Tied to the Tracks

by Rosina Lippi

  Caroline made a small, hard sound. “Patty-Cake called them.”

  “You guessed it.”

  “I should have known. Put me on speakerphone, will you? So I can take care of this.”

  He pushed the button, put the handset down, and crossed his arms. The Rose sisters came forward, Harriet and Pearl dropping into chairs.

  “Caroline, baby, where are you?” said Connie. “We’ve been worried out of our minds.”

  “You are getting married tomorrow,” Harriet said. “There’s a rehearsal and a dinner tonight.”

  “I’m on my way home right now,” Caroline said. “I’ll be there in a few hours.”

  “But where have you been?” Harriet burst out. “I must have left fifty messages on your cell phone—”

  “I needed to work through some things,” Caroline interrupted. “I’m fine now. I feel much better, really I do.”

  Pearl said, “So the wedding is still on?”

  Caroline said, “Did somebody tell you otherwise?”

  “Well, no,” said Pearl, shooting her sisters a help-me look, “but—”

  “Did John say the wedding was off?” Caroline’s usual deferential tone was gone.

  “No,” Eunice said. “Nobody said any such thing.” She met John’s gaze and he tried not to look panicked.

  “Except Patty-Cake,” corrected Connie. At that moment John realized that Patty-Cake was gone. If nothing else, she had a keen sense of self-preservation.

  Harriet said, “She’s been telling us you weren’t coming back, you ran away because of something John did.”

  “Well, Patty-Cake is wrong, as usual,” Caroline said shortly. “Is she there? I’ll tell her so myself.”

  “She was here—” Connie said, looking around.

  “She lit out,” said Harriet.

  “So you’re not canceling,” said Eunice. “Just to be clear, you’re not calling things off?”

  “I am not calling things off,” Caroline said.

  “What about John?” asked Harriet, trying not to look at him directly. “Is he calling things off?”

  “Nothing has been called off,” said Caroline, her voice so clear and commanding that John wondered for a moment if it was really her, or if she had hired someone to make this phone call. Whoever was talking, he was glad that person was willing to spare him the lie Harriet wanted to hear.

  Caroline said, “I’ll see y’all at Thomasina’s at seven for the rehearsal dinner, okay?”

  “Um,” said Eunice, “so you won’t be at the rehearsal itself?”

  “No,” said Caroline, “and neither will you. We don’t need to rehearse this wedding, we’ve done it four times already. Let’s just meet at the restaurant, okay? I’d like to spend some time with Mama when I get home, and then I’ll bring her and Uncle Bruce to Thomasina’s.”

  There was a shocked silence, in which the four older Rose girls sent one another looks that needed no translations.

  “Sugar, I have to say, you’re scaring me a little bit.” Pearl sent John a pleading look. “You don’t sound like yourself.”

  “I’m sorry that I scared you,” Caroline said, more calmly. “I really am sorry for the trouble I’ve caused. But I’m asking y’all to help me now, and trust me. Will you do that?”

  “Why, of course we will,” said Harriet, sounding a little shocked. “We’d do anything for you.”

  “Anything,” echoed Connie and Pearl.

  Eunice said, “I expect you want to talk to John alone, so we’ll just—”

  “Wait,” said Harriet. “About your dress—”

  “—go,” said Eunice firmly, taking Harriet by the elbow.

  “We’ll see you at Thomasina’s,” said Connie, sounding doubtful.

  “See you later, honey,” Pearl said. She gave John one last, hard look, and then she closed the door behind her.

  “I hate speakerphones,” said Caroline when he had her on the handset again. And then: “Could you ask Rob to make sure Patty-Cake is in plain sight? I really don’t want her listening in.”

  “Rob is dealing with Lucy on the other line,” John said. “But I saw Patty-Cake at her desk when your sisters went out. I think we’re okay.”

  Very quietly Caroline said, “Your mama is going to be so angry with me.”

  “No she won’t. Caroline,” he said, “right now my mother is the least of our worries. You want to tell me what’s going on? Because I’m sure confused.”

  He could hear the sound of highway traffic and people’s voices in the background. A rest stop on the highway, a hundred miles away or a thousand, far enough that it was hard to get any real sense of her as she tried to pull words out the void.

  Finally she said, “I’ve been a coward, and it’s caused you a lot of grief.”

  “Caroline,” John said, hoping he sounded calmer than he felt. “Save the mea culpa for Father Bruce, and tell me what the hell is going on. Just say it, whatever it is, and we’ll work it out.”

  “I don’t want to get married,” Caroline said.

  John heard himself make a sound like a balloon deflating. It was what he had been hoping for and dreading. He supposed he should ask a lot of questions, sound hurt or outraged, demand explanations, but nothing came to mind. He felt like a man who has spent a great deal of time and energy planning a jailbreak, only to find that the doors had been unlocked the whole time.

