The linen napkin slipped free and sagged in empathy with Flora’s crumpled features. “That dress, Abigail! Created with such hope, breathtakingly beautiful—yet it destroyed my sister…”
Chapter 4
She pushed open the screen door and stepped out onto the porch, almost tripping over her sister’s supine form. Rosemary was sunbathing nude again. Averting her eyes from the display of honey-brown skin, Flora carried her silken bundle over into the shaded area of the porch.
The air was a woolen blanket settling around her shoulders as a relentless sun beat down on the stunted grass of the front lawn. But Flora didn’t feel the prick of the needle into her fingers as she stitched crystal beads to the silk; in her mind she was floating like a cloud through a crowded ballroom, music whispering distant angel melodies, and a peach gown transforming her narrow hips and small bosom into a curvaceous—
Rosemary spoke without opening her eyes. “Is that crystal confection for the Bascomb cow? She’s got a figure like a keg of nails, Flora—you’re wasting your time.”
Flora toed a flake of white paint from the boards under her bare feet. Rosemary’s voice had shattered the shimmering floor of the ballroom and silenced the angel music. Sweat trickled down between her breasts and she longed for a breath of cool air.
“Aren’t you roasting?” she asked peevishly as she selected another bead from the box. “You’ll be as red as a tomato for the dance.”
“Mr. Sun is a gentleman and his touch is always tender, unlike other males of my acquaintance.” Rosemary rolled over and traced a square on the quilt protecting her shapely limbs from the splintered surface of the porch. In a drowsy tone, she murmured, “Someday soon I’ll hire you to make my ball gowns, Flora. But I’ll have real jewels sewn into the bodice, not those silly beads.”
“Very generous of you, I’m sure. Where’re you going to find a King Midas to pay for jeweled gowns?”
“Maybe I won’t need a King Midas. Maybe I’ll be a queen. I’m already a princess.”
“And maybe pigs will fly!” Flora snapped, angry at herself as well as Rosemary. They were both daydreamers. “You aren’t a princess in exile, no matter how much you want to be. We are what we are—the sooner you accept that fact the better.”
“People are alike under the layers of glitter, Flora, and you’re wasting your life making gowns for ugly old crows who want to be peacocks.” Rosemary’s blue eyes glistened as she raised a cautionary finger. “Just beware of men, sister. They believe women exist for their pleasure. But I don’t intend to be used any longer—plucked, sniffed, and discarded like a dead flower.” Her voice was husky with a secret sorrow. “I’m not trash!”
Flora wiped beads of sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, careful to avoid staining the dress and holding the glittering talisman of the dance in her heart. If Rosemary wanted to rail against her lot, let her find a soapbox.
She bit off the thread and knotted it. “Why are you running around with the locals if you have such high ambitions?”
Rosemary squinted at her sister, shading her eyes with one hand as sun-bleached hair fell in shining waves across her bare shoulders. “Practice, dear Flora. Training dull puppies to heel until a spirited stallion comes along.” She rolled back onto her stomach, her cheek pillowed on her arm.
“You’re playing with fire, Rosemary. Take care you don’t get burned.” Flora rose and shook out the gown. “I’ve got to run this into town before I get dressed for the dance. Need anything?”
“I told you, Connie’s father gave us both new dresses. Mine was stitched up by an angel. Anyway, I caught a ride into town this morning for a shampoo and finger wave.”
“I’ve told you not to catch rides. It’s dangerous, Rosemary—don’t you ever read the papers? A few weeks ago they found a woman’s body floating in the Mississippi—she’d been beaten to death with a hammer.” Flora shivered, despite the heat.
“I know everyone who stops to pick me up. You worry too much.” Rosemary’s voice reflected lazy amusement.
“This woman got in the car with her pastor,” Flora retorted. “And why spend fifty cents on a shampoo and finger wave when you can wash and set your own hair?”
Rosemary sat up, reaching out to pluck a tiny object off the porch floor, and Flora saw that her sister was balancing a ladybug on the palm of her hand. “Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home,” she chanted. “Bring me my heart’s desire.”
