by Rosina Lippi
Patty-Cake leaned forward and Angie got a blast of flowery scent that billowed up out of her powdered cleavage.
“You and I are going to be working together. I’m the senior secretary in the English department? You probably don’t realize this, but there’s a lot to running a big department like that. I’ve got a staff of one full-time secretary and two part-time girls, plus work-study students. But in the summer I handle it all on my own. The faculty never show their faces, which just between you and me is just fine. They are a pesky lot during the school year, always needing something. I’m the keeper of the keys, to use an old-fashioned phrase. Why, a body can’t get hold of a paper clip unless I say so, and I’m careful with the resources that are put in my care. There’s a lot of responsibility on my shoulders.”
“I’m sure there is,” Angie said solemnly.
“You come and see me tomorrow and I’ll get you all set up,” Patty-Cake finished. “We’re going to get to know each other real well. And bring the other two along with you, now.” Her gaze shifted in Rivera’s direction and her smile sharpened just a little more. “Why, look at that girl,” she said. “You’d think she grew up right here in Ogilvie.”
Rivera was telling a story. Miss Junie had covered her face with her hands and her shoulders were shaking with laughter. Miss Zula rocked back and forth and fanned herself with one hand. Miss Maddie looked slightly confused, but delighted with the company.
“Now, tell me,” Patty-Cake said. “Did you two young ladies leave your boyfriends up north, or should I start introducing you around? There are some fine young men in Ogilvie who would be pleased to make your acquaintance. And you’re not getting any younger, now, are you?”
Angie opened her mouth to attempt some kind of answer that would cause the least complications, but a commotion from the other side of the lawn saved her.
“Bull’s-eye!” shouted a boy’s voice, and at that the men who had gathered around picnic tables and the grill moved off toward the porch.
“Oh, Lordie,” said Patty-Cake, brushing at her skirt as she stood up. “Bruce has gone and given those boys bows and arrows. I don’t know if he’ll ever learn. And now the men are going to get into it. There will be tears before bedtime, you mark my words. And there’s your cameraman, taking photographs of the whole thing.”
Tony had appeared from around the side of the house. He had the Nikon out and he was dancing back and forth, the Tony ballet, Rivera called it, when he liked what he was seeing in his viewfinder. Of course it would be far better if he were shooting over here—Miss Zula’s laughter was worth a few frames at least—but Angie and Rivera had learned to trust Tony’s instincts about where to point a camera.
Then the crowd opened up a bit and Angie saw the youngest of the grandsons, a little boy with a round potbelly, a head of streaky blond curls, and a fat strawberry of a mouth. He stood on a chair aiming an arrow at a bull’s-eye set up on an easel at the other end of the veranda, all his concentration on the target. Angie doubted he even heard all the men shouting directions and encouragement at him, while the women for their part shouted warnings. As Angie stood up to get a better look, John Grant came around the corner.
Patty-Cake said, “There they are finally, my niece Caroline and Dr. Grant—the department chair? Her fiancé.” Those words were still hanging in the air when the arrow left the bow with a twang that could be heard all the way across the garden.
John’s face, familiar and strange and beautiful. How could she have forgotten that face? The answer was, of course, that she had not. She had forgotten nothing at all. In that split second when he met her eye, Angie saw that same flash of recognition, even as Patty-Cake’s words ordered themselves in her mind to add up to an understanding of another kind: too late.
Somebody screamed. John, who looked down at the blossom of blood on his neatly creased trousers, made no sound that Angie heard. He touched the arrow embedded in his upper left thigh, not quite center, tilted his head as if trying to make out a whispering voice, and then fell over, gracefully, elegantly, into the arms of the woman he was going to marry.
“Len!” Somebody shouted. “Front and center!”
“It’s a good thing Eunice married a doctor,” breathed Patty-Cake, her hands fluttering around her face. “I don’t suppose we’ll ever have one of these birthday parties without making a trip to the emergency room.”
SIX
I have lived in Ogilvie long enough to know that nobody will have the nerve to bring up the subject of Miss Louisa, who was Miss Zula’s mother, and so I suppose it’s up to me. I don’t hold much with modern psychology and prying into personal matters, but in this case I do believe you must know the mother to understand the children, all three of whom I watched grow up. There’s an old saying, spare the rod, spoil the child, and Miss Louisa lived by it. Her rod was made of hard words, which any caring person can tell you may leave a scar worse than any slap.
Your Name: Sister Ellen Mary. I am Father Bruce’s housekeeper, and you may find me at the rectory at Our Lady of Divine Mercy. Though if you’d like to talk to me, you had best be quick about it. I am ninety years old and wait daily for the Good Lord to tap me on the shoulder.
By the end of their first full week in Ogilvie, Angie had established a routine: up long before Rivera and Tony ever stirred, she went down to the screened porch that overlooked the garden and the river, where she waited on an ancient black-and-white-striped couch until the coffee was ready. Then she took her cup with her to the riverfront and sat in the cool of the morning, planning her day, making lists in her head, and contemplating running away.
