“Lie back, Mama.”
But Mama wanted to talk. “Bob Hope has a new show . . . on Broadway. A vaudevillian on Broadway. He went legit.”
“Please lie back, Mama.”
“We worked with him. Remember?”
They'd played the same theater in Cincinnati, but he'd been there the week before them.
“Yes, Mama, I remember.”
Her mother lay back in her bed and closed her eyes. Iva Claire took her mother's hand and kissed it. “I love you, Mama,” she said. “I don't know what I'd do without you.”
Mama didn't open her eyes, and for a moment Iva Claire thought she'd fallen asleep. But then she murmured, “Bob Hope and the Sunshine Sisters. We're good . . . aren't we, Claire de Lune?”
“Yes, Mama. We're the best.” She held her mother's hand hard. Mama was breathing easily now, more lightly than she had since Iva Claire found her.
I'll have to go clean up that mess in the hall, Iva Claire thought. Then the little hand in hers went limp. In the tiniest fraction of a second, the breathing stopped. And the whole world froze.
Chapter Forty-three
SHE WANTED TO PUT an in-memoriam ad in Variety for Mama, but they couldn't afford it. She wanted to take Mama home to New York so she could be buried in the place she loved, but they couldn't afford that either. There was no money for pink roses for Mama's funeral, no friends to sing “Beautiful Dreamer” for her.
I could have done it right if he'd sent the check. Damn him!
The town of Washtabula was generous to strangers, particularly to two young girls who were all alone. The funeral home buried Mama for free, but her grave was in the pauper's field. Iva Claire knew she would never go back there.
After the brief service, Dr. Wilbur handed Iva Claire two train tickets to New York.
“I'm on the township board and we authorized this last night,” he said.
She wanted to say they didn't need charity; she wanted with all her heart to give the tickets back.
“Don't be an idiot,” Dr. Wilbur said softly. “Keep them.”
“Thank you,” she managed to say, through the pain and humiliation. She thought of her father. Damn him.
Tassie and Iva Claire didn't own much in the way of personal belongings, and now they wouldn't be needing the Sunshine Sisters' music, costumes, and publicity stills; everything they had left fit into two suitcases. They finished packing for themselves, then they turned to Mama's room. Iva Claire went in first, and collected all of Mama's street clothes out of the closet. She would have liked to have given them away to someone whose face she could see, like one of the hotel maids, but Tassie had found a junk dealer who bought secondhand clothing and they needed the money. Iva Claire piled the garments on top of the theatrical trunk, which was going to be sold too. They'd already emptied it, and sheet music, costumes, and pictures were heaped on the bed. Tassie pulled out a picture of herself and laid it aside. Iva Claire picked up the first page of the sheet music for “Beautiful Dreamer” and did the same. Then they threw out the rest of the pictures and music, and Tassie added the costumes to the pile for the junk dealer. At the last second, Iva Claire grabbed her costume and crammed it with the sheet music into her suitcase with the swirling B monogram on the side.
Mama's room was empty now.
“Don't look,” Tassie said. “Just keep going.”
Iva Claire nodded, and they each picked up a bundle of clothes. When they were coming back from the junk dealer, the desk clerk called out, “Miss Rain, this came for you.” He was holding an oversized envelope with the familiar return address on it. Tassie was the one who finally reached out to take it. Iva Claire didn't touch it until they were upstairs in their rooms. She sat on Mama's bed to read it.
Her father had received both of her letters. He had opened them, read them, and torn them up, and sent back the scraps so she would know. There was no check. And he hadn't written one word to say why he'd done it.
“I'm going to see him,” Iva Claire said.
“Honey, let it go,” Tassie said.
“I'm going to find him.”
“Why?”
She didn't know. “I'm going to his house, in the town where he lives. The son of a bitch wouldn't let me go there the last time, but he can't stop me now.”
“It won't do any good, Iva Claire. It's too late,” Tassie pleaded. “We have other things to think about.”
“It won't take me long. You can go back to New York, and—”
“I'm going with you,” Tassie cut in.
