Stardust: A Novel

by Carla Stewart

  I was the new owner of the Stardust, a woman with her own business.

  My own business.

  A home with no reminders of O’Dell aside from the bayou. I would be doing something constructive and be able to remain in Mayhaw, and the glory of it carried me along from cottage to cottage. I even laughed when we got to number five—the one I’d stayed in with Mama and Daddy.

  “I bet you have a lot of stories, Doreen, about all the folks who’ve stayed here over the years.”

  “Oh, my stars! You wouldn’t believe.” Then she gave a big wink. “That’s something you’ll have to discover yourself.”

  “Care to elaborate?”

  “No, sweetie. All you need to know is Paddy would be happy you’re going to keep the place going. ’Twould be a travesty to let all our memories go to dust.” Her eyes drifted to another place, and for a moment I was envious of her devotion and long marriage.

  “All I can say is I’ll try. Ever since O’Dell drowned, I’ve been in limbo… trying to come to grips. It’ll take me awhile to get organized.”

  “Sweetie, don’t you know it? Paddy did me a favor by willing you the Stardust, and you’ll do fine. Now, what say we head back to the office and I’ll show you how I do the bookkeeping?”

  The radio was still blasting when we got there, with Bobby Carl Applegate’s nasal twang reporting on the farm market. Corn futures. Spring calves. Cotton prices.

  Doreen switched off the knob and pulled the ledger from a cabinet beneath the counter. An hour later I had a decent idea of what I needed to know. Receipts. Bills to pay. Names and numbers of assorted vendors who provided supplies. Granted, the Stardust wasn’t fancy. Just a few of those paper-wrapped soaps and whatnot.

  “One question, though. You don’t have any checks entered showing you paid Ludi Harper.”

  “That’s right. I put her over here in miscellaneous in the ledger. Cash only. Folks over in Zion… some of ’em don’t read or write. Ludi among them.”

  “Really? Right here in Musgrave County? I had no idea.”

  “Crying shame, but the good Lord didn’t promise life would be fair. Only that he’d walk beside us. And Ludi knows the truth of that.” She laughed and then looked around me. “Well, if that don’t beat all? We just finished, and here’s the crew come to pack my things.”

  We went out to greet the caravan of pickup trucks, and before I left, I hugged Doreen. “You know you’ve always got a spot here if you want to come back.”

  “Bless you. Even if Paddy insisted on putting that in the will, I’m off for the next leg of my journey. Reckon it’ll be my last.”

  “Thank you… for everything. Don’t be a stranger now, okay?”

  I’m not sure if she heard me or not as she was directing a half-dozen men where to start packing and loading her things. And as I pulled from the driveway, I looked in the rearview mirror. Fruit basket upset. Doreen leaving. Rosey, Avril, and I coming.

  My skin tingled with excitement. A new home. My own business. I looked in the rearview mirror at the neon sign.

  Stardust.

  Like an old sweet song, the magic flowed through me.

  [ CHAPTER 9 ]

  Rosey and Avril acted as if I’d given them a lifetime supply of ice-cream cones when I took them out to the Stardust. They raced through the office and the quarters, their delight echoing in the empty rooms. When I hauled out the wash buckets, they hopscotched on the sidewalks and found stray tree limbs to use for ponies while they pretended they were Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.

  Sally brimmed with the same excitement and supervised a cleaning and lawn-mowing crew on Saturday while I slapped robin’s-egg-blue paint on all the walls in the quarters and a more appropriate cream-colored paint in the office. I planned to overhaul the cottages one at a time as soon as we were settled and I had a better picture of our financial status.

  On Sunday morning, I could barely move and still had paint under my fingernails, but I got the girls up and took them to Sunday school, hoping to catch Aunt Cora. I found her in the foyer, where she eyed me with a frown. “Sonny tells me you’re going through with it. Says you’ve already hired a crew to do the work.”

  “The Magnolia Garden Club has taken over the outdoor projects. I think Sally coaxed all the husbands into doing the mowing, telling them I’d throw a crawfish boil when we had the grand reopening. Beats me how I’m going to figure that out, but I’ll worry about it when the time comes.”

  “That’s the problem with you, Georgia—you charge right in without any backup plans.”

