“Sounds good,” Grayson said. “Okay, now we’re just missing Rowena.”
“Noooo,” Conley and Michael said.
“I know she’s a pain in the ass, but we seriously need her institutional memory today,” Grayson said. “She knows everybody who’s anybody. I want her up front in the church, right behind the family’s pew.”
“If I know Rowena, she’ll shove her way into the family pew,” Conley muttered.
They heard the front door open and then the tapping of their star columnist’s cane.
“Yoo-hoo!” a quavery voice called. “Where is everybody?”
Michael went into the outer office and rolled in another chair. “We’re back here in Grayson’s office, Rowena.”
* * *
Rowena Meigs was styled for a state funeral. Her hair had been curled and teased and sprayed into a towering blue-white bouffant. Her face was powdered and rouged, and her eyelids were weighted down to half-mast by glued-on false eyelashes. She wore an age-rusted black silk moiré cocktail suit whose rhinestone jacket buttons strained to contain her generous bust. The skirt was so tight they could hear the rustle of the girdle and black pantyhose she wore underneath with each mincing step she took. Even her cane was wrapped in black grosgrain ribbon for the occasion.
“Sit here, Rowena,” Michael said, taking her arm.
“Thank you, darlin’,” she said, handing him her outsize pocketbook, which was suspiciously squirming.
Tuffy popped his head out and bared his teeth at the hapless young reporter. Tuffy’s topknot was fastened with a black grosgrain bow.
“Uh, Rowena, you’re not thinking of taking that dog to the funeral, are you?” Grayson asked.
“I certainly am,” Rowena said, bristling. “Most people find the presence of a dog very comforting in a time of stress.”
The editor shrugged and went back to her battle plan.“Okay,” Grayson said. “The team’s all here, so let’s get started. Rowena, I was just telling the others I want you to sit up front, as close to the family pew as you can get.”
“Of course.”
“Are you invited to Vanessa’s dinner tonight?”
“I certainly am,” she said, stroking the thick, triple strand of pearls around her neck.
“We won’t have time for you to type up your column in time for the special edition. Do you think you could just call into the office and dictate it to Lillian?”
“Say what?” Lillian said sharply.
“I’m paying you time and a half,” Grayson said.
“Double. And I wanna get reimbursed for these doughnuts,” Lillian said. “I’m not made of money, you know.”
“Mike is going to take the good camera with the zoom lens, and he’ll shoot outside the church. And after, at the reception at the Baptist church,” Grayson said. “We’ll need shots of Vanessa with the governor, that kind of stuff. And of course Charlie. Be great if we could get a shot of Vanessa and Charlie together.”
“Not gonna happen,” Conley predicted.
“You think Toddie and her kids will show?” Grayson asked.
“If they do, Vanessa’s head will explode.”
“Then let’s hope it happens. Exploding heads make for great front pages,” Grayson said. “Either way, I’m thinking we put out another digital special edition. Not tonight, because I think that’d really be pushing it, but in the morning.”
“Fuckin’ A,” Mike said, pumping his fist. He blushed. “Oops. Sorry, Rowena. My bad.”
“Conley, you’ll be roving,” Grayson continued. “We’ve gotta keep it low-key, but if you see a good photo op, shoot Mike a text. Or if you can be discreet, shoot it with your phone. I want you concentrating on the human-interest angle—family angst, all that. Mike, the political angle is yours. See if you can get the governor to talk about when he’ll schedule the special election to fill Symmes’s seat in the House. It’s a long shot, but maybe he’ll weigh in on the Vanessa-Charlie controversy.”
“What about me?” Lillian demanded. “What am I gonna do while I sit around here waiting to get dictated to over the phone?”
“I want you to call or email every business that was a new advertiser this week. Tell ’em we’re putting out another digital special edition in the morning, and this is their chance to get in with a special rate.”
The office manager sighed heavily. “Gonna be a long day.”