  She was saying, “I know I owe you a long explanation and we need to talk this through in detail, but right now I’m hoping we can work together to make this as easy as possible—” Her voice trembled, and she stopped. “I’m really sorry. I really am, but this can’t be much of surprise, after all. Are you okay?”

  “I took a letter up to the retreat house, the same day we dropped you off there. I’m assuming you didn’t get it.”

  Caroline drew in a sharp breath. “It must have come after I left. They probably forwarded it home to Old Roses. Do you want to tell me about it now?

  “Hell no,” John said, and he felt himself flush with embarrassment and irritation.

  “That’s okay,” Caroline said. “I can pretty much guess what it said. So we’re in agreement, we’re not getting married tomorrow?”

  John cleared his throat. “Yes, we’re in agreement. What comes next?”

  “The hard part. I have to talk to Mama and Father Bruce before I—before we—make any announcements. I know I’m asking a lot, but could you keep this quiet until this evening? We could tell the families at the dinner, when we’ve got everyone together.”

  “You’ve thought this through,” John said, feeling only vaguely more charitable toward her.

  “I’ve had some time,” she said. “Before I go, I wanted to ask, how is Miss Zula? Are things going along okay with the documentary?” Her tone had shifted, and she spoke in a rush. “Tony and Angie and Rivera, are they getting the help they need?”

  “They seem to be,” John said slowly, suddenly on guard again, trying to make sense of the change in subject. Maybe she did know about Angie; maybe she was going to slam him with that after all, and then he would have to find the words to explain how all this had come to pass.

  She was saying, “Because Miss Zula did ask me to work with them, and then I just disappeared.”

  “As far as I know everything is going fine,” John said. “I can’t say I’m very comfortable with some of the topics they’re pursuing—”

  “Like what?” She sounded more than interested; she sounded as if she needed to hear more.

  “Well, Angie and Rivera came up with the theory that Miss Zula . . .” He paused. “It will sound crazy.”

  “John, right now not much could surprise me,” Caroline said. “Go ahead.”

  “They think Miss Zula has had a lifelong affection for Anabel Spate.” There was a short pause. “Caroline?”

  “They want to out Miss Zula?”

  John’s voice caught. “Are you telling me that Miss Zula has been in love with her brother’s first w
ife for what, fifty years? She told you this?”

  “Of course not,” Caroline said. “Miss Zula would never tell me something so personal.”

  “She wouldn’t tell you, but she would tell a documentary film company?”

  “My sense is, she’s ready to have the story told.”

  “That seems like a stretch to me.”

  “You don’t know her as well as I do. And there’s something else. She’s got some kind of wager going with Miss Maddie and it has to do with Tied to the Tracks. My guess is that it has to do with how long it takes Angie and Rivera to figure out the mystery on their own.”

  John was silent for a moment. “I still don’t see how you come to the conclusion that Miss Zula and Miss Anabel . . .” He stopped, because Caroline had hiccupped a laugh.

  “I’ve seen Miss Zula with Miss Anabel many times, John, and I’m not blind. She looks at Anabel the way you look at Angie.”

  For a long moment John thought he’d lost his voice for good. Then Caroline said, “John, don’t worry. I am fine with this. With all of it. Miss Zula and Tied to the Tracks will work things out between them, and you and Angie—you’ll work that out, too. I’ll see you this evening, okay?”

  And then she was gone. John still held the cool plastic of the receiver against his ear. It was as empty as a seashell, filled with nothing but echoes.

  NINETEEN

  I have read all Miss Zula’s stories and books and essays, and for years I have been trying to get a discussion group going so we could talk to her about them, but she will have none of it. I am surprised she ever agreed to this documentary business, she is such a private person. The only way I can explain it to myself is, there must be some story she wants told she can’t tell herself.

  Your name: Annie Lord. I am the head librarian at the Ogilvie Free Library, where this memory book was first kept and where it should still be, in my opinion.

  Angie did fall asleep on the couch in the reception area, but first she locked the door so that no one could come into the editing suite and surprise her. When she woke it was because the phone was ringing. She picked it up just to stop the noise.

  John said, “Your cell phone is still off, and I’m an idiot.”

  “Okay,” Angie said, her heart racing already just at the sound of his voice, which made her something of an idiot, too, though she wasn’t going to admit that to him just now.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Christ, you’re a tough audience, Mangiamele.”

  “Whine, whine, whine,” Angie said, smiling into the phone. “Give it up, Harvey.”

  “Okay, here it is: I reacted badly this morning.”

  “You were a jerk.”

  “And insensitive. And wrong.”

  “Wrong?”

  “Well, wrong in the way I handled the subject. I’ll keep my nose out of your business from now on. It’s between you and Miss Zula.”

  Angie said, “This is very suspicious. Why are you capitulating so easily?”

