Grayson rolled her eyes. “Hardheaded old mule.”
“Out!” Lorraine said. “Out of my kitchen. This minute.” Grayson grinned, grabbed for the basket, and helped herself to a biscuit, which she sliced open and mounded with butter and homemade fig preserves before topping her creation with bacon.
“I’m deeply wounded,” Grayson said, glancing at her watch. “Oops, I’ve got a phone call in fifteen minutes. Later, haters.”
* * *
After breakfast, Conley set her laptop up on the dining room table. She dreaded having to job hunt, but with the state of the industry, she knew she had to get her résumé out immediately.
“G’mama,” she said when Lorraine passed through on her way to the den. “What’s the Wi-Fi password?”
“Oh,” Lorraine said. She wrinkled her forehead. “Grayson set it up. Now let me think. It’s something easy. Something obvious.”
“It’s the address here,” Winnie said, dragging the vacuum cleaner into the room. “Thirty-eight Felicity.”
“That’s right.” Lorraine brightened. “It’s been so long since she set everything up, I’d forgotten. Am I being nosy if I ask what you’re working on?”
“Not at all. I thought I’d send out some emails to my contacts in the business. One of my former editors is now at the Miami Herald, another is in LA. And one of my college classmates is actually a bureau chief for Reuters, in London.”
“London!” Her grandmother sounded alarmed. “Surely you wouldn’t consider leaving the country. Or even taking a job all the way out on the West Coast.”
“Why not?”
“It’s too far away,” Lorraine said. “I mean, Washington, D.C., is one thing. Winnie and I were looking forward to visiting, once you got yourself settled in. I haven’t been to D.C. since Jimmy Carter’s inauguration.”
“I’ll consider any job I’m offered,” Conley said. “As long as the salary’s in the right range.”
“Why not stay here? Work at the Beacon?”
Conley laughed, but she stopped mid-chuckle when she noticed Lorraine’s serious demeanor. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Not at all. The Beacon is a family enterprise; it always has been. It’s not just a business. It’s your heritage, Sarah Conley. I know you’ve always been ambitious for a career, but you’ve already done marvelous things, first over there in Greenville, then in Charlotte, and now at the Atlanta paper. You’ve more than proven yourself. Why not take all those skills, all that experience, and put it to work here, where you could really make a difference?”
Conley swallowed hard and thought about the best way to couch all the objections that immediately flooded her mind.
“G’mama, it’s not that easy. I need a job. A real job with a real paycheck. It’s sweet that you want me to work at the Beacon, but it would mean a huge pay cut. And I’ve got bills to pay.”
“I realize that,” Lorraine said quietly. “But think how much cheaper it is to live here in Silver Bay. And how much nicer. I wouldn’t expect you to live here, with me. You could get your own place quite cheaply. Or live at the Dunes. You’ve always loved the beach. Despite what your sister thinks, fifteen miles is not on the next continent.”
“No,” Conley said. “Even if I wanted to stay here and work at the Beacon, which I don’t, you’re overlooking the obvious.”
“Which is?”
“Grayson is the publisher and the managing editor of the Beacon. I love her, and I have a sneaking suspicion she loves me, at least a little, but I guarantee you, she does not want me as an employee.”
Lorraine patted her carefully coiffed head and smiled. She was still a strikingly beautiful woman, Conley thought. Her wavy silver hair was arranged in a simple, flattering style. As always, she wore her signature shade of Dior lipstick, and her posture was, as always, perfect. She really didn’t look much different from the glamorous portrait that hung in the hallway portrait gallery, the one her grandfather had commissioned for Lorraine’s Mobile debut.
“Grayson has the title of publisher, it’s true. But as I mentioned last night, I’m the majority stockholder, and I’m still chairman of the board of Beacon Enterprises. So I assure you, Sarah, that if I want you to stay here and work at my paper, that will happen.”
She snapped her long, tapered fingers. “And it will happen just like that.”
