Hidden Riches

by Felicia Mason

  Lester better be back with Ana Mae’s car when they returned to the house.

  Delcine dropped off Clayton at the bed-and-breakfast inn. They didn’t make plans to meet up for dinner or breakfast. Everyone was in a reflective mood after the phone call with David Bell and the brief meeting with Everett Rollings.

  The stakes had gotten higher, much higher.

  Their initial curiosity about Ana Mae’s alleged son had turned into something else. Each Futrell now had a lot more to lose.

  “I’ll call you later,” JoJo told Clayton, as she reluctantly got in the front seat and powered down the window.

  He closed the door. “Okay, sis. I’ll see you guys later.”

  Delcine pulled away before Clayton even cleared the curb.

  “Why did you check out of your hotel?” JoJo asked. “I thought you didn’t want to stay at the house.”

  “I changed my mind,” was all Delcine would say.

  “Where do you want to sleep?”

  Delcine glanced at her. “I’ll stay in our old room.”

  “That’s where Lester and I have been,” JoJo said.

  “You two have been sleeping in bunk beds? Why? There’s a perfectly good double bed in Ana Mae’s room.”

  JoJo shrugged. “I don’t know. It felt weird, you know. It just didn’t seem right for anyone to be in her bed. You know, like she was still there.”

  Delcine snorted. “Ana Mae is six feet under over at Antioch Cemetery. She is not haunting her house.”

  “I didn’t say she was haunting it. It just,” JoJo shrugged again, “it just didn’t seem right.”

  “Hmmph,” Delcine said. “Ana Mae may not have cared about living in a fancy house, but she sure had top-of-the-line tastes when it came to her bedding. She slept well.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Didn’t you notice her sheets? They are eight-hundred thread count Egyptian cotton. And not just the ones on the bed; all of her linen is top notch. And that bed, oh, my God. It’s the same brand Winslow and I have. Believe you me, those do not come cheap in any size. Ours is a king, of course, but it doesn’t matter. Best sleep ever. I’ll gladly stay in her room.”

  JoJo didn’t know anything about fine linen. The sheets on the bed in their trailer back home had come from Kmart about five years ago. Leave it to Delcine to be noticing sheet thread counts.

  That was okay, though. When JoJo collected the millions, she’d get herself a new mattress and some Egyptian sheets too.

  What JoJo didn’t know and what Delcine had no intention of sharing was that the bedding she bragged about, as well as all of the furniture in their big house in upscale Prince George’s County, was days away from being repossessed, right along with the house, which was days away from being foreclosed on.

  Winslow hadn’t, as she’d told her siblings, high-tailed it back home to check on their children, who were old enough to be home alone for a few days. They were just fine, considering.

  While they’d had a big fight, he’d also left to try to get as much stuff as possible out of the house and into a storage unit before the bank padlocked the house or the police came to arrest him. He was also going to tell the kids what was happening. They had managed until now to keep the worst of it from Cedric and Latrice, although as Winslow said, Marguerite suspected the kids already knew more than they let on.

  How could they not, with bill collectors calling all hours of the day and night, threatening letters from law firms overflowing the mailbox, and parents arguing behind closed doors?

  Plus, all of the stories in the Washington Post and other media about corruption in their father’s division at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development couldn’t have escaped them, especially Latrice, who had already asked “What’s going on with Daddy’s job?”

  Daddy screwed himself and them, Delcine had wanted to tell her daughter. But she’d kept that to herself and spent her own lunch hour that day trying to find someplace for them to live other than a homeless shelter. But she had little cash and their credit cards were at or near the max, and finding a house to rent in the Washington metro area had not proven an easy task.

  The news that Ana Mae had left a significant estate buoyed their hope that they could salvage their financial situation. But it was taking far longer than either of them anticipated for Ana Mae’s money to get cleared.

  Marguerite loathed the idea of staying at Ana Mae’s house, but she could not afford another night at a hotel. She and Winslow couldn’t afford the four nights they had already put on an American Express Platinum card, a card that would go into default when they failed to pay off their hefty balance at the end of the month.

