Gone South

by Meg Moseley

  She pulled the four napkin rings out of her purse. She’d always loved their unusual design of cherries and leaves. Somehow, they’d ended up at a yard sale in rural Michigan where the items on the next table included tractor parts and goat collars. Seeing them again made her homesick for the farmlands and orchards of her home state. More than that, she was homesick for a place where she’d had friends. Acceptance. Community. Here? She might be an outsider forever.

  She found the box labeled jewelry, still taped shut, and scratched out the word with a fat black marker. She wrote a new label—old magazines—and hid the box under an empty duffel bag in the back of her closet. She tucked her purse out of sight there too, and hid the napkin rings in the pocket of an ugly windbreaker at the back of the closet. Later, she would buy a safe or a locking cabinet. If she could afford one.

  After gathering some clean clothes for her guest, she headed downstairs again. She left the clothes on the chair in the guest room and retired to the couch with George’s book. She opened it where he’d left the bookmark.

  While Mary Ellen Carlyle lay dying of consumption in a convalescent home, knowing her adored husband and all four of their sons had sacrificed their lives on the altar of the Cause, foul carpetbaggers and Yankees invaded the family home. Perhaps it was by God’s mercy that the grieving widow and mother perished far from home, never knowing that Nathan McComb, that liar and blaggard from the North, had stripped her beloved abode of its remaining treasures.

  Fancying the mahogany mantelpiece and marble hearth that Hudson Carlyle had bought at a great price, McComb hired a crew of darkies to disassemble it in the Carlyle manse and then assemble it again in the home he was building on South Jackson Street.

  Tish looked up at the fireplace. A mahogany mantelpiece, a marble hearth. She went back to reading.

  The entire edifice is polluted with the fruits of his thievery, from delicate drawer-pulls to elegant doorknobs and sturdy door-hinges.

  The house still stands at this writing, a vile monument to McComb’s rapaciousness and greed. Although the home was long ago sold into the hands of innocents who knew not its history, our town’s long-established families still remember the evil that swooped down upon us from the North.

  Long may the people of Noble hold the Carlyle name in honor and remembrance, while giving the name of McComb the contempt it deserves. Nor let us forget the wife, Letitia McComb, that most unchaste and unkind of women. Undeserving of the name of “lady,” she will forever share the infamy and dishonor of her spouse.

  Unchaste? Tish closed the book, her cheeks burning. It was a pack of lies, though, put together by people who’d lost almost everything in the War—everything but their pride and their hatred for Yankees. And at least some of the locals believed every word of the book was true.

  No wonder the woman at the bank had changed her friendly tune when she saw the name on the driver’s license. No wonder the burly guy at Bag-a-’Cue had relished repeating her distinctive, old-fashioned, infamous name to announce her presence. She was lucky the kitchen crew hadn’t slipped something nasty into the barbecue sauce.

  Or maybe they had. She shuddered.

  Mel was the one who’d eaten it, though. Every bite.

  Tish opened the book and read that scathing account again. Surely there was another side to the story. Those old letters might shed some light on it. Once she’d set up her computer, she’d find them and scan them.

  Idling at a red light, the 454 engine made the long hood tremble. Tuxedo black, the original color.

  George wished he was seventeen, cruising Main on a Friday night with one of those cute cheerleaders who’d always ignored him. But he was a couple of years from forty. It was a Thursday morning, a workday. And his passenger was a prissy little fluff ball with no brain to speak of. He groaned at the memory of his mother dressing her little dogs in sweaters this time of year.

  The light changed. Letting out the clutch, he unleashed the beast. The bass vibrato bounced off the brick buildings, waking a laugh from deep inside him.

  Then unhappy thoughts intruded. Mel might have swiped some valuables already, or she might have thrown one of her legendary tantrums. Worse, the kid might have used her angelic smile to win Letitia’s trust and pave the way for some con game.

  He slowed for the turn onto South Jackson. Daisy put her paws on the window and peered out, shivering with so much excitement that her leash shivered with her.