  “Maybe I’m learning,” he said.

  “Maybe you are.” Now she was grinning so that her cheeks began to hurt. “So, is that the only reason you called?”

  He cleared his throat. “No. I just talked to Caroline. She’s on her way home.”

  Angie sat very still while he told her about his phone conversation with the woman he was—as far as everybody in Ogilvie still knew—going to marry tomorrow.

  “So dinner tonight at Thomasina’s, and all will be made clear?”

  “That’s the plan. I can’t see how this is going to work, but I have to go along with her, for now at least. And there’s something else. She knows about you. You and me, I mean.”

  “You told her?”

  “No, but she knew anyway. She said she saw it on my face when I look at you. She wasn’t unhappy about it.”

  She said, “Are you unhappy about her not being unhappy?”

  “Angie, I have no idea how I feel about anything. Except you.”

  She closed her eyes and tried to think of Rivera, what she could say to John and what she should not, and how much worse it would be down the line when he found out the things she had been thinking but not sharing.

  “What are you thinking?”

  Angie imagined Caroline Rose getting up in front of Ogilvie’s entire Catholic population to announce the wedding was off because she was moving to New Jersey to live in sin with a woman. It was such an absurd idea that she hiccupped a short laugh. And, of course, she couldn’t say who Caroline loved with any certainty. “That I’d rather not be there tomorrow when Caroline makes her big announcement. Whatever it is.”

  “Can’t you leave the videotaping to Rivera and Tony?”

  “Do we need to be there at all?” Angie asked.

  He said, “I’ll ask Caroline about that after supper, and then I’ll call you later. Can you wait up to hear from me?”

  Angie said, “I doubt I’ll have much choice about it.”

  You will not believe this,” Tony said when Angie got back to Ivy House a little past five. “I still don’t believe it, and I’m looking at it.”

  He and Rivera were sitting at the kitchen table. Between them a manuscript, its pages slightly yellowed around the edges, typewritten rather than computer generated.

  “What is that?”

  Rivera put her hands flat on the table and bowed her head as if she were praying. “When we got to Magnolia House, we sat down with Miss Maddie and had some lemonade,” she said. “And so I asked her about Abe and Anabel Spate.”

  “And?” Angie said, impatiently. “Come on, you mopes. It can’t be that bad.”

  “It’s that good,” said Tony. “As soon as the question was out of Rivera’s mouth, Miss Maddie got up and took this out of a desk drawer and handed it to her.” He put his hand on the manuscript.

  Apparently Maddie and Zula had been waiting for the question of Abe to come up ever since Tied to the Tracks first came to Ogilvie. According to Tony, Miss Maddie looked almost relieved.

  “It’s Miss Maddie’s autobiography. Written in 1980, never submitted, never published.” Rivera picked up the manuscript and came across the kitchen to put it in Angie’s hands. She promptly slid to the floor, where she sat, her back against the wall.

  “According to Miss Maddie, we can use whatever parts of it we see fit. As narration, if that seems right.”

  “What will Miss Zula have to say about that?” Angie asked. It was a moot question, in some ways; the only question, in others.

  “Miss Zula knows about the autobiography.”

  “That it exists, or that we have it?”

  “Both.” Rivera’s voice cracked.

  “So what’s in it?” Angie’s voice sounded thin and far away, but that was because her heart was beating so hard.

  “Everything,” said Tony. “And then some.”

  It was ten o’clock before Angie even thought about John. All evening they had been sitting reading parts of the manuscript out loud to each other, sometimes just to hear the rhythm of the words, other times because the story dragged them along as surely as dogs on a leash.

  “Why hasn’t she ever published anything?” said Tony, more than once. “She writes as well as her sister.”

  At some point Angie had dug out her binder and started to take notes. They discussed strategy at first, how to bring Miss Zula into the conversation about the autobiography and how to handle the information it revealed.

  “Voice-over narration,” said Rivera. “It’s the only way to do this.” Tony liked Anthea Bragg’s voice, which was low and a little husky; Rivera thought her sister would be a better choice.

  There was an energy in the room, words sparking in the air.

  “Do you think Maddie would have held it back and never given this to us if we hadn’t raised the subject of Abe and Anabel?” Tony asked, when they had settled down a little.

  “I’ll bet it was Zula holding it back,” Rivera sai
d. “It was a test, and we didn’t even know it until we passed and the gates opened.”

  “It was a bet,” Angie said. She sat up straight. “She and Maddie had some kind of bet. Zula lost and she had to let Maddie give us the manuscript.”

  That sounded exactly right, but what were they betting on? Angie looked at a quote she had copied down from the manuscript: Not every woman is suited to motherhood. Our mother was one such woman. “Without Maddie’s manuscript, whatever we put together would be only part of the story. Miss Zula knows that, but she would have let it happen.”