Belle City

by Penny Mickelbury

  "You're an idiot." Du's sneer bore no trace of his earlier embarrassment. "You can't seriously think that Grandma would leave you the house her husband built for her with his own hands. That's ridiculous even for you, Teddy."

  "I've been staying at Grandma's, Ted. You can stay there with me," Sissy said.

  "Staying there since when?" Teddy's voice was tight with anger, which was rendered virtually ineffectual by the slurring effects of the alcohol.

  "Since she got here three weeks ago, which you'd have known if you hadn't been too focused on drinking and fucking to realize that your grandmother was dying, you little jerk." Du squared his shoulders and clenched his fists at his sides. With Nellie gone he was free to flaunt his disdain for his brother.

  "I came to the hospital when Mama called me."

  "She shouldn't have had to call you, Teddy. She didn't have to call anybody else."

  "Du..."

  "Shut up, Sissy. For once, just once, would you take a look at your precious baby brother and see him for what he is?"

  "Du..."

  "He's right, Sis," Doug said.

  "We'll see who's right when the will's read," Teddy said. "Which will be when, by the way?"

  "In due time," Doug said. "There's no rush."

  "Yeah, Doug, there is a rush," Teddy said. "I want it read right now. Immediately. So I can move into my house. And so you can move out, Big Sis. Who's Grandma's executor?"

  "I am," Sissy said.

  Teddy gave her that look again, and Sissy realized that her baby brother didn't like her. That he didn't like any of them and perhaps never had.

  "Why you?"

  "Because she's a lawyer, asswipe," Du snarled. "One who specializes in estate and probate law."

  "So you know she left me the house."

  "I don't know what's in her will, Teddy; I didn't draw it up. I'm just the estate executor."

  "Then set a time and place for reading the will, Big Sister-in-Charge-of-Everything. You can do that, can't you?"

  "All the legatees have to be notified..."

  "All the what?"

  "Everybody to whom Grandma bequeathed anything. They have to be notified so they can attend the reading of the will," Sissy began to explain, but Teddy cut her off.

  "What's the big fucking deal? Just call everybody and tell 'em when and where."

  "There are a hundred thirteen of them, and they must be notified by registered mail," Sissy said, sounding like the highly paid lawyer she was.

  Teddy's eyes and mouth opened wide in surprise, and Doug laughed at him. "What a jerk you are," he said, and stalked out.

  "You're really surprised, aren't you?" Du asked, not expecting an answer. "Did you think only our family would be in Grandma's will? She's got twenty-three grandchildren, Teddy, for Jesus Christ's sake. And why would she leave the house to you and not one of the others? Or to one of the greats? Or to one of her own children? Or to any one of the hundreds of people she knew and loved?"

  Teddy lost the struggle to coordinate thought and speech as the alcohol took over and replaced the anger with something a lot less energetic. "It's gonna be my house."

  "Yeah, right," Du said.

  "You can stay with me at Grandma's if you want, Teddy," Sissy said.

  "Fuck you," Teddy said, too drunk to sidestep Du's fist aimed at his gut, and Teddy doubled over, heaved, and dropped to the floor. Sissy and Du left him there for Dorothy to clean up.

  ***

  – 4 –

  When he was a little boy, JayFar had fervently believed that the stork delivered him to the wrong place. He was convinced that he never should have been born in the South. He had never liked things southern, especially the food and the annoying preoccupation with family. Overcoming the food bias was easy—he just didn't eat anything fried, smothered, glazed or stewed. The family thing was not so easy to overcome. Perhaps if he'd been born into a different family, he thought, he could have liked its members better and therefore not minded the constant references to "kin."