  “Calm down, dummy. You don’t live on this street anymore, okay?”

  She let out a faint yip.

  Maybe he should count his blessings. Daisy was the quietest dog his mother had ever adopted. If he had to be stuck with the surviving dog, at least she wasn’t one of the loudmouth yappers.

  He downshifted, turning into the familiar driveway, and the growl of the engine made him grin. He finally owned a muscle car—a ’70 Chevelle SS 454, no less—and he’d wangled his way back into the garage that Calv had been so rudely evicted from. They had plenty to work on too, from brakes to wiring problems to upholstery.

  George’s smile fell away. Mel sat on the porch steps, knees together, feet splayed out, a cigarette in one hand and a Coke can in the other. She turned her head, giving the car a faint smile—of mockery or approval? He couldn’t tell. She gave no sign that she recognized him.

  He cranked the window down. “Hey, Mel.”

  She squinted at him through a blue haze of smoke. “George? What are you doing here?”

  “That’s what I’d like to ask you. Letitia let you spend the night?”

  “Tish, you mean? She sure did. She’s nice.” She glowered at him. “I can’t believe nobody wanted to be honest with her about the McCombs.”

  He tried to bury the defensiveness welling up inside him. “We hashed it out, last night. Part of it, anyway.”

  “So, why are you here?”

  “Dropping off my project car. I don’t have a garage so she’s letting me rent hers.”

  Leaving her Coke on the steps, Mel stood and sauntered across the shaggy lawn. She was wearing baggy jeans and a Detroit Pistons sweatshirt, very different from the semi-Goth styles she’d favored for a while. He hoped they were borrowed, not swiped, from Letitia’s closet.

  “Doesn’t look like a project car,” Mel said.

  “Nice paint job, isn’t it? I bought it that way, but there’s still plenty of mechanical work to keep me busy.”

  “You? Doing mechanical work?”

  “I’ll rely on Calv’s expertise.”

  “Poor Calv. I bet he doesn’t know what he’s in for.” Trailing her cigarette-bearing hand across the trembling hood, she crossed in front of the car and went to the passenger door.

  “Lucky for you, I didn’t see any ashes falling on that pretty paint job,” he said when she started to climb in. He’d smiled when he said it, but she scowled at him anyway. “No smoking in my car, please. Or around it.”

  “You grumpy old grump.” After one more pull from her cigarette, she dropped the butt and ground it out with the heel of her shoe.

  “Don’t litter, please.”

  “I’ll pick it up later.” After nudging Daisy to the floor, she climbed in. “Cute dog.”

  “You want her?”

  “I can’t afford dog food. I can’t even afford Mel food.”

  “You haven’t had steady work lately?”

  “Jobs are scarce. Especially after, you know, the big stink about the missing cash.”

  He frowned, trying to remember the particulars. She’d worked at a produce stand and later at the Howards’ chintzy little gift shop downtown, but both places let her go because the money kept coming up short. She’d blamed it on her lack of experience. Nobody bought it.

  He let the car crawl forward on the rutted lane that curved around the side of the house. The kitchen window shook with the car’s passage, making sunlight shimmy on the glass.

  He tried for a relaxed and patient tone, like an uncle dishing out advice. “Well, I ho
pe you’ll find a good job and prove that you’ve turned into a reliable and law-abiding adult who respects other people’s property.”

  She bristled. “I haven’t taken anything that isn’t mine.”

  There she went again, proclaiming her innocence and irritating the patience right out of him. “Just keep your mitts off Letitia’s things, all right?”

  “Why do you call her that? She calls herself Tish.”

  George frowned. The nickname seemed too familiar, but he preferred it to Letitia, which always made him think of carpetbaggers.

  “And why do you think I’d steal her things?” Mel started playing with the knobs of the radio, trying in vain to make it come on. “Everybody always thinks the worst about me. Everybody but Grandpa John. He loved me when nobody else did.”

  “Your parents loved you. They still do.”

