Maybe you shouldn’t have anything more to drink.”

  “Meg, darlin’,” Wyeth said, smacking the table with both palms. “You and I haven’t been out on the dance floor yet tonight.”

  She ignored him. Her expression was almost comical, a combination of hurt and irritation. “I think I know more about lesbians than you do, Win Walker. Shouldn’t you be someplace conducting a Bible study or something?”

  John said, “Drunk and rude, both. Win, let me buy you another beer.”

  “Well, I’m sorry,” said Meg, though it was clear she was no such thing. “Rivera, aren’t you going to back me up about Miss Zula, sugar?”

  Rivera winced. “I don’t want any part of this. This is so not kosher, Meg.”

  There were blotches of color on Meg’s cheeks and her chin trembled in a way that some men might find disarming, but would get her nowhere with Rivera. She said, “I thought y’all were interested in the truth.”

  Jude said, “Who said you can’t have an intellectual conversation in the Hound
Dog?”

  John smiled grimly. “Miss Zula is not a lesbian. Can we change the subject?”

  Meg said to Rivera, “You were ready enough to help me come out of the closet.”

  “That sounds like a no to me,” Wyeth said to John.

  “That was your decision,” Rivera said, and Angie, compelled to speak up, added: “You don’t push somebody out of the closet.”

  “Not down here, especially,” said Tony cheerfully. “Down here you lock the door.”

  John gave Tony an irritated look. “You can’t push somebody out of the closet or lock them into it if they aren’t in it to start with. This is stupid. Miss Zula is not a lesbian.”

  Meg said, “If you’re so smart, John Grant, then what about Miss Anabel? Rivera, tell them about Miss Anabel.”