  She glanced at her sister. If Clayton hadn’t insisted she be let back in the hunt, Ana Mae’s money would have been split only two ways instead of three.

  Clayton and Archer didn’t need the money. With two hefty professional salaries, two million-dollar homes, and Lord only knew how much stashed away—Clayton had been tight with a dollar even when they were kids—Ana Mae’s money would for them be cash for investing in property that would bring in rental income or donating to one of their gay causes. Delcine needed the money to keep a roof over her head and to feed her kids.

  And right now, the only way she could see to do that was to beat out her brother and sister in claiming Ana Mae’s legacy.

  Their mama, God rest her soul, always preached that what one had they all had. But that thinking, Delcine now knew, was nothing less than shortsighted and designed to keep them all in poverty.

  She’d escaped from Drapersville, North Carolina, once before and had no intention of ever, ever finding herself trapped in it or any place like it ever again. So she would do exactly what she needed to do to secure her future.

  Just as soon as she dropped off JoJo at the house, Delcine planned to head out to see that Fisher boy one more time. She had an offer that would appeal both to his inventor’s heart and to her negative-balance bank accounts.

  “Are you having a good visit to Drapersville and Ahoskie?”

  The deep male voice came from the right. Clayton paused near the reception desk at the bed-and-breakfast.

  An elderly man who looked vaguely familiar sat in the Queen Anne wing chair closest to the arched entrance of the parlor. His blue-and-brown-striped sweater vest seemed a bit much for the heat, but the ensemble, which included a cream-colored shirt, brown slacks, and tasseled loafers, suited him. He had the air of a professor at an Ivy League university.

  “Not particularly,” Clayton said.

  “That’s unfortunate,” the man said. “If I recall correctly, you had a rough time here years ago. I had hoped things would be better for you now.”

  Clayton cocked his head, considering the man. Then he crossed the lobby area and approached the stranger.

  “Have we met?”

  The man placed a hardback book on a side table and rose. “It’s been many years,” he said, extending his hand. “Ambrose Peterson. I was a guidance counselor at . . .”

  “The high school,” Clayton finished.

  He clasped the man’s hand and pumped it. “Yes, I do remember you. Hello, Mr. Peterson. Oh, my goodness. It’s been years. I thought you looked familiar. I’ve been away so long I wasn’t sure. Are you here at the inn visiting Mrs. March?”

  Mr. Peterson shook his head. “No, no. I’m a guest at this lovely establishment. I retired and moved farther south. Join me for coffee?”

  Mr. Peterson indicated the coffee and tea service on a mahogany sideboard.

  Clayton hesitated, and glanced at his watch. “Well, I . . .”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. You probably have plans for the evening.”

  It took Clayton less than a moment to make up his mind. A cup of coffee with someone from his Drapersville, North Carolina, past who didn’t evoke anger or bitterness was a rare treat.

  “Mr. Peterson, I’d love to chat with you. How have you been?”

  Clayton went to the sideboar
d and poured two cups of coffee from the carafe. “Cream? Sugar?”

  “No, thank you,” Mr. Peterson said. “Just black.”

  Clayton added two teaspoons of sugar and a touch of half-and-half to his own cup, then balanced cups and saucers as he went to the matching chair. He placed both his own and his old guidance counselor’s coffee on the side table, then returned to the sideboard for napkins and a few of the homemade cookies baked fresh each morning by Mrs. March.

  When the two men were comfortably settled and had sipped on their coffee, Mr. Peterson asked, “So, what brought you home to North Carolina?”

  Clayton looked startled for a moment. The town was so small and the newspaper story about Ana Mae’s legacy so prominent, he would have thought everyone knew.

  “My older sister, Ana Mae, she died August seventh.”

  Mr. Peterson’s cup clattered on its saucer. Clayton reached for it to right it before the hot liquid spilled.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss, Clayton,” the older man said. “I didn’t know.”

