A Place at the Table: A Novel

by Susan Rebecca White

  Impossible.

  Julia climbed into bed with her. She smelled of cigarettes, alcohol, and something else, something that reminded Ruthie of bleach but did not seem entirely clean.

  “Scoot over,” Julia said, for Ruthie was lying in the middle. Ruthie obeyed. Usually when she and Julia slept in the same bed Julia would draw a line with her finger, marking which side was hers, which Ruthie’s. Julia usually allowed herself three-quarters of the bed while Ruthie had to fit within the remaining quarter, which she was happy to do, as long as her sister let her stay.

  Julia lay close beside her, let her little sister spoon into her, put her arms around her, and whispered in her ear, “It’s going to be all right. It’s going to be all right.”

  • • •

  The funeral was held the following Monday, a funeral with no bodies. The plane had exploded after impact, and the bodies had burned.

  Nearly everyone came. Relatives drove from Tennessee, including Naomi’s sister Linda, who brought her mother, Granny Wigham, whose mind had deteriorated rapidly since the death of her husband. Aunt Mimi and Uncle Robert flew in from San Francisco. Many of Ruthie’s and Julia’s classmates from Coventry attended, let out early from school, along with a handful of teachers who had arranged for substitutes to teach their afternoon classes. Julia’s old boyfriend, Dmitri, showed up with his parents, but Ruthie did not see Jake Robinson. The staff, associates, and partners from Phil’s law firm were there, along with Addie Mae the housekeeper, and a sizeable percentage of the Trinity Church membership. Friends of Naomi from her hometown of Union City, Tennessee, came, along with friends of hers from Virden, Virginia, who had never before forgiven her for leaving Matt for Phil. Beatrice, Phil’s first wife, who lived in Nashville with her second husband and their three sons, did not come.

  Matt and Peggy did. When they first arrived at the house on Wymberly Way, Peggy, wearing a blue denim jumper over a white T-shirt, her shoulder-length blond hair in a tidy braid, had asked to speak to Julia alone. They went into the formal living room, a baronial space with wood-beamed ceilings. Ruthie listened outside the door as Peggy lectured Julia, told her that while she knew now was not the time to discuss it, she did not want Julia to think that no one cared that she had lied about where she was going for spring break and had stayed for four nights at the home of an eighteen-year-old boy.

  “From now on I am going to keep a close eye on you,” said Peggy. “Because I love you too much not to. Now come give me a hug.”

  • • •

  The funeral. The funeral. Ruthie’s memory from that day was so fuzzy. Years later, in the first waking moments after having the abortion, she would be reminded of the fuzziness of the funeral while waiting in the recovery room at the clinic in San Francisco. The world was both sharp and blurry. The pain sharp, the details blurry.

  At the funeral there were so many people and they were all touching her, hugging her. Even her mean math teacher, Mrs. Stanford. Ruthie was trying not to cry. Aunt Mimi and Naomi’s sister, Linda, who lived in Memphis, had sat down with the minister the day before to tell him all they remembered about Phil and Naomi. Mimi said she wanted to give a tribute, but she thought she would be too broken up to do so. The minister did a good job. Spoke well of Ruthie’s parents. Wove in funny details, like what Phil wrote in Naomi’s college yearbook, so many years ago: “I wish I could leave you with a better impression of me, if that were at all possible.” Spoke about the gift of married love, of how well Phil and Naomi had loved each other. Told them, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”

  Julia held Ruthie’s hand during the ceremony. Her aunt Mimi sat on Ruthie’s other side, her husband, Robert, beside her. Mimi cried while prayers were said for the souls of Phil and Naomi. Ruthie watched Mimi cry, wondering how it was that Mimi could look so pretty, even in these circumstances, her manicured hand periodically swiping at the corners of her eyes with a delicate cloth handkerchief.

  After the funeral everyone was invited back to the house. Mimi had arranged it, said it was necessary to provide a place for the many mourners, to let them drink, eat, maybe even laugh a little over their memories of Phil and Naomi. There was not much laughing. The guests stood in solemn little clusters, drinks in hand, talking quietly, stealing glances at Ruthie in the straight black skirt that came to her knees and a white button-down oxford shirt of Julia’s. It occurred to Ruthie that she looked like a very young caterer. Her feet hurt from standing so long, but Mimi had cleared out the chairs in the dining room to make the table into a buffet and all of the sofas in the living room were occupied. A makeshift bar had been set up in the sunporch, and Walt, who lived in the garage apartment behind the house, was serving beer and pouring wine and bourbon for whoever wanted it.