Flora paused to watch as minute wings fluttered and the black-spotted bug disappeared into the grass by the porch steps. The wistfulness in Rosemary’s voice triggered a dawning empathy in her sister and Flora wanted to make some gesture, say the word that would draw them closer together.
“What is your heart’s desire, Rosemary?”
But Rosemary’s eyes were glued on the insect’s flight and she gave no sign of having heard the timid question. She had withdrawn to a secret place within herself, shutting out Flora and her nagging, tentative overtures of friendship.
Flora banged the screen door. Inside her room, she sat down on the bed and wiped off her dusty feet with a towel before slipping them into a pair of sandals. Rubbing at a spot of dirt on the toe of the right sandal, she reflected that although these were beginning to look quite shabby, the cheapest pair in the Sears catalog this year was $1.98, as out of reach as if they cost three times that amount. Visualizing the pale peach slippers waiting behind the closet door, she smiled, proud of her dainty feet. Cinderella-size feet.
Retrieving her purse from the top of the bureau, Flora paused to study her reflection in the mirror but could see no resemblance to the glorious wood nymph she’d left on the porch. Her mother had once commented that where Rosemary glided, Flora slumped. Taking a deep breath and straightening her shoulders, Flora tilted her head and attempted a seductive smile. The mirror girl shook back limp blond hair and grimaced at her. “With my hair styled and that dress, I’ll be as beautiful as Fay Wray,” she promised her reflection, who continued to look skeptical.
She was gone over two hours. Mrs. Haven wasn’t satisfied with the beading on the bodice and Flora had to redo two rows. With her head pounding, she pushed the car to the limit on the return trip. The August sun was unbearably hot; the road spit up clouds of dust that coated the interior of the car and made her sneeze in between practicing seductive smiles. The engine had begun clanking with each gear shift and Flora tried not to think about what would happen if it broke down. Wasting money on those stockings had been foolish, but she didn’t regret the purchase. This dance was worth wearing last year’s shoes for the rest of her life.
Cicadas in the elm trees on the lawn sang about the heat; the rise and fall of their voices rasped against Flora’s tight nerves as she came through the front door into the kitchen, which was in welcome contrast to the outdoor temperature. As her eyes adjusted from the dazzling sunshine, she blinked, surprised to see her mother standing by the table and crumbling bread into a mixing bowl.
Parched with thirst, Flora reached for the dipper resting in the large stone crock that was kept filled with water, and over its metal rim, she studied her parent. Mrs. Dickison was humming a tune that her daughter recognized as the “Merry Widow Waltz.”
This unusual display of vivacity puzzled Flora and her tone was sharper than she intended. “In this heat, I’m surprised to see you’re feeling well enough to be out of bed, Mother.”
The humming stopped; Mrs. Dickison’s eyes remained fixed on the bowl. “Rosemary helped me marcel my hair and since I was up, I thought I’d make a meat loaf out of that beef Herbert Wills sent over. I found some late onions in the garden and enough spinach to make a salad. Did you deliver the gown?”
Flora placed her pocketbook on the deacon’s bench by the door and frowned. Her mother adopted a determined air of normality whenever something was dreadfully wrong. At the age of five, Rosemary had fallen out of an apple tree and broken her arm. Flora had come home from school to find her mother packing a basket for a pic
nic supper on the lawn while Rosemary cradled her injured limb in stoic silence. “Is everything all right, Mother? Where’s Rosemary?”
Crumbled bread missed the bowl and fell to the faded linoleum.
“Dear, dear, dear.” Mrs. Dickison bent to wipe up the crumbs, still avoiding Flora’s eyes. “Your sister? She told me she would be dressing at Connie’s house. They have running water, you know. Rosemary hates heating water on the stove.”
“Well, there are those of us unfortunates who have to boil our bathwater,” Flora muttered as she untied the ribbon keeping her hair off the back of her neck. “I’m going to lay out my clothes for the dance.”
Mrs. Dickison’s long, graceful fingers shook as they kneaded more crumbs into the beef and she did not reply.
