“Lucy Mead, you are going to hear from me.” He said it like it was her eighth birthday and he was presenting her with a white pony, all decked out with silver bells and pink ribbons.
Walking away from such a pony would have been hard for any eight-year-old.
But she did.
* * *
Big Mama’s house was bursting with the aroma of shrimp and grits, but underneath that were all the old smells—furniture wax, lemon, and yeast bread. Brantley fancied that he caught a whiff of pipe tobacco, but that wasn’t possible, not after all this time.
“Evelyn had to leave,” Big Mama said. “But she left everything on the sideboard for us.” They were all trying to be casual, but walking into that dining room where there had been so much good food, laughter, and love was like climbing a mountain. No—a mountain that someone had set fire to. The last time there had been food served out of the room no one had sat at the table, and the food had been the casseroles, cakes, and platters that always arrived in bad times.
No one seemed capable of breaking the threshold. Well, he would do it. He was the cause of this and he could at least lead the way.
Brantley marched to the sideboard like he was wading into war. “Just let me pour y’all a drink.” Everything was laid out like it had been for so many holiday and Sunday brunches. Silver coffee service, crystal bowls of fruit, steaming silver chafing dishes. He reached for the pitcher of bloody Marys and poured three.
Big Mama and Charles had scaled the fiery mountain and were at his elbow. Big Mama raised her glass, like she always used to do, though Brantley wondered what she could possibly be glad enough about to toast.
“To Brantley,” she said.
“Indeed,” Dad said.
“Yep, me!” he said, because why not? And they clinked glasses and laughed a little.
Now what? There was one thing that was different. The plates would be on the sideboard ready for filling, but Evelyn had always laid the silver, napkins, and coffee cups on the table. Not so today because she probably didn’t know where they would sit.
“Let’s fill our plates, shall we?” Big Mama turned to the table to set her glass down. She looked barely panicked, but for no more than a split second. Most people wouldn’t have even noticed. One thing for sure, that woman always did what she had to. She set her glass in the place that had always been hers, at the foot of the table.
“Charles,” she said, “As my son, please do me the honor of sitting at the head of my table.” She looked at the place that had always been Brantley’s and gestured. “Brantley, please.”
And he set his glass at the place across from where Mama should have been—where she would have been if not for his asinine behavior seventeen years ago.
So they filled their plates and ate. Brantley related the details of the Follies and party. They dissected the details of the previous day’s Southeastern Conference football games. And yes, the sermon was good this morning. According to Big Mama, Lucy Mead probably wasn’t in church because she attended the eleven o’clock service, the same one that his family usually attended. And wasn’t Missy’s baby beautiful?
Brantley had just begun to think that the point of this meal was simply to get them back into the dining room. Then he saw Dad and Big Mama lock eyes and barely nod to each other.
Charles took a sip of his coffee. “Son, how are things going with your business?”
“Good,” Brantley said. And it was true. The time he’d spent at Hargrove, Smith, and Associates had been valuable and productive but he had not wanted to be an associate anymore. And he had wanted to pick his own jobs. Hanging out his own shingle was the best thing he could have ever done. “You know how I worried that there would be too much time between jobs, but these days it seems like I always have a choice.”
“So you already have a commitment?” Big Mama asked. “Now that the San Francisco job is done?”
“No.” Brantley rose and poured everyone fresh cups of coffee. “Not yet. I’ve got a couple of possibilities. There’s a Federal style town hall in a little town a couple of hours from Boston that is very appealing. They’ve even got all of the funding in place. I would go in a heartbeat but the job will take quite a while and the idea of Massachusetts in the winter . . .” He settled back into his chair.
“And your other possibility?” Dad stirred sugar into his coffee.