  “I need a backup plan to have a crawfish boil?”

  “That’s not what I meant and you know it. And it’s not just your finances. I’m speaking of safety issues. A single woman with two children on the highway—”

  Hazel Morton scurried up and thanked me for returning her potato salad bowl. “I’m sorry I missed you. Is it true? You’re taking over the Stardust?”

  I nodded, aware that Aunt Cora was perturbed by the interruption.

  Hazel sidled up to me. “Mighty big job, don’t you know? I was thinking, though, if you need help with some of the heavier work, my grandson, Joey, could sure use a summer job. He’s right handy with a paintbrush.”

  “Thanks. I’ll keep him in mind.” I knew Joey. He hung out with a scrappy bunch of kids behind Brookshire’s. Smoking cigarettes. Wolf-whistling at the girls. It wasn’t Hazel’s fault. Matter of fact, some of the goons who did the same thing when I was in high school turned out perfectly respectable. I just didn’t have to expose my girls to them, and as Hazel walked away, Aunt Cora dipped her head in next to mine.

  “See? That’s the kind of trouble I see in your future. That Joey is a hoodlum. And you’ll be so worn out from doing all the work yourself, you won’t have time to keep an eye on the girls.”

  “Doreen gave me a recommendation for someone to help. It’ll work out. You’ll see.”

  She shuddered ever so slightly and sniffed. “I can only imagine.” And this time she seemed grateful when Hazel interrupted yet again and shoved a piece of paper in my hand.

  “Joey’s phone number.”

  Not hardly.

  The truth was I had considered hiring someone to do some general repairs and paint the outside of the cottages, but I didn’t want to get hasty and not have the money to pay them. Which I hoped would be forthcoming when I went to Tyler on Monday.

  So, bright and early, I dropped Rosey off at school and headed to Tyler with Avril in tow. She sang “You Are My Sunshine” and “Zaccheus Was a Wee Little Man.” What she lacked in musicality she made up for in volume, and we laughed and played I Spy until we pulled into the outskirts. We stopped at a filling station for directions and to use the restroom. Then on to a small business office behind the newspaper’s quarters on Main Street.

  The receptionist nodded toward the only other room in the office and offered Avril a peppermint.

  “I don’t supposed to take candy from strangers.” She clung to my skirt and followed me through the open door, where we found Clyde Baxter, O’Dell’s boss. He stood to greet us, a squirrelly guy, several inches shorter than me, with a nervous tic in his jaw.

  “Aw, Mrs. Peyton, I presume.”

  I greeted him and handed over the death certificate, my driver’s license, and our marriage certificate, which he hadn’t mentioned but I’d thought of at the last minute.

  Avril tugged on my sleeve, a twinkle in her eye. “Is he the real Zaccheus? I don’t see no sycamore tree.”

  “It’s any sycamore tree, sweetie, and no, this isn’t Zaccheus. The real one lived a long time ago when Jesus was alive. Mommy has to talk to Mr. Baxter now, so I need you to be still.”

  Clyde Baxter cast a look at Avril like she was a boil on his backside and took a seat. I sat in the only other chair and pulled Avril onto my lap. As Mr. Baxter bent over the folder I assumed was O’Dell’s file, the brown coil of hair atop his head unwound and hung down, covering one eye. He pushed it back into place
and withdrew a piece of paper, which he slid across the desk.

  A certificate.

  Clyde’s jaw twitched when he said, “O’Dell was the top salesman for the winter quarter. Normally, we’d honor him at a sales meeting and present him with a set of sterling cuff links, but the meeting was last week, and since O’Dell was indisposed…”

  “Excuse me? He wasn’t indisposed. You have to be alive to be indisposed.” I felt sorry for the guy in an odd way, but how he’d risen to the manager level was beginning to concern me. “Do you have the cuff links?”

  “I didn’t think you would have any use for them.”

  “Me? No, I wouldn’t, but it would be nice to present them to his mother. She is indisposed. Not well at all. Grieving. As you can imagine.”

  “Of course. I wasn’t thinking.” He reached in his drawer and pulled out a velvet pouch with a gold cord. “It’s not much, but…” He handed it over. Avril slipped off my lap when I took them.

