Simple Gone South gs-3

by Alicia Hunter Pace

  Then she heard her aunt’s voice. “Caroline, this must be very hard for you.”

  After a pause, Miss Caroline said, “Yes, at turns. But I guess that’s been the story of our lives since the car wreck, even after seventeen years. People talk about premonitions before something happens or getting a bad feeling as it happens. There was never any of that for me. One minute I was weeding my flowerbeds and the next I was planning a funeral for my husband and my only child. Just that fast. But you move on, though it is a little poignant that Charles and Brantley are outside frying the turkey without Alden. I am so glad you and Lucy will be here. Setting those three places was so sad. But the hardest thing has been being in this kitchen without my daughter. I made tomato aspic yesterday and then remembered that Eva was the only one who liked it. I put it down the garbage disposal and indulged in some self-pity for a good long time.”

  “I don’t believe anyone would say that was self-pity. I believe that is called grief,” Annelle said.

  It was a shock to hear Aunt Annelle and Miss Caroline talking the way she and Missy, Lanie, and Tolly would have—though why she was surprised, she didn’t know. It wasn’t as if her generation had the monopoly on friendship.

  “Grief—I suppose so,” Miss Caroline went on. “But even at that, none of this is as hard as traveling to some strange city where Brantley is working and sitting in a restaurant, trying to pretend. Or worse, when Brantley would have no part of the holiday and Charles and I went it alone at the kitchen table. We always had invitations, of course, but it never seemed the thing to do. So.” Her voice filled with steel. “I am determined that this will be a good day. I know better than to try to recreate the past, but I will make this a different day. Charles and I are of one mind on that. Our boy is home. That’s what matters.”

  Annelle murmured something else, but Lucy didn’t stay to hear. She quietly went out the front door and rang the bell, redoubling her resolve to do what she could to help this family have a happy day.

  * * *

  Brantley sat at the Thanksgiving table and watched his father and grandmother fall in love with Lucy. He had never seen her so charming, so beautiful. She smiled, she asked the right questions, gave the right answers. Most of all, she looked at him adoringly and laughed when he said something funny. And he found himself trying harder and harder to win her laughter.

  And miraculously, it wasn’t hard. This was a happy table—and it was Lucy who made the difference. It felt like family.

  They had already finished with dessert, but they remained at the table. Charles circled and poured everyone another glass of wine. “Tell us how your family usually spends Thanksgiving, Lucy. Aren’t your parents in Tibet?”

  “They are.” She nodded and took a sip of her wine. “Though they go somewhere every summer, this is the first time they have been on a year-long sabbatical since I was twelve. I assume you don’t want to hear about the Thanksgiving that year we were in China. It would be a very short story.”

  “No turkey?” Brantley asked.

  “Not in the village where we were, though to call it a village is an overstatement. Eller is more of a dog than that place was a village.”

  Everyone laughed with delight—again.

  “But usually it’s the three of us and Annelle. Sometimes we go to some cousins’ in Charleston, but usually it’s in Oxford. Mama makes a turkey and—you’re going to think this is odd—lasagna.”

  “Really?” Big Mama said.

  “Her mother was Italian and she taught Mama to make really good lasagna. My daddy loves it, so we always have that. She also makes dressing, some with oysters, some without. The oysters are the Charleston influence. I don’t like them. They are the only thing that swims that I can’t abide.”

  “Now, Lucy,” Brantley said. “I ask you this—do oysters really swim so much as they lie around and make pearls?”

  She wrinkled her adorable little nose. “I am not all that wise in the ways of oysters. But I am wise enough in the way they taste to know that I want to stay away from them.”

  “Maybe you just haven’t had the right oyster,” he said. “Perfectly fresh, on the half shell, with just a little lemon and horseradish.”

  Lucy shuddered.

  “I quite agree,” Big Mama said. “I think they earn their keep best by making pearls.” And she wound her fingers around the triple strand at her neck—the same ones Brantley’s mother had borrowed for special parties. He found himself wondering how they would look around Lucy’s neck.

