by Karen White
The room seemed to dim, and Merilee wasn’t sure if it was because of the storm. “No, Mama. You can’t. It’s been in your family for so long. And we have so many happy memories there.”
“Nobody goes there, and it’s senseless to keep paying taxes and maintenance on it.”
“But I’ve told you, I want to bring the children there. So it’s as much a part of their childhoods as it was of mine and David’s.”
“I told you not to mention his name to me. You have no right. No right.” She’d slurred the last word, allowing Merilee to pretend that it was the alcohol that was making her say these things. Except she knew it wasn’t. Because she’d been saying them for years.
A burst of rain hit the side of the house as the lights flickered again. “I have to go now, Mama. We’re having really bad weather and I have a meeting tonight.” She hung up the phone before her mother could say anything else.
It was only seven o’clock in the evening, but pewter clouds dimmed the remaining light, throwing the dirt road and sodden grass into premature dusk. Merilee concentrated on the drum of her wipers, hoping to erase the conversation with her mother. She wondered how much longer it would be before she could have a conversation with Deanne and not feel depleted afterward. Probably around the same time her mother would forgive her.
There wasn’t a lot of traffic, and Merilee took her time driving to Prescott Estates, hoping to be in the right frame of mind to deal with a committee meeting by the time she arrived. She knew the neighborhood, of course, having dropped off both children at various times for playdates over the years. The topography was mostly flat, owing to its previous incarnation as farm fields, but those humble beginnings had long since been erased by the sprawling mansions playing coy behind gated drives, heavy foliage, and the occasional giant gas hurricane lamps giving the impression of vintage. It was like, Merilee mused, a discount store hiring a Neiman’s window designer without changing the contents of the shop.
She stopped at the stone-and-iron front gate and waited for the uniformed guard to slide open his door before opening her own window. Despite the money apparently spent on the front entrance, they’d skimped on providing an overhang to protect visitors from the elements. Leaning back as far as she could so she could still be heard but not get drenched, she said, “I’m Merilee Dunlap, here to see Heather Blackford.”
Moving as slowly as she thought a person could without actually being asleep, the guard picked up a clipboard and studied a sheet of paper on top, running his finger down the line with such a lack of speed that Merilee wanted to grab it from him. Eventually he found her name, then took so long to make a check mark next to it that she assumed he must be drawing a sketch of her.
“You know where to go?” the man drawled.
Heather had only mentioned that the meeting would be at her house but hadn’t given her the address, so Merilee had looked it up in the school directory. “I got it,” she said, already raising her window.
“Stay dry!” he called out helpfully right before it shut.
“Thanks,” she mouthed, feeling the drenched inside of her door and seat, the damp strands of hair sticking to her face.
The professionally landscaped streets were lit by replica gaslights, the bulbs inside valiantly flickering to give the impression of authenticity. They were pretty, she conceded. Much nicer than the generic electric lights in her previous neighborhoods.
Her wipers thwacked back and forth as the rain increased in intensity. She allowed a groan as she realized she’d left her umbrella at work and that she would show up at the meeting looking like a drowned rat.
The GPS on her phone told her to take a right and then an immediate left, leading her directly in front of open iron gates with stacked-stone pillars on either side, a ginormous flickering gaslight on top of each. Moving forward, she studied the steep incline of the drive, hoping her tires and brakes were up to the challenge.
She followed the driveway to a wide, circular drive in front of what appeared to be an exact replica of Tara—except much larger. With the rain and now full darkness, Merilee couldn’t tell what color the shutters were, or if there were cotton fields behind the house, but she did notice that while the house wasn’t completely dark, there were only sporadic lights on inside, but at least the large light hanging over the front door was illuminated.
The lack of parked cars didn’t alarm her, as she was a good fifteen minutes early, and there might have been cars parked on the street that she hadn’t noticed because she’d been concentrating on not running into anything in the deluge.
Grabbing her purse and hugging it close to her chest, she dashed out of her car to the covered front entranceway. She hadn’t locked her car door but figured she probably didn’t have to in this neighborhood. At least the doorbell was lit up so she didn’t have a problem finding it to press. She heard deep, gonglike tones inside the house, using the time while she waited to wring out her hair and wipe what she knew had to be smeared mascara from under her eyes.
When she was done, she waited for another full minute, straining her ears to see if she could detect the sound of faraway footsteps. She stood there for a little longer, deciding whether it was rude to ring the bell twice, then waited for another minute before she pressed the bell again.
The distant sound of tires on wet asphalt made her turn around to see if someone else had decided to tackle the steep driveway, but she was disappointed at the sound of the car driving away. She rang the bell one more time, then checked her phone to see if there were any text messages from Heather to let her know they’d changed the date of the meeting, then double-checked her calendar to make sure that it was actually tonight. She even considered texting Heather to let her know she was at the front door, but she didn’t want to appear to be completely inept.
Merilee took a deep breath. The woman she’d been before Michael had left her would have simply opened the door. But that was when she’d still had a modicum of confidence. She heard her mother’s voice again from their phone conversation, the memory alone draining her of what little self-confidence she still possessed. She’d half turned to leave when she recalled what her mother had said about selling the Tybee house because no one used it; remembered the dozens of times she’d begged her mother to allow Merilee and her children to go there. The anger flooded her like a rush, the blood hot in her veins. You have no right.
