Once everyone found out he’d gone out of town on “business” again, they’d surely think I left to escape the embarrassment, eyes rimmed in red, hair a mess, vowing to do better, to be the wife who would keep him home. But I wasn’t worried. No one in that town knew me very well anyway.
After I read the note, I took a pencil from the drawer in the kitchen and poured myself a gin and tonic from the stash Robert never bothered to hide because he never thought I’d want to drink it. I took the drink, pencil, and note into our tidy backyard. I sipped the cocktail, thinking, massaging Robert’s note in my fingers. When the glass was empty, I took the pencil and wrote “Good riddance” underneath his words. Then I grabbed a box of matches from next to the grill and lit one. I held the note over the fire until the flames licked the bottom edge of the paper and engulfed it.
I was just about to pull out of the driveway when Daddy careened down the street in his silver Chrysler, landing like a pinball in front of our house, one tire up on the grass. When he climbed out of the car, he was red-faced and out of breath, as if he’d run the whole two blocks from their house instead of driven.
“Margaret, I’m so glad you haven’t left.”
I hadn’t told anyone I was leaving.
“I know you, my dear,” he said, as if he’d heard my thoughts. “I knew what you’d do as soon as Robert told me he was going away.”
“You talked to him?”
“I was supposed to have a meeting with him at the bank today, but he called and canceled. I saw through the lie right away. If he had business in Tennessee, I would have known about it.”
When I opened my mouth to speak, he did instead. “I’m not here to talk you out of it. I just wanted to give you this.” He handed me an envelope. “For whatever you need.”
“I don’t even know where I’m going.”
He nodded. “You’ll find the right place. When you come back, everything will have straightened itself out. You’ll see. Some time away will be good for you.”
So he didn’t know me that well after all, but I appreciated the effort. I took the envelope. I didn’t need to open it to know what was inside. “Yes, the next time you see me, things will be much different.”
For one thing, I wouldn’t be wearing my wedding ring, although I hadn’t had the nerve to take it off just yet.
He took a step closer to me—still too far away to put his arms around me, but close enough to warrant some sort of physical touch. In the end, he patted my shoulder awkwardly. We stood there, two statues full of emotion, neither able to make the first move. I was always more my father’s daughter than I cared to admit. Better than being my mother’s daughter though.
After all, it was Daddy standing there in front of me, concerned about me. Mother was probably at home trying to come up with a reason to call me. A new recipe I needed to try for Robert since he was so tired of my tuna casseroles. (“I bet a good juicy Steak Diane would bring him home from the office earlier.”) Or maybe she found out I skipped my Camellia Ball dress fitting with Mrs. Trammel, and she wanted to call and chide me. Forget the fact that I was a twenty-two-year-old adult with my own home and husband, and I could make my own dress-fitting appointment if I needed one. Which I didn’t.
I opened the car door, tossed my bags in the backseat, and turned back to face Daddy.
“I’ll see you soon?” he asked.
I shrugged. Smiled.
“What should I tell your mother?”
I thought for a moment. “Tell her the truth.” His version of the truth was all she needed to know.
“Good-bye, Daddy.” I lowered myself into the car. He put a hand on the door and helped me close it. It always stuck, something Robert promised many times to fix. The door shut with a dull thud.
Finally.
“I’m gone,” I said out loud.
I rolled my windows down when I reached Mobile Bay. Warm air laced with the scent of just-caught fish and soft muddy banks whipped around my face. I ripped out my hair band and let the wind have its way with me.
Along the edges of the Causeway, old men stood in clusters, each holding a cane pole with the line dropped into the marshy waters along the shore. A shrimp boat bearing the name Miss Carolina in sweet cursive pulled away from a dock while a deckhand threw nets over the side.
I pushed the gas down a little farther, even though Robert always cautioned me to stay below the speed limits. “There’s no need to draw attention to yourself, Margaret.”
Funny, he never wanted his wife to be the center of attention.
