Dark Series, The Color of Seven and The Color of Dusk (Books We Love Special Edition)

by Gail Roughton

  Ria caught the glint of metal on his finger. His wedding ring finger. She put down the potato chip in her hand and stood up, calling herself a first-class idiot, letting herself get picked up by a married man in a bookstore just because he looked and sounded like her Paul.

  “Thank you for the book, Mr. Everett. And for dinner.”

  “But you haven’t finished! What—”

  “And do be sure to give my regards to your wife. I hope she knows what a charming husband she has.”

  He glanced down at his hand.

  “Oh, hell! Look, please sit down. My wife died several years ago. I’ve just never met anyone who ever gave me a reason to want to take her ring off.”

  Ria searched his face. Her radar wasn’t usually wrong but it wasn’t infallible either.

  “That’s a really shitty thing to say if it isn’t true,” Ria said, still standing.

  “The pits. Lowest of the low. But it’s true.”

  Ria sat back down. “Then I’m sorry. I overreacted.”

  “You believe me?”

  “Yes.” She sighed. “Does that prove I’m a gullible fool?”

  “It proves you’re a remarkable judge of character. Though of course, I’m sure—”

  “That’s what Jack the Ripper would say, too.”

  “Exactly,” he said, and laughed.

  “What newspaper do you work for that I’ve never heard of?”

  “Mobile Reporter.”

  “Alabama boy.”

  “Guilty.”

  “What’s your book about? Or do you talk about it? Mobile’s full of history. Just as Southern as Macon, too, and a port city to boot. Why not stay there?”

  “Too much chance of gettin’ accused of airing other folks’ dirty laundry. You know how people are, they’d swear and be damned I was malignin’ family history. It’s sort of an overlay of the past on the present. Or the present over the past. That type of thing. I’m researching Macon in the late 1800s right now.”

  “Our house was built then.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, 1883 I think was the date of the first deed.”

  “I’m sure it’s beautiful.”

  “It is now. Looked like hell when we started.”

  “Macon’s a great setting for that type of plot, you know. It’s taken good care of so many of the older houses. And so much of downtown—some of the buildings still have the same use, did you know?”

  “I know in general, but not really in specifics. Are you getting that deep with your research?”

  “Oh, yes. I found some old maps. A lot of the old stores and government buildings, the firehouses. The churches, of course, the older residential sections. Those old downtown buildings—if they could only talk!”

  Ria laughed. She wondered what he’d say if he knew hers did talk. Or at least it did to her.

  “What?”

  “Oh, just thinking.”

  “About?”

  “That you should show me instead of tell me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Show me. Your Macon. The Macon of your book.” She stood up. “You through eatin’? Then let’s ride downtown. Show me what it used to be.”

  He stared. “This is probably cutting my own throat, but you did just meet me, you know.”

  “I had dinner with you.”

  “In the mall. In a crowd.”

  Ria shrugged. “You told me you were perfectly safe.” She’d lost her mind, no doubt about it. But she’d eaten dinner with Paul Devlin’s double. A double who claimed to know all about Paul Devlin’s Macon.

  “Well, to tell the truth, I left my car up at the Auto Service Center for an oil change, thought I’d stroll the mall and get some errands out of the way, told them just to leave it out front when they closed.”

  “My car’s sitting right in the parking lot. I’ll bring you back.”

  He hesitated. Then he stood suddenly and picked up the trash.

  “You live downtown, you’ll have to come all the way back out.”

  “I don’t mind. I like Macon at night.”

  Chapter Ten

  She waited for his reaction when he saw her car. She loved her car. And hadn’t met a man yet who didn’t want to date her for it.

  “Wheee!” He gave a low whistle under his breath. “I thought you said you weren’t an established attorney?”

  “I’m not.”

  “Then you’re independently wealthy.”

  “Not hardly. It’s a classic, alright, but not a really out-of-sight classic like a ‘56 T-Bird or a Shelby.”

  “Still.” Paul walked around it, stroking the finish of the ’65 Mustang convertible. Candy apple red, black top and black interior. “It’s beautiful.”