  “You wanna bet? They don’t want me. They never did. They were your age when I was born. Forty.”

  “I am not forty.”

  “You’re close, anyway. Would you want a baby that messed up your life like that? I was born when Stuart was already in high school.”

  “Have you forgotten how they showered you with everything your little heart desired? The playhouse? The pony? The electric car?”

  “Ooh, I loved the car. I remember racing the mail truck down the street.”

  He tried not to smile. “I heard about that.”

  “All that expensive stuff, though, you know what that was all about? They felt guilty for not wanting me, so they tried extra hard to act like they wanted me. But then, every time they spent too much money on me, guess who they blamed?” She splayed her hand over her chest. “Me. The oops baby.”

  “Mel, you have a wild imagination.”

  She didn’t answer. He could only hope she would think about what he’d said.

  He pulled the car around the line of camellias. The garage came into view, flooding him with memories. When he was a kid, his uncle had practically lived there, tinkering on cars and sharing his expertise. But when Rue Zorbas caught her brother drinking around her young son, she’d banned Calv from the premises. She’d meant it too. She didn’t relent until shortly before her death—years and years after he and George had started spending time together again. Once her son was an adult, she hadn’t had much say in the matter.

  Stopping the car in front of the right-hand door, George savored the engine’s throaty roar one moment more before shutting it off. It ticked placidly in the silence like a black dragon settling its shiny limbs for a power nap.

  Mel didn’t move. She only sat there frowning. Scheming, probably.

  “How are you and Letitia getting along?” he asked.

  “Too soon to tell. I conked out last night before she got back from your place, and when I got up this morning, she was asleep on the couch with a book on her stomach.”

  George had a good idea which book that was.

  “So, was it fun to explain about the McCombs?” Mel asked.

  “What do you think?”

  “There you go again. Grumpy old—”

  He got out, slamming his door on the rest of her commentary. Proceeding to the garage, he then unlocked the sliding door and shoved it to the side. “We’re in, Calv,” he said under his breath.

  Mel climbed out, bringing the dog, and followed him around to the trunk of the car, the way she used to follow him and Stuart long ago. Daisy lolled happily in her arms, wagging her tail. If she’d been a cat, she would have been purring.

  That gave him pause. Daisy was a wreck at the shop and upstairs, but perfectly happy at the house. Maybe it was the location, or maybe she trusted women but didn’t trust men. With rescue dogs, you never could tell.

  After opening the trunk, George pulled out a socket set and a small toolbox filled with screwdrivers and pliers. He placed them against the interior wall and went back for more, the small tools neatly stored in toolboxes and the larger ones loose. The pry bars clinked and clanked against the cement. Finally he added the electric drill he’d bought himself for Christmas, still in its orange plastic case.

  “That’s a lot of tools,” Mel said.

  “This is only the first load. Calv’s bringing—” George shut himself up when he imagined her strolling into a pawnshop with one of the expensive power tools that the old man had scrimped and saved for.

  When he had finished emptying the trunk, George slammed it shut. “Now I’d better put this baby to bed and lock her up tight.”

  “A car like that isn’t cheap. Did your mom leave you a ton of money?”

  “It’s no Maserati. It’s only a Chevelle, and it still needs work.”

  “You didn’t answer my question, George.”

  “And I don’t intend to.”

  Letitia’s voice floated across the yard. “Melanie? Where are you?”

  “I’m out here harassing George,” Mel called. “He deserves it.”

  Letitia stumbled around the camellias, looking like she’d slept in her clothes. Yep. She had. She was still wearing the black shirt she’d worn when she stormed up his stairs with war in her eyes.

  She stopped short and stared at the car. “That explains it. I thought we were having an earthquake or something.”

  He squelched a proud smile. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “I didn’t mean to sleep in.” Running a hand through her messy hair, she looked back and forth between them like someone who’d been asked to keep an eye on a rat and a snake simultaneously. She settled on Mel. “Did you sleep all right?”