On the other side of the bay, I drove through the familiar towns—Daphne, Montrose, Fairhope—until I reached a deserted road lined with pecan trees and open fields. I’d gone over the bay many times with Mother, shopping for clothes or getting a bite to eat at Central Café. Robert and I stayed a long weekend at the Grand Hotel in the first year of our marriage, back when things were mostly peaceful and I could still close my eyes to his indiscretions. But I’d never been off the main roads and thoroughfares of the quiet “over the bay” communities. This was unfamiliar territory.
The last marker I remembered seeing was one for Sweet Bay. I needed to pee (“Oh, don’t be crass,” Mother would say) so I began looking for a place to stop. A faded sign directed me to “The Hideaway—the South’s Best-Kept Secret.” The driveway was long and curved. I assumed there was a house at the end of it, but I couldn’t see it through the trees. My heart beat faster the farther I went down the driveway.
When I emerged from the canopy of trees, I put my foot on the brake. A gorgeous old Victorian house sat bathed in the sun’s last remaining rays. An old woman stood in front of the house sweeping an Oriental rug with a straw broom and yelling at a feisty black-and-white dog. The dog played a game of chase, darting on and off the rug as the woman worked. They both stopped and turned when they heard me approach.
The woman directed me to a parking spot under a large oak tree. When I opened the door, she asked, “Parker, four nights? I wondered where you were. I thought you may have changed your plans without letting me know.”
“Excuse me?”
“Are you Parker? Mrs. Helen Parker? Double for four nights?” She peered around me into the car. “You’re by yourself? What do you need the double room for? I have a full house tonight—I could use that double elsewhere if you can take a single.”
I could be anyone I wanted to be.
“A single would be fine.”
The woman told me to wait in the foyer while she got my key. Inside, people were scattered everywhere. Miles Davis floated from an unseen radio. In the large room to my left, a man sat at an easel in front of a tall window. A few others sat around him, lounging on various couches and chairs. Some smoked, one sipped on brown liquid in a highball glass. They all gestured wildly, pointing to the man’s canvas and out the window. The artist laughed and flicked a bit of paint at one of the women.
Down the hall in the kitchen, someone stood at the stove singing. Her back was turned, showing off dark hair hanging all the way down to her bottom.
The woman came back down the hall with a key in her hand.
“I’m Evelyn DeBerry. I’m the owner here, and I’ll give you a rundown of the rules.” She glanced at my gray-checked Christian Dior dress and black peep-toe heels. “Although it doesn’t look like you’ll give me any trouble.” She smiled at me, then gestured toward the group of people on the couches and rolled her eyes. “Beatniks.”
I knew I looked like a dutiful housewife. It was what I was expected to look like, and I’d never questioned it. Not really, anyway. But I was no longer dutiful. I had escaped, and my sense of liberation was powerful. Now, I felt more of a connection with the beret-wearing crowd on the couch than I did with Mrs. DeBerry, who sported pearls and rolled hair like mine, despite the age difference. I could feel the stares from those on the couch. “Oh, how sweet. June Cleaver in the flesh,” their smirks seemed to say.
As Mrs. DeBerry rattled off a list of rul
es, I looked past her into the living room again. A man I hadn’t seen at first sat among the artists. He wore dirty blue jeans and a long-sleeved plaid shirt. No beret, no cigarette, no brown liquid. But his blond hair was long. To his shoulders. For some reason, it caught me so off guard. I had to stop myself from crossing the room to touch it.
As I watched him in my peripheral vision, he turned to me. In response, my whole body turned toward him without my permission. In that never-ending moment, everything about me was reflected in his face—the way I looked on the outside and everything roiling around inside me that didn’t match my appearance. It was as if I’d been hollowed out.
Then the moment passed. He gave a small smile, pulling just a corner of his mouth upward, and rejoined the conversation around him. The encounter left me disoriented. I took a deep breath to slow my heart.
“Mrs. Parker, are you okay?”
