“That sounds delicious.” Berta looked at me. “Where’s Margo?”
I hesitated a second too long. “I don’t know. She was with us when we came back from the field trip. I was hoping she’d gone to talk with you.”
Donald had no compunction about keeping his mouth shut. “She met that Andrew boy in the woods. They were kissing like in the movies. He picked her up and swung her around until her shoes flew off.”
“Is this true?” Berta’s gaze bored into me.
I hated to rat Margo out, even though it was for her own good. I looked to Erin and then Annie for some help, but they both kept their gaze on the floor. “Yes. I told her you’d be upset. I don’t think she arranged to meet him.”
“No, he just happened to be wandering around our property and stumbled upon you.”
When she put it like that, I saw that Margo must have called Andrew before we set out. She’d planned the meeting, playing me for a fool. “I broke it up and told her she had to tell you.”
“Sometimes it’s best to let something like this go to the finish,” Cora said gently. “Margo is headstrong like most teens. If you forbid her from seeing this boy, she’ll only be more determined.”
While Berta might value Cora’s wisdom, she was angry at Margo. “I’m afraid my eldest daughter is going to have to learn the hard way that I mean for her to obey me.”
Cora sighed. “Girls are easier up until this age, then all hell breaks loose. I don’t envy you, Berta.” She put an arm around Annie. “Don’t you dare start any behavior like this.”
“Annie isn’t as reckless as Margo, and you can’t tell me Mimi gave you any trouble,” Berta said, trying to lighten the pall that had fallen over the room. “She’s the most sensible young woman I’ve ever met.”
“Yeah, that’s me. Sensible.” I hated it when I was made to sound like vanilla pudding. Old Mimi, reliable, responsible, always wanting to please. There was more to me than bland sludge. For one wild moment, I hoped Margo made a break for a life with Andrew.
“Oh, she had her moments.” Cora reached across the table and brushed a strand of hair from my face. “Every child has a hard time finding her path. Every one. The smart ones, like Mimi, don’t fall in the ditches but once or twice.”
“We shouldn’t talk about my past.” I stood up suddenly. Everyone in town knew about the fire that had killed my parents, but I didn’t want the Hendersons to think of that every time they saw me. I’d learned the hard way that tragedy could stick to a person like stink on a turd. I’d gone through school ignoring the whispers, the sympathy, the cruelty. Cora knew how sensitive I was.
“Everything worked out for the best.” Cora drained her coffee cup. “Margo will work it out the same way Mimi did.”
“Margo is a different kettle of fish,” Berta said. “But I thank you for your encouraging words. If she turns out half as lovely as Mimi, I’ll be a proud mother.”
“Don’t forget Mr. Petri,” Donald said to Cora. “We want to tape-record him. That would be fun. To do like a radio reporter asking questions. We can pretend we’re on WABB.”
“I’ll speak with him this week,” Cora promised. “I might come along, too. As long as I’ve lived in Coden, I’ve heard stories about the old days when Belle Fleur was a showcase and people came from miles around to see the gardens. I was always told that Belle Fleur was the original pattern for Bellingrath Gardens.”
She referred to a local home that had been turned into a tourist attraction offering a vibrant show of flowers year-round. The sixty-five-acre gardens and “Southern Renaissance” home had opened for public tours in 1934, long after Belle Fleur had fallen into disrepair. Bellingrath drew tourists from all over the world. But once, Belle Fleur and the Paradise Inn had been the queen attraction on the upper Gulf rim.
“We went to Bellingrath last spring,” Berta said. “Beautiful. I loved the butterfly garden.”
“You could do a similar garden here,” Cora reminded her. “The plants are in the ground—far more than sixty-five acres. There must be at least three hundred acres of formal gardens here at Belle Fleur. They’re just overgrown.”
“It would take hundreds of workers to reclaim.…” Berta looked out the window. “Is that Margo?”
I almost dreaded looking. I walked to the kitchen sink where I had a good view of the backyard swing. Margo leaned back and Andrew Cargill stood behind her and held her in his arms. He kissed her with a raw, wild passion that made me dry-swallow.