  “And it cost all of $2,000 or so, brand-new,” said Ria, unlocking the doors. “Plus I think it’s had four transmissions and three new motors, and the upholstery and top were replaced about six years ago. Daddy redid it one more time and gave it to me when I graduated from high school. He bought it new right off the floor so it’s a one, well, two-owner car.”

  They settled in. Ria turned the key and grinned. “Let’s cruise. We’ll hit the interstate and get off at Hardeman Avenue and go down through the historic district, down Coleman Hill, and take Mulberry through Macon.”

  “You’re driving.” He settled back. When was the last time he’d been this attracted to a woman? He didn’t remember. Then again, he didn’t socialize much.

  “And no cracks about my driving,” Ria warned with mock sternness.

  “Not a one.”

  She navigated the winding circular mini-roads of the mall to reach the pullout onto Bloomfield, turned right down Mercer University Drive and onto the I-75 entrance. She took the Hardeman Avenue exit and ran down to the light at the corner of Hardeman and College, then turned left and drove slowly past the old houses lining this portion of College Street. Old mansions and mini-mansions stood, tall and stately. Most were renovated private homes or home-apartment combinations. Light spilled invitingly from the windows. She headed down Coleman Hill.

  Paul gestured out the window. “Lots of these were here in the 1880s”, he said, indicating huge Victorians and classic white-columned mansions. “The smaller ones weren’t, they were built in the early 1900s.”

  On the right, the Hay House, a State historic trust, presided in Italian Renaissance splendor over the corner of Georgia Avenue and Spring Street. “The Hay House. That was the Johnston house originally, you know. They were—that is, I imagine they must have been so proud of it.”

  “Had to have been. You caught one of the tours yet? The inside of that place is unbelievable! Can’t write about old Macon if you haven’t seen it.”

  “Oh, yes, I’ve seen it. Know it well.”

  The city lights spread before them, sparkling like jewels. They ran down the double lanes of Mulberry Street, where inbound and outbound traffic were split by large islands of grassed park, with huge old Japanese magnolia trees and thickly massed azaleas.

  “Mulberry Street Methodist and First Presbyterian,” Paul said with pleasure, eyeing the old landmarks. “Think of the joys and sorrows those walls have seen.”

  “Makes you feel your mortality, doesn’t it?” She continued to drive at a leisurely pace.

  “Sol Hogue’s Drug Store!” Paul exclaimed suddenly, pointing to the rows of multi-paned bay windows of a two-story edifice on the corner of Mulberry and Cotton, its complicated trim and scroll work now painstakingly painted in the deep antique green and royal purple signature colors of Lawrence Mayer’s Florist. “Don’t you just love all that complicated glass and scroll work?”

  “Is that what it was then?”

  “A drug store, yes. And I believe it was still a drug store well up into the 1980s or early 90s.”

  Ria laughed. “I’d almost forgotten. Young’s Drugs. With an old-fashioned ice-cream parlor bar where they made real milkshakes at the counter. Daddy used to bring me to town on Saturday just for th
ose. Thanks for the memory.”

  They moved on through the light at Mulberry and Second.

  “That was the Gas Light and Water Company,” he said, pointing to the old buildings, now re-born as restaurants, printing shops, antique stores. “That was a lawyer’s office, M. G. Baynes, I believe I recall. And that was a dentist, Dr. Barfield. And that,” he said as he pointed, “was Berry & Flynn Tobacco Shop. They had a cherry blend that beat anything in London.”

  “How do you know that?” Ria asked. “Wouldn’t think the records’d go that far.”

  “Well, they claimed they did. Ran across some of their advertisements in the old newspapers. Had a high opinion of themselves. Ah! The new Government Building!” he exclaimed, as they moved into the next block. “Which of course you know as the Federal Courthouse, though it’s not the same building, just the same spot. That was Kuhn’s. Guns and knives and fishing tackle.”

  Ria turned onto Martin Luther King Boulevard, making a square and heading up Cherry Street.

  “Fourth Street,” Paul said, “in the old days. And then in the early 1900s it changed to Broadway. The original St. Joseph’s was right there,” he said, pointing.