It took Iva Claire a moment. “No, Tassie.”
“If you're serious about this, I'm not letting you go alone.”
“You can't.”
“You and Lily gave me my chance to be in the business. You took care of me, even when we weren't making a dime. You're my family. If you want to do this, I'm going with you.”
They cashed in their tickets for New York. Instead of going home, Iva Claire and Tassie boarded a train and headed for Beneville, Georgia.
Chapter Forty-four
MRS. RAIN
2004
THOUGHTS ABOUT HEART ATTACKS and memories of the summer of 1933 were coming back to haunt her all the time. She couldn't shake them. Cherry knew something was bothering her and tried to help.
“Why don't you tell me some more of your stories, Mrs. Rain,” she suggested. “You know that always makes you happy. And I like hearing them.”
But the story that was haunting her was the one she wanted to tell Laurel McCready. She was starting to think she should write it all down now, while her mind was still intact. She could send it to Laurel as a letter. The idea appealed to her. A missive that would tell all her secrets. A dangerous missive. Or would it be? That was the question she kept coming back to: How risky would it be after all this time? And would it really help Ms. McCready to know the secrets? She'd been going back and forth over that in her mind for days. It was one thing to daydream about pouring out her soul; it was quite another to actually find out where Laurel lived and write her a letter laying out the terrible truth. She wasn't sure she could do it. She hated not being sure. Sometimes she thought she'd never been sure of one damn thing in her life—she looked around the hated sunporch—except how much she wanted to get out of this room.
“Cherry, when am I going to start using my own bedroom again?” she demanded.
The girl looked uncomfortable. “Mrs. Rain, you know what the doctor said.”
Cherry meant the genius specialist, not the infant physician, and what the genius had said was, “I'm afraid we can't be running up and down stairs just yet. Not until we get this pesky little hitch in our git-along under control.” It seemed he was famous for his bedside manner with the elderly.
“The doctor is a jackass.”
“Yes, ma'am,” said Cherry, “but he's the doctor. And until he says you can move—”
“All right, all right,” she snapped.
It was unfair to take out all her frustrations on poor Cherry when she was really angry at herself for being so indecisive. From what she'd been able to piece together, Laurel McCready was young and inexperienced, with no family to support her. The girl must be trying to cope with the overwhelming legacy Peggy Garrison had left her. Picture her reaction if she got a letter telling her the truth about that legacy. Would it help her? Did she need help? Mrs. Rain sighed; she had to have something more to go on than the nagging voice in her head that said things were going badly for Laurel McCready.
“Cherry, run over to the post office and see if the Charles Valley Gazette has come this week,” she said. But instead of leaving the room, Cherry was staring at her as if she'd lost her mind. “What is it?” she demanded impatiently. “Why are you looking like that?”
“Don't you remember?” Cherry said gently. “The last issue said they were going out of business. We won't be getting the Gazette anymore.”
It had slipped her mind, that was all. There was no need for young Cherry to look at h
er like she was in the early stages of gaga-dom. She simply hadn't wanted to remember that the Gazette was gone. She'd hoped to keep track of Laurel Selene through the little newspaper. At some point they'd write an article about the new Garrison heir. And by reading between the lines, she'd know if Laurel Selene was all right. And then she'd know what to do.
“Of course I remember,” she said firmly to Cherry. But her voice just sounded tired and querulous. “Go away, Cherry dear. I want to rest,” she said.
“That's a good idea,” said the youngster, obviously relieved. “Shall I pull down the blinds for you?”
She nodded, but it didn't matter. Because she was going to close her eyes. And as soon as she did that, she'd be in her daydream again. She'd be sitting in front of Myrtis's big log house in Charles Valley, and she'd be telling Laurel Selene the story—all of it—about the young girl who had hidden away her past in a water-stained suitcase with a swirling B on the side.
