Cold Flat Junction

by Martha Grimes

  What other seventy- to ninety-year-olds did I know? There was Dr. McComb, of course, but he would have mentioned it if he knew about Isabel and Iris and Jamie. It would have been a bit of a scandal, I would guess. There were probably dozens of people still around who might have heard about Jamie, but they were probably all in Weeks’s Nursing Home. No, I could think of no one more likely than Miss Flagler, so I called Axel’s Taxis to come and pick me up just before ten.

  The Oak Tree Gift Shoppe is the next shop up from the Candlewick, separated by a narrow alley. Inside, it appears not to have changed in a hundred years, though I know Miss Flagler changes her window display every week. I studied it now. That thing that makes it look always the same is that what Miss Flagler puts in looks like what she takes away. The little silver fox that sat beside the porcelain bowl looks like the silver pig she had moved somewhere else. The blue-flowered bowl sat in the same place as had a pink-scrolled china bowl; a gold bracelet had taken the place of last week’s silver; amethyst earrings had replaced emerald; a single strand of pearls replaced a double. I loved to look in this window because I found it restful. No, a better word is “comfortable.” It was the comfort of seeing small changes occurring within a background that never does, that was dependably always the same. This was the opposite feeling to what I’d felt yesterday, leaning on the kitchen counter—the feeling that enormous changes would come. I placed my palms and my forehead on the gift shop window, willing the fox to come back if the pig left, the amethyst to replace the emerald earrings—anything like that except to find the window barren, swept clean.

  I saw Miss Flagler coming through the curtained alcove behind the counter and I suspected it was time for her to change the OPEN clock-sign to the one that said BACK IN. She always moves the hands to show “15 minutes,” which was never enough time, for her tea and coffee breaks always took a half an hour to forty-five minutes. But she explained that she did not want to discourage trade, and any customer happening along would go off and do something else for an hour or so, and then return.

  She was surprised to see me at the window and gave a little wave, which I returned. She opened the door and told me that Miss Flyte was in the kitchen and invited me to join them. She turned the clock hands to “Back in 15 minutes.”

  Miss Flagler is tall and thin and Miss Flyte is short and thin, but aside from that, age seems to have made them sisters. I’ve noticed this age thing the few times I’ve been to Weeks’s Nursing Home to deliver cakes and pies my mother donates. The old people all look strangely alike, as if age is another country, a country of relations, and anyone not a relative (such as me) stands out like a sore thumb.

  Both Miss Flagler and Miss Flyte have gray hair, worn similarly in a bun, and filmy blue eyes, like one of those rainy-day skies where the blue is glazed over. They dress differently, though. Miss Flyte likes wool sweaters and skirts and Miss Flagler always wears gray dresses and cashmere cardigans. (Her dress indicates family money, or money from another source than her gift shop, whose profits wouldn’t run, probably, to silk and cashmere.)

  Hello, hello, hello, I said, the third hello being directed to Albertine, Miss Flagler’s queenly white cat, who also joins us during coffee breaks. Albertine likes to sit on a painted shelf right above my chair, sometimes lightly chewing at the crown of my hair. Miss Flagler busied herself at the big cast iron stove, having offered me, as she always does, a choice of tea or cocoa. (Dr. McComb is the only one who has me down as a coffee drinker.) I chose cocoa, as always. Miss Flyte must have started the percolator, for it was perking away.

  “Emma,” said Miss Flagler, “has something to ask us. Some business.”

  It seemed to please both of them that I was there on business and not simply in my cocoa-drinking capacity. Even Albertine sat alert instead of lying down on the shelf.

  “Really?” said Miss Flyte, with enthusiasm. She made it sound like my “business” was important (which shows how uneventful life can be around here, aside from the ongoing recent mystery). She laced her fingers on the table as Miss Flagler set down her coffee. The cocoa had been made earlier and had only to heat. My cup was served with two marshmallows and I was glad Mr. Butternut wasn’t here to compete for them. I quickly stirred the cocoa to keep a skin from forming.

