Oliver stood by the buffet tables and watched the couples on the floor roll their hips as they attempted a new dance step, “trucking.” Coming alone had been a mistake but his choices had been limited: stag or not at all.
His mother glared at him from her seat against the wall, her fan snapping to reflect her disgust with a son who hovered by the refreshments instead of cutting in on couples with eligible females. But his mother didn’t have to make conversation with a girl liberally endowed with freckles, pimples, or a tongue as caustic as if dipped in lye.
“You shouldn’t be so critical,” was his mother’s often repeated battle cry. She left the rest of the thought unspoken, but it hung in the air between them: “You aren’t a prize yourself, Oliver.”
No, he wasn’t. He glanced down at his hands, the grimy half moons making him wish he’d cleaned under his fingernails. The double-pronged buckle of the western-style belt at his waist was at the last notch and he was afraid to reach across the buffet table for fear of splitting the already-strained seams of his pants.
He stuffed another iced gingerbread square into his mouth. Why not be fat and sloppy? Would his life be any different if he became slim and dapper like Joe Treadwell or had a head of sleekly styled hair like Wen Barton?
Under an improved exterior would still lurk the barrel-shaped Oliver whose tongue swelled up like a sponge whenever a pretty girl got within five feet of him.
A whiff of violet-scented perfume tantalized his nostrils as several couples moved past to queue at the punch bowl. The girls posed with a hip thrust forward and their bosoms uplifted, giggles floating up to mingle with the balloons on the ceiling. The styles this year flattered the women, calling attention to the soft curve of the hip and the bust line, but Oliver hated the wide lapels of his jacket, which seemed to exaggerate his girth.
As he watched the mating rituals of hand touching and coy looks, Oliver thought yearningly of the petting parties in the cars in the parking lot, white shoulders framed by open windows, muffled shrieks and giggles, silver flasks flashing in the moonlight as whiskey burned down eager throats—bodies entwined like morning glory stems.
Oliver snapped to attention as an unescorted Rosemary Dickison entered the room and paused just inside the door. The sight of her loveliness glued his tongue to the bottom of his mouth and started his heart pounding like a tom-tom. Could she be looking at him—no! Her gaze passed over him and she walked toward the stag line while he stood, trapped, across the room.
He conducted a poetic worship from afar, caressing with his eyes the delicate swell of her bust line, the hand-spannable waist, and the flush of skin kissed by the gentle rays of the sun. He envied the pearls nestled in the seductive hollow of her throat. Just the thought of switching places with the gems made him tingle as if he’d been doused with cold water.
Hoping she’d glance in his direction again, Oliver expanded his chest and sucked in his stomach, only to wheeze as the material of his jacket constricted against his ribs like iron bands. Rosemary was now choosing a partner from the stag line and Claude “College Man” Saunders led her onto the floor.
Oliver reached for another cookie and caught the baleful eye of his mother. If he didn’t make an attempt to socialize, meals for the next three weeks would be a rehash of his missed opportunities. Brushing the crumbs from his shirtfront, he lumbered toward the dance floor, wishing he had the nerve to cut in on Claude and his partner.
He sensed the girls cringing at his approach and imagined himself to be a hideous Frankenstein monster stalking stiff-legged toward a shrinking victim. Oliver selected a pert blonde in a lilac-sequined gown and she moved with reluctance into his arms when he tapped her partner on the shoulder.
The dance was as awkward and stiff as his conversation. The band finished with a clash of sound and the blonde vanished into the arms of her former partner with the speed of a rabbit into the haven of its den. Oliver said to empty air, “Thanks for the dance,” and retreated to the buffet tables to procure his fourth cup of punch. Claude was there, staring into the depths of the punch bowl as if it were a wishing well.
The youth gave Oliver a scornful glance and tossed back a fringe of oily black hair, his thumb and forefinger rubbing the flare of Oliver’s lapel in greedy strokes, as if the fabric were woven from threads of gold. “You and Georgette gonna meet in the parking lot later and make a little whoopee?”