“Okay, team, that’s our game plan,” Grayson said. “You guys already kicked ass once this week, and I know we can do it again. Right?”
“Abso-fuckin’-lutely,” Michael said. “Whoops. Sorry again, Rowena.”
The elderly columnist was busy feeding a doughnut to Tuffy. “That’s all right,” she said serenely. She looked over at Conley. “Isn’t it nice that the staff meeting is over so early? This way, you’ll still have time to go home and get dressed before the funeral.”
“I am dressed for the funeral, Rowena,” Conley said.
“Oh,” Rowena said, stroking her pearls again. “Oh my.”
49
The midafternoon sun beat down on the mourners gathered outside the white-columned Silver Bay Presbyterian Church. Conley could already feel her silk shirt sticking to her back as people pressed closer and closer to the church entry.
Michael shifted impatiently from foot to foot, tugging at his already loosened tie. “What are we waiting for? Why don’t they open the damn doors?”
He obviously hasn’t attended many funerals, she thought.
“We’re waiting for the funeral procession,” Conley informed him. “Long black hearse, pallbearers carrying a long, mahogany coffin. Like that.”
“Right. My bad.”
They’d managed to spirit Rowena around the crowd fifteen minutes earlier, and she’d worked her dowager queen magic on an usher stationed at a side door, who wordlessly opened the door wide to allow her access.
“Okay,” Conley said, pointing toward the street, where a stretch limo was slowly pulling alongside the curb. “That should be Vanessa.”
She trailed closely behind him as he moved into position. The limo driver hopped out and came around and opened the door. Vanessa stepped out and, spotting the television crews stationed on the sidewalk, straightened her dress and paused for dramatic effect. A dignified older man got out of the other side of the car, came around, and took her arm.
“Who’s that?” Mike asked as his shutter clicked away.
“I think that must be George McFall. He owns the funeral home.”
Conley reflected that death became Vanessa Robinette. Her red hair was twisted into a chignon. She wore a severely cut black dress with elbow-length sleeves, obviously couture, but Conley, who didn’t keep up with such things, couldn’t name the designer. A tiny pin twinkled from the scalloped neck of the dress. Symmes’s fraternity pin, she remembered. Her eyes were obscured by a veil pinned to a small velvet pillbox hat. It was a very Jackie Kennedy look, Conley had to admit.
A second limo pulled behind the one Vanessa had vacated. The back door opened, and Charlie Robinette emerged, dressed in a charcoal suit, followed by Kennedy McFall. Then Charlie leaned down and lifted a wriggling preschooler out of the back seat, delivering her to her mother’s outstretched arms.
Graceanne wore a navy dress with a smocked bodice and puffed sleeves and a ruffled petticoat. As Charlie handed her off, Conley stifled a giggle as the child’s bare pink bottom was exposed. She saw, rather than heard, Kennedy gasp, then dart back to the limo to retrieve a pair of lacy white underpants, a pair of black patent Mary Janes, and one sock.
Mike’s shutter continued to click as the hearse drew up, followed by another limo. “That’s the governor,” he said. “Why don’t you go inside and grab us some seats. I’ll finish up out here.”
“I’ll be on an aisle, halfway up,” she said. She tucked her head down and her elbows out as she moved determinedly through the throng snaking toward the church doors.
* * *
She’d grown
up going to services in this church. It was an elegant, pre–Civil War building with thickly veined marble floors, mahogany pews, and a soaring ceiling supported by twin rows of fluted columns.
A harpist and string quartet were stationed on the right side of the altar, with the harpist accompanying the church organist, playing something she vaguely recognized as Mendelssohn.
Michael tapped her shoulder, and she scooted in to let him join her in the already packed pew, earning her an angry glare from the middle-aged woman sitting to her right.
“What’s it looking like out there?” Conley whispered.
“Total crazy-town. I just saw a sheriff’s deputy arrest a lady for parking her handicapped-access van on the sidewalk. Like, seriously on the sidewalk. He told her she’d have to move it, and she took a swing at him with her pocketbook.”
