by Vicki Lane
Phillip’s brow furrowed and he moved one hand from the steering wheel to run it over his head— that familiar gesture signifying heavy thought, uncertainty, and/or perturbation. “What’s your take on Kimmie, Sherlock?”
They were traveling along 25–70, the beautiful winding road running through Pisgah National Forest to Hot Springs and, beyond that, Shut In. A few backpackers were crossing the Appalachian Trail footbridge that spanned the road high above the car. The hikers looked hot and tired in the unseasonable muggy weather.
“She surprised me.” Elizabeth tried to sum up her perceptions. “She’s very…well, very ordinary and very sweet. Not at all the bimbo that I had expected. Of course, I was going on thirdhand information— Laurel told me what Kyra told her. But Kimmie’s…well, I like her. She seems, maybe a little naive, but—”
“You believe that about wanting to get Kyra back on good terms with her dad?”
Elizabeth hesitated. “I believe that’s what Kimmie wants. I’m not so sure about Kyra— or her dad.”
* * *
The kitchen table was set and the same endless procession of dishes appeared. Today there was a small dish of thick, crisply fried bacon instead of the sausage, and the smothered potatoes had been replaced by fat roasted sweet potatoes, melting chunks of home-churned butter oozing in their split-open tops. “Git you a chair and we’ll eat hit up while hit’s hot.” Omie, clearly delighted to have company, poured their glasses full of icy buttermilk and urged them to heap their plates.
As before, Phillip was asked to return thanks, and this time he did not stumble over the words but recited the grace from beginning to end with practiced ease. As he concluded, he smiled happily at his aunt, who reached out and patted his hand. “That’s a sight better, now don’t you think so, Phillip Lee?”
Their plates piled high, they settled into the serious business of doing justice to Aunt Omie’s cooking. Elizabeth asked about the bacon and was not surprised to learn that it was home-cured. “My neighbor kills two pigs ever year. He’s a widder man and I make him a pie or a cake now and again, so he brings me pig meat when he butchers. I can some, like them sausages we had last time. And some I salt down and hang in the meat house. Course when hit get so awful hot like hit done back in July, that meat’s like to go blanky. So I take whatever’s left and make hit into portions and put hit in the freezer.” With a jerk of her head she indicated the mammoth white chest freezer, humming quietly on the back porch.
“I wouldn’t take nothin’ fer that freezer.” Omie leaned confidentially toward Elizabeth. “Phillip Lee bought me that back in nineteen and eighty-four. I keep my butter there and a feller comes around ever month and buys hit off me. Pays me good too. They sell hit at a store over to Hot Springs. He’ll buy ever last pat I can make.”
Omie jumped up and retrieved a pot from the stovetop. “There now, I was like to fergit the okra and maters.” She gave them each a generous helping from the spicy, steaming red and green stew and resumed her seat.
“Well, Phillip Lee, you gettin’ along good over there in Asheville? How’s that little girl of yourn doin’ with her schoolin’?”
Phillip paused in his buttering of a third wedge of cornbread. “Janie’s doing fine, Aunt Omie. She stays so busy with classes and homework that I don’t see much of her, but I’ll try to bring her out next time—”
“Reckon she’s got her nose out of joint, along of you havin’ a lady friend.” Omie peered at Phillip. “Some young uns is like that. That widder man who give me the pig meat could’ve found him a wife after his old woman died— there’s a sight of widders around here— but his children took on so bad if ever he named another woman that he just give hit up and stayed single. And don’t none of ’em children live near enough to do for him. Hit’s a pure shame, what hit is.”
When they had gorged themselves to repletion and beyond, Omie quickly cleared the table, then stepped out to her back porch and returned with a Tupperware cake container. “Now, this here is one of my yaller cakes with that car’mel frostin’ you like so good, Phillip Lee; git you a big ol’ slice.”
She beamed at her nephew, who was dutifully cutting a huge wedge of the cake. “Law, when he was a young un, now he could hide him some cake!”
They were permitted to turn down second helpings on the condition that Phillip take the remainder of the cake home with him. As before, he was grudgingly allowed to do the dishes, and, as before, Elizabeth accompanied the old woman to the back bedroom where the quilts were kept.