After spreading a clean sheet across her bed, Flora went to the closet, smiling in anticipation. The door squeaked and she made a mental note to oil the hinges—
She gasped. The gown in its white wrappings had vanished, leaving a void where the silken confection had once hung in all its glory. Her gaze dropped to the floor of the closet—the tinted slippers were also missing and a dash to the bureau confirmed that the silk stockings no longer rested on the modest undergarments.
Bile burned in her throat and a gasping sob escaped her lips. Rosemary had hidden everything for a joke—Flora remembered her sister’s secretive smile and realized she should have expected something this childish.
She began a frantic search: tossing clothing out of the bureau, checking under the bed, and poking at the folded blankets on her closet shelf. Nothing. Abandoning her room, Flora burst into Rosemary’s bedroom, where its neatness mocked her frenzied entrance. Grandmother Dickison’s sunrise quilt, last used to cushion the sun-bather, was spread across the bed in careful folds.
Jerking open the closet door, Flora yanked cotton frocks off wooden hangers and flung them down. She swept her sister’s books off the shelf; a china shepherdess with a flowered skirt also fell and shattered. Bess, a baby Rosemary’s much loved rag doll, flew through the air to sprawl in an untidy heap.
An offhand voice repeated over and over in Flora’s brain, “Mine was stitched up by an angel.” Her sister had stolen her dress.
She wanted to hurt Rosemary, hurt her as badly as she’d hurt Flora. “Traitor!” She screamed the word and caught the echo in the empty room. “I hate you, Rosemary!”
She shrieked again at the injustice of the deed, her throat burning from the strain and the cords in her neck tight with rage. That dress had been the ray of light in an endless gloomy tunnel of scraping for a living. Rosemary didn’t need the glow of the gown to enhance her beauty because men already adored her. Her sister had not only stolen a dress, she had taken the magic from Flora’s life.
After throwing everything light enough to lift, she dissolved into tears and collapsed to the floor.
Hours later, Flora, still crouched in the wreckage of Rosemary’s room and rocking back and forth in soundless distress, became aware of the rumble of Claude’s old car in the driveway. Scraps of his conversation with her mother filtered through the fog of grief.
“Flora is very sorry she can’t go to the dance with you.”
She heard Claude mention Rosemary.
Her mother again. “Rosemary’s already left, Claude.”
“Tell Flora I hope she feels better. I’ll just have to go stag, unless you’re free for a night of dancing, Mrs. Dickison.”
Her mother giggled like a schoolgirl. Claude’s tongue was slicker than a greased pig when he was bent on flattery, Flora thought, suddenly stricken with the knowledge that Claude had hoped to squire both girls to the dance. She gripped her elbows with fingers as cold as a frost-covered window in the dead of winter.
Another hour passed before she was able to straighten her cramped limbs and leave the room, aiming a final kick at the rag doll’s floppy body. Moving with the stiffness of a sleepwalker, she tidied up the kitchen, crumbled the rest of the bread, and chopped onions to finish the meat loaf her mother had abandoned. Flora could hardly stand the sight of the food, however, and the onions were blameless for the tears that dripped onto the old yellow oilcloth.
The loss of her dress was like a bleeding inside her body; each movement was an effort. As she cleaned up her own room, she called Rosemary every name she could lay her tongue to, hating her sister with an all-consuming rage for having stolen her moment in the sun.
On hands and knees, Flora scrubbed the linoleum behind the stove with a brush. The untouched meat loaf had been fed to the cats in the barn. Sitting back on her heels, she brushed the hair out of her eyes, exhaling in disbelief when she saw by the kitchen clock that it was a quarter after one in the morning. The sound of a car crunching down the gravel drive brought her to her feet in a burst of energy. It must be Rosemary and her escort. Just wait till Rosemary saw the condition of her room!
She was standing by the scrub pail, hands clenched, braced for her sister’s appearance, when a knock startled her out of her aggressive posture. Rosemary wouldn’t knock.
The visitor was a deputy sheriff. His tanned face was grim and he was twisting his hat in his hands.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Miss Dickison,” he began, ignoring the tousled hair and the unladylike dungarees splattered with soapy water, “but there’s been an accident.”
“Rosemary?” Flora whispered the question.