Chapter Forty-five
LAUREL
2004
LAUREL TOSSED the old leather suitcase on the passenger seat of her car and took off for Li'l Bit's, where she knew she'd find Maggie and Li'l Bit together on the porch. It was Saturday afternoon, and she'd made a decision. It was time to let the Myrtis Garrison experts have a crack at the mystery. It was strange how her attitude about the great Miss Myrtis had shifted. At first she hadn't wanted to talk about the woman. Now she had a spooky feeling that there was a story attached to the suitcase and its contents that she needed to hear.
Part of the feeling came from the fact that she was still crammed into her tiny cabin with eleven dogs because she couldn't make herself move into the log palace she had inherited. The power-of-attorney form still sat in her drawer under her underpants because Sheralynn's cousin hadn't yet produced the resort's financial records. Meanwhile, for the last three days Stuart Junior had been leaving increasingly hostile messages on the answering machine she'd installed so she could dodge his phone calls.
She drove up Li'l Bit's driveway faster than usual, hoping she wasn't spraying gravel on Li'l Bit's carefully tended front yard. She was eager to get on with her proposed show-and-tell. She pulled up next to the brick path leading to the front porch, but before she could take the suitcase out, Maggie and Li'l Bit waved and Li'l Bit called out, “Laurel, there's someone I want you to meet.”
Then she noticed the vehicle parked directly ahead of her. It had a squashed-in back, a snub-nosed front, and it looked like a car Daffy Duck would drive in the old-time cartoons. It was one of the virtuous new hybrids, which operated on a combination of gas and electricity. She turned to the porch and saw who had to be the owner of the cartoon car, a young woman her age, sitting in Peggy's chair. An attack of kindergarten-level jealousy hit. Li'l Bit's place was her turf, and the sacred afternoon hours on this porch were her special domain. Who was this intruder? She shoved the suitcase down on the floor of her car, got out, and slunk across the front lawn, trying not to pout too visibly.
Li'l Bit handed her a beer. “This is Gloria,” she said, as the young woman pulled herself out of the wicker chair.
Gloria was almost as tall as Li'l Bit, but a lot skinnier. She wore neat dark shorts, a dark shirt, and a pair of clunky sandals that Laurel assumed were as comfortable as they were ugly. There was something vaguely familiar about her face.
“I'm Gloria Lawrence.” The young woman amended Li'l Bit's introduction, sticking out her hand. Then she exploded in her mother's unmistakable cackle. “I'm afraid you already know my daddy.”
Laurel realized she was shaking the hand of My Child.
“Gloria has decided to leave her job in New York—” Li'l Bit began.
“I got fired,” Gloria interrupted. “I suggested doing a story on the downside of Botox, and the former model now hosting my show objected on the grounds that it was ‘so totally a bummer.' Plus she couldn't say all the big words in the script.”
“So now Gloria is here in Charles Valley,” Li'l Bit went on, obviously uncomfortable about something.
Maggie was examining her nails, which meant she was uncomfortable too. “Gloria has come to interview us,” she murmured.
“She's going to do a story about Peggy,” Li'l Bit fluted nervously.
“For the Charles Valley Gazette,” Maggie added. “I'm sure you know Hank isn't going to be continuing with the newspaper.”
Everyone in town knew it.
But what the hell did that have to do with the smiling Gloria? And why were Li'l Bit and Maggie shooting her such worried looks?
“Gloria bought the Gazette, Laurel, dear,” said Maggie, ending the mystery.
My Child had bought the newspaper? Laurel's Charles Valley Gazette? Gloria was sitting again. She sipped something from a can. She'd not only co-opted Peggy's chair and Laurel's newspaper, she was drinking one of Laurel's beers!
“We wanted you to hear the news from us,” Li'l Bit put in.
“Gloria just told us,” Maggie added.
“There wasn't time to call you—” Li'l Bit said.
“Not that there was any need,” Maggie cut in quickly.
They were making a mess of this and they both knew it, but they were too concerned about her to be graceful, which was so sweet it almost took away the sting. Laurel had to bail them out. “Congratulations,” she said to Gloria. “The Gazette's been around for eighty years, and people will be real grateful to you for keeping it from going under.”