“Don’t you pay no mind to Janie.” Aunt Omie looked up at Elizabeth. “She ain’t a bad young un but her mama raised her to think that folks out here is nothing but a bunch of ignorant hillbillies. Law, first time Phillip Lee brung that wife of hisn to see me, that Sandy like to had a fit when she found out there weren’t no commode. I heared ’em fussin’ out there on the front porch. ‘You take me back to a mo-tel,’ says she. ‘There’s one in Hot Springs we drove right past.’ And he done hit too, and come back hisself and stayed the night here.”
Omie shook her head sadly. “That was the first and last I seen of Sandy. When they got the divorce and the children was some older, Phillip Lee brung ’em up to see me one summer. But they was their mama’s babies, all right. Fussed about havin’ to go out to the little house, fussed about there weren’t no TV; the boy was plumb scared of the chickens and little Janie girl wanted to change her clothes ever whipstitch— any time she got the least speck of dirt on ’em, here she’d come a-bawlin’, ‘Doighty! Doighty!’ ”
“I’ve not seen much of Janie,” Elizabeth said. “She’s been out to my farm with her father a few times, but, like Phillip said, she does stay busy with school. Besides, Phillip and I are just friends; there’s nothing for her to be jealous of—”
Aunt Omie’s bright blue eyes glittered up at her. “In the Book hit says that love is strong as death and jealousy as cruel as the grave. I see what I see. Phillip Lee’s a good boy and he’s due some happiness in his life. I don’t want him to buckle under to his young un like my neighbor done. Now, let me git at this newspaper piece I wanted to show you.”
The little woman began to delve into the chest from which she had taken “the Fanchon quilt,” as she called it. When all the quilts and blankets, woolen winter coats (there was one that surely dated from the forties, Elizabeth judged), as well as a miscellaneous assortment of punitive-looking corsets and long winter underwear, had been removed and laid on the bed, there remained a layer of folded newspapers, brittle and yellowing.
“I always saved these whenever somethin’ big happened.” Omie carefully lifted out a stack of papers. The bold headline on the topmost issue read VICTORY IN JAPAN.
“This here is the one I thought you might want to see.” She made a space on the bed and gently unfolded the crumbling newsprint.
Local Girl to Meet President and Mrs. Roosevelt. The story was long and fulsome:
Fanchon Teague, a Shut In lovely best known for her sparkling talent with the banjo and guitar as well as her soulful renditions of the old mountain ballads, will travel to our nation’s capital to present a quilt of her own making to President Franklin Roosevelt and the First Lady. Miss Teague, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jode Rector of Upper Shut In, will be ably representing our own Appalachian Women’s Craft Center and will be accompanied and chaperoned by Miss Lily Cabot, a debutante from Boston and a recent charming addition to these mountains of ours, whose labors as a volunteer instructress at the Center have brought a taste of the classics to the fair daughters of the hills.
The article continued in flowery tones, lauding the work of the AWCC and expressing firm expectations that the trip would result in more funding for the Center and a concomitant growth of the local economy. Beside the article was a picture of four women, all dressed in the severe garb of the Depression era.
Elizabeth peered closely at the images, eager to see the beautiful Fanchon. Two women, evidently in their forties and dressed in tailored skirts a
nd blouses, were identified as Miss Geneva Mills and Miss Carolyn Hedley: “Founders of the AWCC and tireless workers for the furthering of our Native Arts and Crafts.” A slender teenager wearing a dark, long-sleeved dress with a gored skirt, her light hair in a loose knot, smiled at the camera. She was identified as “Fanchon Teague, Marshall County’s talented ambassadress to the White House.” The fourth was “Miss Lily Cabot.” A pale-haired woman in her twenties, she seemed, as far as could be told from a faded photograph, to be more stylishly and expensively dressed than the other three. She was standing by Fanchon, her arm protectively circling the younger girl’s narrow waist. She alone did not stare into the camera; her head was turned toward her lovely charge.
“I don’t understand,” said Elizabeth, looking up from the faded newspaper. “I thought the trip never happened.”
