by Cathy Holton
Later that afternoon, he called. He had cut short his tour of the Midwest and was home waiting for her. He had taken to calling her daily, as if the ha rassment alone might be enough to make her jump on a plane and head back to the Big Easy.
“I'm making Cosmopolitans just the way you like them,” he said, when she picked up the phone. “On the veranda. It's a beautiful day. The sun is slanting through the ironwork making lacy patterns on the old bricks. The banana plants are swaying in the breeze. It smells like New Orleans.”
“Like mud flats and jasmine? Like garbage and gardenias?”
“That's right.”
“Goddamn, I miss it.”
“So come home.”
“I can't just leave in the middle,” Eadie said. “I've got to finish what I started.”
Trevor sighed. Eadie wiped her hands on a rag and went outside into the yard. It was sunny here, too, and the air was cool and dry. Not like New Orleans, though. Not soft and balmy and sweet with decay.
“I thought you had finished helping Nita. I thought your job there was done.”
“It is,” she said. “Almost. I have to finish what I'm working on and get the canvases up to that gallery in Atlanta.”
“I talked to Grace yesterday. I invited her to come up and spend some time with us in New Orleans. I told her I had a lock of my father's hair that I'd be happy to have DNA tested if she so desired.”
“You're a good brother.”
“I'm a good husband, too.” When she didn't say anything, he chuckled and said, “So, I've been looking at some of the pictures I took with my digital camera last Christmas.”
“How'd they come out?”
“Odd.”
“What do you mean odd?”
“There's one of you in the bedroom. You're sitting on the edge of the bed. It looks like you've been napping and you've just woken up.”
“Oh shit. Destroy that one.”
“And here's the odd thing,” Trevor said. “There's this light just beyond your right shoulder.”
“Maybe it's a reflection off the window.”
“I thought of that. It shows up on several of the shots and then gets darker. But when I checked the shots immediately before and immediately after, it's gone. It's like it appears on one frame, gets larger, gets darker, and then disappears.”
“What does it look like?”
“A head. The shadow of a head.”
“A small head, right?”
“Yes. A small head. And small shoulders. And a small body.”
“Like a child?”
“Yes.”
“I told you I wasn't crazy,” Eadie said. There was a drumming sound in her head, slow and steady as a heartbeat.
“The thing is, now I'm kind of spooked. I'm kind of scared staying in this big house all by myself.”
“Now you know how I felt.”
He chuckled and said, “Promise me you'll be home for Christmas.”
“I can't make any promises about the future. I'm living one day at a time.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“No it doesn't.”
“But you're coming home?”
“Yes.”
“I need you here. All I have for company is a group of fawning flatterers.”
She laughed. “You must be in heaven then.”
“I'm lonely in this big old house all by myself.”
“You're not by yourself. There's a ghost.”
“Thanks for reminding me.”
“I'll send you a Ouija board so you'll have someone to talk to.”
He was laughing when she hung up. Smiling, she went back to work.
TWO WEEKS BEFORE CHRISTMAS AND SEVERAL DAYS BEFORE Eadie was scheduled to return to New Orleans, Lavonne had a going-away party. It was a small affair, just Lavonne, Nita, Grace, and Eadie. They sat out on the deck under a leaden sky, watching the neighbor's colored Christmas lights twinkle merrily. It had rained all day, a slow, steady drizzle that stopped just as evening fell.
“Three days from now I'll be home,” Eadie said, looking around the table. Clouds of fog rolled in under the lights. “What are y'all gonna do for fun once I'm gone?”
“Give my liver a vacation,” Lavonne said.
“Count the days until you come back,” Nita said.
“Plan a trip to the Big Easy,” Grace said.
“Y'all should do that. Come up and see me in New Orleans. We could get into all kinds of trouble and I know the police commissioner so it's nothing that would show up on our permanent records.”
Lavonne chuckled and shook her head. “Speaking of trouble, do you want me to mix up a shaker of Cosmopolitans?” Nita and Grace shook their heads.
“No, thanks,” Eadie said. “I think I'll lay off the hard stuff for a while. I feel a health binge coming on.”
“Sweet tea it is, then.” Lavonne went into the kitchen. She came out a few minutes later carrying a pitcher of tea and a tray of baked brie and crackers.