4
Hi, Sloane. Hope all is well with you and Michele. Not sure if you heard the news, but Intelligentsia closed up shop yesterday, which means I’m officially out of a job I hadn’t even started. I know things are tight everywhere, but if you happen to have an opening at the Trib for a hard-charging, pushy investigative reporter, I’m your girl. Obviously, relocation isn’t an issue. I’m attaching my updated résumé. Love to catch up and talk jobs at your convenience. All best, Conley.
She typed out variations on the same theme and shipped them out, to Sloane at the Chicago Tribune, Epstein at the Los Angeles Times, Martin at The Dallas Morning News, and Trudy at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, checking each off her list of job possibilities.
Last on her list of queries was The New York Times. She wrote, revised, and re-revised the note, searching in vain for the right tone. It wasn’t that she didn’t have the clips or the street cred to apply for a job at the Times.
The problem was with her connection there. His name was Pete Kazmaryk. They’d been coworkers at the AJC for two years and an item for less than a year when he’d landed a job with the Times. Pete wanted her to make the move with him, suggesting she apply for a job with the Times or any of half a dozen media outlets in New York. But the timing had been off. She was in the middle of an investigation into a corrupt Atlanta city councilman and wanted to see the project through to completion. Pete had accused her of putting her career ahead of their relationship.
When she’d pointed out that he was doing the exact same thing, he’d gotten angry and defensive. So Pete had moved to Brooklyn, the Atlanta councilman was indicted, tried, and convicted of bribery, mail fraud, and embezzlement, and Conley had been named a finalist for a Pulitzer.
In the end, she’d lost a man she cared about, and somebody else—a reporter in Wyoming, for God’s sake—had won for a series on education inequity.
After a futile third attempt at writing a lighthearted note to her old lover, Conley closed her laptop and wandered into the kitchen.
Winnie sat at the dinette, a pencil poised over her crossword puzzle book. The radio was still on, the announcer talking in a hurried, high-pitched voice about a train derailment in Varnedoe, which was in Bronson County, the next county over from Griffin.
“There’s an ambulance on the scene, and the police have the perimeter roped off, because one of the railcars contained chemicals,” the announcer said excitedly. “Stay tuned to WSVR, and we’ll get you all the breaking news as it unfolds.”
“Who’s that?” Conley asked, pouring herself a mug of coffee and gesturing toward the radio.
“Buddy Bright,” Winnie said. “You don’t remember him? He’s been at that radio station a good while now.”
Conley shrugged and looked around the kitchen. “Where’s G’mama?”
“Out in the garden.”
* * *
Lorraine stood in a rectangular patch of deep green grass, using her left hand to splash the hose in the direction of the long floral border that ran alongside the garage. She clutched a walking stick in her right hand, leaning heavily on it. The flowers were a seamless riot of impressionistic colors, soft pinks, blues, lilacs, white, chartreuse, with a few dots of red, orange, and pale yellow. Conley knew the names of only a few—zinnias, hollyhocks, daisies, and always, the deep blue mophead hydrangeas that were her grandmother’s favorites.
Opie, her grandmother’s Jack Russell terrier, was crouched in the grass nearby. As Conley approached, he raised his graying snout and sniffed hopefully, and when no doggie treats were forthcoming, he snuffled loudly, twitched an ear, then settled back into his previ
ous pose.
“Everything looks amazing, G’mama,” Conley said, walking around the fenced yard. “I don’t know how you do it. I can’t keep a cactus alive.”
Lorraine’s face was shaded by a wide-brimmed, floppy straw hat. “Joe does most of the hard work,” she said, referring to her yardman. She shook her head. “I really thought we’d be out at the Dunes by now. That’s why I haven’t bothered planting much this spring.”
“What else could you plant?” Conley asked, amused. “There’s not a square foot of ground here that’s not in bloom.”
G’mama shook her head impatiently. “Not here. At the Dunes. I need to get my tomatoes and peppers put in the ground out at the beach this week, or it’ll get too hot.” She pointed at the brick-paved patio shaded by a sprawling live oak, where a line of plastic pots held foot-high vegetable plants. “I can’t get that hardheaded sister of yours to understand why any of this is so important to me.”
