Nell and Lady: A Novel

by Ashley Farley

  Mavis’s lips spread into a wide grin. “I think you just answered my prayers, Mrs. Bellemore. But shouldn’t you ask Mr. Bellemore first? He may not approve of me living here with my baby.”

  “That won’t be necessary. Mr. Bellemore trusts me to take care of the household.” Willa returned to the table and sat back down. “How old are you, Mavis?”

  “I’m twenty-eight, ma’am.”

  “Then you’re the same age as me. If you’re going to be my nanny, it hardly seems right for you to call me Mrs. Bellemore. I want you to call me Willa.”

  Mavis shook her head with vehemence. “Oh no, ma’am. I couldn’t do that. It ain’t proper.”

  “How about Miss Willa, then?” Willa suggested.

  Mavis thought about it a minute and then nodded reluctantly. “If that’s what you want.”

  Willa touched her teacup to Mavis’s. “Then we have a deal.” She fingered the booties. “Why pink? You can’t possibly know it’s a girl already.”

  Mavis set her cup down and picked up her knitting. “I just have a feeling.”

  “I don’t have any intuition about the sex of my baby,” Willa said. “Do you think that means I’ll be a terrible mother?”

  “Not at all. You’re a kindhearted soul, Mrs. . . . uh, Miss Willa. You’re gonna make a fine mother for your baby, whether it’s a girl or a boy.”

  “Problem is, that kindness has to share my heart with a lot of self-centeredness. My ego is fragile, Mavis. I hate getting fat, and the thought of having my child suck on my breasts repulses me.”

  Mavis chuckled, the first laughter Willa had heard from her since she started working for her. “Ain’t you heard? Breastfeeding is out of style for women like you.”

  Willa let out a little squeal. “In that case, let’s stock the house with baby bottles. I refuse to let this baby cramp my style. My child will grow up self-sufficient.”

  Mavis shot her a quizzical look. “I don’t mean to be personal, Miss Willa. But did you plan to have this baby, or was it an acci—”

  “Lord no, it wasn’t an accident. I’ve always wanted to have children. At least one child anyway.” Willa placed a hand on her belly and felt the baby moving around inside her womb. “I already love this little pumpkin seed like crazy. I just don’t want my life to change any more than it has to. This baby needs to adapt to me, not the other way around. Do you think that’s too much to ask?”

  “No’m. It ain’t too much to ask for a woman in your position who can afford to hire full-time help.”

  “Let me ask you something, Mavis.” Willa settled back in her chair with her arm propped on her belly and the teacup dangling from her finger. “What will you tell your daughter when she’s old enough to ask about her father?”

  Mavis’s eyes remained on her hands as they adeptly wrapped the thread around the wooden knitting needles. “I’ll lie to her. I’ll tell her he’s dead. God might strike me dead, but I can’t have her running off trying to find him. He’ll bring her nothing but misery like he done me.” Her hands grew still, and she looked up at Willa, her face pinched in pain. “Please, Miss Willa, if anything ever happens to me, promise me you won’t tell her what I told you about him.”

  Willa placed her hand over her heart. “You can trust me, May. I’ll carry your secret to my grave.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  NELL

  Nell called in sick for work the following day, the first time ever since she’d started working as a nurse. Unaccustomed to seeing his mother ill, Booker offered to get a ride to school so she could sleep in. She dozed after he left, her sleep plagued with restless dreams. Of Desmond making love to a woman with voluptuous curves and no face. Of Willa on her deathbed with a gnarled hand reaching out to Nell. Of Lady as a child playing hopscotch on the sidewalk in front of their house, back when they were best friends. The last dream—a figure lurking in the dark on a snowy night—awoke her with a start.

  Her eyes sought the clock on Desmond’s nightstand. It’s already past ten. Time to get up! She tossed the covers back and threw her feet over the side of the bed. Time to face your new reality.

