A Peach of a Pair Read online

  “No, Mother. It’s up to Brooks to do right by the baby; it’s up to Sissy. But you? Expecting me to attend their wedding, all but ordering me? You might as well have sent me an engraved invitation to watch them do the deed.”

  “Nettie Jean Gilbert.”

  “I’m done with Brooks and Sissy and, when and if you take a moment to consider my feelings, I hope you’ll understand that I’m done with you, Mother. Good-bye.”

  I threw open the door to hang up the phone. Four mean girls tumbled into the room; seven others surrounded Justine.

  And now they knew. Even Justine who prided herself on taking everyone around her down a notch so that they admired her as much as they feared her, looked rattled by the truth. In that moment, she blinked at me, no predatory smile, just a look that closely resembled pity.

  “Oh, Nettie,” one who was slightly less slack-jawed whispered.

  I didn’t want or need their pity. I slammed down the phone and Debbie Sizemore, who was forever on the phone with her mother, reached for it. “I have another call to make,” I ground out. Debbie jumped back like I’d taken a bite out of her meaty hand. “In private.”

  Pulling the ad out of my pocket, I dialed the number and retook my place in Patrice’s room with the door closed. The operator put the collect call through. Finally, a woman’s voice on the other end answered; she sounded testy, although not as furious as me. “I don’t know any Nettie Gilbert; I won’t accept the charges.”

  “Please. Don’t hang up,” I said.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” the operator said. “She’s declined the call. Nothing I can do.”

  “I’m Nettie Gilbert. I’m calling from Columbia College about the caregiver position.”

  The woman on the other end heard my plea and accepted the call. “Thank you,” I breathed.

  “Least I can do for a fellow C-Square girl, but make it snappy. I placed the ad for my brother, and he’s a real stickler about the phone bill. I’m Katie Wilkes, by the way; I run Remmy’s office and his life. God knows he’d deny it until his dying day, but he needs it.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Katie, but I thought there was a caregiver position available.”

  “Remmy’s a doctor; he’s looking for live-in help for the Eldridge sisters. To be honest, he says Miss Lurleen could go any day. So she, as well as the job, might be gone by the time school’s out.”

  “But I’m available now.” Was I really as desperate as I sounded? Absolutely.

  “Oh, so you’re a graduate,” she laughed. “Science major?”

  “I’m a music major. And education. Taking a leave of absence,” I added hastily.

  “Music?”

  “If you need references, I can give you my professors’ names. Oh, and Dean Kerrigan will vouch for me for sure.”

  “Not sure how a music major is going to work out. Do you have any experience?”

  “I’ve cared for the elderly.” Not a complete lie. “Extensively.” The three days nursing Nana Gilbert, who never got sick, felt extensive.

  “Wonderful. And to have another girl from the college in town, even better.”

  But what would be required to help someone who was really sick? Dying?

  “Maybe I should—” Reconsider? Hang up?

  “Of course room and board are included, and if nothing else, the job will definitely be interesting. The sisters are a peach of a pair, although Miss Emily can be a real pill, and Miss Lurleen is— Well, you’ll see.”

  “Katie—” Now that I thought about it, the lifeguard job really sounded good.

  “Pay’s thirty dollars a week.”

  Room and board? A decent stipend? But something in the hollow of my stomach said this was a bad idea. An inkling of what I’d felt the last morning at Christmas break when Brooks took me to the bus station and said good-bye. That feeling hadn’t jibed with what had happened in the grove the night before, so I wrote it off to too much of Mother’s biscuits and gravy for breakfast. Did I know then something was wrong?

  With my huge clan, I’d always flitted around whenever I was home on break, seeing everyone, holding court, and loving the attention I got. Had I missed something? Had Brooks gotten jealous of my divided attention, or worse, bored? But did it really matter what had happened to make him stray? Knock up my sister?