At his reluctant nod, she felt as though all breath had been squeezed out of her body. “Please, don’t wake my mother,” she forced the words through chattering teeth. “Please…”
The drive into town was a blur, sharpening into focus only when she walked down a dark hallway to a room at the back of the hospital. The doctor’s white coat as he strode ahead was the only patch of light in the dim nightmare of the passageway; his stethoscope clinked against his belt buckle like the tolling of a funeral bell. The strong odors of disinfectant and alcohol stung her nostrils and her steps faltered, but the laconic deputy steered her forward until they stood beside a table covered with a sheet. A long shape was visible beneath the cotton drapery.
Flora’s breath caught in her throat. An uncovered bulb burned into her eyes and she put up a hand to shelter them from the glare. With the force of a blow to the pit of her stomach, she recognized the heap of peach silk lying on the floor as her dress—scissors had slashed the fragile material down the center with ruthless blades.
The doctor peeled back the sheet and Rosemary was revealed, a nude marble girl with graceful hands lying open at her sides. The unshaded light illuminated the dusty tangle of golden hair and the full lips curved in a half smile. A livid bruise under one ear, a smear of dirt across her forehead, and a dried brown trickle from her mouth were the only indications she had suffered any violence.
Flora stretched out a tentative hand to stroke the silken curls—hair that earlier today had spilled across tanned shoulders—the certainty that she had lost Rosemary forever numbing her senses.
Deep inside she’d cherished the notion that the two of them would grow close once more, that the angry, imperious girl-woman her sister had become would reach out, and they’d return to the giggling, confiding relationship enjoyed before their father’s desertion. But the little hands that had played pat-a-cake with a big sister, the baby lips that had confided, “I love Flora,” were stilled forever.
She looked up at the doctor. He had a pointed brown beard and large, uneven teeth that reminded Flora of crooked tombstones. On the palm of his outstretched hand rested a single pearl; she thought of how delicately Rosemary had cupped the ladybug and choked with revulsion at the sight of the man’s iodine-stained fingers.
“Most peculiar,” he was saying. “I found this pearl in the bodice of the girl’s dress. Appears to be genuine.”
Rosemary had no pearls. The deputy made some reply, but the words were a jumble to Flora’s dazed brain. Both men were staring at her sister’s defenseless body and Flora felt a surge of anger at this desecrati
on of the dead.
She yanked the sheet back up over Rosemary’s breasts and turned on the deputy, the heat of rage burning her face. “Don’t gape at her like she’s a slab of meat on a butcher’s table! She’s my sister!”
Once she started shouting, she couldn’t stop. The doctor’s face loomed over her as the room began to spin; the roar of a mighty wind overpowered Flora and she swayed like a reed in a storm. The clamminess of cooling flesh was suddenly under her clawing fingers and her nostrils were filled with the scent of floral perfume as she collapsed across her sister’s body.
Chapter 5
Abigail removed the envelope containing the torn valentine from her purse and spread the jagged pieces across her desk. Too restless to stay home, she’d come to the office where she’d tried unsuccessfully to concentrate on closing a few files.
“This is Sunday, not Monday.”
Startled, Abigail glanced up and saw Paul leaning against the doorjamb. She covered the partially assembled card with a legal pad as he said, “But I’m glad to find you here. Come to my office—there’s something we need to discuss.”
Following his lanky figure across the hall, she took the client’s chair facing his horseshoe-shaped desk. An ashtray and package of cigarettes posed a conundrum, since he claimed to have given up smoking two months before. A Waterford crystal jar, which his secretary kept filled with candy, stood next to the ashtray. Surveying the chaos of files, law books, and the scattered deck of cards Paul shuffled when meditating on a problem, Abigail realized she’d never seen the wood grain of the desk’s surface.
Paul assembled the cards and did a fast dealer’s shuffle. “I got a call from Flora Albertson last night.”
Abigail stiffened. She wondered whether in her attempt to comfort the woman she’d somehow overstepped the bounds of propriety or if Flora had another reason for turning back to Paul.
Swallowing her unexpected feelings of betrayal, she met his gaze. “I assume you’ll be handling her case now. Well, take good care of her. She told me about her sister—a heartbreaking story about a dance and a stolen dress.”
Rosemary for Remembrance Page 3