“Did Trevor call me on the house phone?” Eadie said to Lavonne. “I've been trying to reach him all day.”
“No. I checked messages when I came in from work.”
Nita said, “How long's it been since you saw him?”
“Three and a half weeks. That's the longest we've ever been apart, except for the two trial separations.” Eadie poured herself a glass of tea and then sat back in her chair. “He thinks I'm coming in next week. He doesn't know I'm coming home early. I thought I'd surprise him.”
“Better warn the neighbors,” Lavonne said.
“Very funny.”
“Are you blushing?” Nita said, giggling. “I don't think I've ever seen you blush, Eadie.”
“Speaking of blushing, how's that recommitting to virginity thing working out for you and Jimmy Lee?”
Nita took a long, slow sip of tea and then set her glass down on the table. “It was a pretty stupid idea anyway,” she said.
“Yeah, that's what we thought.”
Grace cut a thick wedge of brie and spread it on top of a cracker. “So what's the deal with Charles?” she said to Nita. “I hear he's leaving town.”
“He's moving to Atlanta. He was offered a job working for Coca-Cola back when Boone and Broadwell folded, and now he's decided to take it.”
“I'm not surprised,” Lavonne said, “after that blowout at his mother's house. I mean, how much humiliation can one guy take?”
“Don't tell me you feel sorry for that asshole,” Eadie said. “He's only getting what he deserves.”
Grace said, “Hey, that's my half-brother you're talking about.”
No one knew what to say to this. They hadn't asked Grace about her relationship with the Broadwells. They figured she needed time to come to terms with it before speaking about it openly.
“And don't tell me he wasn't in on Virginia's little kidnapping and land fraud scheme from the beginning,” Eadie said.
Nita shrugged. “Maybe,” she said. She didn't care about any of that now. She was happy and that was all that mattered.
Lavonne poured everyone some more tea. She leaned back in her chair and looked at Nita. “So how're things with you and Virginia?”
Nita helped herself to the brie. “She dropped the custody suit, of course. I've agreed to let Whitney see her, but only if I'm present. She and Redmon are coming for Christmas dinner. I believe in letting bygones be bygones. Up to a point.”
“You're a hell of a lot more forgiving than I am,” Eadie said. “I know she's turned over a new leaf and everything but I still wouldn't let her within ten feet of my child.”
“I thought you admired Virginia,” Lavonne said.
“Yeah, well, admiring her from a distance and welcoming her into the bosom of my family are two very different things. You might admire a grizzly bear in the zoo but that doesn't mean you'd bring it home for tea and cookies.”
“She's trying hard to change,” Grace said. They all looked at her. “I talked to her a few days ago. She'
s agreed to counseling. We think it might be the best way to rebuild our relationship.”
“Damn,” Lavonne said.
“Good luck with that,” Eadie said.
“I think that's sweet,” Nita said.
The sky darkened into evening. A damp mist hung over the yard. Lavonne got up to light some candles.
“Just tell me one thing,” Eadie said to Grace. “When did you find out about Virginia being your mother? And how?”
Grace shrugged and looked at her hands. “I'm an investigative journalist,” she said. “It wasn't all that hard. I knew I'd been adopted. My parents never tried to hide that from me, and for a long time it just wasn't important. But when I turned forty-eight, I started thinking about it. All the time. I wanted to know who my real parents were and I wanted to know why they gave me up. My parents told me everything they knew and I kind of worked backward from there.”
“So you've known for a couple of years?”
“No. I found out the truth a few weeks before Nita's wedding. It was a shock, I can tell you. It took me a while to assimilate. Everyone knows Virginia and I never got along too well. And I had no idea about Hampton Boone until the day of Virginia's pre-Thanksgiving throw-down.” She looked at Eadie and grinned. “That was a complete shock.”
Lavonne patted her on the shoulder. “Well, you seem to be handling it all pretty well,” she said.
“I'm adjusting,” Grace said. “Virginia's asked me to come over next week when they air the Gracious Southern Living holiday segment. She says she needs me there for moral support.”
“Does she have any idea what exactly it is they're going to air?”
Grace shook her head. “She has no clue,” she said.
Eadie snorted. “Well, it might be interesting. You know that producer, Carlin, called me to talk about filming a segment on next year's Kudzu Ball. She thought it might be just the kind of thing their viewers want to see.”