  My sister. The words still burned, torching every shred of faith I ever had in Brooks, in my own mother, and my father who’d remained silent in all this. Him I understood because he’d hoped and prayed for farmhands and never really knew what to do with two prissy daughters. But I’d lost faith in my own sister. In myself.

  It was irksome just how intermeshed Sissy and I were, held together by sticky, dried blood. But now the wound was fresh, open, and it had nothing to do with what Sissy did to me. Everything to do with her absence, the hole I knew would always be there, and I hated it. Didn’t want to feel the loss that had grown since I’d opened the invitation to her wedding; it was much easier to concentrate on her betrayal.

  “The last bus from Columbia gets into Camden around six; station’s just a couple of blocks from the office on Broad Street. I’ll put in a good word for you. You come on by after Remmy finishes up for the day, and he’ll talk to you. He thinks you’re the one for the job, I’m sure he’ll want to take you by to meet the sisters.”

  Cashing in my bus ticket to Satsuma would get me to Camden and back with enough left over to hopefully not have to dip into my twenty-seven-dollar kitty.

  “And you’ll have supper with us. Stay over if you like,” she added.

  “Oh, I couldn’t impose.”

  “But I insist,” she laughed. “It’s the least I can do for a C-Square sister. So you’ll come?”

  “Yes, thank you, Katie; I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  When I opened the door to hang up the phone, the catty mean girls had gone to spread the word far and wide, no doubt that the mighty ’Bama belle had indeed fallen. What they couldn’t know was just how meaningless the pedestal I’d been on my whole life really was. How I’d crawled over my own sister to get there, fought to stay up on it, making damn sure everyone loved me. And if they didn’t, I flirted and cajoled until they did. Maybe that was why my charms never worked with Justine and her brood, because there is only so much room on that lofty perch, and even the most genteel Southern belle will fight to the death to stay there.

  5

  LURLEEN

  With Mama and Papa and Teddy gone, even during the years Emily and Lurleen lived under the same roof and did not speak, it had always been just the two of them. Lurleen, the strong-willed, practical one; Emily, the delicate flower.

  The house was quiet, save the whisper of Emily’s steady breath. There was something comforting about the gentle puh puh puh sound she’d made in her sleep for as long as Lurleen could recall. She should wake Emily and send her to her own room to rest. If sleeping the night in that wingback didn’t kill her, it would surely make her wish she was dead come morning. But with Sister’s head reared back and the moonlight streaming in the window, all Lurleen wanted was to hear that comforting sound a little longer.

  She smiled at the unnatural glow the moonbeams made on Emily’s face. What was it now? Woodbury beauty cream? Wasn’t that the latest miracle Zemp’s Drug Store was peddling? Probably not. Lurleen never kept up with such foolishness, but Emily was always the first in line to draw from the fountain of youth. It was one of the things that made Lurleen sure Emily would marry one of her many suitors. She never did.

  The one thing Lurleen regretted most in her life was the seven years she lived under this roof and did not speak to Emily. She’d pretended Emily didn’t exist, but that was just wishful thinking after the accident. If she could go back and change just one thing in her life, she’d change those years of silence. So much anger and blame, all directed at Emily, and yet her sister had loved her through ever
y second of it.

  Emily drew in a deep breath and snorted herself awake. “Lurleen?” Her voice trembled with the certainty that one day she would call Lurleen’s name and there would be no answer.

  “I’m wide awake. You were snoring again,” Lurleen said, because she’d rather hear Emily incensed than worried.

  “I do not, nor have I ever, snored,” Emily huffed, running a hand through her tight silver curls. She patted her face, making sure her miracle cream was evenly disbursed.

  “Remmy said Katie’s sending that girl around tomorrow. Says she’s a sweet college girl, and I want you to be nice to her, Emily.”

  “I do not want someone in my house. Going through my things and yours. She’s not coming.” Both hands on the arms of the chair, she leaned forward to punctuate her decree.

  “Well, it’s my house too, and I want her here. Get some rest so you won’t be so cranky and you’ll be presentable.” Not that Lurleen gave a hoot in hell about what Emily looked like when company came calling, much less potential hired help, but she knew Emily cared a great deal about appearances.