It had been a surprisingly productive week for the simple reason that she was spending most of her day and her night, too, working.
“This is good stuff.” Rivera was looking at Angie’s binder when she said this, the one she carried with her everywhere on a shoot. There were three full pages of notes from her talk with Sister Ellen Mary at the rectory, all about Miss Zula’s family history and her mother. Rivera made a notation of her own. “I didn’t think you’d been out of the house long enough to do an interview, Mangiamele.” She looked up with a grin. “If you get this much done without distractions, we have to find a way to put John Grant back in the hospital, once he gets out.”
“He’s not in the hospital,” Angie said, “and you know it.”
“Well, then he’s in hiding,” Rivera said. “So the small-town rumor mill is going full tilt. The latest is that he got blood poisoning and they had to take his leg off. Hey,” she said, holding up a hand, palm out. “I’m just the messenger.”
“And where did you hear this?” Angie asked. “At the quilt shop?”
“Fat Quarters is the source of all knowledge,” Rivera agreed. “I do hear interesting things from the men on the Liars’ Bench outside the barbershop, but I’ve come to the conclusion that Pearl’s shop is better.”
Rivera had been cultivating a number of leads in the community, primary among them the middle three Rose girls. Pearl, it turned out, owned the quilting shop. A whole army of women came to Fat Quarters whenever they could spare an hour to work on whatever project they had going, and Pearl Rose was the queen of all that.
“So what’s the buzz?”
“While I was there, Pearl told them all about what happened to John, and then when she turned her back, everybody tried to figure out what she really meant but was too embarrassed to say directly.”
“Maybe you should be hanging out at the Hound Dog. Tony was down there yesterday and heard that John lost a testicle.”
Rivera said, “They’ve got better-looking women at Fat Quarters. Which you’d know if you’d take a break. Come into town with me today, we’ll stop by the Piggly Wiggly. Miss Maddie does a lot of her shopping there, you know. There’s a world of wisdom in watching her pick out peaches.”
“I’ll put it on the list,” said Angie. And, a little wistfully: “I wish some of Miss Maddie would rub off on you. You shouldn’t be spreading
rumors. Bad juju.”
“You are such a fake,” Rivera said, laughing. “You’d go crazy wondering if you didn’t have us to bring you the news. He’s fine, you know. Eunice says so.”
“So are you best friends now with all the Rose girls?”
“According to Eunice,” Rivera repeated, pointedly ignoring Angie’s tone, “John only needed three stitches, no infection. It was way too close for comfort, but no lasting damage.”
“Good for John,” Angie said.
Rivera said, “Good for Caroline Rose.” And laughed again at the small, tight smile that was all the answer Angie could summon.
Angie thought a lot about Caroline Rose, for reasons she didn’t want to examine too closely. Caroline was tall, elegant, silver blond, immaculately groomed and dressed. She had turned out to be not only John’s fiancée and colleague but Miss Zula’s unofficial assistant in all things. There was no avoiding her, and, worse luck, no way to dislike her, either.
Early in the morning of another day that promised to be scorching hot, Angie sat by the river and contemplated the vagaries of fate that had brought her to this place at this particular point in time, when John was about to get married. Angie crossed her arms over her upraised knees and rested her forehead on the cool skin of her forearms and thought about the fix she was in. The truth was, she would have paid pretty much any price to get back her peace of mind and a few hours of sound sleep. It was becoming increasingly obvious that she’d have to take the first step, find John, and lay down some ground rules, get things said and out of the way.
If she only knew what to say. If only he didn’t have better things to be thinking about just now than a neurotic, obsessive ex-girlfriend. An arrow to the crotch, for one, and his upcoming wedding, for another.
“Angie?”
The odd thing was, she must have finally drifted off to sleep sitting in the sun, because she was dreaming about Caroline Rose, who seemed to be floating across the lawn toward her.
Angie righted herself so quickly that a sharp, sudden pain shot up her back.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Caroline said, looking as uncertain and embarrassed as Angie felt. “And I realize that it’s very early to be calling, but I do have a good reason. May I?”
“Sure.” Angie moved to the far end of the bench, wondering just how much of an ass she was about to make of herself and what she would say if Caroline Rose raised those topics Angie least wanted to talk about. She looked toward the house and sent a silent plea to Rivera. Come rescue me.
“Miss Zula and Miss Maddie sent me,” said Caroline. “To see if you’d like to come by for breakfast.”
“Breakfast?” Angie echoed. A spark of professional interest overrode her discomfort. All week they had been waiting for this first invitation to the little house on Magnolia Street, and here it was.
“It’s a tradition, once a month,” Caroline was explaining. “The god-daughters’ breakfast. Miss Zula is my godmother and Miss Maddie is my sister Harriet’s godmother. Once in a while they invite someone else to join us.” Her hands fluttered up out of her lap and then fell again. “All women, of course.”