The question and intent behind it were patently cruel after Georgette’s hasty departure and Oliver longed to dunk Claude’s head in the bowl and hold it under until punch streamed from those stuck-out ears. His only consolation was that Claude would be going back to college next month, taking his snazzy wardrobe, jazzed-up Tin Lizzie, and smart mouth with him.
Oliver thought of a way to strike back. “How come you’re pawing in the stag line? Heard you were bringing Flora Dickison tonight.”
Claude swore and thumbed his chin in Oliver’s direction. “Flora’s sick—must be a fatal illness if she couldn’t make a date with me.”
“Or she recovered her senses.” Grinning, Oliver reached for a cup of punch but Claude blocked his arm.
“Allow me.” Claude poured a fresh cup and, behind the shield of his hand, spit into it. “Do you see me crying that Flora couldn’t come? No, because while we were dancing, Rosemary asked me to take her home. That luscious peach’s just hanging there waitin’ to be plucked and peeled and I’m the farm boy who can do it—know what I mean?” He gave a vulgar wink and shoved the cup at Oliver.
Trembling with rage, Oliver stood at the table clutching the adulterated drink as Claude swaggered back to the stag line. The braggart was holding forth at length, probably about what he was going to do to the “peach” when he got her alone in the car.
Oliver ached to bury his fist in that foul mouth; Rosemary was too beautiful and pure to be soiled by the touch of Claude’s filthy hands—even her name was a lewd jest on his tongue. Stalking out to the parking lot, Oliver vented his feeling of impotence by smashing the cup on the gravel-covered ground. The punch pooled like blood across the rocks before soaking into the earth and he wished the liquid were blood, preferably from Claude’s nose.
The shards of glass sparkled like diamonds and tilting his head back, Oliver gazed up at the crescent moon; tonight even it seemed to shape a mocking smile. Bursts of music and laughter emerged behind him like champagne bubbles that popped each time the doors closed. A nearby couple were locked in an embrace so tight that he couldn’t have gotten his pocket comb between them.
Turning on his heel and feeling as bulky as a draft horse, Oliver stalked back into the building, his destination—the punch bowl.
Almost two hours and six cups of punch later, he was propped against the wall, eyes heavy-lidded as he surveyed the whirling dancers.
A hand touched his sleeve.
“Dance with me, Oliver.” Rosemary’s sultry voice trickled down his spine, sending unbelieving shocks of excitement racing through his body as he sagged, clutching at the cinder blocks behind him for support.
Up close, those blue eyes were limpid enough to drown in. He encircled her waist and led her onto the floor where, of its own volition, his body blended with hers to the drummer’s insistent beat.
“I’ve appointed you to rescue me, darling Oliver,” Rosemary whispered, tickling his ear with her breath, as they whirled, delicate as thistledown, across the floor. “Will you take me home after this dance?”
His head bobbed like a woodchopper’s ax as the heady scent of her perfume caressed his nostrils.
“Come, Oliver.” They had circled to an area near one of the fire exit doors when she gently disengaged herself and led him off the floor. “You can come back after you take me home,” Rosemary promised, catching his hand in hers.
He grinned from ear to ear. So much for Claude’s boasts! Forgetting to look around to make sure the stag line had noticed his coup, he followed Rosemary like a puppy behind its mistress, the glassy stare of one who had be
en hypnotized following the seductive sway of her hips.
They moved outside into the humid, still air. Rosemary’s forehead had the iridescent sheen of perspiration and the scent of her heated flesh made his teeth chatter like the tines on a hay rake. One peach-tinted pump slipped on the loose gravel and Oliver put his arm around her to steady her, the yielding warmth of her body wiping the location of his car from his mind like an eraser on a chalkboard.
He looked around, dazed by his good fortune, hoping Claude had the temerity to try to stop them; he knew he could knock those lying teeth down College Man’s throat with one blow delivered by a brawny arm and sweep up Rosemary and carry her away from the clamoring crowd.
But his companion hadn’t waited for her gladiator to vanquish the foe and was instead leading the way toward Oliver’s battered little Ford. He rushed to open the door of his chariot and help her settle into the passenger seat.
Rosemary relaxed with a faint sigh, leaning her head back and closing her eyes. Oliver turned the key, breathing a prayer of thanksgiving as the usually balky engine turned over on cue.