  “We don’t need any g.d. help. I can take care of you just fine,” she huffed.

  “I don’t know where this swearing thing of yours has come from, but it is most unbecoming.” Lurleen tried to sound terse, but it took too much effort and came out more matter-of-factly. “There’s no sense in both of us dying, and, you taking care of me round the clock is going to kill you dead.”

  “I’m fine. Perfectly fine, and I’d be even better if you and that blasted Remmy Wilkes would stop flustering me with all this talk about dying, which neither of us is going to do.”

  There was so much conviction in Emily’s voice, Lurleen wanted to laugh at her steely desire to change the laws of nature. Everyone was born to die, some sooner than others. But arguing with Emily, especially when she was pretending to be riled but was really terrified, was pointless and would only serve to put her in even more of a tizzy.

  “Go to your room, Emily. Get some rest.”

  “After what that fool Remmy said about you—” Her voice broke. “Why, I’ve a good mind to stay here just to prove that little pissant wrong.”

  Remmy Wilkes certainly didn’t tell Lurleen anything she didn’t already know, and had known for months. But the ache she felt in her chest had nothing to do with her heart condition.

  Every morning, since Lurleen took to her bed, she’d intended to have a serious talk with Emily, but she’d kept putting it off, thinking it was much too early in the day to broach the subject. Bringing it up at lunchtime would surely cut into the nap Emily pretended she didn’t take after her afternoon soap opera. Broaching the subject before bedtime? Bad dreams. The truth was, there was no good time to talk about dying. But Lurleen had put it off long enough.

  “I am going to die, Emily. The doctor said so, and you keeping vigil by my bedside won’t change that.”

  “Don’t,” she hissed. “You hush this instant. If you think you can just up and die on me, Margaret Lurleen Eldridge, you’ve got another thing coming.”

  “My heart is giving out, and I’m fine with it.” More than fine to go to heaven, to hug Mama’s neck, and Daddy’s. To finally see John again. Even after all the years, she felt the loss of him deep inside of her from a place that did not heal.

  “Then I’m coming too,” Emily declared.

  “This isn’t you tagging along to a picture show, Emily. This is death. It’s final. You don’t get a say in it any more than I do.”

  “No, this is just you scaring me. You always loved to frighten me. You and—”

  Emily didn’t dare speak Brother’s name, and as much as Lurleen thought she’d made peace with what happened so very long ago, the jagged memory sliced into her. It wasn’t the tightness in her chest or the pain that made Lurleen hold her tongue. It was the constriction in the middle of her throat, an unseen hand, holding back words that would only leave Emily brokenhearted when Lurleen was gone. And what good would those words do now? No more than they would have a half century ago.

  6

  REMMY

  Remmy Wilkes’s shadow stretched long across the floor of his father’s study, his only companion for another sleepless night. The house was dark, silent save for the occasional groan of the old place. The sound was comforting, although it shouldn’t have been. He hated the old house, the legacy that held him prisoner, as much as he hated the constant sense of wanting that had followed him around since the accident.

  There was a time when the yearning had gripped him with the ferocity of polio, crippling him, suffocating him. He’d wanted the life he’d planned for himself in Charleston, wanted Katie to be married and chasing a couple of her own children around. He wanted his parents to be alive. And in the darkest recesses of what his father had begrudgingly called Remmy’s brilliant mind, when he couldn’t have any of those things, he’d wanted to die.

  But his sister had kicked his tail. For weeks after the accident all he did was sleep, and Katie gave him that for a while. Then she parked that damn wheelchair at the bottom of the stairs and fussed until he got out of bed. When he wasn’t fit to practice anything, much less medicine, she’d booked appointments and made him drag himself down to the office. She was counting on him falling back into practicing medicine the way their father did and his father before him. And, much to his surprise, he did.