“Private residence in New Orleans. I’m going down there next week to look it over. Probably wouldn’t be as much money, but it won’t take as long. I’ve never done a Greek Revival plantation house before. Or any plantation house—not by myself. I worked on one when I was at Hargrove. Let’s hope the money they are paying me to come isn’t all they’ve got and they’re planning on using some Voodoo to get me to do it for free.” Suddenly, a winter in New Orleans seemed very attractive. “I could like it there. Saints games, hurricanes—the drink, not the storm—French Quarter music, and the food.” Maybe if he liked it, he might even move there. There was nothing holding him in Nashville. He could set up shop anywhere.
“Brantley,” Big Mama said. She looked hard into his eyes. “I’d like you to consider something.”
Oh, damn. Here it comes. Just when he was beginning to get comfortable.
“The city approached me about buying the Brantley Building.”
His head shot up so fast he was surprised he didn’t break his neck. Sell the Brantley Building? The building that had been in their family since before the turn of the century? The turn of last century—as in 1887, when the building was built.
She raised a hand. Her gold Tiffany bracelet clanked against her watch. “I am not selling it.”
Well, that was something.
“But it started me thinking.”
Never good. Let the status quo continue. Let it reign supreme!
“The city wants the building for a multi-purpose center. You know, a meeting place for civic groups. A small auditorium for lectures, and the like . . . perhaps a space for art lessons. And there’s the ballroom. It’s bigger than the one at the Merritt Inn, and the country club can’t handle every function. It would be wonderful to have a nice place for dances, receptions, and such. Don’t you think that sounds nice? Nicer than renting it out for random office space the way we’ve been doing?”
What? Was she selling or not? “But if you aren’t selling?” He left it hanging in the air.
“I am interested in giving the building to the city. I would be the permanent board chair, until I pass the position on to someone of my choosing. Charles would have a place on the board, as would you, if you want it. I would reserve the suite of offices on the third floor—the ones that Brantleys have always used—for my use. And if you should ever want those offices—”
His head was spinning. This was an ambush. Or so he thought until she spoke again. That’s when the real ambush came.
“The building is in good repair, but in some places its integrity has been sacrificed for function.” She paused and looked as chagrined as she ever did. “At a time when the building needed attention, your grandfather and I were young and did not appreciate the past as we might have. We made mistakes. I want it restored. I need an architect, and I need it to be you.”
* * *
Still shell shocked, Brantley stood on the sidewalk outside the building where his Papa Brantley had had his law offices before becoming a judge.
He loved that building. Second Empire style, circa 1887. Original red brick, cast iron colonnade, single light sash windows, neat brick pilasters.
“You’re a grand old girl, aren’t you?” he whispered. “Just like Caroline Hurst Brantley.” He hadn’t told her yes, but he hadn’t told her no either. How could he? And that went for yes and no. He had only listened and nodded as she talked about funding, relocating tenants, and timelines. She’d mentioned talking to Lucy Mead about the interior design. He hadn’t responded to that either. He had just asked her for the keys to the building.
She had put a silv
er key ring in his hand. “That’s your set,” she said. Just as he was leaving, she told him to take until Thanksgiving to decide. But clearly she considered the matter closed. The proof was in his hand. His initials had been engraved on the heavy oval disc of the key ring.
He sighed and fitted the key in the front door. If the route to that dining room had been a fiery mountain, this was a sea of lava.
He walked quietly on the industrial carpet, not thinking about the ornate woodwork that had been painted or the drop ceiling. He went straight to the elevator that would take him to the third floor.
It took a second key to make the elevator let him out. Like the ballroom on the top floor, the third floor was no longer used. When Papa was elected judge, he’d had his office furniture moved to his chambers at the courthouse. Later, they had moved it back here. At least that’s what Brantley had been told. For all he knew there was a tattoo parlor set up in there. Unlikely, considering Big Mama’s view of the world, but one never knew.
But no. It wasn’t like it had been, of course. The bookshelves were empty, though boxes marked books sat in neat stacks against the wall. There was no artwork. There were no lamps or family pictures on his desk, but the antique walnut burl wood desk and chair, matching filing cabinets, and credenza had been placed where they had always sat.
