The House on Tradd Street

by Karen White

  I heard him laughing as I made my way back to my bedroom.

  I put the stack of albums on the dresser next to the first album I’d already brought from the guest room. I took off the gloves, my robe, and slippers and crawled into bed, no longer tired, but I figured I had to at least try to sleep. The sound of footsteps and boxes being dragged drifted into the room from the attic—at least I hoped that was where the noises were coming from. With a heavy sigh, I turned on my side and caught sight of the stack of albums highlighted in a crease of light from the shut draperies.

  I stared for a long time before finally sitting up and flipping on my bedside light. With a deep breath I walked over to the dresser and picked up the first album without thinking, feeling the tickle of anticipation race up my arms as I held it.

  This time I smelled the heavy scent of oiled leather and the unmistakable odor of fuel exhaust. I wiped at my face, expecting to feel silk chiffon draping across my cheeks, but touched only my skin. Slowly sinking to the floor, I opened the album, the scents of horse and hay added now, and I sneezed.

  The album opened to a photo of Robert and Louisa sitting in a Model T. A tall gold trophy cup was perched on the seat between them, and they were looking at each other, smiling. Across Louisa’s face was a sheer silk scarf to protect her from road dust in the absence of a windshield, and both occupants wore goggles sitting atop their heads. A group of laughing people surrounded the car, and behind them, an alley of oaks leading to the columned portico of a Greek Revival mansion. Magnolia Ridge, I thought to myself, knowing what it was even though I’d never seen it before. Two Arabian horses stood at a fence lining the drive, looking toward the camera. How do I know they’re Arabian horses?

  A lone man stood apart from the crowd, only the headlight of another car visible behind his left hip. He was noticeable because he was the only person not smiling in the entire photograph. And because he looked exactly like Marc Longo.

  It became difficult to take a deep breath, as if I were wearing a corset, and once again I felt in my hand a fountain pen that wasn’t mine as I began to read the caption.

  August 5, 1921

  On a whim, my darling Robert made a wager that his car was the fastest in Charleston. I thought it a silly wager since his car was made in Detroit with the exact same materials as all the other ones, but I suppose you can’ t tell that to a man who’s obsessed with his new toy. [The hand that held the pen stiffened as it wrote the next line.] Joseph Longo was the sole opponent, and the reason Robert gave me for the wager was simply that Mr. Longo was purported to say that he never lost at anything. Never one to suffer a braggart or a liar, Robert readily agreed to the wager. But even though we won, I can’ t help but think that Mr. Longo isn’ t finished with trying to prove himself right.

  Something drifted to the ground next to my foot, startling me. It hadn’t come from the photo album or from anywhere else that I could determine. It had apparently drifted out of midair. It was a rectangular cream-colored card a little larger than a business card, and when I picked it off the rug, I could see there was writing on one side.

  At the top was Louisa’s monogram, LCG, her maiden name. In elegant cursive, she’d written the date April 2, 1918 and below that:

  Dear Mr. Longo,

  I regret to inform you that my family and I will be unable to attend your Fort Sumter remembrance ball on the 12th as I have a previous engagement.

  Cordially yours,

  Miss Louisa Gibbes

  I tucked the card into the photo album and closed it thoughtfully, recalling what Louisa had written about Joseph Longo: I can’t help but think that Mr. Longo isn’t finished with trying to prove himself right. Was this proof, then, that he had pursued her before she was married and hadn’t given up even after she married Robert? Was their disappearance on the same day, then, also proof that he had succeeded in finally winning her?

  I pushed the album off my lap and crawled into bed again, checking the four corners of the room before flipping off my bedside lamp. I lay awake for a long time, listening to the quarterly chime of the grandfather clock downstairs, and smelling again the unmistakable scent of roses. And when the clock chimed two o’clock, it finally occurred to me why the signature at the bottom of the deed for Magnolia Ridge seemed so familiar. It was Augustus P. Middleton’s signature, lawyer, Charlestonian, best friend of Robert Vanderhorst and, most important, my grandfather.