  The house groaned, whether in agreement or to protest, Remmy wasn’t sure. He turned on his desk lamp, opened a drawer, and pulled the letter out from his friend. Doctor Cecil Rutledge had made good for himself working at Baptist Hospital in Columbia. He and Remmy had been study partners and had double-dated occasionally. Of course for med students, that meant almost never. They’d worked their hind ends off to graduate at the top of their class, Cecil edging Remmy out by a half a point, something his mother lauded and his father shrugged over.

  Remmy scanned the letter again, glad Katie hadn’t opened it like she usually did with all the mail that came to the office. Cecil’s promise that the job at the hospital was as good as his would have set her off for sure, and there was really nothing to get up in arms about. Not now anyway.

  The job at Baptist Hospital opened up in two months when one of the senior physicians retired and one of his underlings moved up, leaving a space for Remmy if he wanted it. Not a lot of time for Remmy to find another doctor who was a good fit for Camden. But there was always someone fresh out of med school, usually with a bride and a couple of kids in tow, who was looking to buy a small-town practice, settle down, raise a family. After all, that was how Remmy’s grandfather ended up doctoring Camden until the day he died and Remmy’s father took over.

  A whip-poor-will that had taken up residence in the peach tree out back called to Remmy, one insomniac to another. He ran his thumb over the engraved stationery. This was what he had always wanted; he should be thrilled, but what about Katie? He owed her and would gladly give her every penny from the sale of the practice. Give her whatever she desired. Anything, except his settling for the life he never wanted.

  EMILY

  Emily sat at the instrument that had remained silent for over fifty years. Even after all that time, it still pained her to run the rag across the keys of her mother’s piano. Brother’s piano.

  She snaked the dampened cheesecloth over the keys, taking great care they did not sing. But her hands were old, her touch not as sure as it had been all those years she’d cared for the piano, keeping it silent. Even now, she could still hear her mother’s instructions. There’s a fine art to dusting the spinet; it must be done carefully and often. She honored the voice in her head, running the cloth in the direction of the fine wood grain. Always in a straight line, never in circles.

  Her hand trembled more than usual when she got to the upper keys. She could see Brother so clearly, head thrown back, laughing at her attempt to play Chopsticks with him. Tedd
y had inherited Mother’s gift for playing by ear. Since he was six, he could peck out a tune after listening to a song on the radio. By the time he was twelve, he tore up the keys, putting his own design on songs like “Won’t You Come Home Bill Bailey” and “Tell Me Pretty Maiden.” He was Mama’s delight, especially so after Daddy died.

  But then everything went to hell, and there was no more music, and all that was left were two broken sisters.

  What happened to Teddy was Emily’s fault, and she’d paid for it a thousand times over, losing her mother to a broken heart. And the seven years Lurleen lived in the same house as Emily but didn’t speak to her, didn’t take anything from her hand. The shunning wasn’t a religious edict. Goodness no, they were raised Presbyterian. But Lurleen had taken right to the practice. Even with the gravity of events, Emily was sure it couldn’t last, but she’d been wrong.

  Emily’s finger slipped, pressing one of the keys. She braced for the forbidden sound. There was none, just a dull thud to match the ache in Emily’s chest for the time she never had with Mama and Teddy, for the time she lost with Sister.

  “Emily,” Lurleen called, her voice weak, strained.

  “Don’t holler. Use the g.d. cowbell I gave you,” Emily called back.

  “Emily!” The bell clanged.

  She closed the hinged lid and pushed off of the piano, her gait unsteady. As annoying as the bell was, Emily was grateful every time it rang. She crossed the living room and headed down the hallway to what used to be the sitting room but was now Lurleen’s bedroom; Sister hadn’t made it up the stairs to her own room in weeks.

  “I heard the phone ring a half hour ago.” Just those few words left her short of breath. “Who was it?”

  “That pissant Remmy Wilkes.”

  “He’s not a pissant,” Lurleen snapped without sounding like she was breathing her last. “He’s a fine doctor, as fine a doctor as his father. God rest his soul.”