  “Pearls are one of the finest things in life,” Annelle chimed in. “Though I do agree with Brantley about the right oyster, and Michelle’s oyster dressing is wonderful.”

  Lucy shuddered again. “Good thing that’s not all we had to eat. My parents always invite a slew of people from the university—students who can’t go home, other professors at loose ends. It’s causal and chaotic. Everybody brings something and it can get really interesting, especially from the foreign students. Once we had a big vat of tamales. There’s always some Indian food. Mama tells them to bring what they think of when they think of holiday food so there’s never any rhyme or reason to it.”

  Suddenly Brantley felt like the most selfish bastard on the planet. This was Lucy’s first major holiday away from her parents. They weren’t dead, but still.

  “Are you sad?” he asked. “Do you miss them?”

  “I miss them.” She smiled. “But I’m not sad. Missing is part of loving, and we talk often. And I have loved today.”

  Everyone laughed again. What she’d said wasn’t funny but they laughed because they were delighted with her—something he understood.

  “So, Lucy,” Charles said. “What food do you think of when you think of Thanksgiving?”

  She laughed. “Again, like the lasagna, you’re going to think this is odd, but homemade vanilla ice cream. My daddy always makes it at Thanksgiving because they’re always gone summers when most people make ice cream.”

  Then something happened that hadn’t happened in a long, long time—so long that Brantley had forgotten the special thing that used to happen between his father and him.

  They looked up, locked eyes, and read each other’s mind.

  Simultaneously they laughed and rose from their chairs.

  “Excuse us from your table, Miss Caroline,” Charles said, placing his napkin by his plate. “We’ll be back soon. My boy and I have a mission.”

  They ran out the back door like exuberant children. Brantley hadn’t felt this way in so long and it felt good—but not as good as seeing his dad like this.

  “I’ll drive,” Charles said. “You look up on your phone how to make ice cream. Find one with stuff we can get at the minimart out by the highway.”

  After just one day, Lucy had already made such a difference in Brantley’s family. Slowly, an idea came to him. What if Lucy became part of his family? He could see a high chair at that dining table, with Big Mama spooning mashed potatoes into a small mouth. He could see a little boy with dark curly hair sitting in his dad’s lap in a golf cart as Brantley drove them to the next hole.

  What if he stayed here? What if he could put this family back together? Then, maybe he could confess what he had done and they would forgive him.

  He shook his head. He couldn’t think about that now.

  “I know right where the ice cream maker is at home,” Charles said. “We’ll stop by there first.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Annelle Meade Interiors was the only shop in Merritt that had no Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving. Maybe even Halloween. It was one of Annelle’s many eccentricities. The holly and the glitter would come out the day after Thanksgiving and not one second before.

  Consequently, Black Friday started in a whirl and way too early for Lucy. She, Annelle, and Pam hit the ground running at five A.M. so they could decorate in time for the ten o’clock opening. Over the years, Annelle had become known for her unconventional attitude about the timing of he
r decorations as well as her unique approach. Just because she refused to decorate until after Thanksgiving didn’t mean she had not been working on her secret design for months. At the appointed time, people would pour into the shop for refreshments and to purchase the baskets of ornaments and rolls of ribbon that were duplicates of what Annelle used for her creations.

  Annelle had gotten the idea for the Christmas Wedding theme last December when Tolly and Nathan had sprung on everyone, with three weeks notice, that they were getting married two days before Christmas. It had nearly killed all concerned, but the wedding had been a crystalline and velvet dream with the bride wearing her grandmother’s dress, the groom beside himself with joy, and three very tired attendants. Much of the work had fallen to Lucy since Missy had just given birth to Lulu and Lanie was very pregnant with John Luke. But it had been fun, though Lucy had wondered at the time if she would ever have a wedding of her own.

  And she wondered it now, as she decorated the mantle with antique wedding veils, tiny white lights, silver bells, and gossamer ribbon.