There probably wasn’t any candy in the top left hand desk drawer either. Still, Brantley couldn’t stop himself from checking. No, but what was there broke his heart when he thought there wasn’t a piece big enough left to break.
In an ornate walnut frame that matched the furniture was a double matted piece of green construction paper with a purple crayon drawing of a man and little boy. The man was holding what Brantley knew to be a golf club, but could have been a stick or an axe. At the bottom printed in a shaky hand was TO MY PAPA FROM BRANTLEY. Some of the letters were backwards. It had hung in his office and later in his chambers until—well, until then.
Brantley put the picture back in the drawer and then sat down heavily in the chair behind the desk. “Hello, Papa,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind if I sit in your chair. I won’t spin it around. We haven’t talked in a while. I know we usually have these little conversations at the Merritt Cemetery, but I figure you are more here than there. I’m okay, doing pretty good.
“Do you remember when I was little, and you would take me to eat lunch at the diner and then back here to your office? I’d hide under the desk at your feet while you saw clients. You would slip me chocolate stars from Heavenly Confections to keep me quiet. By the time Mama or Big Mama came to get me, I’d be one nasty sticky mess. You always got in trouble.
“I still eat chocolate stars from Heavenly Confections. Miss Clarice is gone now, but Lanie runs the shop. She is a better grandchild than I am.
“I know I say it every time, but I am sorry. I as good as killed you and Mama and I am sorry. I know I tell you this every time too, but I mean it this time. Pretty soon, I am going to find a way to tell Big Mama and Dad what a brat I was that day and how I threw a fit and sassed Mama because I didn’t want to get dressed and come pick you up. If I had done what Mama had asked to do, if I hadn’t made her mad, that car wreck would have never happened. If I could undo it, I would. I can’t. But I can face them like the man you would want me to be. I’ll figure it out.
“It’s no excuse, but it just seems like there is never a right time. Never enough time. Back when it happened, the day right after the funeral, they packed us up and we went to Ireland for two weeks. When we got back, we flew right into Nashville and they took me straight to Vandy. We didn’t even come back to get all the stuff Mama had been collecting up for my dorm room. They just went to the mall and bought more. And for all intents and purposes I have not been back. Oh, a day or two here and there. Summers, when I was in college and grad school, I took more classes and did internships. Sometimes the three of us travel somewhere for Christmas. It’s hard to make a confession in Jamaica on December 25. I can hear you now. ‘Boy! Do what’s right. And only you can figure out what that is.’ I know what’s right, but if I tell Dad and Big Mama—. Well, there is no if—I will tell them. They have a right to know that wreck was my fault. I will just have to take what comes with it. When the time is right, I will do it.
“And it looks like we are going to have some time. Maybe.”
Suddenly, he had to get out. Out. He couldn’t think about this anymore. He didn’t bother with the elevator. Instead, he took the stairs, two at a time. It was easy. People had gotten progressively taller over time and, consequently, modern steps were deeper. But these steps were old and shallow. Taking two at a time was easy, three maybe a possibility.
But wait. He was out of steps and out the door. The history of steps had done him a good turn, given him something to occupy this mind. Now he needed something else. He leaned against the building to catch his breath. What was that psychobabble phrase?
Go to your happy place.
And suddenly, without thinking, without trying to decide where his happy place might be, he was there. Happy. He was at the country club lifting a forkful of chocolate cake to Lucy Mead’s lips and she was refusing to open her mouth until the last second. She was looking at him fighting a smile, her brown eyes wide, but eventually laughing and pushing her hair off her face. And, finally, he was dancing to “Tupelo Honey” with her in his arms, smelling her scent of chocolate and bourbon.
Who would have thought it? Lucy—after all these years, after that debacle in Savannah so long ago. Relief washed over him. It was like looking at a snarled, complicated maze but realizing the correct path was direct and simple.