  “The Catholic church? Down here?”

  “Un-huh.”

  She turned and headed down Cherry Street, Macon’s main drag since its earliest beginnings. The roll call of the past continued.

  “Jacques,” he said, “grocers. Farquhar & Co., hardware. Straton’s. That was a gun company. Gibian’s. Grocery and tobacco. Coben’s. Liquor and cigars. They imported some from Cuba you could steal for. Goodwyn & Small, drug store.”

  Ria looked at the buildings as he pointed and saw the past overlaid on the present. So Coben’s liquor and cigars ‘imported some from Cuba you could steal for’, did they?

  “Lieb’s groceries,” Paul continued. “Dr. Kenan’s office. Hertz’ Clothing. I—” He broke off suddenly and restarted the sentence. “If you can believe its ad, it was the only choice of Macon’s professional men.”

  Ria turned at the top of Poplar Street and cut back down Cotton. The names just kept coming. “Bunk’s. Books and stationers. Oliver & Holt. Grocers.”

  She settled into a slow and stately pace, dissecting the town into small squares and touring slowly along.

  “Rogers & Winn, crackers and candy. Bone & Chappell, groceries. Cox and Corbin, liquor and groceries. O’Gorman’s. Dry goods.”

  “Did Macon do anything but eat, Paul?”

  “Oh, but think about it! To walk in a store and have the clerks call you by name, knowing that this cook’s household preferred pork, and this one was shopping for beef, and little Ria Knight had a preference for lemon drops.”

  “It does sound nice.”

  “It was,” he said, gazing out at the storefronts.

  Was it now? She said nothing, moving out from the center of town, cutting down streets and continuing her squared pattern.

  She turned back down to pick up Martin Luther and take the back road to Eisenhower Parkway.

  “Hey!” Paul protested. “It’s after dark! Please tell me you don’t drive this route by yourself after dark?”

  Ria laughed. No way to breed that protective instinct out of a southern man. And no, this absolutely wasn’t a route for a lone woman to take after dark. Not now. Not in the present.

  “No, I don’t, I promise. Daddy and Johnny’d both have heart attacks. But since I’m not alone, and we’re on this tour, I thought we’d pass the old streets.”

  Small jukey-style nightclubs sent flashy light into the darkness, blown bulbs obscuring part of their names. Crowds stood in front of liquor stores. The strange aroma indigent to this one particular area of the city crept into the car. An indefinable smell, not exactly greasy, not exactly dirty. A funky smell that existed nowhere else in town. They passed the remains of a Johnny V’s Drive-In that had seen much better days.

  “These streets,” he said, gesturing to the short concrete posts which in daylight designated Ell Street, Hazel Street, Edge Street. “In the 1880s, this was middle-class Macon. Good working people, solid houses. Families. New babies. Hope. Those days are long-gone, though.”

  “That makes me feel very sad, Paul.”

  “Me, too,” he said.

  She turned right at the intersection with Eisenhower Parkway and headed back towards the mall, melancholy with memories of streets that used to be. Had time suspended itself? Ria thought they’d been gone much longer than they had. The mall was still open when they pulled in.

  “How much longer—”

  “I don’t quite know long I’ll—”

  They laughed.

  “Okay,” Ria said. “You answered my question. You don’t know how much longer you’ll be in town.”

  “Not exactly. But if you’d like—”

  “I would. Very much.”

  He grinned. “Suppose I’d been about to suggest a wild weekend at the Hilton?”

  “Haven’t had a Hilton here in a long time. You’re a lot better with the past than you are with the present. And I was pretty sure you weren’t going to suggest that. Yet.”

  “I bet you give your witnesses the devil.”

  “Haven’t had that many trials yet, to tell the truth.”

  “I’ll call you.”

  “I’m easy to find. No such thing as an unlisted attorney. Or an attorney without a business card.” She reached into the door’s side pocket and pulled one out, handing it to him.

  He hesitated. Instead of leaning over and kissing her goodnight, he reached his hand out and picked up her own, bringing it to his lips. When he dropped it, the light reflected off his wedding ring, highlighting the etchings in the gold band. She pulled his hand back into the light.