  We three settled now, I began: “It’s those Devereau sisters. You remember, we were talking about the Devereaus. They were Elizabeth, Isabel, and Iris—”

  “Iris!” said Miss Flagler. “That was her name; Iris was the one who sewed so wonderfully. Do you remember her?” Miss Flagler had turned to Miss Flyte.

  Miss Flyte pursed her lips. “Vaguely. I’d have to think.” Her brow furrowed.

  “Iris Devereau made me a dress. I believe I told you that?” said Miss Flagler.

  I nodded. “You said it was ice-green silk or organdy. It was a garden party and Mary-Evelyn Devereau was there, handing sandwiches around.”

  “Indeed, she was. Such a solemn child. But such pretty clothes. Her Aunt Iris must have sewn them too. Iris was quite famous for her dresses. Everyone wanted a Devereau dress. She wouldn’t sew for just anyone, either. I remember Helene Baum—well, she wasn’t Baum back then, of course; she was Helene Smith—anyway, Helene, who was only a teenager then, nearly had a fit when Iris Devereau wouldn’t make her a gown to wear to some dance. I myself felt quite flattered that she made one for me.”

  “What was she like except being a great dressmaker?”

  Miss Flyte said, “What I remember is I thought it just a shame she lived with the other two. Elizabeth and—?”

  “Isabel.” I said.

  “Yes. Well, Iris was the youngest and pretty, while the others were plain—grim, really—and I imagined they resented Iris. All three of them living together like that, and with that little niece to take care of, I’ll bet they were rife with resentment.”

  It was strange to me that again Rose had been left out. “Four of them.”

  The two looked at me, quizzically, at first. Then Miss Flyte said, “You mean Rose? Yes, that’s right. But Rose was a Souder, only a half sister, and she looked so different. She was blond and quite beautiful. You recall her, Eustacia?”

  This was Miss Flagler’s first name. I thought it suited her.

  “Now, didn’t she run off and get married?”

  Neither recalled this so I told them.

  “Queen?” said Miss Flagler. “But that’s the name of the woman who was shot over near White’s Bridge, isn’t it?”

  I didn’t want to get off on that as it would keep us sitting here all day. “Yes. But I was wondering about Iris. Going back, going back ten years before, do either of you recollect a man from New York City. His name was Jamie Makepiece. He might have been engaged to one of them.” I didn’t want to put memories in their mouths.

  “You know, I always wondered why those girls never married,” said Miss Flagler. “I mean none of them. Especially Iris. But now you mention this Makepiece fellow ... Yes, I do recollect something. There was a row—now, where was this? I honestly think it was at the Hotel Paradise. Yes, it was. Fifty years ago, how it does take me back.”

  Her voice was sad now, whether at what was there fifty years ago, or what isn’t here now, I don’t know.

  “Your own mother was just a child, back then. It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?”

  Miss Flyte said, “Jamie Makepiece. At the time, I could only have been, oh, thirteen. But I remember him. He cut an elegant figure, let me tell you, and I think all us girls were a little silly about him, flighty. Tipsy.” She smiled. “Even me, young as I was.”

  In my mind’s eye I pictured that old photograph on the wall in the Devereaus’ parlor. It was hard to imagine those women in their high-necked dresses and pulled-back hair and serious, reproachful faces as ever having been flighty or tipsy. Except, that is, for the fourth one, Rose.

  Miss Flagler had stopped, back there fifty years ago. I wanted her to go on. “What about this row you overheard. Was he—Jamie
—fighting with someone?”

  She had started to raise her coffee cup, and, perhaps realizing it was cold, put it down again. “Yes, with one of the Devereau women.”

  “Did you hear them?” My cocoa almost forgotten (I was letting the marshmallows melt), I scrunched forward on my chair.

  “Well ... no ... I honestly can’t remember. My goodness, I’m amazed at any of this coming back after fifty years.”

  “My great-aunt Aurora Paradise says that as you get older you remember more from the far past.” I hastened to add, “Of course she’s a lot older than you.”