  The fawning and pawing that had been going on since Grandpa died was driving him crazy, especially since he'd seen none of those long-lost relations the whole time the old man was hospitalized. Then, at will-reading time, here they came, his dead father's relations: Aunt Alice and the drunk she'd been married to for fifty years and their four worthless offspring who called JayFar "cuz"; Uncle Gill, who fancied himself a playboy, his third wife, and a collection of his progeny, half of them born out-of-wedlock and none of whom ever showed up at any family event that didn't feature free food and booze; and a bunch of his great-aunt and uncle's descendants, relatives of Grandpa's long-dead siblings. Here they all came, wearing their mourning faces, offering their condolences to JayFar and nattering on about "what a wonderful old man" Grandpa had been, and hoping for a handout.

  Then there were his mother's relatives, whom JayFar didn't dislike but whom he hadn't seen five times in twenty years. They weren't related to the old man, not really, so why come all the way from North Carolina for his funeral? Then there were the perfect strangers, most of them old enough to be JayFar's parents if not his grandparents. These were the people who had filled Downtown First Baptist for the funeral, who had patted him and hugged him and expressed their sorrow "for his loss." Since Grandpa had never liked or been liked by many people, JayFar didn't understand why they all were there.

  "It's not always about like and dislike," his law partner Richard Gayle had said. "In your grandpa's case, it's respect. He was important in this town."

  "Do you know how much their 'respect' cost me?" JayFar was still reeling from the caterer's bill for the after-funeral reception.

  "It's also a generation thing," Richard had said, paying no attention to his friend's grumbling. Stinginess was a trait among certain kinds of rich people.

  "What's that mean?" JayFar had asked.

  "Not many of his generation left, and when they're all gone, we won't have any connection to the past," Richard had said, sounding sad. "That's why I went to his funeral."

  "I thought you went because you're my law partner." JayFar had tried not to sound as irritated as he felt. But that was then, right after the funeral. Now, a week later, he didn't mind displaying his irritation with Richard, especially since Richard was steadfastly justifying the actions of his late grandfather's lawyer, Willie Cummings.

  "Why are you defending that old fool?" he fumed, running his hands through his hair, barely disturbing the expensive coif, before smoothing the thick mane back into place.

  "Because he's right, Jay, and you know he's right."

  JayFar paced the length of his living room, his right hand now stuffed into his pocket jiggling the change there. Richard sat way back and comfortable in one of the leather club chairs, long legs crossed at the knee, head tilted back, blowing cigar smoke rings at the ceiling and sipping aged sour mash whiskey. Jay stopped pacing and stood in front of Richard.

  "What I know is that he's treating me like a...like a stranger. Or worse, like an interloper, and it's not right."

  "Willie Cummings was your grandpa's lawyer for fifty years, and he can't stop acting like a lawyer just 'cause his client's dead. He's also damn near eighty years old, and you keep harassing him, he's liable to have a heart attack and die on you. You know how long it'd take to get a will out of probate if the executor dies?"

  "I just want to get the damn will read, Richard. Is that too much to ask?"

  "It gets read day after tomorrow, Jay, nine a.m. sharp. Now, sit down and relax, have a drink, and leave your hair alone. You're making me nervous pacing up and down like that and playing with your hair like one of those effete English actors."

  JayFar sighed loudly and dropped down into the adjacent club chair. He was glad to be back in his own home, a stately center-hall town house built the year of his grandfather's birth. He'd spent the days between the old man's death and his funeral out in Carrie's Crossing, in the "family home" as the family called it. Grandpa's house, JayFar calle
d it, soon to be his. It was a relatively modest structure, two stories with a gabled roof and a wraparound porch, sitting atop a gentle slope of a hill and surrounded by all that was left of what had been a five hundred acre farm and what now was twenty-five acres of prime real estate in the middle of one of the most expensive and exclusive enclaves in America. The preservationists had already been to see him about the house; it was almost a hundred and fifty years old, and the Carrie's Crossing Historical Society wanted him to do some damn fool thing that he had no intention of doing.

  "Do you hear me talking to you, Jay?"

  JayFar looked over at Richard. "What did you say?"

  "What were you thinking about?"

  "Those hysterical society people."

  "The what people?"

  JayFar laughed. "The Historical Society people. They came to pay their respects after the funeral, or so they said. You should've seen 'em swarming through the house, admiring the joists and the molding and floorboards and the banisters. I'm surprised Margaret wasn't with them."