  Mimi must have arranged beforehand for Walt to come pour drinks. Either Mimi or Alex’s mom, Mrs. Love, who always knew exactly the right thing to do in any circumstance, who had called the night before, telling Mimi to please let her know how she could help. Who, like Aunt Mimi, wore a sleeveless black sheath and a pearl choker. Only Mrs. Love’s hair was not pulled back into a chignon, like Mimi’s, but was instead swept back with a wide yellow headband. To the house she had brought two beef tenderloins, four packages of Pepperidge Farm rolls, and little dishes of mayonnaise mixed with horseradish to spread on the meat.

  Someone had brought a HoneyBaked ham, someone else a pound cake. There were cut-up vegetables and dip from Publix. At first the vegetables were placed on the dining room table still arranged on the black plastic Publix tray they came on, but someone (Mimi? Mrs. Love?) had intervened and placed the vegetables prettily on a large silver platter. It was not Ruthie’s mother’s platter—the only silver Naomi had owned was her Rose Tiara flatware, which Julia would inherit—so the arranger of the vegetables was probably Mrs. Love. She probably had brought over a stack of silver platters, knowing they would come in handy.

  Ruthie wanted to go upstairs to her room, close the door, and lie down on the bed. But how could she, with so many people, so many mourners come to witness her grief? Everyone who walked by her touched her. Gave her shoulder a squeeze, patted her on the arm, or pulled her in for a hug. She stationed herself by the dining room table, fixing beef tenderloin sandwiches with the horseradish mayonnaise. She had barely eaten anything before the funeral. Just a frozen honey bun, heated in the microwave. The meat was so good, so soft, so rare. She ate four sandwiches, quickly, stuffing them in her mouth to discourage anyone from trying to talk to her.

  Mrs. Love, in her sleek black dress and pearls, came and stood behind her, put her long fingers on Ruthie’s shoulders, rubbed. She smelled of Joy perfume, of bottled roses. Ruthie wondered, briefly, if Mrs. Love would let Ruthie and Julia come live with her, with the Love family. Life at the Loves’ house would be so different. Alex had so many rules. No TV during weeknights, only one dessert a day, no white shoes after Labor Day, thank-you notes to be written promptly, no later than one week past receiving a gift.

  Julia would never survive.

  Where was Julia? Ruthie glanced around, while Mrs. Love’s fingers continued to massage her shoulders. There she was in the sunporch, talking to Walt, the makeshift bartender. Julia, wearing a black peasant skirt made of fabric that looked like crumpled tissue paper, did not look all that different from how she usually appeared. Ruthie noticed that Julia was holding a coffee cup discreetly by her side. Ruthie guessed that the cup was filled with bourbon, which Julia once told Ruthie was a mourner’s drink, a drink for sorrow.

  She turned to face Mrs. Love, who smiled sadly before wrapping her arms around her, pulling her in for an embrace.

  “You don’t know how sorry I am, sweetheart,” Mrs. Love whispered into Ruthie’s hair.

  Ruthie felt tears forming. She nodded as politely as she could while trying to avoid eye contact with Mrs. Love. If Ruthie looked straight at her, she might start to cry.

  “I’m going to go see how my sister is,” she said.

  “
It’s so good you two have each other,” said Mrs. Love.

  Ruthie walked across the dining room and down the three steps that led to the sunporch, where Julia stood with Walt.

  “Hey, spaz,” said Julia.

  Ruthie shot her a mean look.

  “Sorry, sorry. Hey, Ruthie.”

  “Do you have any Sprite?” she asked Walt.

  He shook his head. “All I’ve got is beer, white and red wine, and the stuff that was in your dad’s liquor cabinet.”

  It must have been Mimi who had arranged for Walt to bartend, because Mrs. Love would not have forgotten to include drinks for the kids.

  “You want to go get one?” asked Julia. “I can drive you to the BP on Peachtree.”