  “Elizabeth.” Miss Flagler’s look was vacant, as if her mind were seeing, not her eyes.

  We both looked at her. “Elizabeth?” I said.

  “It was she, the one who was arguing with Jamie Makepiece.”

  I waited, but it seemed her mind wasn’t going to turn up any more of this scene. I thought for a moment. “What happened to them? To the Devereaus?”

  Miss Flyte answered: “They just left, didn’t they, Eustacia?”

  Miss Flagler nodded. “After the drowning death of poor Mary-Evelyn, yes.” She added, “No, but wait: one of them died, remember? I think Iris. Yes, it was the youngest one. I recall that because people commented that it was a pity it should be the youngest. The most talented. Mind you, the other two weren’t all that much older—five or ten years, perhaps. They just acted so old, so set in their ways. As I said—grim. Even Iris soured, later in her life, like milk gone off.” Miss Flyte picked up the snapshot and gazed at it. “Can you imagine the life that poor child would have led in that house? With those dour old maids?”

  Miss Flagler poured more coffee, which had been sitting forgotten on the table between them. “I suppose people say the same of us.”

  Miss Flyte laughed. “Not ‘dour,’ not ‘grim,’ I hope.”

  “Nobody ever says anything about you that’s not complimentary,” I said. It was true, except for Lola Davidow, who got mad because the McIntyre wedding party wanted Miss Flyte to light the reception for them. I said, “The Devereaus left nearly everything behind. They even left Mary-Evelyn’s dresses.”

  “How do you know that, Emma?”

  “I’ve been there.”

  “Really? It’s sad to think, but perhaps they wanted no reminders with them.”

  I was suddenly overtaken by a surge of loneliness. There were pictures in the house of the three sisters and even of the black sheep, Rose. But none of Mary-Evelyn. This hadn’t occurred to me before. All we had to remind us of her was this snapshot under the porte cochere, this and memory. And the sisters even wanted to wipe out memory.

  44

  Light in August

  My life had become crowded with people I hardly knew existed a month ago; I counted them up and it came to twenty-one new people. This was even leaving out Rose, since my list had to be people I had actually talked to. For that reason, too, it left out the Girl, even though she might have been the most important of all.

  Twenty-one new people! It was staggering, since these are not people I met and only said hello and good-bye to; these are people I am involved with, such as Dwayne and Louise Landis and the folks in the Windy Run Diner. Yes, I was staggered by this. The next time Ree-Jane makes a comment about my lack of social life, I will tell her this.

  After I left the Oak Tree Gift Shoppe, I decided I needed to think for a little before I talked to Dwayne later on, so I walked down to Second Street to McCrory’s, which was usually a relaxing place to be, especially the makeup counter. I liked to look at the lipsticks and powder and eyeliners, deciding what I’d wear if I wore makeup. Ree-Jane said that makeup wouldn’t do you any good if you didn’t have the bones to begin with.

  None of this was getting me closer to how I would convince Dwayne to go to Brokedown House again, so I left. But then I got some notion of what I might do and hurried to the Abigail Butte County Library, a couple of blocks up Second Street.

  Inside the library (where I should have gone in the first place), I headed for the literature shelves, where I started looking for William Faulkner. I was amazed to find he wrote so many books. Where did he ever find the time? For one thing, he didn’t have to wait tables. I had decided I would take down just one instead of piling a bunch of his books on my library table and thus confuse myself. Also, it was working its way around to noon and I had to get back to the hotel. It was irritating to have to get back and serve lunch to Miss Bertha, but I couldn’t keep putting this off on Walter. After lunch I would go to Slaw’s Garage.

  I ran my finger along the spines of Willam Faulkner’s books, reading the titles. As I Lay Dying (no thanks, unless it’s being told by Ree-Jane); Python, which I didn’t know what it was; The Sound and the Fury, which I read the opening paragraph of and put back; Sanctuary, a title I really liked, for it sounded peaceful. I leafed through it and found one of the characters was named Flem Snopes and put it back, too. Light in August. This title I thought was the prettiest, and wasn’t that the book Dwayne carried around? I took this book to my favorite reading table, which sat by a sunny window. I liked the way the sunshine made a latticework of light coming through the little square panes. It must be fate, for here I was, reading Light in August.