“Well, now, hit didn’t. But that story there come out a week afore they was supposed to git on the train. And they was a play-party for ’em up at the Center the night afore the big trip. Folks from all around come but that ol’ Tildy wouldn’t even set foot on the grounds. Eat up with jealousy, some said, and of her own sister. You could tell hit made Fanchon feel right bad, but that Yankee woman kept on a-talkin’ of all the things they’d see and how they’d send postcards and letters back.
“I weren’t but a little thing but my whole family went and we was all there at the depot the next day, waitin’ to see ’em git on the train and go to meet Mr. Roosevelt. But the train come and the train left and no sign of the Yankee woman nor Fanchon.”
Omie was sitting on the edge of the open trunk, her eyes faraway. She touched the Fanchon quilt lovingly. “Well, some said they might have been an accident. Bragg Strother was ’posed to fetch ’em from the Center in that car of hisn and carry ’em to the train. And some said that Bragg weren’t none too happy to see Fanchon go off and that he might have made them late a purpose. And folks is standin’ about and sayin’ what they think might have happened when here comes the Center’s old wagon.
“Miss Geneva’s drivin’ and beside her is the Yankee woman and the wagon bed is filled up with fancy grips and boxes and such. That Yankee woman’s settin’ up just as straight, not lookin’ to one side or t’other. Her lips is pressed together tight and her eyes is red like she’s been cryin’ hard. Everyone crowds around the wagon but Miss Geneva just says, ‘Please, would some of you men get out Miss Cabot’s luggage. She’s catching the next train to Asheville.’
“And not one more word would she say till that Yankee woman was on the train and out of sight. Then she told us that the quilt had disappeared and that Fanchon had gone off with Bragg Strother. And they weren’t goin’ to be no trip to see the President of the United States.”
* * *
As they drove back toward Ridley Branch, Elizabeth had repeated to Phillip the story of the Fanchon quilt. “And it wasn’t till twenty years later, long after the Center had shut down and the ladies had moved away, that your aunt found the quilt.”
Elizabeth looked at the fragile newspaper that lay across her lap. “I asked if I could make a copy of this story to put up along with the quilt. I think it might be interesting to find out a little more about these four women. Miss Birdie’s cousin Dorothy may have known Fanchon fairly recently.”
“They’re probably all dead by now, wouldn’t you think?” Phillip slowed to let a state trooper’s car pull past him. “Or very ancient.”
“Probably. But it would add some extra interest to the quilt exhibit to give a history of the Center. I have to be a little careful though. It’s not clear why exactly the whole D.C. trip didn’t come off, and there seem to have been some bad feelings. For example, I asked your aunt what happened to Miss Cabot and she said that she came back almost ten years later looking for Fanchon. She said, ‘That Yankee woman come by, ridin’ in a great fancy car with a colored man in a uniform drivin’ her.’ ”
“I wondered what was taking you two so long back there.” They were behind one of the numerous yellow school buses that swayed along the mountain roads in the afternoon. Two young boys stared out the back window at them, making faces and laughing. A shoe flew out of a side window and the bus pulled to a lurching stop on the shoulder. The driver’s arm motioned Phillip to pass.
“So you got the backstory, did you?” Phillip pulled around the bus and they continued on.
“More than you might think.” Elizabeth smiled, thinking of all that Omie had told her about Phillip’s ex-wife and children. “Your aunt had a lot to say, that’s for sure. She remembers events down to the last detail. You know, most of my older neighbors up here are that way— I think it comes of growing up without radio and television: a real oral tradition. Aunt Omie made it sound like a mystery— the strange affair of the missing quilt— the return of the Yankee woman.”
Omie had delighted in telling the story as she remembered it. “When the Yankee woman come to our house, now that would’ve been in ’43, she told my mommy as how she had got married to an Asheville lawyer and lived there now. Said she had her a little girl. She asked my mommy where Fanchon was at, for she had stopped at the old Rector place and seen that there weren’t no one livin’ there. Course, by this time Bragg had got him a job in one of them automobile plants and him and Fanchon had moved to De-troit. And then Tildy went to live with ’em after her folks died. My mommy told the Yankee woman all this and sent her over to see could Miss Caro and Miss Geneva tell her how to git up with Fanchon.