Rosemary gave directions to her home, then was silent until he turned the car onto Kelton Road. Oliver was dizzy from the dancing and the rush of cooler air through his open window had begun to sober him. He studied her profile and almost swooned at the rosy fullness of her lips. She was so exquisitely beautiful—reminding him of the porcelain doll from France displayed in his mother’s glass-fronted cabinet. She had chosen him; now he must respond. But each mile meant they were closer to separation and he sat, dumb as a stump, and mourned the cups of punch that had muffled his brain in cotton batting.
When the engine died, Rosemary straightened, her voice sharp. “What’s wrong?”
“You might say I ran out of gas.” Oliver ran his index finger down the delicate curve of her cheek, anticipating a halfhearted protest before her inevitable sobbing surrender against his manly breast.
Cold tones of exasperation drenched him like a bucket of ice water. “Oliver, I’m not in the mood for games. Take me home.”
Oliver! He wasn’t Oliver. The alcoholic content of the punch surged. “It’s fate, darling,” he drawled. “You and I, the moon, the strains of romantic music lingering in our ears.” As he spoke, he slid closer and put his arm around her bare shoulders.
Cupping her chin, he lifted her eager mouth to his.
But she was squirming and the hand that had become trapped between their bodies jabbed at his rib cage with razor-tipped nails. “Oliver! I thought I’d be safe with you.”
“Some of us have hidden depths of passion, darling.” He was amazed at his husky response—couldn’t believe the masterful, assured voice came from his lips. Reading Gone With the Wind had inspired him—he could play Rhett to her sassy Scarlett anytime.
As he bent to kiss her, however, a brief struggle ensued and her hands came free, nails raking painfully across his neck. Somehow the keys to the car ended up in her fingers and she pitched them out the open driver’s window, following up her impetuous action by slapping a plump cheek.
“Rosemary!” He recoiled in hurt surprise, the last tattered shreds of his imaginary world fluttering away on the night breeze.
Her panting breaths were loud in his ears. “You clumsy fool! How dare you paw me like an animal! I was wrong to think that I could trust you—you’re just like Claude and all the rest.”
She was wrenching at the door handle. “I’ll walk home. And I don’t care if you ever find your car keys! The exercise of walking back to town might do you good, you fat slob!”
Groveling on his hands and knees in the grass by the side of the road, Oliver’s cheek burned as he groped for the metal of the keys, but the sting of the slap paled beside the heat of humiliation that consumed his soul and the realization that he was as beastly as Claude and his lustful ilk.
“I should have joined the circus,” he muttered. “A circus can’t have too many clowns.”
Crickets jeered at him and his vision blurred as he sat back on his heels and watched as the pale patch of Rosemary’s dress was swallowed up by darkness…
“You let her walk away from you? You left her alone on a deserted road?”
Oliver’s wide-lipped smile and tone were equally patronizing. “Back then, my dear little sleuth, country roads were considered relatively safe, as long as the bulls remained behind their fences and one didn’t step on a skunk. But you seem to be missing the entire point of the story—Rosemary left me, thereby sealing her fate. If she’d stayed in the car, the only possible way she’d have died was from boredom with my clumsy advances.”
His calm dismissal of Rosemary’s death angered Abigail. “She died, Mr. Payton. Someone killed her. You’d just been slapped in your libido—weren’t you tempted to get into the car again and run her down?”
Oliver was shaking his head, scoffing at the notion. “I was humiliated, dizzy, and slightly drunk. It took fifteen minutes of poking through the weeds and wondering if the sticks I knelt on were snakes before I found my keys. Rosemary just turned her back and walked away—she wasn’t afraid of retaliation. Do you know what that kind of contempt does to a man? I had always feared that I was nothing, worse than nothing, and Rosemary had confirmed my private nightmare. That drive back to town was the worst ride of my life—I felt like killing myself because I had no future, but I didn’t have the guts to do that, either.