It took me a moment to realize Mrs. DeBerry was talking to me. “I’m fine.”
I struggled to regain my composure. I glanced at the man again. His back was to us now. For all I knew, I had imagined it all.
5
MAGS
JANUARY 1960
Mrs. DeBerry led me upstairs to my room. It was large and filled with stuffy antiques—a mahogany rolltop desk, a Chippendale curio cabinet, and enough occasional tables to hold a dinner party’s worth of drinks. Mother would have loved it. Mrs. DeBerry stood at the door waiting, so I thanked her and told her it was lovely. Satisfied, she turned to go, then paused and stuck her head back in the door.
“The arty types just keep filling this place up. The worst part is, they don’t pay half the time! They feed me lines about money coming in—I know it’s all lies, but the bills keep coming, so I have to take whoever shows up. Henry never would have let this happen . . .” She trailed off, staring out the window.
I longed to finish unpacking, crawl into bed, and disappear for a while, but I didn’t want to be rude. I sat on the edge of the bed and waited.
“Let me know if anyone gives you any trouble. Mr. DeBerry may be gone—he passed away last year, God rest his soul—but I’m no pushover. I’ll kick them out in a heartbeat if they cause any problems for a regular guest.” She smiled at me like we were in this thing together, then left the room.
Mrs. DeBerry had taken one look at me and lumped me in with the “regular” people. I knew I looked the part, but I also knew what stirred deep in my soul. I wasn’t “regular” if it meant socializing only with those who had money and the right appearance and peering down my nose at anyone who fell outside the lines. Or if it meant sticking with a marriage that had crushed any dream I ever had about what marriage could be. Not anymore.
The next morning, with nothing to do and no responsibilities, I stayed in bed until nine, then made my way downstairs for breakfast. I took in more of the house than I had seen the night before. It was grand, if a bit run-down. The dust was thick on tabletops and the rugs needed a good airing out. Cigarette smoke hung thick in the air, despite no morning appearance of the crowd from last night.
Outside, Mrs. DeBerry sat at a white wrought-iron table in the backyard overlooking the bay. She nursed a cup of tea, adding to it from a porcelain teapot. Limoges. The same pattern Mother had selected as my wedding china.
I walked down the steps, and Mrs. DeBerry turned.
“Have a seat. I’d love company.” She gestured at the extra teacup, as if she’d expected me to appear. “How was your night? The riffraff didn’t make too much noise for you, did they?”
“They were fine. I slept well.”
“That’s good. Sometimes lying in bed at night, listening to them cut up for hours, I think of how it used to be around here. Much more civilized, that’s for sure.” She sniffed and looked at me out of the corner of her eye. She wanted me to ask. Hearing stories about her more proper and civilized clientele was the last thing I wanted, but I indulged her. I looked out at the water as she spoke.
“We bought this house as our summer home, but Henry decided to open it to paying guests when we realized its income possibilities. It took off immediately. People came from all over the South to stay for weeks at a time. Magazines used to send their editors out here at least once a summer, sometimes twice.” She sighed.
“It was perfect—the lawn dotted with ladies in hats and gloves. And such dashing men. Henry would take them out on the boat, and they’d come back windblown and glowing. And the dinners—oh, the times we had. Guests filled the table, and our staff served gumbo with the most succulent shrimp you’ve ever tasted. Fresh bread. Pies so good they’d make you cry. Mrs. Parker, I wish you could have seen this place then.”
I smiled, but it felt stiff on my face. It sounded just like dinner parties at Mother’s house, the ones she insisted Robert and I attend, if for no other reason than to show her friends we were a happy couple. “What happened?”
She shrugged. “Henry got sick, and we had to stop taking on so many guests. He’d long stopped working—the house was our only source of income, and it more than paid for what we needed. But with fewer guests, money got tight. We had to let the kitchen staff go, then our cleaning staff. I’m sure your trained eye could see the state the house is in. Our old Bertha would have an apoplectic fit if she saw how I’ve let things go.” She refilled her teacup and mine.