  I turned over and closed my eyes, sleepily reminding myself to tell Jack in the morning, then finally drifting to sleep before the clock struck again.

  CHAPTER 14

  I sat on my accustomed bench at White Point Gardens with a fast food hamburger in one hand and a set of closing papers in my other watching as children clambered over the scattered assortment of cannons. The Battery had always been my favorite Charleston spot, despite its reputation for being steeped in history and the throngs of tourists that congregate throughout the year in this place where the Ashley and Cooper rivers meet and where Fort Sumter can be seen far out in the harbor.

  “Fast food can kill you, you know.”

  I looked up at the familiar voice, shading the sun from my eyes with my hand. My dad, fresh-shaven and clear-eyed, wore a navy blue golf shirt and khaki pants with loafers and I couldn’t help but grin. “Is Jack dressing you these days, Dad?”

  He grinned back. “Well, he did take me shopping and gave me a few recommendations, is all. Why? Don’t you like the new look?”

  He turned for me with his hands held out from his sides like a model, as I admired the crisp pleat of his pants and the layered cut of his clean hair and felt an unreasonable stab of jealousy that he’d gone shopping with Jack instead of with me. I guess he’d known that Jack would pick up the phone when he called to ask, whereas I didn’t come with that kind of guarantee.

  “Looking good, Dad,” I said, meaning it. “What’s the big occasion?”

  He sat down on the bench next to me, his eyes somber as he regarded me closely. “It’s been three weeks now. Not a single drink.” He patted his pocket, and I saw his hands still shook a little. “Been chewing lots of gum, though. Jack said it helped him, so I thought I’d give it a try.”

  I nodded, then looked down at my paperwork, my eyes blurring. I didn’t want to feel the rush of excitement and hope. The crash hurt so much more when you allowed yourself to fly.

  He touched my arm, then quickly pulled his hand away. “I know you can’t get excited for me. I don’t blame you for that. But I wanted you to know.”

  I nodded again, not wanting to give voice to my hope. Instead, I turned to him and asked, “How did you find me?”

  “Your receptionist, Nancy. She wasn’t going to tell me where you were at first even after I told her I was your father.”

  “What made her crack?”

  “Well, she was standing there jostling golf tees in her pocket, so I figured she had to like golf.”

  “Yeah, you could say that. ‘Obsessed’ works, too.”

  He grinned and his eyes sparkled, something I hadn’t seen in a very long time. “So I told her I had a friend who knew a friend who knew Tiger Woods’s publicist and that I would try to get her an autograph.”

  “And she folded.”

  “Like a house of cards,” he said, grinning. He tapped his fingers on his leg as his grin faded. “Although I don’t think she would have given me what I was asking for if she didn’t think it was in your best interests. She just needed me to think that I didn’t have a chance and see what I would do. Kind of to prove myself, you know?”

  “And it’s a good thing you passed. She keeps a nine iron behind her desk in case any visitors get unruly.”

  “After meeting her, I can believe it.”

  I took my last bite of hamburger and offered him a french fry. After swallowing, I asked, “So what did you need to see me about that you couldn’t take care of with a phone call?”

  He looked at me with his old eyes—the eyes he’d once had when there
were three of us in our family, eyes that were clear and sparkled with a hidden joke. “I didn’t think you’d answer your phone. And I was pretty sure you wouldn’t run away from me in a public setting.”

  I rolled my eyes but didn’t say anything because he was right.

  He continued. “Nancy said you come here on most nice days to eat your lunch. It surprised me.”

  I crumpled up my empty hamburger wrapper. “Why? A lot of people eat lunch on the Battery.”

  He looked at me, a question in his eyes. “Because your mother used to take you here all the time. She loved telling you about the history of the place, and at one time you could name the families in every house on East Battery.” He leaned back, his thick hands, with gray hairs sprouting from the backs of them, on his thighs. “You used to laugh and laugh at the story about the fake Revolutionary War nine-pounder at the end of the path from Church Street. You’d tell the story to anybody who would listen and then practically fall over with laughter.”