  Ruthie was torn. On the one hand, there was nothing she would rather do than leave this gathering of people who felt sorry for her. On the other hand, she was not sure if that was allowed. Also, she was almost positive that Julia had been drinking, and she did not want to be the victim of a drunk-driving accident. Just that year she had read Izzy, Willy-Nilly, a novel about a girl who was paralyzed from the waist down after being in a drunk-driving accident.

  “Will you let me drive?” Ruthie asked.

  “You’re thirteen.”

  “You’ve let me drive in the Baptist parking lot before,” said Ruthie. “It’s easy.”

  Walt covered his ears with his hands. “I’m going to pretend I know nothing about this conversation,” he said.

  Julia motioned toward the side door with her head. “First let’s get out of here,” she said.

  • • •

  Telling no one besides Walt that they were leaving, Ruthie and Julia slipped out the door in the sunporch that led to the side yard where Naomi had her herb garden, which was overrun with rosemary and mint. Ducking past windows, they walked to the front of the house and then ran as fast as they could down the driveway.

  “Which way?” asked Ruthie at the foot of the drive.

  “This way,” said Julia, a little breathless but still running. She turned right on Wymberly Way, and they ran down the street to where Julia had parked her car. Ruthie wondered if her sister had purposefully parked the Saab far away, where it wouldn’t be noticed, if she had been planning to sneak out of the memorial, to visit Jake Robinson perhaps, though he had not even bothered to show up for the service.

  It was a sunny day, blue sky, warm. The tall trees overhead had tiny buds on their branches, and all over birds were calling back and forth.

  “You really want to drive?” asked Julia, winded from running.

  Ruthie nodded emphatically. Suddenly there was nothing else she would rather do.

  • • •

  Ruthie was creeping down Wymberly Way going 15 miles an hour, her seat pushed so far up that her body was scrunched against the steering wheel. Julia had insisted. Otherwise, Julia said, Ruthie wouldn’t be able to reach the pedals.

  “I’m as tall as you,” Ruthie had said.

  “Au contraire, my frère,” said Julia.

  Ruthie was scared to be behind the wheel, to be controlling Julia’s Saab, but also, she was thrilled.

  “Sweetie, you are going to get pulled over for going this slow,” said Julia. “You’ve got to speed up.”

  Ruthie pressed hard on the accelerator and the car leapt forward.

  “Jesus,” murmured Julia. Ruthie smiled. In a weird way, she was enjoying herself.

  “Do you know where your turn signal is?” asked Julia.

  Ruthie nodded.

  “Okay, slow down—no, not like that. Don’t slam on the brake. Be gentle. Gently press on the brake. Okay, good. We are going to come to a complete stop. Now put on your turn signal. We’re going left.”

  Ruthie did as she was told.

  “Look both ways. Do you see any cars coming? In either direction? Okay, repeat after me: S-T-O-P-one-two-three. That’s what my driver’s ed teacher said to say every time you reach a stop sign.”

  “S-T-O-P-one-two-three,” said Ruthie.

  “Now you can turn.”

  She turned, driving slowly down Peachtree Battle Avenue, passing gracious homes and old trees, women in shiny warm-up outfits walking speedily along the sidewalk, their arms curling weights while they moved.

  “There’s a car behind you, Ruthie, and he’s not driving like a ninety-year-old lady, so you are going to have to either pull over or speed up.”

  Ruthie pressed on the gas and the needle on the speedometer climbed to 40. She was driving, really driving, on a real road, not in the parking lot of the Second Ponce de Leon Baptist Church.

  “They’re going to make me live with Dad and Peggy,” said Julia. “In Virden. And Aunt Mimi is going to take you with her to San Francisco. At least that’s what Mimi thinks is in the will. She says we’ll know for sure tomorrow, once the lawyer comes to read it.”

  Ruthie felt dizzy, nauseated. She was breathing fast little breaths, like she still did every time she was on a plane that hit turbulence. She lifted her foot from the accelerator, let the car coast on its own, losing speed. A driver behind her laid on the horn, honking for her to accelerate, but she did not. Without Julia even instructing Ruthie to do so, she put on her right blinker, steered the car over to the side of the road, and pressed hard on the brake.

  “Put it in park,” said Julia, her voice calm, soothing.

  Ruthie obeyed.

  The two girls sat in the car, not saying anything.