  “I appreciate it. Now, about his commissions?”

  “Yes, well… the news there is not very encouraging, I’m afraid.”

  A queasy feeling rose to my throat. “As in?”

  “O’Dell’s sales for this quarter are, shall we say, slim. We’ll honor his current orders, but we’ll have to send one of our other employees to pick up the merchandise from the warehouse and make the deliveries. The expense of that will come from O’Dell’s commissions, I’m afraid.” The jerking in his jaw was more pronounced, making the leaders in his neck protrude with each twitch.

  Avril had crept closer to him and now stood at his elbow, squinting her eyes at him. “How do you make your face wiggle like that?”

  “Avril!” I jumped from my chair and in two giant leaps was behind the desk. I snatched her up, my face flaming. “Oh, sweetie, it’s not nice to ask personal questions of strangers.”

  She dipped her head, burrowing into my chest. I hefted her to my hip and looked at Mr. Baxter. “I’m sorry. Now, you were saying?”

  He had his own sheepish look and said, “The final check is probably less than you were hoping for. He only had commissions coming for five weeks.” He pulled an envelope from the folder and slid it across the desk.

  Inside was a check for two hundred and twenty-three dollars. Good gravy. I swallowed the O’Dell-size lump in my throat. What did I expect?

  I forced a smile and thanked him for his time.

  He extended his hand. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Juggling Avril on my hip and holding the check in my hand, I didn’t have a free hand to shake his. I nodded and turned to go. When I reached the door, he said, “You do have the cuff links.”

  I sailed out the door and put Avril in the front seat of the car, went around, and let myself in. As I jammed the key into the ignition, a twitch came in my own jaw. And rather than spit nails, which is what I wanted to do, I turned to Avril.

  “How about we find ourselves an ice-cream parlor? ’Twould be a shame to come all this way for nothing.”

  [ CHAPTER 10 ]

  After supper I took the girls over to see Mary Frances and take her the cuff links. She got teary eyed and blamed it on the head cold she thought was coming on, but no doubt she was proud of O’Dell’s accomplishment. Under different circumstances I might’ve been, too.

  But stuffy sinuses or not, she still had a Pall Mall dangling from her fingers when she offered the girls an RC Cola. While they sipped from the ice-cold bottles, Mary Frances asked what our plans were for the summer. Polite, almost formal, she kept her lips drawn, her line of vision veering off to the pleated drapes behind me. Rosey asked if she and Avril could sit on the front porch, and I sent them on their way.

  Then I plunged right in and asked Mary Frances if she’d heard about my inheriting the Stardust. No, she hadn’t heard. I explained about Paddy’s death and taking over right away.

  “Getting out is so difficult, with reminders everywhere of O’Dell and my own Earl. Life is just passing me by. You and the girls didn’t even stop by yesterday like you usually do on Sunday afternoon.”

  “I should’ve called, but after church—”

  “I waited all afternoon.” She wiped her nose with her hankie, her eyes bleary. Could have been the head cold. Or the gin.

  “I’m sorry. I’m trying to get ready by Memorial Day, when the first summer guests usually arrive. The girls and I went to the Stardust and cleaned out one of the cottages so I can paint first thing tomorrow. I’m going to have paint in my pores forever with all the work to be done.”

  “Guess I know where that leaves me.”

  The whining was getting to me. Dank, smoky air hung like dingy organza around my mother-in-law. Ex-mother-in-law, but I wasn’t sure if till death do us part applied only to O’Dell and me or his mother, too. And in my gut, I knew the answer.

  I lifted my chin and looked square into her eyes. “I know where you think it leaves you, but you do have other options. You could get your driver’s license and a nice car so you could get out more, or you might volunteer down at the library. O’Dell always told me he got his love of books from you.”

  She almost smiled. “That O’Dell. Yes, he was a book-lovin’ boy.” Then she drifted off into some other world, her rheumy eyes misting.

  “Or there’s your cousin over in Corsicana—”

  She snapped back to the present. “Bertha? You call that an option? I’d rather wither away here than spend an hour listening to her go on about the latest cocktail party she went to and how many ties the mayor has hanging in his closet.”