  I looked down at my papers, remembering the story but not my mother’s involvement in it. And I wondered, briefly, how over the years I had managed to chisel my mother out of my personal history.

  I felt half of my mouth tilt up as I recalled the story of how the city government had removed an antique British cannon from Longitude Lane to be placed on the Battery, not anticipating the uproar by the residents at its removal. To placate them, a fake cannon was made—complete with pitting and an inscription to make it look authentic—and then “purchased” and offered to the irate residents of Longitude Lane. Being Charlestonians, they rejected it as not having been the original, and the fake cannon was donated to the city, placed on the opposite end of the Battery from the real cannon, its secret safe until someone tried to steal the real cannon. The authentic one was removed, leaving only the little impostor to fool all the tourists and those residents of Charleston too new to know the difference.

  “I’d forgotten about that,” I said, turning toward my father with a full grin. “Only in Charleston, you know?”

  He smiled back. “Yeah. That’s for sure.”

  We sat there smiling at each other until I realized what I was doing and looked away. “I need to get back to the office and make a few phone calls before I head back to the house.”

  I stood suddenly, dropping my pen. He leaned down to get it and handed it to me as he stood, too. “I guess I’ll see you at the house, then.”

  I nodded. “Yes, I guess you will.”

  He looked at me for a moment before saying, “You always call it ‘the house.’ Never ‘my house.’ ”

  “Well, it’s hardly mine, is it?” I asked, annoyed that he could be so perceptive. He’d been that way when I was a little girl, always knowing without me telling him if I were sad or lonely or just needed somebody to talk to. But that was a very long time ago when I used to need somebody to tell me how I was feeling.

  I brushed crumbs off of my skirt. “You never told me what you came here to tell me.”

  “Right.” He looked a little sheepish. “Well, I wanted to know why you hadn’t put me on the work sheet for the week.”

  I sat back down, stunned that it would be important enough to him to make him track me down to ask me why. “I guess because I figured you could help Jack wherever he needed help.”

  He sat down again, too, and I watched as a muscle jerked in my father’s cheek. “I’m sure you’ve already noticed, but Jack’s a grown man. He doesn’t need me to be dogging his steps and getting in the way. I need my own projects. Jack can make sure I show up and do a good job, but he doesn’t need to supervise me twenty-four-seven.”

  “Oh,” I said, no other words coming readily to my tongue. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. I just thought . . .” I swallowed, trying to recall exactly what it was I had been thinking. I certainly needed the help, and surely I was old enough that I didn’t have to punish a father who had ceased to be a factor in my life many years before. For an answer, I shrugged.

  He slapped his palms against his thighs. “Great. I’m glad we’re in agreement on this matter. I can be there at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. You can just leave my revised schedule on one of the porch rockers, and I’ll get it.”

  “Fine,” I said, trying to think back to the last time my father had voluntarily awoken before noon. And then I remembered something else: a memory of my father with a shovel in the backyard of another house, making holes for hydrangea bushes. It didn’t matter that we didn’t live there long enough to see them bloom. It mattered that I remembered and that he’d been sober and happy when he’d thought to plant bushes in front of our rental unit. “How about the garden? There are some rare rosebushes in the back behind the fountain. The rest of the yard is pretty much a weed fest. I’m afraid that if I pull weeds, I wouldn’t recognize the difference between what should stay and what should go.”

  His smile brightened, and I thought, He remembers, too, and I looked away so he couldn’t see my smile.

  “I’d like that,” he said gruffly. “I haven’t had a garden in a very long time.”

  “Good, it’s settled then.” I straightened the papers on my lap and stood.

  “Oh, one more thing.” He reached into his back pocket, pulled out a piece of paper, and handed it to me.

  I opened it and read a name and phone number. “What’s this?”