“Of course,” Angie echoed. All women meant no John Grant, which was a good thing just now. She said, “Look, tell me honestly. Will Miss Zula be insulted if I send my regrets?”
Caroline looked distinctly surprised at such a suggestion. “It’s very hard to insult Miss Zula if you’re being honest,” she said. “Miss Maddie is another matter, of course. She does love to cook for folks.”
“Then I’d be happy to,” Angie said, resigned. “I’ll just get my shoes.”
Caroline’s gaze jumped toward the house and back again. “The invitation was for both of you. Would Rivera be interested, do you think?”
“If I can get her out of bed,” Angie said. “Let me—”
“There’s John,” said Caroline.
Angie went very still. “John?”
“John,” echoed Caroline. She pointed with her chin. “Just there.”
Full of dread, Angie turned toward the river and took it in: the graceful bend of the willows, the sun on the water, and the sweep of oars as the single scull came into view. John Grant, tousle-headed, as though he had gone directly from bed to the river, his skin flushed with sun and exercise. The perfect shoulders and arms clenching and relaxing in an easy rhythm and then his face coming up, turned toward them. In the distance a train whistle blew, long and plaintive.
Hysterical laughter, Angie told herself firmly, would be a mistake.
Later, John would try to reconstruct for himself how things could go so wrong in the space of a few seconds. A week’s worth of planning, all gone in that single sweep of the oars that had brought him around the bend in the river. His first time on the water since the regrettable incident at Junie Rose’s birthday party. He had been feeling good, and settled, and glad of the morning until he looked up and saw them there: Angie Mangiamele and Caroline Rose standing side by side. It was a sight to put a better man than John Grant off his stroke, but at least the river was running fast. Just as quickly as they had come into view they were gone.
Angie Mangiamele in shorts and a faded, shapeless Nirvana T-shirt that was ten years old at least. He knew this because it had been faded and old when he first saw it, hanging on the bedpost in the tiny bedroom of her apartment near NYU. He still remembered how it smelled.
It had seemed so straightforward, in the last few days of self-imposed house arrest. He had written it out for himself, the things he would say. Just as soon as he fully recovered he would knock on Angie’s office door, and initiate the conversation they obviously had to have. They were both adults, after all, and reasonable people. A few ground rules and they would be able to interact in public without problems.
On another list he made an outline of the things he would tell Caroline, who was the most reasonable and rational of human beings. Just a few facts, put in perspective, and that would be the end of the matter.
Except, of course, he had never imagined that Angie would still own that T-shirt, or what the sight of it might do to him, the memories it could drag up. Such as what Angie smelled like, in the early morning. Angie in the morning. He had not put that on his list, and that, he realized, was a serious flaw in his reasoning.
Rivera had fallen in love with the house on Magnolia Street where the Bragg sisters lived at first drive-by, and was so eager to see the inside of it that she got out of bed without complaint. In Caroline’s car she asked one question after another about the street and the houses on the street, small and neat, a working neighborhood with swing sets in the yards and vegetable gardens. Caroline, animated, answered her questions and volunteered a spontaneous genealogy, naming Miss Zula’s neighbors, many of whom were Bragg cousins. Marilee Bragg, who had come to visit them their first weekend in Ogilvie, waved to them from a front porch littered with toys.
“It’s like Hoboken,” Rivera said. “Angie’s got more than fifty blood relatives on one block.”
“Doesn’t look anything like this,” Angie said.
The man pruning roses in the garden across the street raised a hand and touched his brow in greeting as they got out of the car.
“Wait, let me guess,” Rivera said. “Second cousin three times removed.”
“No, that’s Mr. Jackson. He runs the power plant at the university, but he’s protective of Miss Zula and Miss Maddie. Everyone in the neighborhood is. And there’s Thomasina Chance, do you see there, the woman in the vegetable garden? She owns the restaurant across from campus.” The next few minutes were taken up with a discussion of local restaurants, but Angie didn’t catch much of it; she was too busy sketching a rough map of the neighborhood and writing down names.
The Braggs’ house was set back in a small garden in the full flush of summer, heavy with blossom, alive with bees. There were sunflowers and beans on trellises and young tomato plants tied to stakes with lengths of old nylon stocking. Louie slept in a patch of suns
hine, opening one eye to appraise the young women and then snuffling himself back to sleep.
At least Rivera’s mind was on business. She stood at the gate with one hand pressed to her mouth and the other to her heart, a pose that meant she was seeing camera angles. This was about work, after all. Angie repeated that to herself as they went up on the little porch. There was a brass plaque on the wall that read MAGNOLIA HOUSE 1880. Below that, a small typewritten card had been tacked into place.
By order of her physician, Miss Bragg may no longer entertain unannounced visitors seeking autographs. Do not ring the bell. Dr. Calvin Bragg.