  On the very first page, the woman named Lena is remembering when she was twelve years old. I could scarcely believe it. Talk about fate! Here’s a double dose of it! She thinks about her mother and father, who died when she was my age. William Faulkner described her house and rooms lit by a “bugswirled kerosene lamp.”

  Bugswirled. What a wonderful word. I looked up and I could see above me the thick whiteness of our porch light and small moths circling and fluttering around it as if its whiteness were some sort of moth landing, like a landing on the moon. I read on. “Stumppocked.” Here was another wonderful word. Since he was describing where the trees had been cut, I suppose it means stumps that look diseased. Then there’s “hookwormridden.” I did not want to linger too long over Lena’s condition. I guessed she must be going to have a baby. I suppose all writers get around to sex sooner or later, only Faulkner got around to it on page two.

  It was noon and I had to get back. Holding the book, I went up to Miss Babbit where she was working behind the checkout desk and asked if I could please have a sheet of paper and borrow a pen or pencil. Of course, she said, and reached to a shelf and brought up the paper and handed me a pen. She noticed the book I was carrying. My, my, she said, Mr. Faulkner. Faulkner-country is not an easy place to be, she said. Neither is Graham-country, I said, surprising myself with this comeback.

  I thanked her and went back to my desk, where I started going through my book, just looking anywhere, quickly running my eye down a page here, a page there, stopping if I found something and copied it down. After I’d taken down three different things, I went back to “hookwormridden” and wrote that down too. Then my eye fell on the paragraph that followed :There was a track and a station, and once a day a mixed train fled shrieking through it.

  This was Emma-country. Wow!

  In Slaw’s Garage, the mechanics were all wiping their hands on oily rags, so I guess they must have seen someone coming.

  They weren’t very impressed seeing the someone was me. Especially Dwayne, who made a huge production out of getting down on the flat board and sliding under a gray car. I said hi to Abel Slaw and the rest and walked over to the gray car. “Dwayne?”

  “Yeah?” His voice sounded miles away. There was a lot of metal clanging on metal, the sounds of being busy.

  “Come on out from there, will you?” I sat down on the running board of an old Ford pickup that looked like Ubub’s but wasn’t, for the license plate didn’t read UBB. You-boy was whistling, searching under the hood of an ancient convertible up front.

  “Why? I got work to do.”

  “I can see that. Come on out anyway. It’s important.”

  “You think everything you want’s important.”

  “That’s kind of dumb, Dwayne
. Everybody does.”

  He didn’t answer. I pulled out the sheet of paper with my three quotes to see which one best fit the situation. None of them really did, but I decided on:There were words that never even stood for anything, were not even us, while all the time what was us was going on and going on without even missing the lack of words.

  I knew Dwayne favored words. So did I.

  As he shot out from under the car, I quickly folded the paper and shoved it in my pocket. I wanted him to think I knew it, and had recited, not read, it. I sat with my chin on my up-drawn knees and tried to look heartfelt.

  “What’d you just say?” Prone on the board, he bent his head back as if he thought maybe Billy Faulkner were under the car with him.

  I wasn’t at all sure what I’d said. “You heard.”

  Dwayne got up off the wood flat as if he were rising from Lake Noir, buoyant. The oily rag came out and he stood wiping his hands.

  “Don’t you recognize it?”

  He grunted, but he was near to smiling. His eyes already were. “Recognize the writing. I have not memorized everything Billy Faulkner wrote.”

  “I thought you’d like that, as it’s about words. You remember what you said about words being ‘a shape to fill a lack.”’

  “So do you know what all that means? What you just said?”

  I couldn’t even remember what I’d read, much less what it might mean. “No, but it sounds good. It’s from Light in August.”