“Hell,” Lavonne said. “Maybe we should pitch it to the networks as a new reality series.”
Nita giggled and put her hand over her mouth. Eadie looked at Lavonne and grinned. Grace chewed a cracker and gazed at the twinkling Christmas lights, still thinking about her newfound mother.
“I mean, I'm not saying Virginia and I are ever going to be close,” she said. “There's no telling what kind of relationship we'll be able to forge through counseling. My feeling is, if we can get to the point where we can sit in a room without physically assaulting one another, that's a good thing.”
“I think that's the best you can hope for with Virginia,” Eadie said.
“You have to take love where you can find it,” Nita said, smiling and looking around the table. “It's not always pretty.”
There was a scent of wood smoke in the air, rolling in with the fog. The lights of the neighborhood houses glowed cheerily. Distantly, the strains of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” wafted on the cool damp air.
“Speaking of love,” Eadie said to Lavonne. “Have you decided whether or not to run away to the south of France with Joe?”
Lavonne sighed and looked at the Christmas lights. “I don't know,” she said. “We're such good friends and I'm kind of scared to ruin that. What if we hate each other after living together a month? What if it turns into a relationship like the one I had with Leonard?”
“You've got to get back in there, Lavonne. You can't be afraid of what might happen. You have to go for it.”
“Well, I know I can't stay for six months. Not with my business and the girls coming home for summer break.”
“If you're over there long enough, you'll learn to speak French.”
“Hey, will you teach me how to curse in French?” Eadie said. “I've always wanted to do that.”
There was a sudden thunderous knocking on the front door. They all jumped and looked at one another. Eadie frowned. “Joe?” she said.
Lavonne shook her head, rising. “He's still in Chicago.”
“Maybe it's Christmas carolers,” Nita said.
“If it is, send them back here,” Grace said.
They waited, listening for Lavonne's footsteps as she crossed the kitchen and into the front room. She opened the door and a deep, masculine voice said, “Evening, ma'am. I'm Officer Tater Hogburn. We've had a complaint about a disturbance coming from this residence, something about some vodka-crazed women and a troupe of high-flying circus midgets.”
It was Trevor doing his best redneck accent.
“Well, good evening Officer Hogburn, come on in. The midgets were just leaving.” Lavonne grinned and stepped back so he could enter. “Eadie, get your clothes on,” she said, swinging her head over her shoulder. “You've got a visitor.”
But she was too late. Eadie had already jumped up and was running for the door.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank my editors, Charlotte Herscher and Dan Mallory.
Thanks also to my agent, Kristin Lindstrom, for her tireless work ethic and unceasing good humor.
About the author
Cathy Holton, the author of Revenge of the Kudzu Debutantes, was born in Lakeland, Florida, and grew up in college towns in the South and the Midwest. She attended Oklahoma State University and Michigan State University and worked for a number of years in Atlanta before settling in the mountains of Tennessee with her husband and their three children.
About the type
This book was set in Caledonia, a typeface designed in 1939 by William Addison Dwiggins for the Merganthaler Linotype Company. Its name is the ancient Roman term for Scotland, because the face was intended to have a Scotch-Roman flavor. Caledonia is considered to be a well-proportioned, business-like face with little contrast between its thick and thin lines.
The Secret Lives of the Kudzu Debutantes is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,
locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2007 by Cathy Holton
All rights reserved.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Holton, Cathy.
The secret lives of the kudzu debutantes / Cathy Holton.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-49066-7
1. Women—Southern States—Fiction. 2. Southern States—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3608.0494434S43 2007
813′.6—dc22 2007005891
www.ballantinebooks.com
v3.0
Table of Contents
Cover
Other Books By This Author
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter - 1
Chapter - 2
Chapter - 3
Chapter - 4
Chapter - 5
Chapter - 6
Chapter - 7
Chapter - 8
Chapter - 9
Chapter - 10
Chapter - 11
Chapter - 12
Chapter - 13
Chapter - 14
Chapter - 15
Chapter - 16
Chapter - 17
Chapter - 18
Chapter - 19
Chapter - 20
Chapter - 21
Chapter - 22
Chapter - 23
Chapter - 24
Acknowledgments
About the author
About the type
Copyright
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