“After Henry died, I needed the money, so I had to be less selective about who I allowed to stay here. Hence, the artists,” she said with a flick of her wrist. “I just don’t know how long I can keep this up. I can always move back to Mobile, but I’ve been gone so long, I don’t know anyone there anymore. If I did go back, I’d be the outsider, and I assure you, I have no desire for that. Imagine me, an outsider. It’s preposterous.”
She fanned herself with her hand, then rose from the table. “I need to get on with my day. You enjoy yourself, now. I can’t offer you a boat ride, but there are games in the main parlor—the artists break those out later in the day. Heavens above, I don’t know how they get by in life. No jobs, no money . . .” She continued her rant as she walked back up the steps and into the house.
Alone, I breathed in the cool air. It was January, but it felt more like early spring. I leaned my head back in my chair, untroubled for the first time since learning of Robert’s indiscretions. Sitting in that chair with the sun on my face, miles away from the center of the storm, I finally felt free.
I awoke sometime later to a man sitting at the table opposite me. I sat bolt upright, patted my hair—an automatic gesture—and smoothed my hands down my dress.
“It’s okay. You look fine.”
When I chanced a look at him, I realized he was the man from the night before, the one who stood out from the crowd. I hadn’t noticed how defined his jaw was, how thick his fringe of eyelashes. He was so close, it was hard to breathe. He seemed to take up all the air in the entire world.
“Pardon me for saying so, but you look a little out of place here,” he said.
I looked down at my dress and put my hand up to my hair again. His scrutiny reduced me to half my size.
“I don’t think it’s me who’s out of place,” I said, surprising myself. He wore a flannel shirt, dungarees, and scuffed boots. “Where’s your black turtleneck and beret?”
He let out a soft laugh. “Touché. Your name’s Helen, right?”
I reached up to scratch the back of my neck. The collar of my dress felt warm and too tight. “That’s right. Helen Parker.”
He stood and held out his hand. “Want to take a walk with me?”
Under the table, my wedding ring sat heavy on my finger. I had yet to take it off. I rubbed the ring with my other fingers, considering his offer. In the end, I took his hand.
And that one little decision changed everything.
6
SARA
APRIL
I spent Friday morning going over last-minute details with Allyn. As I’d suspected, he was ecstatic about having the place to himself.
&
nbsp; “No more French café music, for one thing.” He walked around the shop, ticking items off on his fingers. “I may move some of these sconces to the back to make room for a few paintings a friend of mine dropped by. Oh, and I saw some great old masks sitting by the curb in front of the Funky Cat last night. I may stop by and see if I can pick them up before the garbage truck comes. They might make a nice vignette somewhere.”
“I’m not deeding the shop over to you. I’ll be back by next Friday at the latest. I figure that gives me time to go through Mags’s things and tie up any loose ends with the lawyer. Don’t think I won’t notice if this place looks like a Mardi Gras float when I get back.”
I thought he’d tease me as he always did about running too tight a ship, but instead he hugged me. He’d been doing that a lot. He sniffed and I pulled back to look at him.
“It’s okay, Allyn. Why are you upset?”
“I always wanted to meet her. The way you described her, I thought we might have been kindred spirits or something. Her having African American roommates in the 1960s? In the Deep South? If she loved people on the fringes, she would have loved me. Anyway, she was the last family you had left. Doesn’t that make you the slightest bit sad?”
“I’m fine. Really.” To avoid meeting his eyes, I turned away and straightened my dress. Allyn eyed me, assessing me. I raised my eyebrows in answer.
“Whatever you say.” He looked at his watch. It was a couple hours before I had to leave town. “Get out of here. Finish packing, put on something comfortable, and pick up a large coffee on your way out. When you get to Sweet Bay”—he affected the drawl he liked to associate with Alabama—“call me if you need me. You keep your emotions stuffed in a drawer somewhere, but your grandmother died and you’re going home.”
The Hideaway Page 3