  She went to her closet for her robe, but when she saw the empty rack where her husband’s clothes had hung for nineteen years, she fell back against the doorframe and slid to the floor. Tucked in a fetal position, she sobbed her guts out, not for the pain and suffering of recent years but for the loss of the future she’d entrusted with her heart and soul. She and Desmond would not experience retirement and old age together. They would not travel the world or buy a condo in Florida. They would not host Thanksgiving dinners for Booker’s family or take their grandchildren to Disney World. She would do all of those things alone while Desmond was doing them with someone else.

  Finally, spent, she forced herself to get up. She changed out of her nightgown, now soaked with tears, and into her exercise clothes. Staggering to the adjoining en suite bathroom, she brushed her teeth and washed her face. “Get a hold of yourself, Nell,” she said to her weary reflection in the mirror. “You need to be strong for Booker’s sake. Take one step at a time. One day at a time. And the first step on this first day is coffee.”

  Tying on her running shoes, she went to the kitchen and brewed herself a cup of coffee. She was peeling a banana when her phone vibrated on the granite countertop with a text from Desmond. Sorry. Can’t make tonight after all. Have dinner with a client.

  Desmond had waited until their son fell asleep before leaving the house around midnight the night before. He’d promised to return that evening for dinner to break the news of their divorce to Booker.

  Nell picked up her phone and hurled it across the room at the fireplace. The phone crashed against the stone and tumbled to the hearth.

  “How stupid do you think I am?” she screamed, her voice echoing off the cathedral ceiling. “You’re an anesthesiologist. You put your so-called clients to sleep for surgery. Oh, wait. I get it. You’re having Chinese takeout delivered to the OR to eat while you monitor their vitals.” She dropped the banana down the disposal. “This is just great! Now I’m talking out loud to myself. I must be losing my mind.”

  She took her coffee to the fireplace and picked up the phone. A spider’s web of cracks stretched across the screen, but the phone still functioned. She started a nasty response to Desmond but then deleted it. He was a coward, unable to face his son and admit he’d cheated on his mother yet again. He was missing an opportunity to make things right. So let him make his own mistakes. She’d warned Desmond countless times that his noncommittal attitude toward their family could be detrimental to his relationship with Booker. But Desmond’s actions no longer concerned her, any more than she needed his approval on matters regarding their son. Or any other matter. She would break the news to Booker gently, right after she told him she was giving him his graduation present early.

  Pocketing her broken phone, she stared up at the oil painting above the mantel. The graceful limbs of live oak trees stretched out over the inlet at Desmond’s family’s waterfront property in McClellanville. She’d chosen the artist and commissioned the landscape herself as a gift to Desmond for Christmas three years ago. They’d spent the happiest times in their marriage on that farm, and even though the painting rightfully belonged to Desmond, she would have a difficult time parting with it. As she would most of the pieces in their collection of art that was decades in the making. She wondered what process couples used for divvying up their possessions when they separated. Half the contents of their garage—golf clubs, tennis and squash racquets, scuba equipment—belonged to him. She entered the adjacent room, his study—a man cave with dark paneling, leather furniture, and sliding glass doors leading to a bluestone terrace with an outdoor fireplace. He would undoubtedly clear these shelves of his rare book and vinyl jazz collections, but what about the theater-size television mounted to the wall? Surely it belonged to the house.

  He would take all the contents, but he couldn’t take the room. She would strip off the c
heap paneling, paint the walls a bright color, and turn the space into her own private studio with a desk and comfortable seating for lounging with a good book on the days she didn’t have to work. There would be enough room to set up an easel if she ever got around to signing up for the art classes she’d always wanted to take. She moved to the window and gazed down at the dock. She had no use for a thirty-foot cabin cruiser. Take it! As long as he left the seventeen-foot skiff for Booker. Except that Booker would go away to college in five months, and she’d be stuck taking care of a boat. If he got off the wait list at Harvard, he’d go away to Massachusetts and never come home. Then she’d be left in this big house all alone. She wrapped her arms around herself. She hadn’t felt so alone since her mother died. What a terrible time that’d been for her.