  In fact, it seemed even more improbable now. She knew that Brantley was no more a possibility than he had ever been, but now marrying anyone else seemed unthinkable. Because, God help her, she loved him, had loved him since her fifteenth summer. But that didn’t change anything. She just needed for her head to keep reminding her heart that this was temporary. She’d known that going in. But she was in deep. If she hadn’t been before yesterday, she would be now. Thanksgiving had been such fun and the capper was when Charles and Brantley came back with that ice cream maker, bags of ice, and rock salt. Annelle had left shortly after lunch to work on nosegays for today, but Lucy had watched football until almost midnight with Brantley, Charles, and Miss Caroline. She’d even given in and cuddled under a throw with him while they ate ice cream. And there had been nothing like it with his arms around her and the taste of happy vanilla childhood in her mouth.

  She rearranged a bit of ribbon and aged ivory lace.

  Annelle came up behind her. “Beautiful, Lucy. Absolutely magical.”

  “It’s lacking something.” Lucy stood back. “I had thought to put nosegays at three strategic points but it’s too much. What do you think of this instead?” She randomly scattered little bunches of dried baby’s breath on the mantle shelf.

  “Perfect,” Annelle said. “I think these are the prettiest decorations we’ve ever had.”

  It was true. Lucy surveyed the shop. The trees, wreaths, and garlands were covered in little bridal bouquets, lace hearts, tiny top hats, silver doves, gold rings, blown glass wedding cakes, and sparkling snowflakes. White poinsettias were covered in crystalline glitter and their bases wrapped in white tulle. The refreshments for the open house were individual exquisitely frosted wedding cakes, and Champagne served in old-fashioned punch cups. Those cups made some of the older women nostalgic for their weddings from the days before everyone abandoned punch cups for wine glasses.

  Lucy put the finishing touches on the mantle and arranged a dozen veils on a chair nearby. She would put baskets of the ribbon, lights, bells, and baby’s breath near the veils so that everything to recreate that mantle would be in one place. She carried her ladder to the storeroom. They opened in twenty-three minutes and she also still needed to set up the display of beeswax Christmas candles and lace gloves.

  Missy came in as soon as the doors opened. “Annelle’s a genius,” Missy said, clutching a basket of merchandise.

  “I used to doubt it,” Lucy said. “But by now, everybody’s tired of everything else in town. They are ready to see something new.”

  “At this rate, there won’t be a thing left by five o’clock,” Missy said, glancing at the line at the counter.

  “Don’t kid yourself,” Lucy said. “There’s more where this came from. She just doesn’t like for everyone to know how plentiful it is.”

  “I’ve got to go,” Missy said. “I’ve got to get started on my food for tomorrow. Speaking of . . .” She shifted her basket to her other arm. “I expect you to declare your loyalty a little better than you have in years past.”

  Missy did not think the crimson headband with ROLL TIDE stitched across the top showed enthusiastically enough that Lucy rooted for the University of Alabama over Auburn in the annual grudge match.

  “I’ll see what I can do about that,” Lucy said without conviction. When she got off work, all she intended to remedy was how tired she was. And it wasn’t even 10:30 A.M.

  Business was hectic. By noon, they had not only replenished the ornament baskets twice, but had sold three large pieces of furniture, five rugs, and a fair amount of other odds and ends. Lucy was just about to replenish the refreshment table when Lanie and her sister-in-law came in.

  “Arabelle!” Lucy gave her a hug. “It’s so good to see you.” It had been over a year. After finishing her residency, Arabelle had spent a year in Africa as part of the Doctors Without Borders program. Where was it Lanie had said she was working now? Virginia? Georgia? “Welcome home.”

  “It’s good to be home,” Arabelle said.

  “We came to rescue you for lunch,” Lanie said with a laugh. “Emma and John Luke are with their grandparents at the farm. Arabelle and I are going to eat, shop, drink some wine, and shop some more.”

  “Well, you can start with the shopping and eating here. We even have Champagne.” She gestured to the refreshment table. “But I can’t go to lunch.”

  Pam crept up and waited for Lucy to meet her eyes.