“So off she went in that fancy car. But someone told me that when she sent that colored man up to knock on the door, the ladies just pretended they wasn’t there. Everwhat did happen, that Yankee woman went away and never come back.”
And there it had ended. Omie knew no more of what happened to Fanchon and Tildy or to “that Yankee woman.” Omie said that Miss Caro and Miss Geneva had moved away shortly afterward when one of them had developed an illness of some sort. “I believe that hit was some female problem but didn’t no one rightly know fer sure. The ladies was closemouthed about hit. But they left out right quick; they give away the looms and such and sold the house and outbuildings.”
Elizabeth wound up the story. “As I said, your aunt made it all sound very dramatic and mysterious. Anyhow, I’d like to know more. I’m going to see what I can find in the newspaper archives in Asheville.”
* * *
The moon was near full, washing the trees with silver and illuminating the pastures where the dark shapes of grazing cattle moved quietly across the slopes of Pinnacle Mountain. Elizabeth sat on the porch, sipping her coffee and thinking about the tangled relationships that surrounded her. Phillip had declined her offer of a light supper, saying that Janie was coming over and he needed to get back home.
Is Janie jealous of me? Does she wish her father and her mother weren’t divorced? Probably. But that happened years ago; Phillip said his wife got tired of playing second fiddle to his job as a police detective. Maybe Janie just wants his undivided attention, after so many years of seeing him only on weekends. But she’s busy all the time, according to him.
And what’s the real truth about Kyra and her father? She accuses him of murder but he seems extremely protective of her. Is she lying? Is there some weird Oedipus— no, that’s not right. Electra— Electra complex going on? And what about Ben?
Yet again, Ben was gone for the night. His truck had been pulling out of the driveway when she and Phillip returned. He had waved briefly but had kept going.
* * *
Later that evening as she was rereading the article in the old newspaper and once again studying the picture of the four women, a vague memory began to tease at the edges of Elizabeth’s thoughts. Where did I put that handout from the museum? She went to her bedroom closet and found the long black skirt she had worn to the Strike on Box performance. There, in one of its pockets, was the folded handout that announced the opening of the Gordon Annex.
A picture of the benefactor, Mrs. Robert B. Gordon, was follow
ed by a brief biography. Elizabeth skimmed down to the third paragraph.
Mrs. Gordon has long been involved in the arts. A native of Boston, the young Lily Cabot first came to the mountains in 1934 and worked with the Appalachian Women’s Craft Center in Marshall County, helping to keep alive the native arts and crafts. Following her marriage to Robert B. Gordon of Asheville, she devoted her energy to the furtherance of the arts in her adopted city.
“My god! I’ve met her! Kyra’s GeeGee is the Yankee woman….”
In the yellowed newspaper photo Lily Cabot was young and attractive, though completely unremarkable. She could have been any fair-haired, pretty young woman. Lily Gordon, on the other hand, seventy-some years later, as pictured in the museum’s handout was obviously a force to be reckoned with. Dark hawk eyes glared from the professional photo, and her wrinkled face was set in an uncompromising take-no-prisoners expression. The young Lily Cabot had possessed a tentative prettiness, but Lily Gordon at ninety clearly knew herself to be a beauty. Whatever trials, joys, sorrows, and temptations she might have passed through, all had been written on her countenance and all had shaped her into the formidable woman who reigned from her mansion in Biltmore Forest.
CHAPTER 22
THE GORGON OF ASHEVILLE
(FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, AND SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17)
THIS IS ELIZABETH GOODWEATHER— KYRA’S neighbor. May I speak with Mrs. Gordon?”
A man on the other end of the line said politely that he would ascertain if Mrs. Gordon were available. A few minutes passed. Then she heard the precise tones of the distinguished old woman who had spoken at the opening of the new annex to the art museum. “This is Mrs. Gordon. How may I help you?”
“Mrs. Gordon, this is—”
“Yes, Mrs. Goodweather. Buckley told me. Is it something about my great-granddaughter?”