“The next morning I discovered that Rosemary had left her silk evening bag on the floor of the front seat. News of her death on Kelton Road arrived shortly thereafter—one of the town gossips called my mother. I was terrified that my part would come out—Mother would have hung herself in the public square if her son became involved in the sizzling scandal of a young woman’s death. I threw the bag in the river and prayed no one would tell the police I was the one who took Rosemary away from the dance.”
“And you never came forward?”
“Rosemary was trouble. She used people—I was her gullible tool. If destiny hadn’t found her on Kelton Road, it eventually would have caught up with her in another form.”
During his recital, Oliver had folded the paper open to the crossword puzzle and his pen moved across the squares.
Abigail stood up. “This conversation isn’t just a way to liven up your dull afternoon—Rosemary died a violent death. She didn’t get the opportunity to watch the sun rise again or wipe away the salt of a lover’s tears. You live in a world twisted to meet your specifications—it sounds to me as though you feel victimized by her and not the other way around. You may have thrown away more than her evening bag into the water.” She slapped a business card on the nightstand. “If you have a change of heart and want to take this seriously, call me.”
Her host was still smiling. “Don’t waste any sympathy on the girl—she had no conscience, no heart under that pretty face.”
She searched his features for a sign of vulnerability, but he bent his head over the paper. The man had discussed a woman’s death with no more emotion than if he’d been commenting on a cat run over in the street.
The concept that Rosemary had invited her own death sickened Abigail and she lashed out in a final attempt to crack Oliver’s cold shell of unconcern. “You’ve allowed yourself to become warped, Mr. Payton—losing a limb has nothing to do with becoming a whole man.”
A mocking smile told her that she hadn’t touched him and she drew a deep breath, fighting for control. “But I suppose I’m forgetting your ‘point.’ You weren’t in any way responsible for Rosemary’s death.”
When he spoke, the words were so soft that Abigail wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. “I’ve been telling myself that for over fifty years.”
The newspaper sagged in his hands and Abigail noticed that the crossword puzzle had become a solid square. While talking, Oliver Payton had filled in every unshaded square with black ink.
Chapter 28
Late Friday afternoon had turned unseasonably cold and overcast with i
ntermittent rain showers when Abigail paid a visit to the cemetery where Rosemary was buried. She found the grave located near the burial plot of Violet Dickison; both sites were overgrown, neglected, and marked with crumbling white headstones.
In her bedroom, Flora might display Rosemary’s picture in a platinum frame but here, above the girl’s final resting place, the grass wasn’t even mowed. Abigail visualized the ugliness that must lie beneath the earth: a pine box, crumbling bones, and rotting fabric. She decided that the ultimate irony would have been for Flora to salvage the slashed material from the floor of the hospital morgue and bury her sister in a dress that Rosemary had dreamt would be her wedding gown.
Michael’s body had been cremated. Since he had suffered from mild claustrophobia, she couldn’t bear to shut him in a box and bury him under layers of dirt; it seemed more fitting to scatter his ashes in a sunlit meadow. Sometimes, however, she wished she’d ordered a grave marker, a place to come and weep, to scatter flowers, a place to mourn.
As Abigail turned to walk back to the car, she saw a cluster of rain-spotted wild roses growing against the base of the peeling wooden fence. One bloom was perfect, pink as dawn’s first blush, with soft pedals unfurled. With an apology to the rose, she plucked the flower and laid it across Rosemary’s grave.
While driving back to Lincoln City after a meeting with the state’s attorney of a neighboring county, Ross became aware of insistent hunger pangs and decided to stop at the Cozy Nook for lunch. Braking for the turn into the parking lot, his attention was drawn to a woman opening the door of the tavern. The woman’s elegant carriage was familiar; the sight of the thick dark red plait of hair dangling against her navy blue cardigan clinched the recognition.
Abigail James. She’d refused to accept his calls for the past three days, but now she was unprotected by a watchdog receptionist. The reports of the coroner and sheriff in the Dickison case were in a brown envelope on the seat beside him and he’d planned to drop them off at her office, but the documents offered a perfect excuse for a brief invasion of her privacy. He felt compelled to apologize for his behavior during supper and brutal outburst after the confrontation with Olivia.
Rosemary for Remembrance Page 17