  “How unusual!” she said, peering through the shadows at the rolled scrollwork.

  “My wife was an unusual woman. So are you.” She dropped his hand.

  “Paul!”

  “Yes?”

  “What was her name?”

  “Her name?”

  “Your wife.”

  He hesitated almost imperceptibly.

  “Chloe. It’s been a special evening, Ria.”

  “Yes. It was.”

  He got out of the car. “Go on and pull out now, so I can make sure you’re headed home okay.”

  He stood, obviously going nowhere until she did. That southern chivalry again. She eased off the clutch and moved forward, back out toward Bloomfield.

  While she drove, her mind moved in hyper-speed, processing the data compiled by the evening. Name, looks, voice, background. Knowledge of a city long past. A tobacco shop with a ‘cherry blend that beat anything in London’. Another that imported Cuban cigars ‘you could steal for’.

  A skillful weaving of fact and fiction? Most successful liars incorporated as much truth as possible into their fabrications. Made for less confusion, wasn’t as easy to get tripped up. When people found it expeditious to change their names, most often they dropped a surname, switched to a middle name, or tagged on a mother’s maiden name.

  She pulled into the two-car garage in the back of the house on Orange Street, formerly the carriage house. Sometimes she believed she could see waiting buggies, hear the soft snicker of a horse. She turned off the ignition. Time to have a long talk with herself.

  “Okay, Ria,” she whispered. “Admit it. You think he’s Paul Devlin. Your Paul Devlin. Who comes to life and assumes solid form on the first full moon of October. Will you get a grip?”

  She got out of the car and went inside. Had he found the secret of eternal youth? Did he still live and breathe and walk, telling smooth stories blending fact and falsehood? Why hadn’t he said he was a doctor? Why wouldn’t he have kept his training updated?

  She went inside and up the steps, opening her apartment door. She automatically undressed and pulled on her robe. Then she walked to the living room, formerly the Devlin bedroom, and sat down on one of her sofas.

  Paul Everett wasn’t a ghost. Not
the Paul she’d met at the bookstore, eaten dinner with, gone back in time with. He ate and drank and spent money. Modern money. And he was solid. She’d touched him. He’d kissed her hand. She picked up one of the sofa pillows and hugged it to her.

  She’d lost her mind. End of story. She’d met a flesh and blood, living man. Who just coincidentally had almost the same name as the vision that haunted her house. And a deceased wife with the same name. How far could coincidence go?

  He was out of the car, she thought. We were talking quietly, and I expected him to say her name was Chloe. I was primed for it. He said Cathy. Or Claire. Or Candice.

  She got up and went into her room. She’d misunderstood, that was all. She’d place a phone call tomorrow, and confirm once and for all that a flesh and blood man named Paul Everett was on a leave of absence from the, what had he said? The Mobile Reporter. Then she’d make an appointment with a psychiatrist.

  She clicked the lamp off and settled into her pillows. In her uneasy slumbers, she drove up and down the unpaved streets of 1888 Macon in her Mustang classic, passing horses standing with their reins wrapped casually around horse posts, teams of dray horses pulling delivery vans. The store names were painted on the front glass. A. B. Farquar, S. R. Jacques & Co., Coben’s, Kuhns, Lieb’s Fine Groceries. Paul Everett, dressed in tan Dockers and denim shirt, stood side by side with Paul Devlin, dressed in the tight britches and high-topped riding boots of 1888. Both men moved, just out of her reach, drawing her forward with gestures of their hands, pulling her back, back, back in time.

  Chapter Eleven

  She didn’t know how long she’d slept when the sounds woke her. Muffled sounds. Paul Devlin. Crying over Chloe’s things. She got up and moved to the door, and there he was. He lifted a perfume bottle and held the stopper to his nose. The gesture caught her heart. How many nights had he cried for Chloe in this room?

  She walked to his side. His hand moved. In the glow of the nightlights plugged around her living room, she caught the gleam of gold on his finger. His wedding ring.

  She moved closer and touched his image. Again he disappeared at her touch. But not before she saw the rolled etchings engraved on the band of his ring.