“You got that, right?”
He grinned and held up the Nikon. “Shot the shit out of it.”
People were still streaming into the church as white-gloved ushers shoehorned them into every available space.
From the pew behind hers, Conley heard a small gasp. Turning, she watched while Hank Robinette, dressed in an ill-fitting sport coat, escorted Toddie and Rebecca Robinette up the aisle toward the front of the church. She recognized both from Toddie’s photo.
She glanced at Mike, who had the Nikon in his lap. “That’s Toddie,” she whispered. “I don’t care how you do it, but we need that shot.”
He spun around in the pew, clicked off half a dozen frames as Toddie and her children passed, then turned back and put the camera on the pew between them. “Got it.”
“Boom,” Conley said.
* * *
She felt a light tap her on shoulder and looked up to see G’mama walking up the aisle with her hand tucked into Skelly’s arm.
Lorraine was dressed in a simple buttercup-yellow linen dress and her favorite turquoise beads. Her grandmother had always had an uncanny sense for wearing classic fashions that never went out of style, and she never wore black because, as she always said, there were so many beautiful colors in nature. Conley realized with a start that it was the same dress G’mama had worn to her father’s funeral.
A few minutes later, the large wooden outer doors to the vestibule closed, and the church’s massive pipe organ began booming the opening notes to “A Mighty God Is Our God.” The church pastor, Dr. Phipps, processed down the main aisle, followed by the black-robed choir, followed by six pallbearers and a rosewood casket containing the earthly remains of C. Symmes Robinette.
Vanessa Robinette came next, on George McFall’s arm, followed at a safe distance by Charlie and Kennedy McFall, with a now-docile Graceanne holding their hands.
* * *
The service started, but the pastor’s voice seemed to Conley to be coming from far away. Despite the air-conditioning in the church, she felt warm, suffocating even. Her palms grew damp, her face flushed, and she felt light-headed.
She didn’t realize that she was breathing hard until Michael nudged her. “Are you all right? You look kinda sick.”
“I’m okay,” she whispered. She closed her eyes and tried to meditate. This church, these funeral rituals, all brought her father’s own service rushing back into her memory.
* * *
The pastor was a kind-faced, benevolent presence. He yielded the lectern for a brief eulogy from the governor of Florida, who said he’d been a freshman state senator during Symmes Robinette’s last term in the Florida Senate and that Robinette had always been a source of strength and inspiration.
The governor yielded to Charlie Robinette, who was already masterful at public speaking—charming, self-deprecating, funny, and touching. If you didn’t know him. His voice gave Conley a sour taste in her mouth. He was still the Little Prince. To the manor born.
“I always wanted to be like my dad,” he said, placing both hands on the lectern. “But the truth is, nobody could ever fill Symmes Robinette’s shoes. And I mean that literally, because my father wore a size 6 shoe. It was a miracle that a man of his height—he was six two in his stocking feet—and weight—which he never divulged to anybody, not even my mother—could stand erect on such tiny, toddler feet.”
Gentle laughter rippled through the congregation.
“But as small as his feet were, my father had a heart for everyone. He wasn’t a perfect man, and he would be the first to tell you that. Well, actually, my mom would be the first to tell you that, because she is the only person I ever met who could cut Dad down to size with one meaningful glare.”
Conley craned her neck and could just see the top of Vanessa’s head. She was sitting erect, her shoulders tensed. The widow, she thought, was not amused.
“You know, we all thought Dad would live forever. He thought it too. But last fall, we received the devastating news that he was suffering from cancer. Dad was adamant that he didn’t want his condition made public. He said he didn’t want to be a poster boy for cancer, and he didn’t want anybody feeling sorry for him, because he’d lived a long, productive life. He had work to do in Washington, and he knew that the time he had left was short.”