  “It’s okay. And thank you, Mr. Peterson. The funeral was last Wednesday. We, my other two sisters and I, we’re still here wrapping up some family things.”

  Mr. Peterson nodded, then he sighed and reached for his coffee cup. “Yes, there is a lot to do following the death of a loved one.” He brought the cup to his mouth.

  But something in his voice caught Clayton’s attention. Maybe it was knowing the sadness of losing someone close. Clayton’s loss seemed to be almost personal for him.

  That’s when the memories came rushing back. The social outcast gay teen he’d been in high school had always found a few moments of refuge and peace in the study room off the guidance counseling center’s office. It was Mr. Peterson who always encouraged him to spend as much time as he needed in there. Although officially called a study room, the space was more lounge than study hall. The hard desks and chairs that furnished the high school’s other study rooms were absent, replaced by a crate-style sofa, chairs, and a coffee table piled high with college catalogs, military recruitment brochures, and study-abroad pamphlets.

  Clayton had spent many an hour in that room crying, hiding, wishing he were dead.

  It clicked then.

  All of the small kindnesses, the empathy.

  “You’re gay,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  Mr. Peterson smiled. “Don’t tell me you’re just now figuring that out.”

  Clayton’s mouth dropped open, but he quickly recovered. “I . . . you know, I guess part of me always knew, but I didn’t know. You were kind to me.”

  “The world is not always a pleasant place for homosexuals,” Mr. Peterson said. “And a small Southern town can be especially brutal for a young person just coming into his or her sexuality, especially if it’s outside society’s accepted norm.”

  Something, a forgotten memory, nagged at Clayton.

  “You knew? About me?”

  Mr. Peterson nodded. “Probably before you did,” he said. “I tried, to the best of my ability, to look after my little birds. There were several of you throughout the years. But you, you seemed to struggle the most.”

  The nagging memory came back to Clayton.

  “But I thought you and Miss Hughes, the librarian . . .” Clayton’s voice trailed off.

  Mr. Peterson and Miss Hughes were known to be the school’s longtime sweethearts. They were even seen out and about on dates in Ahoskie.

  Clayton closed his eyes, the reality settling in. Miss Hughes, the pretty and soft-spoken librarian was what . . . Mr. Peterson’s beard? It didn’t seem to fit.

  “Did you figure it out yet?” Mr. Peterson asked gently.

  Just as when Clayton was a teen, the guidance counselor guided rather than directed. Then he knew. It did fit. The high school’s faculty and staff members would have as much, if not more reason to hide behind shields. Their jobs and livelihoods were at stake.

  “She was gay too?”

  Nodding, Mr. Peterson confirmed. “My best lesbian friend. She still is and will be delighted to know I’ve run into you.”

  “Tell her I said hello,” Clayton said, then shook his head as if trying to grasp the idea of not one, but two of his high school mentors being homosexual right under everyone’s noses. “Why didn’t I see this?”

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself, young man. Most teenagers are so self-absorbed or wrapped up in their own, their families’, and their friends’ personal dramas that they rarely have time to analyze what’s going on in the lives of adults who are not their parents. And that is a fact more true today than it was when you were coming along.”

  “Thank you.”

  Mr. Peterson sipped from his coffee cup. “For what?”

  “For being a positive influence even though I didn’t consciously realize it.”

  The statement apparently pleased the former guidance counselor, because his smile grew broad.

  “So how did things turn out for you?”

  It was Clayton’s turn to sport a wide grin. “It got better,” he said. “Much, much better.”

  They spent the next twenty minutes chit-chatting about this and that. Clayton bragged on Archer, and Mr. Peterson congratulated him on his longtime partnership.

  Mr. Peterson, who had long since retired to Florida, had traveled to Raleigh for a reunion of high school guidance counselors. He was so close to his old school that he’d decided to make a little side trip to Drapersville to see the old neighborhood.

  The conversation made Clayton reassess the entirety of his teen years. Were things really as bad as he remembered?

  “Hell, yes,” he said out loud.