If only to block out the voice and the anger, Merilee whipped around and pushed down the door latch. She had meant only to test it to see whether it was unlocked, but instead she found herself standing inside a cavernous foyer, the black-and-white marble tile reflecting the dim light from an opening at the far end.
“Hello?” she called, stepping inside, hesitating a moment before closing the door behind her. She heard herself dripping onto an area rug, no doubt antique and expensive, but she stayed where she was, unsure if it would be better or worse than dripping on the marble floor.
The distant sound of voices was coming from a lit doorway, and Merilee let out a huge sigh of relief. Carefully walking across the marble to avoid slipping, as well as to limit the amount of water she deposited on the floor, she made her way to the opening, realizing it must be the basement when she saw the wrought-iron railings and the carpeted stairs leading down.
“Hello?” she called again as she headed downward toward the sound of voices, pausing on the bottom step to admire the space. Calling it a basement would be like calling Buckingham Palace a house. Because of its position on a hill, the home’s basement was actually the garden level, with tall ceilings and walls of windows and French doors. Nothing was illuminated out back, but Merilee imagined it would be a gardener’s haven, complete with infinity pool, outdoor kitchen, and comfortable outdoor furniture that was probably nicer than what Michael had taken from their living room when he’d moved in with Tammy.
The inside was furnished in the kind of styl
e Merilee had always loved but had never been sure how to put together. It was some kind of a cross between Restoration Hardware and Arhaus, with gray distressed wood, nubby-textured upholstery, curved legs, lots of metal and glass—way out of Merilee’s price range. It made her like Heather a little more, feeling as if they at least had this one thing in common.
She followed the voices, walking through an area that appeared to be a replica of an Irish pub—or maybe simply a transported one—complete with benches, tables, and upholstered seats, and toward an ajar door that was almost hidden behind the bar.
Relieved at having finally found the meeting, she pulled open the door and stopped abruptly. It wasn’t that the décor was so fundamentally different here from that in the rest of the house or that the room seemed completely empty except for the giant screen airing an episode of Hogan’s Heroes that made her hold her breath. It was the fact that she felt as if she’d stepped back into her own childhood and into a room that had so obviously not been professionally decorated but perhaps filled with objects that had been consciously acquired over the years.
It contained a collection of beloved items—an electric guitar, a scattering of beanbag chairs in various Atlanta sports team colors, a John Smoltz shirt framed on the wall; even a Magic 8 Ball sat in a place of honor on a shelf. A life-sized cardboard cutout of a Christmas-light-bedecked Chevy Chase from Christmas Vacation dominated a corner of the room near the screen, and a neon Guinness sign blinked cheerily on the opposite wall. Merilee turned toward an alcove at the back of the room and spotted an air hockey game, a vintage Pac-Man arcade machine, and a floor-to-ceiling shelving unit containing nothing but vinyl LPs, a Nirvana album propped in front. Stacks of National Geographic magazines sat on an adjacent set of shelves, the top two shelves covered in what appeared to be an Ally McBeal dancing baby and several Lego structures. An authentic pay phone was attached to the wall, a thick white-pages book dangling from a metal chain next to it. A popcorn machine with a spotlight highlighting it like a celestial being sat next to a Coke machine, each space filled with a different Coca-Cola product.
This was apparently a man cave, but to Merilee it was clearly much more than that. It was like the last holdout of an old life, one that the new life was encroaching upon little by little, with plans for complete obliteration. Merilee recognized this within the first few seconds of standing inside the door; recognized it because the room was so startlingly similar to her bedroom at her parents’ house after David had died.
Something wet touched her knuckles and she let out an involuntary shout as she looked down and saw the Blackfords’ dog nudging her hand for a scratch.
A movement from the line of theater seats in front of the screen distracted her as Daniel Blackford stood and looked at her, his surprise matching her own. “I’m . . . sorry,” she stammered. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I think I took a wrong turn . . .” She stopped as the dog nuzzled her hand again.
“Great guard dog, right?” Dan asked, his smile breaking the tension.
The dog turned its head, clearly expecting to be scratched behind an ear. “Truly ferocious,” she said, obliging the request. “What’s your name, handsome fellow?”
“Puddles,” Dan said with a straight face.
“Puddles? Well, no wonder he’s so docile. No dog named Puddles would ever dare to question an intruder’s authority to be here.”
“True.” Dan shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, and Merilee noticed that he was barefoot. It made him seem oddly vulnerable, and she warmed to him. “I’ve always had black Labs, but that’s where my input ended. The girls named him.”
“Well, that’s a relief. I was afraid you’d say that it was your idea.”
He laughed, and she relaxed. She wondered if he had that effect on everyone, putting them at ease no matter how awkward the situation.
“I’m so sorry to have bothered you. I’m looking for Heather. We’re supposed to be having a gala committee meeting at seven thirty.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Well, there is a meeting—but it’s at the clubhouse. Did you check there first?”