Conley made a snap decision. “Come on,” she said, taking the hose from her grandmother. “We need to get your tomatoes going. I’m itching to get out to the beach too. It won’t be that much work. You go on upstairs and start packing what you need to take. Winnie can go on home and get her stuff together, and if we hurry, we should be able to get on the road by two. Right?”
“Maybe we should wait until tomorrow,” Lorraine said, tilting her head to look up at the sky. “The news said we might get a big storm moving through this afternoon.”
“A little rain won’t hurt anything,” Conley said, but her grandmother’s blue eyes looked troubled. “Unless you really don’t feel like moving in out at the Dunes just yet. I mean, it’s totally up to you.”
“Oh no, it’s not that. For weeks now, I’ve been champing at the bit to get out there. You can ask Winnie. It’s just that Grayson’s been so sweet. So worried about me. I don’t want her to think I’m ungrateful or anything.”
Conley had to bite back her impatience. She’d been in her hometown less than twenty-four hours and was already feeling claustrophobic. “I guess it won’t hurt to wait another day. But you could still start packing whatever you want to take. And then we could leave in the morning. Right?”
“That’s a wonderful idea,” Lorraine said, looking relieved. “I’ll go inside and light a fire under Winnie. You know how poky she is. I’ll tell her we’re absolutely leaving here at nine in the morning, and she’d better be ready or we’ll leave without her.”
“Oh, God no,” Conley said, acting horrified. “If we leave her here, who’ll do the cooking?”
Lorraine laughed and adjusted the string of pearls she was never seen without. “That’s an excellent point.” She leaned over and kissed her granddaughter’s cheek. “I’ll let you break the news to your sister about our new plan.”
* * *
Conley went back to the makeshift office she’d set up in the dining room. She fiddled with her query letters for another thirty minutes, but it was no good. She clicked around the internet, looking at job postings on various journalism websites, but the prospects were depressing and the truth even more so.
She was an award-winning reporter, at mid-career, in a shrinking industry that no longer seemed to value experience, tenacity, talent, and nerve.
“I’m screwed,” she mumbled, closing the laptop.
She was also bored, unused to any kind of idleness or inaction.
* * *
She went out to the kitchen in search of something to do. Winnie was at the kitchen table, with the previous week’s Beacon spread out and heaped with an intimidating mountain of sterling silver flatware on top of it.
“Are we having a party I don’t know about?” Conley asked, picking up a teaspoon and examining her reflection in the gleaming silver bowl.
“Nope.” Winnie looked up. “Your grandmother says we’re leaving for the Dunes in the morning.”
“That’s right.”
“Which means I need to get this silver polished before I head home.”
“Why’s that?”
The older woman shrugged. “That’s just what we do. Whenever Lorraine goes on a long trip or moves out to the beach, we get the house redded up. Joe’s coming tomorrow to wash all the windows. I’ve already cleaned the oven and cleared out the fridge.”
She held up a long-handled implement with a curiously flat-shaped, triangular pierced head, rubbed at an invisible speck of tarnish with her rag, then set it aside.
“What exactly is that thing for?”
“That’s a tomato server,” Winnie said.
“I get why you clean out the fridge, but why polish silver that nobody’s going to be around to use?” Conley said, holding up another piece. “What’s this one?”
“Asparagus tongs.” Winnie took the piece, inspected, and nodded her approval.
“We’ve never really discussed the why part,” the housekeeper admitted. “But your grandmama isn’t getting any younger. She don’t allow anybody to know her age, but I think it’s because every time she leaves this house now, she thinks, ‘This could be the last time. Next time I come back here, it might be in a coffin.’ So she wants everything nice. Just in case her next cocktail party ends up being her own wake.”
“Speaking of cocktail parties,” Conley said, holding up an inside page of the Beacon. “Rowena Meigs? I can’t believe we’re still running that ridiculous column of hers.”
Winnie glanced at the newspaper. “I never pay any attention to it, but your grandmama says lots of folks only get the paper so they can read Hello, Summer.”
“Listen to this,” Conley said, reading aloud in her most exaggerated Southern accent.