  But he had both Ana Mae and Mr. Peterson running a sort of interference for him, roles he hadn’t even recognized then.

  What else may have been right under his nose all along without him realizing?

  That question remained with him as he entered the suite upstairs.

  Archer wasn’t back yet from his shopping, but he’d clearly been hard at work for a while. His laptop was open, and several files were spread out on the desk.

  His mind still on what Mr. Peterson said today—and what he hadn’t said but what he had done all those years ago—Clayton pulled out the booklet featuring the quilt blocks from Ana Mae’s legacy quilt. The lesson from Mr. Peterson was that everything isn’t necessarily as it seems at first glance. Look deeper and you’ll find new interpretations to old realities.

  You don’t have to buy into the interpretations you were taught as a child.

  The quote, one that had stayed with him from a long-ago sermon he’d heard at a Metropolitan Community Church, finally made sense. And maybe it applied to Ana Mae’s quilt as well. Maybe the interpretation of the quilt was as simple as it seemed. The blocks were about his sister’s life. What else was she trying to tell him?

  He opened the booklet to look at the individual images. His sister wanted him to know about her life. Clayton decided it was time he got to know more about Ana Mae.

  16

  Reading the Tea Leaves

  It was Archer, not Clayton, who figured out the block on Ana Mae’s quilt that featured the teapot and teacup.

  Because he didn’t trust anyone except the owner of his favorite tea shop in San Francisco to blend tea properly, Archer had packed enough in a tin to last a good week. So far, he had managed to refrain from bringing his own leaves and infuser into the dining room at the bed-and-breakfast.

  This morning, they and another couple were enjoying the last moments of a sumptuously prepared breakfast in the inn’s dining room.

  The tea the innkeeper brewed wasn’t bad, but his refined palette knew the subtle differences. As he watched her place a pot on the table before them, the tea cozy made from the same quilted fabric as a table runner along the sideboard, it dawned on him.

  “Clay?”

  “Hmm.”

  Clayton, absorbed in the booklet featuring the close-up and detail images from The Leg
acy of Ana Mae Futrell, did not even look up.

  “Can I get you anything else, Mr. Archer?”

  He found it amusing that the innkeeper Nan March either had apparently given up on trying to pronounce the Dahlgren part of his hyphenated last name or just thought referring to two men as Mr. Futrell more than she could handle.

  “As a matter of fact, Mrs. March, there is.”

  He reached for the teapot, loosened the cozy, and held it up. “Where do you get the tea you brew? I’m something of a connoisseur, and I have especially enjoyed this breakfast blend.”

  She beamed. “I’m so glad you like it. Most of our guests are coffee people, so it is always a special delight to find someone who appreciates a nice cup of tea made the right way.”

  Clayton glanced up at all of the sudden chatter. “When he says he’s a tea connoisseur, he really means a tea snob. You’d think the man owned stock in the tea shop near our house. He’s always there for tastings and parties and is forever bringing home teapots of every shape and size.”

  “Really?” Mrs. March said. “Then you must stop by the Carolina Tea Company before you leave. It’s where I get the tea you like,” she said, nodding toward the pot Archer now poured from.

  “Where is it?” Archer asked.

  “Not terribly far, although some people think I’m crazy to drive way over there just for some tea. Carolina’s place is just about thirty minutes from here. She has the most darling little tea parties for girls.”

  Nan March suddenly blushed, as if she’d inadvertently made a gay slur against her debonair guests.

  “I adore tea parties,” Archer said, his voice a little higher and lispier than usual.

  Looking relieved, Mrs. March beamed again. “I can get the address and number for you and print off some MapQuest directions if you’d like to visit. Carolina loves to meet people who are as passionate about tea as she is.”

  “Carolina is a person, I take it?”

  The innkeeper nodded. “Her parents were apparently infatuated with state names. She’s Carolina, she has a sister named Georgia, and I think there’s a brother named Arizona or Utah or something strange like that. She told me all about their names when I asked how she’d come up with the name of the tea shop. You know, living in North Carolina, it’s just perfect.”