  No one could take the place of her mama, but Willa had been an amazing substitute. She’d clothed her, fed her, and educated her. She’d done her very best to treat Nell the same as her own daughter. But Nell wasn’t the same as Lady. She was a black girl living like a white girl in a white woman’s house. And that had felt wrong to Nell. It wasn’t until she went off to Spelman College where the majority of students were black that her life began to change. During those four years, she began to develop friendships and returned home to Charleston only two or three times, for the rare Christmas or Thanksgiving when she wasn’t invited to one of her friend’s houses. She and Desmond Grady had met while she was conducting her clinical training at Emory Hospital her senior year. By the time graduation rolled around, she knew he was the one. She’d finally figured out where she belonged—in his big, strong, capable arms. They were planning their future together. And that future did not include Lady and Willa Bellemore.

  After a long, brisk walk and a bowl of tomato bisque for lunch, Nell spent the afternoon on the phone. She called every Toyota dealership in and around the Charleston area until she found a salesman she felt she could trust.

  In a rich baritone voice, Orlando Holland said, “You realize you’re looking for what everyone else wants. Low mileage, newer-model 4Runners aren’t easy to come by. I can find you one, but it might take a couple of weeks. In the meantime, would your son be interested in test-driving a new one?”

  “He’s driven a friend’s once or twice, but it wouldn’t hurt to be sure this is what he wants. I’m working all weekend. Tuesday would be the earliest we could get out there. Will that prevent you from starting the search?”

  “Not at all,” Orlando said. “I’ll get on it right away.”

  Nell experienced conflicting emotions that evening as she drove to Charleston to pick up Booker at the library. Her excitement to tell him about the car was equal to her dread over breaking the news about the divorce.

  Booker tossed his backpack into the back seat and climbed in on the passenger side. “Do you feel better? I don’t ever remember you being sick, which is surprising considering you work in a hospital.”

  Nell’s heart ached at how much her son reminded her of his father as a younger man, a compassionate doctor full of concern for his patient.

  “I feel much better, thank you. And you’re right. I haven’t been sick in years. I have a strong immune system, a by-product from working in the hospital.” She waited for him to buckle his seat belt before pulling away from the curb. “How was your day?”

  “Long. And I have a ton more homework to do when I get home.”

  “You don’t mind stopping for a quick dinner on the way home, do you? I didn’t make it to the store today.”

  “Ugh! Can we at least get it to go? I’m going to be up until midnight as it is.”

  She shook her head. “Sorry, bud. I need your undivided attention for a few minutes. I have a couple of things I need to talk to you about. I made a reservation at Grace & Grit.”

  The mention of his new favorite restaurant brought a tentative smile to his face. “I guess it’s okay, then, since the service there is usually pretty quick.”

  She play punched his arm. “You need to take a break from studying anyway, to refuel your mind and your body so you can finish your homework later.”

  Nell’s stomach churned as she took a left onto East Bay Street and headed back toward the bridge. She questioned her decision to break the news to Booker about the divorce in a restaurant. But telling him at home, with just the two of them sitting at the kitchen table, seemed dismal. Besides, her son wasn’t the type to cause a scene in a public place regardless of the circumstances. And she planned to soften the blow by telling him about the car first.

  Grace & Grit was hopping, with a large crowd of rowdy young professionals taking advantage of the craft beer happy hour at the bar that took up one whole side of the restaurant. They were seated, as Nell had requested, at the red leather banquette adjacent to the wall-size black-and-white image of men and women casting their shrimp nets. The waitress appeared within minutes, and they ordered without looking at the menu—scallops and a glass of Mas Fleurey rosé for her, and the she-crab chowder to start for him with the sweet tea–brined pork chop as his entrée.

  Nell waited for his appetizer and her wine to arrive. “Let’s start with the good news. I spent the afternoon on the phone with Toyota salespeople about finding you a car.”

  Booker froze, his soup spoon suspended in midair. “Are you serious?”

  She nodded. “You won me over. It’s silly for us to wait two more months when we will both benefit from you having the car now.”