Charlie took a deep breath. “Knowing that, my dad took stock of his life. We had a lot of good talks these last few months. What a tremendous gift that was, for both of us. During one of those late-night talks, Dad divulged to me that he had one big secret, one big regret, something he was deeply ashamed of, and he asked me to help him make things right.”
Vanessa’s head bowed, and the rest of the congregation sat up, waiting to hear the rest.
“Dad revealed to me that he had what he called a secret family, one that I knew nothing about. He told me that he’d been married before he’d met my mother, and he’d had two children with his first wife.”
Charlie chuckled ruefully and paused for effect.
“Damn, he’s good,” Mike whispered, gazing around the church at the rapt faces of all the mourners. “He’s got this crowd in the palm of his hand.”
“Trust me. It’s all an act,” Conley whispered back.
“You could have knocked me over with a feather,” Charlie said, affecting the folksy accent of a local yokel. “And it turns out that most of my life, that secret family—including my half brother, Hank, and half sister, Rebecca—lived less than an hour away from the spot where I’d spent most of my growing-up years.”
Another ripple of murmurs and whispers washed through the room.
“It turns out that in the process of making things right, you sometimes make waves. Sometimes you have to make decisions that will make people you love uncomfortable, even unhappy. I was willing to do that for him. So these last few months, I did what I could to help my dad reconnect with his first family.”
Conley scanned the faces around her. Every eye in the cavernous church seemed riveted on Charlie Robinette—except Vanessa’s; she seemed to be staring down at her lap.
“It had been more than twenty years since Dad had seen his children. Amazingly, they found it in their hearts to forgive his absence and to accept his apology and his love, however belated it came. Hank and Rebecca and Toddie are here in this church today. I know that they mourn my dad’s loss as much as the rest of us do. But I also know that their presence here today would make my dad proud and happy.”
Charlie took another deep breath. “I’m not a preacher; I’m just a simple country lawyer.”
“Country lawyer, my ass,” Conley muttered.
“But I believe there’s an object lesson that we can all take in my dad’s last months on earth. If there is someone you feel you’ve wronged or hurt in some way, don’t pass up the opportunity to try to make things right. I know I speak for all my family when I say thank y’all for coming today to celebrate the life of my dad.”
* * *
A bagpiper accompanied the choir and congregation in “Amazing Grace” as the family and pallbearers filed down the center aisle.
“Go!” Conley told Michael, who managed to slit
her past the other worshippers in their pew to race toward the side exit.
She was almost to the rear door when she spotted a familiar figure, still sitting in the very last pew, dressed in her customary white shirt and black pants. Conley sat down beside her.
“Winnie?”
The housekeeper looked up, grim-faced but resolute. She saw the question in Conley’s eyes.
“Had to see it for myself. When she was on her deathbed, I promised Nedra I would see Symmes Robinette dead, and now I have.”
“Okay,” Conley said. “I gotta get back to work.”
By the time she exited the church, there were still knots of people standing around on the church lawn.
Buddy Bright was set up in the shade of a magnolia tree, near a van with the radio station call letters, doing a live remote and interviewing any politicos he managed to buttonhole.
Conley found the NBC camera crew on the opposite side of the church lawn. She introduced herself and pointed out the key players in the day’s drama, including Toddie, Hank, and Rebecca. But Tressa, the reporter, had been in church during most of the service and had already zeroed in on both of Symmes Robinette’s wives and all his children.
“You know where the Baptist church is, right?” Conley asked, pointing across the street at the imposing redbrick structure. “The reception is there. Maybe you’ll get lucky and manage to get all the family in the same frame.”
She returned to the front of the church in time to see G’mama emerge, again on Skelly’s arm.
“Hey, you two,” she said. “G’mama, how did you manage to score such a handsome date?”
Lorraine scowled. “Winnie absolutely refused to drive me here today. Said she had ‘other fish to fry.’ And of course, as the outgoing president of the altar guild, I couldn’t very well not show up. So I called Sean, and he said he was going and he even volunteered to be my chauffeur.”
Hello, Summer Page 36