It might not be for forever, but what was forever, anyway? Was there even any such thing?
But there was Lucy Mead and she was on his mind.
Chapter Three
Text message to Lucy Mead, the Sunday after the Follies, 4:01P.M.:
Brantley here. It was fun seeing you. Headed back to Nashville.
Voicemail, Sunday night, 9:15 P.M.:
“Lucy Mead! This is Brantley. You may be wondering how I got your number. Turns out, it was right in the Christ Episcopal Church Directory, which was right by the phone in the kitchen at Chez Kincaid. Anyway, I’m back in Nashville. Give me a call.”
Text message. Monday, 10 A.M.:
At the airport. Headed to NOLA. Phone will be off. I really enjoyed seeing you this weekend. I’d like to talk to you. I’ll call you later.
* * *
After reading that last text, Lucy’s stomach went into a tailspin. She threw a paint chip sampler wheel against her office wall. Why was he doing this to her? Confusing her? He wasn’t supposed to text, wasn’t supposed to call, wasn’t supposed to say he’d enjoyed seeing her. He was supposed to take his ass back to Nashville, reconcile with Rita May, and forget her like he had always forgotten her.
She hadn’t answered the first text because it hadn’t called for an answer. In fact, it could be interrupted as a kiss-off message. After all, in a fit of flirtation, he’d said she’d hear from him. That text was hearing from him, fulfilling a promise. Done; move on. She had been sure she wouldn’t hear from him again—then he’d called. She hadn’t answered because, exhausted from the weekend, she’d gone to sleep early.
Now this. He was going to call tonight. Or so he said.
And why now? Maybe he was bored. Or, since he was in New Orleans, lonely.
Damn it, she could not go though this again. It wasn’t fair. How dare he? Did he think her heart was up for grabs anytime he turned that golden boy smile her way and led her to a dance floor? Maybe he wouldn’t call; probably he wouldn’t. He’d probably forget.
And if he did call, she wouldn’t answer. That would be for the best. Yes.
* * *
Voicemail, Monday night:
“Here I am in New Orleans. I’m here to look at a plantation house. Know what’s wrong with this house? Well, apart from the fact that someone married into the family in the ’70s who
thought it would be a good idea to turn the bottom side gallery into a ceramics studio. Anyway. It’s the name. Riverview. How predictable. If I had a house worth naming—and I might one day, never can tell—I’d name it Lucy Mead’s Laugh. I can’t think of much better. I’d like to hear that laugh tonight. Call me. Oh, and in case you can’t tell, I’ve been drinking. Just a little. If you’ll call me and tell me your shoe size, I will bring you some tall boots.”
* * *
Why now? Why? Why could this not have happened back when she was in love with him? Why now, when she was over it, over him—over, over, over!
She listened to the message every day for a week. She couldn’t help herself. But she did not call back. Not talking to him was the only way to survive him.
Finally, it looked like he’d given up. No doubt, he was back with Rita May by now. She was relieved—and a little sad.
* * *
Voicemail, a week before Halloween:
“Hi, Lucy. I’m back from New Orleans. I did a little consulting but I’m not taking on the project. I ran afoul of an interior designer down there. It’s not the first time. She soundly reprimanded me for saying couch instead of sofa. I just can’t say sofa. A man starts using words like sofa, next thing you know, he’s drinking piña coladas and wearing sandals. Would you allow me to say couch, Lucy Mead?”
* * *
She laughed and laughed. Then she imagined what she would have said to him if she had been willing to call him back. We interior designers have to stick together. If we allow people to go around saying couch, the next thing we know, they’ll be decorating their pressed wood night stands with lava lamps and plastic flowers.
Maybe she could call. They were friends, sort of. At least they used to be and they had the same friend circle. She put her thumb on the call button.
Then she jerked it away. What was she thinking? No matter what she told herself, if she started talking to him, she would hope. And there wasn’t any hope.
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