  “Mrs. Gilchrist wants your help with some pillows,” Pam said.

  Barbara Gilchrist was known for dropping hundreds of dollars at a time for small items—and then redecorating a whole room to match them.

  “Oops.” Lucy gave Lanie and Arabelle brief hugs. “Got to go, but I’ll see you at Missy’s party tomorrow?”

  On her way to Mrs. Gilchrist, two other people stopped her to ask a question. And so it went the rest of the day.

  * * *

  Brantley was at loose ends. He’d done a little research, but there was only so much he could do on the Brantley Building until the tenants were out. He’d talked to Will Garrett while he was putting the finishing touches on the kitchen cabinets. Then he’d watched television until he got hungry. He called Lucy to see if she wanted to get lunch, but her phone went to voicemail.

  No surprise. He’d already called four times and her phone had gone to voicemail every time. He’d lost count of the texts he’d sent and she had not answered a single one. He considered going to the Big Starr to buy some food to put in those new cabinets, but discarded the notion. He was hungry now.

  Finally, he put on his shoes and went up to the big house. No sign of Evelyn. No sign of anyone, but the kitchen was shipshape. He pulled turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, and pie out of the refrigerator and took it to the pristine kitchen table that had been far from pristine last night.

  Last night, he and Lucy had put what they could in the dishwasher and rinsed what wasn’t dishwasher safe. Lucy had been mortified to leave a mess and he’d had to explain to her that if they did much more there would be hell to pay with Evelyn.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he’d told her, as he dried the roasting pan she’d just washed. “If you want to get along in this family, don’t cross Evelyn. Don’t mess in her domain. As a matter of fact, washing this pan might be over the line. She’ll forgive you, as you are not yet acquainted with the ways of our clan.”

  She laughed. “You have ways, do you?”

  “Oh, yeah. We do. Let’s see,” he said. “Come to the table as soon as you’re called. Don’t talk after entering the sanctuary or make faces at your friends. If you find yourself where you ought not to be, even if it was your bad judgment and poor planning that got you there, call Dad. He’ll come get you. Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain. And for the love of God and all that is holy, do not sass Mama.” He was remembering an incident from his teen years and it came out of his mouth before he thought, but it felt good to m
ention her. Lucy was looking at him eagerly. Maybe he would just carry on. “If you must sass Mama, don’t do it in front of Dad unless you want to spend the entire month of July with no car keys and no privileges. In case you’re not clear on what a privilege is, it’s anything except eating, going to church, reading the Bible or something from your summer book list, or being on the golf course for any reason except to tote somebody else’s clubs and say, ‘Yes, sir.’ Also, you can’t answer the phone unless you’re the only one in the house and then you are only allowed one of two responses. One: ‘I am not allowed to talk on the phone. Good-bye.’ Or two, ‘Yes, I will be happy to take a message for the people in this house who are allowed to have a social life and are not being held prisoner for an unfortunate slip of the tongue.’” He’d learned from that incident, but not well enough. The next time he’d sassed her it had cost more than a July under house arrest. It had cost a family.

  He shook it off; he could because Lucy was looking at him, bright-eyed and happy.

  “What happens if you sass Big Mama?” Lucy asked around her sweet smile.

  The very thought of that gave him a chill. “Well, I don’t rightly know. I’ll tell you when I get back from joining the circus because one thing is about as likely to happen as the other. I suspect those in charge of handing down the punishment would just kill you. Or more like, Big Mama would look at you until you died of shame.”

  As Brantley located the bread and mayonnaise for his sandwich, Big Mama came in the back door with an armload of bags. He turned to take them from her. She laughed and twisted away from him.

  “No. You can’t see. I’ve been Christmas shopping!” She carried her packages to the laundry room and came out with Lucy’s casserole dish and basket.

  Oh, Christ. Christmas. Yeah. That was the point. He laughed a little but only in his head.

  “I cannot believe you have been out in that mess of Black Friday,” he said. “Couldn’t pay me to go out there.”