Heat rose from her chest, slowly engulfing her throat and face. “I . . .” She opened her calendar on her phone, double-checking it. “I put down that it was at the house. I must have misunderstood.” She shook her head. “I’m so embarrassed. I should have called Heather when nobody answered the doorbell.”
“Please. Don’t be embarrassed. I don’t mind the company. The girls are out to dinner with their grandparents, so it’s just me and my favorite non-PC old sitcoms that nobody else will watch with me.”
She felt a smile tugging at her lips. “If it’s any consolation, I love Hogan’s Heroes. And if non-PC is your cup of tea, then I suspect F Troop and I Dream of Jeannie are also favorites. I grew up watching reruns on TV.”
“You can stay and watch, if you’d like,” Dan offered. “I’ll make popcorn and call Heather to let her know you’ve taken ill and can’t make the meeting.”
He looked hopeful enough that for a moment she believed he might be serious. Or at least a little bit. “Trust me, you have no idea how appealing that sounds. But, as Heather pointed out, I have an obligation to my children to be a part of the gala. She wants me to head the auction committee.”
“Ah,” he said, nodding. “She must think you’re very smart, then.”
“That’s pretty much what she said, but she might have just been sweetening me up.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Merilee. Heather’s very shrewd and a lot smarter than most people give her credit for. She knows what she’s doing.”
A large framed photograph hanging on a wall behind Dan drew her attention. “Is that the Cockspur Lighthouse on Tybee?” As she drew closer, she recognized Heather with Bailey and Brooke in the foreground of the photo with the whitewashed brick structure behind them, the wind pushing their blond hair across their faces, nearly obliterating their matching smiles. A perfect, beautiful family.
“It is,” Dan said. “We have a place there, so I have lots of photos of the island. I like to think of myself as an amateur photographer, when I’m really just giving the girls fodder for when they’re older and they say I never did anything with them. I’m the perpetual photographer, so it looks like my widow and orphans in most of our photo albums.” His tone didn’t match the lightness of his words, and Merilee recognized something about it. Something in connection to this room. “Are you familiar with Tybee?”
She nodded. “My grandparents lived there full-time, so I spent most of my school vacations there as a child. Happiest moments of my life, I think. Until . . .” She stopped, unable to finish.
“Until what?” he asked, his voice kind. It had been so long since anyone had spoken to her with such care and concern that she felt the sting in the back of her throat again. And the need to talk to someone. The last person she’d confided in had been Michael, before they were married. He’d never asked her about it again, so she’d put her grief aside, wrapped it up in the Lego men and tucked it away.
“Until my brother, David, died. He . . . drowned. There on Tybee. He was younger than me, and I was supposed to be watching out for him.” Her voice caught, and she was aware of how close to tears she was.
“I’m so sorry.” He touched her arm, and she knew if she rested her head on his shoulder he would let her, and he would say the right words and make her feel not so alone anymore. But she couldn’t, of course. Not here, and not with Dan, no matter how innocent or well-meaning it might be.
“I’ve really got to go,” she said, backing up so that he dropped his hand. “Heather is probably already wondering where I am.” She smiled brightly. “Thanks for the offer of popcorn and a screening of my favorite TV shows, though.”
“Anytime,” he said, walking her out of the basement and up the stairs, turning on lights as they went. He opened the front door and he
ld it open for her. “Good night, Merilee.”
“Good night. And thanks again,” she said as she stumbled out into the rain, realizing only after she’d driven down the driveway and onto the street that she had no idea where she was going.
Thirteen
THE PLAYING FIELDS BLOG
Observations of Suburban Life from Sweet Apple, Georgia
Written by: Your Neighbor
Installment #5: Clubbing at Costco
Until they opened up that new Costco near us here in Sweet Apple, I never for the life of me would have thought I needed a six-gallon jug of Tide or seventy-two rolls of toilet paper “just in case.” I resisted getting my own membership card for the longest time, but like all the other lemmings here in Sweet Apple, I caved and got one. It’s got a big gold star on it (I thought I was special until I saw everybody else had one, too, so I stopped bragging that I was a “gold star Costco member”), and I proudly flash it whenever I enter the store in need of a jar of nuts the size of my head or breakfast cereal in a container large enough to feed a third world country for a week.
During my trip earlier this week (where I was nearly taken out by a white Lexus SUV because the driver had her cell phone glued to her ear), the artificial Christmas trees had just been delivered.
I’m not going to use this blog to comment on people who choose artificial trees, because I’m sure they already know that they’re sellouts, lazy and unimaginative people with no desire to foster happy memories for their children. Because, really, with all the hustle and bustle of the holidays, what could be easier and more time-saving than hauling up a fully lit tree from your basement and plugging it in?
I heard of one mother who even keeps the ornaments on and just sticks the tree in a corner of her guest room with a sheet thrown over it. I don’t want to be the guest waking up in that room in the middle of the night with a hulking triangular-shaped blob looming over me. Granted, that mother has three boys all playing on travel baseball teams year-round (which we all know you can do in Georgia), so she’s busy playing chauffeur, so who can blame her for cutting corners on the biggest family holiday of the year? Bless her heart.