“I’ll go get her.” I started toward the back door, but Berta grabbed my arm.
“I’ll take care of this.”
I almost reminded her of Cora’s words of wisdom. Pushing Margo right now might not be smart. On the other hand, Margo was pushing Berta, which I knew for a fact was not intelligent.
“Margo! Get in the house!” Berta slammed the back door as she strode across the lawn. Annie, Erin, and Donald joined me at the window. “Andrew! Leave this property now and you are not invited back. If you come here again, I’ll have you arrested.”
“I told you to find her,” I said to Erin.
She shrugged. “I did. I told her to come inside. She told me to kiss off. Mama is gonna make her sorry for being so ugly.”
No doubt about that. But in the end, Margo’s rebellion was the least of our worries.
9
The excitement of Andrew Cargill and Margo’s defiance led to a supper fraught with tension between Margo and Berta. After I’d cleared the table and put the dishes away, I found the defaced book and put it on the hall table to take back to the library the next day. The other members of the family had gone to their respective rooms, and I had no interest in television. The conflict in the family was distressing.
That night as I played guitar on the balcony, it was Annie who came to my room. She slipped down the exterior stairs like a wraith. Surprised, I started to put the guitar down, but she stopped me.
“We like the same music,” she said. “I want to write songs.”
I strummed a few minor key chords. She’d just stepped on my secret ambition, one that I’d never voiced. In my most private fantasies, I was a famous songwriter. “Do you play the guitar?”
“No. It wasn’t allowed.”
“Allowed?” I put the guitar on the bed. “So you remember something.”
Annie turned to look out the window. “I remember there were rules. Lots of rules. No music, no dancing, no laughing.” She faced me and shrugged. “Is that a real memory or just the lack of memory? I can’t distinguish.”
“Why is your past such a secret, Annie? Did you do something wrong?”
If the question irritated her, she hid it well. “I don’t remember. I don’t think so. If I was punished, it’s gone from my brain. I just know the place I lived wasn’t like this house.” She looked around my room, taking in the books and a few stuffed animals I’d brought from Cora’s. “This is the best place in the world.”
I knew then she wasn’t leaving. Not ever. She’d come to stay, seeking the love that I also needed. We were both desperate for the bounty of Belle Fleur. “You’ll grow up and want your own life.”
“You’re grown, Mimi. And beautiful. But you don’t date. Margo can’t stand being away from boys for a minute, but you don’t seem to care at all.”
Cora had sometimes prodded me to date. I’d gone to movies or dinner, but never more than twice with the same young man. The spark of romantic love had failed to settle on me. The boys in Coden bored me. “If I knew someone worth dating, I’d date.”
“What if I flirted with Andrew Cargill?” Annie asked. “I could break them up. Men like me.”
“Margo would snatch your hair out.” I couldn’t help but smile at the thought. Annie had a point, though. When we were all in town together, men would do a double-take when Annie walked by. She was thin and gangly, but she had something men responded to.
“Berta would be happy if I broke them up.”
“And you would be dead
because Margo would kill you. You can’t interfere like that.”
“It was just a thought.” She went to my record collection and started to look through the albums. “I wish I could play and write like John Prine.” She held up his album, Diamond in the Rough. “He’s a genius.”
“You can borrow my guitar if you want.” I regretted it the moment I said it.
“I’d like that.” She touched my guitar, a fine old Gibson that I’d bought second-hand. The guitar deserved a more talented owner, but I enjoyed trying to play.
“Try it.” I showed her a few chords and helped her sing a verse of “Blowing in the Wind.” “Your voice is true.” She blushed at the praise.
Her fingers touched the strings. “I don’t ever want to leave here,” she said. “I don’t care who I used to be. Like you, I’m not part of the family, but we belong here. I don’t know how I know it, but my parents are dead. It had to be something awful or I’d remember. Cora said your parents are dead, too.”