  "Margaret knows that house as well as she knows her own. What'd you tell 'em?"

  JayFar fixed his face into an imitation of the mourning mask he'd worn for the past couple of weeks. "I told 'em that I couldn't possibly think about business at a time like this."

  Richard laughed, drained his glass, stood up, and walked over to the drinks cabinet. "It really is a pretty house. Margaret says it's a treasure."

  "It's a relic."

  "Your grandpa was a relic, an important one too. The last of a dying generation."

  "Don't start with the dying generation song again."

  "I can't believe you're so insensitive. I wish I had a relative that old."

  "You would've if they hadn't drunk themselves into early graves."

  Richard returned to his chair carrying his glass with its three fingers of whiskey and the half-full crystal decanter. He sat and tilted his glass toward JayFar in a toast. "My old granddaddy might be dead and long gone, but he was right about one thing: There is something to be said for aged sour mash." He sipped deeply. "Lord, that's good."

  They were the same age, JayFar and Richard, but Richard looked a decade older—all that Southern food settled on his waist and thighs, all that whiskey settled in his face.

  "That's hereditary, you know."

  "So they say. So's a long life span, they also say, but we know that's bullshit, don't we?"

  "How do we know that?" JayFar asked.

  "Nobody in your family but your grandpa lived to be a hundred."

  "Nobody in anybody's family lives to be a hundred."

  "That old Black lady did. Boy, I'd have loved to talk to her like I used to talk to your grandpa."

  JayFar sat up straight. "You used to talk to Grandpa?"

  "Sure did," Richard said sounding wistful. "I'm really gonna miss that crotchety old bastard."

  "When? About what?"

  "All the time," Richard said, the whiskey sheltering him from the change in JayFar. "Talked about everything. I used to drive over and take him books and Red Rock Cola. You 'member that stuff? My daddy used to drink it 'cause he said it kicked like moonshine. I don't know but one place around here where you can still get it."

  "Everything like what?" JayFar was perched on the edge of his chair, body turned so that he faced Richard. "What did you and Grandpa talk about?"

  "The old days. Stuff you're not interested in and don't care about." The whiskey now was talking for Richard. "He knew you didn't care about kin and connections, and he did care about that stuff. He used to talk till he fell asleep some times. He'd nod off, then wake up and start talking, pick up a story right where he'd left off. He said your mother was the only other person who used to listen to his stories. He said she was like his own daughter instead of a daughter-in-law. He used to show me pictures of her. She was really pretty."

  "Do you know how long my mother's been dead?"

  Richard nodded. "July 12th, 1962. You were six."

  "I know how old I was."

  Richard looked at his watch. "I better go. Margaret'll be calling in a minute, asking where I am." He took his cell phone from his pocket, checked that it was on, and put it back.

  "That's one reason I don't have a wife," JayFar said.

  "It's nice having somebody miss you."

  "That's not missing; it's meddling."

  Richard stood up and grinned down at JayFar. "The old man sure had you pegged just right."

  JayFar got up quickly. Not only didn't he like anybody standing over him, he still was smarting from the knowledge that Richard had shared time with his grandfather. "Pegged how?"

  "Like what you just said about Margaret. Your grandpa understood that's how people love each other, but you think it's meddling. He thought that was a strange way of thinking, and he worried about you."

  "He worried about me?" JayFar now was worried, too. He didn't like the direction this conversation was taking, and he wasn't sure why. "Why was he worried about me, and why would he tell you?"

  "Because," Richard said, pulling on his jacket and zipping it up, "he knew I was the closest thing you have to a real friend."

  "That's bullshit."

  "Name me another one," Richard said, then drained his glass and splashed in another good snort. He gave JayFar another couple of seconds to formulate a response then continued, "See, that's what your grandpa knew about you that you don't even know about yourself. You must know a thousand people, and you keep all of 'em at arm's length."

  "So did he."