  His eyes lit up like Yankee Stadium. “When can I get it?”

  “Hold your horses, cowboy. The salesman warned me that it could take a couple of weeks to find what we’re looking for. I have to work this weekend, but I thought we could go out to the dealership for a test-drive early next week.”

  Forgetting about the spoonful of soup, he tossed his hands in the air. “Oops,” he said when the soup splattered on the back of the bench seat behind him. He wiped most of it up with his napkin, leaving traces of she-crab soup smeared across the seat. “Do I get to pick the color?”

  “We’re not in a position to be picky. We’ll take what we can get unless it’s a color you absolutely despise. It’s more important to find one in good condition with low mileage.”

  “That makes sense. The color doesn’t matter that much to me anyway.” He picked his spoon up and lowered it into the soup. “What’s the bad news?”

  Nell took a big gulp of wine. “There’s no way to sugarcoat this, so I’ll come right out and say it. Your father and I are getting a divorce.”

  She watched closely for his reaction, but his face remained impassive.

  After a long moment of silence, Booker asked, “Did he leave you, or did you kick him out?”

  “We are in mutual agreement on the divorce. He wanted to wait until after graduation to move out of the house, but I couldn’t continue to live with him knowing our marriage is over. I’m sorry, son. I know you’re disappointed. As am I. I worked hard to make the marriage work.”

  He pushed his soup bowl away. “He doesn’t deserve you, Mama. I love him because he’s my father, but he’s a womanizer. Why isn’t he here with you now? Is he too afraid to look me in the eye and admit he ruined our family?”

  Nell was tired of making excuses for Desmond. “I don’t know, son. Maybe.” She sipped her wine. “As for him ruining our family, he doesn’t have that power. You and I are fortunate to have a close relationship. And I promise you, that’s not going to change. You mean the world to me, sweetheart.”

  His posture sagged. “Thanks, Mom. I really needed to hear that right about now.”

  “We’re gonna make it through this, son. The past few years have been hard for you and me. Let’s try to put all that behind us and forge onward. I don’t know what our new lives will look like just yet, but we’ll be able to focus on ourselves without having to constantly worry about him.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  LADY

  After breakfast on Thursday morning, Willa dragged a small settee over by
the window in the drawing room in anticipation of Nell’s visit. Lady made multiple attempts to entice her away from the window. She offered to take her to any number of hot-spot restaurants for lunch, but Willa turned up her nose at all of them. “I’m not hungry for fancy food. Just fix me a scoop of chicken salad and a slice of tomato.”

  “After we eat, we could walk down to the seawall or take a drive out to Johns Island.”

  “I’m not leaving the house,” Willa said with a determined set of her jaw. “I don’t want to miss Nell.”

  “Why don’t you at least move outside to the piazza and get some fresh air?” Her suggestion was met with an icy glare.

  As she carried on her household chores that afternoon, Lady invented reasons to enter the drawing room to check on her mother. Willa dozed off and on, but she never left the window. Lady brought her a cup of lemon ginger tea around five o’clock. “Spring is in full bloom today. The birds are chirping pretty as you please. Would you like to walk around the garden for a bit?”

  “Stop pestering me, Lady. Go away and leave me in peace,” Willa said, shooing her out of the drawing room.

  Lady knelt down beside her. “I can’t do that, Mama, not when you’re so upset. I warned you last night. I don’t think Nell’s going to come.”

  “Of course she’s not coming!” Willa said in a shrill voice. “If she wanted to see me, she would’ve come to visit years ago. I blame you, Lady, for turning her against me.”

  Lady slunk off to her room with her bottle of Tito’s and curled up in the wingback in the corner by the window. After her divorce, when she moved back in with her mother, she’d used her own money to redecorate Nell’s old room with new carpet and fabrics in shades of gray and pink for Regan. But she’d done little to change her room since she was a girl. The same eyelet comforter, now yellowed with age, covered her bed. Her green carpet was worn in places, and posters of the Rolling Stones and Van Morrison still hung on the pale-pink walls.