I hated that Cora had shared my past with her. It felt like a violation. “I’ve forgotten the details.”
She perched on the edge of my bed. “You don’t remember anything?”
I didn’t, but I’d been told. It was better to deal with this head-on than have Annie asking Berta about my past. “There was a gas leak and when my dad started the car in the garage, the house blew up.”
“And you got away?”
Something in her tone made me look into her dark eyes. “I don’t know how. I don’t remember.” The only image of that night that I retained rose up behind my eyes. Flames danced from the windows of the small frame house. Inside someone was screaming. I dropped a curtain over the memory.
“I knew something bad happened in your life.” She touched the deep furrow between my brows. “When you worry, which is a lot, your have a mark here.”
“I try not to frown, but thanks for the beauty tip.” I stood up and put the guitar back in its case. This was too close to the bone, too personal. She had no right to stomp around in my private pain.
“Sometimes you can’t help what the past does to you.” Annie handed me the pick. “See you in the morning, Mimi.”
When she was gone I played a Beatles tune, “Yesterday.” I was only twenty-one, but I’d had sea shifts in my life. Cora was the only constant. Until the Hendersons. Like Annie, I never wanted to leave.
The gulls screamed across the water and marsh grass. They circled and spun, white wings outstretched and black markings nearly invisible as they blurred by. In the distance a shrimp boat trawled the rich Sound waters. Another covey of gulls circled the boat, swooping down for any debris. In the distance, their calls sounded like laughter.
“What type of gull is it, Donald?” I asked as I drove the station wagon along Shore Road. It was a beautiful August day. Too hot, really, but the wagon had air-conditioning and so the heat devils that shimmied on the asphalt were merely a distant bother.
“Those are laughing gulls. Black heads show maturity.” Donald loved birding as much as I did.
“Erin, are the birds herbivores?”
“Carnivores. They survive on small fish and crabs, the debris from the fishing vessels and what they can steal from other creatures or humans. Some gulls have been known to use tools.”
I nodded. “For example.”
“The larger white gulls have been filmed using bread to lure small fish to the surface so they can be caught.” She flopped around on the backseat. “It’s horrible. Something is always eating something else.”
Erin retained information better than any of the other children. She was also the most tenderhearted. A vegetarian, she ate seafood but no other life forms. Berta had resisted at first, but now Erin’s preferences were part of the family.
“Nature is cruel,” Annie said. “In this world, it’s eat or be eaten. It isn’t just animals, either. People are like that, too.”
“Spoken like the little parasite you are,” Margo, who was in the front seat, turned back to speak to Annie.
“You’re a stupid cow, Margo. Life doesn’t have to be awful.” Erin was only twelve, but she had strong feelings. “Mother says that love and compassion can change anyone.”
“You are such a goody two-shoes,” Margo reached back and pinched Erin’s leg.
Berta wouldn’t apply that to Andrew Cargill, but I kept my mouth shut and my comments to myself. Innocence was a privileged state, and I would allow Erin to stay there as long as she could. “Why don’t you guys grab an ice cream while I take these library books back and show them the damage? Margo, if you continue to torment your sister, I’ll have to tell Berta.”
“Oh, another black mark. What now? She’ll make me scrub floors? Like that’s ever going to happen.”
We parked at the library and Margo, Annie, and the children tumbled out of the car and headed down to Swenson’s Ice Cream shop. Coden had little to offer in the way of shopping. For clothes and such, we drove into Mobile. Beauchamps stocked the basic groceries, and Bobinger Hardware carried the essentials of home maintenance. Other than that, there was a bait shop, two restaurants, one beauty salon, and the ice cream shop, which was open only in the summer months.
It was with a sigh of relief that I stepped into the air-conditioned library. Quiet surrounded me. I put the books I was returning on the counter and then searched the stacks for other history books. Away from the bickering children, I lost myself in thoughts of the past, when the Paradise was up and running. Then there had been clubs and sailboats and a sense that life was opening up for Americans. Before the Paradise, there had been another hotel, the Rolston, which had been destroyed in a hurricane.