“Actually, it's my mother they should be thanking. She put up the money. I'm going to be the editor, but she owns it.”
So it was a family effort. Daddy would probably vet all the stories about Garrison Gardens and the resort.
As if reading her mind, Gloria said, “My mother has her own money. My father had nothing to do with this.” Laurel smiled as if she believed that horseshit. Gloria turned to Li'l Bit. “I'll come back and do the interview later,” she said.
“Please, don't let me stop you,” Laurel said, telling herself she should offer to go but knowing there was no way she was leaving. After the briefest of pauses, Gloria whipped out a tape recorder and began asking Li'l Bit and Maggie questions.
The interview seemed to go on forever, but maybe that was because Laurel was working on her not-pouting-and-being-a-good-sport technique, and it was going down hard. Finally, Gloria turned off the recorder.
“It's such a pleasure to talk about Peggy,” Maggie said. “What a lovely idea—writing an article about her in the newspaper, Gloria.”
“You ask excellent questions,” Li'l Bit added.
“The dogs will be starving. I've got to run,” said Laurel. “Nice meeting you, Gloria.”
“I should go too,” said Gloria.
Which was how Laurel found herself walking down to their cars together.
“So just how emotionally invested were you in the Gazette?” Gloria asked.
“Emotionally invested in working for Hank?”
Gloria did one of her mother's cackling laughs. “I meant, how much do you miss the newspaper?”
“I like writing, but I've been thinking lately that it wasn't really what I wanted to do or I'd have done it—” She broke off. Why was she spilling this to the woman who had just drunk two of her beers? “My job at the Gazette kept me from being a waitress,” she said briskly. “Working there was a bitch.”
“According to what I heard, Miss Peggy offered to buy it for you.”
So Gloria really did do her homework. Laurel shrugged. “Running things isn't a big strength of mine.”
“Isn't that going to be a little rough? Given your new . . . situation?”
“Not according to your daddy. I don't have to bother my purty little head about any of it.”
“My father gives new meaning to the word retro. So you're cool with me being editor of the Gazette?”
The woman didn't let up. “Of course.”
“Good. Then can I interview you too?”
“Why?”
“You'
re the new Garrison. A story on you will be a nice companion piece for the profile on Miss Peggy.”
“I'm—” Laurel stopped. “Look, I still haven't wrapped my brain around all of this.”
“I understand. It'd be freaking me out, too, if I were in your place.” Laurel decided Gloria must be one of those people who regularly put themselves in other people's places. “If you decide to do it,” Gloria continued, “there's an article I found in the archives that you wrote. I'd like to use some of it. It's very good.”
“Thanks. Can we talk about it later?”
“I'll call you in a couple of days. I want to get my first edition out next week. From what I can see, delivery of the paper's been erratic lately, and I don't want to lose the six or seven readers I still have.”
Obviously, Stuart Junior's daughter wasn't going to have any trouble running things.
“Nice car,” Laurel said, as they approached the Daffy Duck-mobile.
Gloria looked at it vaguely. “Is it? I'm not into cars. The dealer said it was earth-friendly.”
Chapter Forty-six
SHE SAID IT OUT LOUD!” Laurel told Perry that evening. One of his patients from the clinic had made fresh strawberry ice cream for him, and he'd brought it over in a cooler to share since it was too much for him to eat alone. That was his excuse for getting together. “Gloria Lawrence actually said her car was earth-friendly,” Laurel said. “Without laughing.”
“So you don't like her because she doesn't have your automotive flair, or because she's running the Gazette?”
“Who says I don't like her?”
“Come on.”
“I worked at that paper for eight years! I watered the plants, and took Hank's mama to the dentist, and covered every single one of the damn library Christmas craft shows. And now Gloria Lawrence waltzes in from nowhere and her mother writes a check and she's the new editor!”
“And Peggy could have written a check and you would have been the editor, but you turned her down.”
The Ladies of Garrison Gardens Page 18