  “I’m just saying you can’t depend on me and the girls for all your social contacts. You’re barely fifty years old. There are a lot of things you could do.”

  “That’s fine for you to say—you’ve already moved on. Didn’t spend five minutes grieving over O’Dell now, did you?”

  I bit my tongue to keep from pointing out O’Dell’s infidelity. Had I wanted to, I could’ve yanked the one last thread that kept Mary Frances hanging on—the memory of a son whom she’d always seen as the embodiment of perfection. As it was, I stuck with keeping things on track. For her sake and mine.

  “We all grieve in different ways, Mary Frances. But I have to move on. It’s fortunate for me the Stardust fell in my lap when it did since O’Dell didn’t leave much in the way of provision for the girls and me.”

  She tapped out another Pall Mall from the pack. The last one. She crumpled the wrapper and tossed it on the coffee table atop a pile of envelopes and papers. She flicked the lighter and lit up, then had a coughing fit. “Blasted head cold,” she said.

  We sat in silence while she puffed and I tried to think of an excuse to leave. I ambled over to the picture window and drew the drapes so I could check on the girls. They’d set their coke bottles on the porch and were playing with the girls from next door. The late afternoon light shimmered from Rosey’s tangled mop of poppy-colored curls. A protective fire tumbled through me. I had O’Dell to thank for my girls, and although it might seem irrelevant, they also had a smidgeon of Mary Frances in them. Abandon her? Not hardly.

  Turning back to the living room, I said, “You know you’re welcome to come out to the Stardust and have a look around.”

  “For heaven’s sake, it’s practically next door to where O’Dell drowned. Or have you forgotten that the way you forgot to come over yesterday?”

  I heaved a sigh. Back to square one.

  “I said I was sorry. Why do you keep bringing it up?”

  “Because.”

  It was like dragging something out of a stubborn child. “Because why?”

  She stubbed out the cigarette and crossed her arms over her chest. “Because I had something exciting to tell you. I waited and waited and you didn’t come.” She leaned over and whisked the wadded-up Pall Mall pack on the floor, then picked up a large envelope.

  “Here. See for yourself.”

  I undid the clasp and removed a document similar to the life insurance policy wi
th Fiona Callahan’s name on it. This, too, was an insurance policy. Five thousand dollars. And my name as the beneficiary.

  Heat crept up my neck. “Oh, my.”

  “I finally remembered where I’d put it.” Her voice, though husky, was small, penitent. “O’Dell didn’t leave you penniless as you’ve implied. And I couldn’t wait to tell you. I kept waiting and watching for you… but you never came.”

  I winced. My heart’s cry since I was six years old, waiting, always waiting for the mommy and daddy who never came. I dropped onto the sofa beside Mary Frances and took her cold, bony hand in mine. “It’s all right, sweetie. I’m here now.”

  [ CHAPTER 11 ]

  Toward the end of the week, a thunderstorm came during the night, lightning flashes followed by booms of thunder. Avril crept into my bed first. “I’m scared, Mommy.”

  “It’s okay, baby.” I pulled her close as another jagged streak lit the room, thunder on its heels, so loud it shook the walls and brought Rosey flying into the room and under the covers.

  Rosey covered her face when another flash and clap of thunder came. “I wish Daddy was here.” Her voice was small, timid in the dark, as rain pelted the windows.

  “I know you do.” Even with the girls snug as bookends on either side of me, the bed felt cavernous without O’Dell. We’d always squeezed the girls between us on stormy nights.

  Rosey whispered, “Rub my arms, Mommy.”

  I ran the back of my finger over her goosefleshed arm, up and down, then in lazy circles. Beneath my fingers, the taut muscles relaxed, her breathing settled, and she slipped into the arm-sprawled comfort of slumber.

  Avril sat up. “Will Daddy be at our new house?” A blue-white shimmer lit her face, her dark eyes so much like O’Dell’s it pierced my heart.

  “No, sweetie. He’s in heaven with Jesus now.”

  “Can Daddy stop the thunder?”

  “I think that’s God’s job, but I bet Daddy’s thinking it’s time Avril went to sleep like her sister Rosey did. Here, let me rub your arms.”