  • • •

  They switched seats so Julia could drive. First she drove them to the BP on Peachtree so Ruthie could get a Sprite and then back up Peachtree Battle until they reached Memorial Park, which occupied several acres of land. Sometimes she and Julia would run along the park’s perimeter, Ruthie always tiring out before her sister. Deep in the park itself was an area with swings and a slide, wood chips on the ground. It was empty. Julia and Ruthie walked to it, sat on the swings.

  “Remember how you used to tell me not to swing too high or I’d flip over the bar?” Ruthie asked.

  “That once happened to me,” said Julia, smiling. “I had red marks from gripping the chains so tightly when I flipped. Otherwise I would have come slamming to the ground.”

  “You are so full of it,” said Ruthie.

  Julia smiled.

  “The moon didn’t follow you, either,” said Ruthie. “What are you talking about?”

  “At night, when we were in the back of the car while Dad was driving us back from dinner or something, you used to tell me that you cast a spell on the moon to make it follow you wherever you went. Then you’d point the moon out to me through the window, and the whole drive home I would watch it follow us.”

  “Face it,” said Julia. “I’m full of magic.”

  “Ha,” said Ruthie. “You couldn’t really cough up money, either.”

  Julia used to amaze Ruthie with that trick. She would cough, hold her hand to her mouth, and pull away a ten-dollar bill.

  “You forget I’m part Mattaponi,” said Julia. “On my dad’s side. It gives me mystical powers.”

  “Okay, so if being, like, one-sixteenth Indian gives you mystical powers, use them to tell me where Mom and Dad are right now.”

  Julia sighed, and Ruthie thought she might not answer, that Ruthie had annoyed her by bringing up the subject they were trying to avoid. Ruthie pushed against the ground with her feet and started swinging in earnest.

  “Honestly,” said Julia. “I think they’re gone. I mean, maybe some of their ash floated into the atmosphere, and in a billion years will become a part of a star. But other than that . . .”

  Julia shrugged her shoulders, defeated.

  Ruthie felt an ache in her chest. “You don’t believe in heaven?” she asked, remembering afterwards one of her father’s favorite lawyer sayings: “Never ask a question if you don’t want to know the answer.”

  “No,” said Julia. “I’m sorry, but I kind of think this is it.”

  Ruthie wondered why, given her siste
r’s capacity for storytelling, Julia couldn’t believe—or even just pretend to believe—that their parents were more than dusty, weightless things.

  Ruthie felt so strange swinging back and forth with her sister. Swinging made her realize, in a way that she had not before, how thoroughly the laws of physics had been changed. Before the accident, before the funeral, before Julia told her that she was to go to Virden and Ruthie to San Francisco, she had been anchored so securely to the world. What a terrible thing to now be loosed.

  Turn the page for

  BOUND SOUTH

  Now available from Touchstone

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Other Side of Town

  (Louise, Fall 1998)

  Probably it is for the best that Caroline has chosen to go to play practice rather than to attend Sandy’s funeral with Nanny Rose and me. Still, Nanny Rose will give me hell when she realizes that neither Caroline nor John Henry is coming. (Nor Charles for that matter, who is only eleven and too young for this.) Sandy worked for Nanny Rose for the last thirty-three years. The last eleven of those years she worked for us too. That was Nanny Rose’s gift to us after I had Charles; she sent Sandy over to our house once a week. Of course she waited until I had a boy to offer help, even though it turned out Charles was an easy baby while Caroline nearly drove me to the loony bin.

  Sandy was there the day I brought Charles home from Piedmont Hospital. And a year later, when we moved from our Peachtree Hills starter house to our current home in Ansley Park, Sandy held the baby while I directed the movers with the furniture. Poor Sandy. When she walked out the door of our little house carrying Charles, our dog Cleo up and bit her on the leg. Cleo had never been a biter; the only explanation was that Cleo thought Sandy was taking away the baby same as the movers were taking away all the furniture. Most of the movers were African American, as is—was, I should say—Sandy.

  After that I kept Cleo in the fenced side yard every Monday when Sandy would come. Sandy loved Baby Charles. Once he was old enough to chew, she’d bring him a candy bar every week. I would have to drive to the gas station on Peachtree and buy Caroline one too or else suffer through her tantrum. Of course I would have preferred it if Sandy had brought both children a treat, but I didn’t feel that I could ask her to do so, knowing that she didn’t have any extra money.