  "Yeah, but not because he was afraid to let anybody in close. He just didn't have a lot in common with that many people anymore."

  "He told you that?" JayFar's eyes glittered mad, and Richard realized he might have said too much. He really would have to stop drinking to excess, at least in public.

  "Yeah, he told me that. He said he felt lonesome not having anybody to talk to, family or friends. Except one old guy in a nursing home somewhere he used to call. But the old fella's mind is gone. Didn't know who he was talking to, but your grandpa called him anyway. He thought if he kept talking to him, something familiar would click in."

  "Maybe you should've been his grandson, Richard, since he liked you a lot better than he liked me." JayFar followed Richard out of the library and down the hallway to the front door. The sun shone brightly, and a warm spring breeze drifted in off the front porch when the door opened, carrying the scent of freshly mowed grass. "Tell Margaret I said hey."

  "I'll tell her. Thanks for the libation."

  "We'll have a real celebration after the will reading."

  "Hell, I might even stay sober that day, since I'll officially be a rich son of a bitch like you," Richard said, and he skipped down the steps like a kid, showing no effects of the alcohol.

  JayFar watched him hurry down the brick walkway to his Cadillac convertible, heard the cell phone ring, watched him answer the phone, heard his "Hey, Darlin', I'm on my way" before he got in his car and shut the door. JayFar watched his friend drive away, aware that he still felt wounded by the revelation of Richard's relationship with Grandpa, and he couldn't shake the strange feeling of knowing that the old man had worried about him.

  He noticed that something was blooming along the walkway and focused his attention on the blossoms to get his mind off his grandfather. He didn't know what the blooming things were and didn't really care—that's why he paid a gardener. What he cared about was how his house looked, and how the beauty and symmetry of the place made him feel. Then, unbidden, he thought that his grandfather, and most other southerners, would know the names of the flowers, and that thought unnerved him. He turned and hurried up the steps to the porch. That's as far as he'd got when he heard his name called. He turned back toward the street.

  Halfway down the block, two women were getting out of a light-colored sedan. They both waved at him, then slammed their car doors. The sound carried on the breeze, sharp and clear. Then he recognized the women—his mothe
r's sisters, his aunts. He'd seen them at the funeral and at the reception afterwards, Faye and Evie and their husbands. Prior to that, he hadn't seen them in probably ten years, but that hadn't dimmed their pleasure in seeing him and now, here they were again, smiling broadly as they approached, and at a faster clip than would be expected for women their age, so he knew nothing was wrong. But still.

  "We're so glad you're home," Aunt Evie said as they reached his walkway.

  "Dropping in unannounced is so rude," Aunt Faye said, "and we truly do apologize, JayFar."

  They called him JayFar, as if he were still a little boy. They called him that because his mother had been delighted with the moniker, bestowed by his sister, and she had called him JayFar. "That's all right," he said, hurrying down to hug them and offer his arms for them to hold as they ascended the steep steps. "I thought y'all had gone back to North Carolina."

  He ushered them in and down the hallway to the living room, worried that the library still smelled like cigar smoke and sour mash whiskey. "We had," Aunt Fay said, settling herself into one corner of the sofa. She rubbed the fabric. "You have such lovely taste, JayFar. Your mother would be very pleased." She was the youngest of the sisters, JayFar knew, probably just barely seventy, but her face was smooth, her hair mid-length and the color of champagne.

  "Don't digress, Faye," Aunt Evie said, commandeering the other end of the sofa and giving JayFar a look that halted his downward progress on to the love seat that matched the sofa. She was the eldest of the sisters, tall, thin, and regal, with sparkling silver hair cut short and styled to perfection.

  "Is something wrong?" he asked, looking from one aunt to the other, wondering if this is how his mother would have looked had she had the chance to live this long—beautiful and elegant and commanding.

  "We came back for the reading of the will," Evie said, and they both watched JayFar, waiting for his reaction. It was slow coming because it took several seconds for him to understand that they meant the reading of his grandfather's will, then to further understand that they were beneficiaries.