  “Yes, thanks.” Mel smiled, all innocence and charm. “Sorry about eating all the ’cue last night. I couldn’t stop.”

  “It’s okay. By the time I got back from George’s place, I didn’t feel like eating.”

  Mel’s smile changed to a sympathetic pout. “Of course you didn’t. It’s terrible the way you had to drag the truth out of him.”

  “That’s enough, Melanie.” He turned to Letitia. “Did you read the pertinent parts of the book?”

  “I certainly did. Several times.” She put her hands on her hips. “I can’t believe it. It’s like the whole town has conspired to keep me in the dark.”

  “How long have you been in town?” he asked. “And you’ve hatched a conspiracy theory already? You persecute easy.”

  “I what?”

  “Stop fussin’, y’all,” Mel said. “George, can I take the car for a spin? Please?”

  “No. You may not drive it. You may not touch it. Understand?”

  “Just one little touch.” She reached out and caressed the fender, watching from half-veiled eyes for his reaction.

  He folded his arms across his chest and kept his mouth shut.

  Something was brewing in Letitia, though. She glared at him and opened her mouth as if she were about to commence arguing with him. Then she pushed her hair out of her eyes and faced Mel instead, leaving him feeling slighted.

  “Tell me the truth,” Letitia said. “Did you really steal a Corvette?”

  “No!” Mel jutted her chin. “No way. It was my grandpa’s. He’d just died, and taking the car out made me feel like—like he was still around. I brought it back without a scratch, but my dad whipped me anyway. That made me so mad. I was too old for whippings.”

  George raised his eyebrows. “A whipping is better than being charged with grand theft auto when you weren’t even legal to drive.”

  “It’s not theft when you take what’s yours. Grandpa John always said he’d leave me the car when he died.”

  “He was only teasing,” George said gently.

  Mel swung her head stubbornly from side to side. “No, he meant what he said, but my stupid, selfish father wanted the car, so he took it. He’s the thief. Oh, I forgot. Duncan Hamilton isn’t my father anymore. He’s my ex-father. Ask him if you don’t believe me.” She deposited Daisy in George’s hands, turned around, and stalked toward the house.

  He sighed. “She accuses Dunc of taking whatever
he wants, but she does the same thing. Was anything missing this morning?”

  “I hope not, but I don’t intend to take inventory every day,” Letitia said. “I can’t live that way.”

  “No, you can’t. She needs to stay somewhere else.”

  “Such as?”

  “I don’t know, but you don’t want her under your roof. Not with her history of stealing.”

  “But where’s your proof? Your suspicions aren’t necessarily based on facts. What if you’re wrong? And as for your smart remark about how I persecute easy—”

  “I apologize for that,” he said hastily.

  “Thank you, and I apologize if I’ve overreacted to that nonsense about the McCombs, but there must be another side to that story. I’ll let you know when I find it.” She turned around and rushed off, disappearing behind the camellias before he could corral his scattered thoughts.

  It was possible that those old McComb stories were highly exaggerated, but the Mel stories were recent, and he’d heard them from reputable citizens soon after they’d happened. She had a lot of pluck, coming back to town. And now, if she thought she had nothing left to lose, there was no telling what she might do. Especially if she heard about Dunc’s plans for the Corvette.

  George climbed into the car again, putting the dog on the passenger seat. The Chevelle made a glorious racket when he drove it into its new, temporary home. With the dog straining against her leash, he padlocked the door behind him. He sure hoped Letitia kept her keys where Mel couldn’t find them.

  Standing at the parlor window with that awful book in her hand, Tish watched George walk down the sidewalk toward Main with the dog padding reluctantly behind him. Daisy looked mournfully over her shoulder, then sat. The leash went taut.

  George stopped short, picked up the dog, and started walking again. He kicked a rock, sending it into the street, and picked up his pace.

  Tish explored her hair with her hand, and it was as tangled as she’d feared. She hadn’t brushed her hair or her teeth. She’d just run outside looking like a nightmare, and there was George. With his thick, wavy, dark hair and his crazy-fast car.