Wedding Bells were ringing last Saturday at Silver Bay First United Methodist when Miss Katherine Ann Cruikshank and Mr. Frederick Mark Eppington Jr. pledged their troth in front of a multitude of some of the finest members of local society. Katherine, known to all as Kitsy, is the daughter of Tinkie and Raymond Cruikshank. Ray Cruikshank is the owner of the Silver Bay IGA, and Tinkie is a fearsome adversary at the bridge table. The bride was radiant in a strapless dress of blush duchesse satin with a hand-sewn pearl bodice made from her own design.
“What the hell is duchesse satin?” Conley asked, pausing her read-aloud.
“Beats me, but it sounds pretty fancy,” Winnie said.
Conley read on.
Her veil, of Alençon lace attached to a pearl-and-rhinestone-studded tiara, was a family heirloom handed down from her great-grandmother. The wedding bouquet consisted of exquisite freesias, white orchids, white sweetheart roses, and baby’s breath. Katherine was attended by a bevy of beauties arrayed in striking ombré-pink satin sheath dresses. “Rick,” who is the son of Dr. and Mrs. Frederick M. Eppington of Bonita Springs, wore a black Hugo Boss tuxedo, as did his groomsmen. The ballroom at the Silver Bay Country Club was arrayed in dazzling ropes of tiny white lights, ferns, and a multitude of white princess roses. Guests dined on steamship round of roast beef, crab imperial, and—in a novel twist—a mashed potato martini bar. The wedding cake was a scale model of White Columns, the bride’s maternal grandparents’ antebellum home in Thomasville, Georgia.
“Oh my God! A mashed potato martini bar and a wedding cake shaped like Scarlett O’Hara’s plantation house!” Conley howled with laughter. “But wait, here’s the best part yet.”
Young and old frolicked the night away to the tunes of Mickey Mannington and the Moderntones. Kitsy and Rick will honeymoon in Aruba, then return home to their apartment in Panama City, where they are both employed by Pirate’s Alley Mini-Golf.
“The Moderntones!” Conley said, giggling. “I think they played at our junior high cotillion.”
“I don’t think Rowena means for her column to be funny,” Winnie said.
“Which makes it even more tragic—that we still print it,” Conley said, balling up the newspaper page and tossing it in the trash.
She reached over to the stack of silver and held up a large serving spoon, admiring the elaborate
whorls and flourishes of the engraved monogram. “Just how long have you been working here, Winnie?”
“Well, let’s see. I believe you were maybe two, and Grayson was probably four. So how many years is that?”
“I’m thirty-four, She’s thirty-six. So you’ve been here thirty-two years. And how old do you think G’mama was back then?”
“Don’t know,” Winnie said. “Older than me, for sure, and I’ll be seventy-four in September. If I had to guess, I’d say she’s mideighties. And still sharp as a tack too.”
“You knew my mom, right? From before?”
Winnie shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “We weren’t friends, if that’s what you mean. My folks, they didn’t have nothing. I came up on the wrong side of the wrong side of the tracks over in Plattesville, and well, Melinda grew up here.”
“Was she always crazy, or did that come later?”
“High-spirited was what your granddaddy called her.”
“Which is a Southern euphemism for crazy as a bedbug.”
“I’m not a psychiatrist,” Winnie said. “She was always different. So funny! You never knew what she was gonna say or do next. I think you get your sense of humor from her. And of course, it didn’t hurt that she was drop-dead gorgeous. Had those light green eyes and all that dark hair, same color as Grayson’s. Everybody said she looked exactly like a young Natalie Wood. I guess that’s what made your daddy fall for her and then stay married to her all those years when she was acting out.”
“‘Acting out,’” Conley said bitterly. “Another quaint Southern euphemism for having a flaming affair with a guy you meet at the Jiffy Lube. Or dropping off your kids at your parents’ house, then skipping off to a ‘weekend yoga retreat’ and forgetting to check in for another six years.”
Winnie piled the polished silver into a plastic dishpan and dumped it into a sink of soapy water. She wiped her hands on a dish towel and turned around to face Conley.
Hello, Summer Page 3