“May I help you, miss?”
The librarian was Cora’s age, a trim woman with steel-gray hair and a twin set the color of her hair. I walked back to the counter and got Chad Petri’s book and showed her the damage, which drew an exclamation of dismay. “This book is irreplaceable.”
“Surely Mr. Petri might have additional copies?” Or know how to get some. “He lives right around here.”
“I’m afraid not.” She ran a finger down the spine of the book as if she could heal it. “There was a fire last night and his garage burned to the ground. All of his extra books went with it. Everyone is so upset.”
“That’s terrible.” I was surprised. Fire was an event everyone in Coden learned about, yet I’d heard not a word. “Was anyone injured?”
The librarian shook her head. “It’s the strangest thing. He fell in his garage late last night and struck his head. When he came to, he was on the floor of the garage and flames were all around him.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that. Is he okay?”
She shook her head. “I’m afraid he isn’t.” She leaned closer. “He keeps insisting that someone pushed him down.”
“He’s my grandmother’s age, just a nice old man. We were going to interview him about his history book. Who would want to harm him?”
The librarian shrugged one shoulder slowly. “There wasn’t a sign anyone else was in the garage. They think the trauma has unsettled his thinking.” She leaned closer. “Don’t talk this because of the insurance and all, but Mitch Lowell, the fire chief, thinks Mr. Chad was in the garage smoking. Somehow he knocked over the gas can for the lawnmower. Mitch thinks Chad is just confused about the sequence of events.”
“When was the fire?”
“After midnight. It was on the news this morning. WKRG sent a camera crew, and the Mobile Register sent a photographer. Mr. Chad gave an interview to the TV reporter, which I think his son should have stopped. Poor old thing looked senile. He was so upset about the books burning. Said he’d paid to print them out of his own pocket and now it was all gone.”
“Thanks.” I left the library though I’d intended to check out additional history books. I wanted to talk to my grandmother, but she would be in Mobile, at the office, or possibly en route to a client’s home. It would have to wait until tonight, after dinner. For now, I
wanted to round up the children and head back to Belle Fleur.
10
It was my turn to cook, and my grilled chicken salad was uninspired and limp, but we struggled through the meal. Berta cast glances at me but said nothing. Chad Petri and the fire occupied my brain. I’d driven by the Petri property on the way home from town. The fire marshal from Mobile was there, as well as some federal officers. Coden seldom attracted attention from Mobile’s authority figures. We were a backwater, a poor fishing community, and as such we were left to our own devices when it came to the rare criminal act. A sheriff’s sub-station, with office space for three deputies, had been added in Grand Bay to keep an eye on the Unification Church. Mark Walton, a Coden native, and a couple of other young officers rolled through south Mobile County to “maintain a presence” and keep Rev. Moon aware his “religious” endeavors were being watched.
Other than fistfights and public drunks, there was little crime in Coden. The minor burglars and drunk drivers were arrested and sent to Mobile for trial or punishment.
“Mimi, it’s a shame about Mr. Petri and his books,” Berta said. “Have you talked to Cora about it?”
“Not yet. After supper I’ll drive over and find out what she knows.”
“Good plan. Bob is going to take Annie for a night drive. Leave the station wagon and take the convertible, okay?”
I loved driving her car. “Sure.”
Margo slammed her napkin into her salad bowl. “I’m not allowed to drive, but you’re giving Annie a lesson?”
Berta pushed her bowl away. “You’re not allowed to drive, Margo, because you’ve shown you don’t have good judgment. When you start to act mature, you’ll regain your driving privileges. And they are privileges, they are not a birthright.”
“You think you can punish me into obedience, but it isn’t going to work. You’ve jammed Mimi down my throat and now Annie. There’s just no room for me here anymore.” She stood up. “I hate all of you.” She picked up her salad bowl and hurled it against the barn-red wall of the kitchen, then fled the room. A large smear of Thousand Island dressing slid down the wall.
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