  “Sophie mentioned that there’s some wood rot on the mantelpiece in the upstairs drawing room, as well as on some of the cornices above the doors downstairs. One of my buddies owns an antiques salvage yard, and if he knows what you’re looking for, he can get it for you. He swears that he doesn’t do any of the demolitions, that he’s just there to give remnants from demolished houses a second life, but it would still be better if you didn’t mention it to Sophie. She gets real emotional when you talk about tearing down old houses.”

  “That she does,” I said as I tucked the piece of paper into my purse. “For such a smart person, she can be pretty stupid when it comes to old houses.”

  “Careful, Melanie. I hear it’s contagious.”

  I snorted. “Don’t worry. I’m immune.”

  He stared at me for a moment. “Sure, you are.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’d like to spend this afternoon researching Charleston gardens and yours in particular to give me an idea of what it should look like. If it’s all right with you, I’ll just see you tomorrow at the house.”

  “Fine,” I said, still wary. “See you tomorrow.”

  I watched as he walked away, disappearing into the clusters of tourists and school groups. Then I turned around and began to make my way back to the office, avoiding the little cannon that wasn’t what it seemed, and the memory of the mother who had once held my hand and told me stories that I remembered still.

  There were so many vehicles parked outside the house that I had to park my car two blocks away, meaning I was sweating and annoyed by the time I reached the house. As I opened the door to the piazza, I was horrified to see Marc Longo sitting on one of the porch rockers, his fingers tapping frantically into his BlackBerry. He smiled, then slid it into his jacket pocket as he stood.

  Thankfully ignoring my perspiring face and limp hair, he said, “You’re looking beautiful today as always, Melanie.” He took my hands and kissed me on both cheeks. I couldn’t keep myself from being grateful that Jack hadn’t been around to witness his actions, because I’m sure I wouldn’t stop hearing about them for weeks.

  “What a nice surprise,” I said. “But did I forget an appointment?”

  “Not at all.” He sent me a reproachful look. “I’m hoping that we’re good enough friends now that I wouldn’t need an appointment to see you again.”

  “No, of course not—it’s just, well, I know how busy you are, and I wasn’t expecting to see you so soon.”

  He took my hands in his again. “I know, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you since our dinner. Very distracting, you know.”

  I blushed u
nder the intensity of his gaze and tried to come up with a suave response that didn’t involve stammering or more blushing. I remained silent.

  He continued. “I also wanted to find out if you already had plans for this weekend. I have a house on Isle of Palms right on the beach, and I was wondering if you’d like to join me for a little end-of-the-week rest and relaxation.”

  I opened my mouth to respond, wanting to say yes and no at the same time, and confusing myself in the process. Here was an exceptionally handsome and successful man asking me to spend the weekend at his beach house, but there was also the fact that I had known him for less than a week. Despite my being thirty-nine in real time, my dating age was closer to thirteen.

  After watching my mouth move for several moments, Marc said, “Don’t worry. There are eight bedrooms and you’d have one all to yourself. I just wanted to spend more time with you without . . . distractions.” He jerked his head in the direction of the house, where hammering had begun somewhere inside.

  “That’s so nice of you to offer,” I finally managed. “I just don’t know if I can get away with all the work that’s going on in the house. . . .”

  The piazza door opened and Chad breezed in, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and cutoff jeans and carrying his yoga mat under one arm and General Lee, now sporting a red bandanna, under the other. “Hey, Melanie. What’s up?”

  He leaned the yoga mat against the front of the house, then stuck his hand out toward Marc. “Chad Arasi,” he said, introducing himself. “Are you one of the roofer dudes who’s supposed to come today? Sophie told me to be on the lookout for you in case you got here before she did.”

  “Hi, Chad,” I said, feeling Marc stiffen beside me. “Mr. Longo is another client of mine. And a friend,” I hastily added. “I haven’t seen the roofing people yet, but I’ll go talk to them when they get here.”