“Right,” Matt said, smiling.
“And this one has to be Rodney . . . Roddy. Heavens! But he was beautiful.”
“Yeah. Right after high school he went out to Hollywood for a couple of years, but he couldn’t act. Or maybe he had too much competition. Whatever, he came back here.”
“Like Frank did,” Bailey said.
“Did you finally read that book on your bedside table? The one Violet gave you?”
“How—” She put up her hand. “No, don’t tell me how you know what’s in my bedroom and who gave me what. But, no, I haven’t read that book yet. I spent the afternoon in the Ridgeway library, reading the newspaper accounts.”
“Ah.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means that you haven’t heard all the story, not if you’ve only read what was in the newspapers.” He nodded toward the photo in her hand. “So, go on, tell me who is who in that picture.”
“Frank must be the skinny one on the end. Is that a cigarette in his hand?”
“Unfiltered. But are you sure he isn’t Taddy?”
“No, Taddy is the tall one on the other end, the one who looks scared.”
“You’re not bad at this, are you?”
“And Burgess is the big one squatting down in front.” She lifted the photo higher and looked hard at the young man standing beside Kyle. Harper Kirkland was short, thin, and as cute as a cherub on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. He reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t think who. “What happened to them?”
Matt took the photo from her and put it on the table beside the other one. Inside the box were folded pieces of paper; he kept each photo in its own little envelope to prevent scratching.
“Burgess ran his father’s lumber business for years, went bankrupt, and died when the plane he was piloting crashed. I think it was 1982 or 1983. Rodney married a couple of times and had a lot of kids. Taddy taught science at Calburn High until it closed, then died of a heart attack two years later. He never married. Frank and my father, you know about.”
“What about Harper?”
Matt hesitated before answering. “He was one of America’s first victims of AIDS.”
“I see,” she said, then bent forward and looked at the photo again. “Sal Mineo. Remember him? That’s who he looks like.” She looked back at the photo. “If those kids at Welborn had known that about him, his life probably wouldn’t have been worth much.”
Matt handed her another photo. This one was of a smiling, laughing young couple. He was wearing a school letter sweater, and she had on a big circle skirt and a tight sweater with a fuzzy little collar. They looked like actors in a stage presentation of Grease.
“Your parents?”
“Yes,” Matt said softly. “That was them in the days before my grandfather went bankrupt, before he drove his car over a cliff and took my grandmother with him.”
The bitterness in Matt’s voice made Bailey shiver. “They look so much in love,” she said, holding the photo. “Look at her eyes! She’s looking at him as though she’d—” She broke off.
“As though she’d follow him anywhere?” Matt asked, his voice sarcastic. “She did follow him. But years later he left town and never came back. He left the woman who loved him more than life with two young children to support, and much too proud to ask her parents for help.”
“How did your family survive?”
Matt leaned back against the sofa, and for a moment he didn’t speak. “I remember a childhood of work,” he said softly. “That’s all there seemed to be. My mother ran the local grocery store for a tightfisted old bastard, and she left us in the care of a slovenly old woman who watched soaps on TV and ignored my brother and me.”
Matt took a breath to calm himself. “I did my best to see that my little brother was fed and kept safe. I was a big kid, so I started mowing lawns for money when I was nine. On the day my father walked out on us, I was transformed from a child into a man. He took his high school medals, wrote a note to his wife, then left.”
When Matt looked at Bailey, his eyes were black with anger. “You know what the note said?” He didn’t wait for her answer. “ ‘Forgive me.’ That’s all he wrote. Just two words.”
“But you didn’t forgive him, did you?”
“No. When a man makes a bargain, he stands by it.”
“As you did with Cassandra?”
“Right. Until her actions let me out, I stayed. I’d made the vows, and I meant them.”
“Your mother never contacted her parents?”
“No. Too much pride.” He smiled. “And don’t look at me like that. I know that I inherited her pride. Patsy’s told me often enough. But my mom wouldn’t take money from her parents, and she never took any money from me. I worked all through school, every minute I could, and I saved every penny of it. My mother said she wanted me to go to college. She said that school was the only way that I wouldn’t end up like her, and saying that was the closest she ever came to complaining.”
“I wish I could have met her,” Bailey said. “But if I had been in the same situation, I would have complained, and I would have gone to my father on my knees and begged him for help.”
Matt looked at her with raised eyebrows. “Oh? Now why don’t I think that’s true? Why do I have the impression that maybe, possibly, you have more pride than my mother and me put together?”
Bailey looked away. He saw too much. “Did your mother see you graduate from college?”
“No. She died the year Rick was a senior in high school, and six months later he married Patsy. Rick said he wasn’t like me, that he didn’t have my drive, and he couldn’t bear to live alone. He said Patsy would give him someone to live for. He was smarter than I was. He knew what was good for him, and he went after it. He’s been very happy with Pat and the kids.”
“But not you. You haven’t been happy.”
“No, not me. I’ve always felt that something was missing from my life, that there was a big empty place inside me.”
“Did you ever find out where your father went, or why?”
“A few years ago, I received a package. A woman who owned a boardinghouse in Baltimore sent it, and she wrote that her boarder said that if he died, she was to mail me the package.”
“Let me guess. It was from your father.”
“Yes. All his high school medals, the ones he’d taken with him, were inside. There was no note, nothing but the medals. At the time I was too involved in my own life to do anything more than mutter, ‘The bastard,’ and toss the whole box into the top of the closet. But later, during the divorce, when everything was being separated, I found the box and dropped it into my suitcase.”
“A suitcase that you’d packed for going home to Calburn.”
“Yes. I think it was in my mind that I needed to figure out where to go from here, and Calburn, home, was where I needed to figure it out.”
“And have you found out anything so far?” Bailey asked softly.
“The truth is that I’d like to know what happened to my father. I grew up hating him and knowing I would never have done what he did, but I’m older now, and I’ve realized that people don’t live by their brains alone.”
“Right,” Bailey said. “People live by their emotions. Their emotions can drive them to do all manner of extraordinary things.”
“Speaking from experience?” Matt asked, his eyes twinkling, obviously trying to lighten the mood. “What do you say that we go see a movie? How about if we do something normal for a change?”
“That sounds nice,” Bailey said as she watched Matt put the photos back into the box. But as he lifted the folded papers to straighten them, one fell to the floor, and Bailey reached down to pick it up. He hadn’t shown her all the photos in the box, and she wondered why. Did he have secrets, just as she did?
The photo she picked up was of two teenagers, a boy and a girl, both of them pudgy and sullen-looking. They were wearing ill-fitting clothes, and the boy had a complex
ion that even in the out-of-focus black-and-white photo looked splotchy. “Friends of your dad’s?” Bailey asked, unable to keep the smile out of her voice. She couldn’t imagine the well-groomed class president, Kyle Longacre, being friends with these two.
“No, they’re—” Matt began, but cut off when Bailey wouldn’t release the photo.
Slowly, with a face as white as the woodwork behind her, she moved the photo closer to the light. “Who are these two?” she said, her voice a husky whisper.
“I don’t know,” Matt said. “That was in the batch of photos I found in the garbage. Do you know who they are?”
“No,” Bailey said, then stronger, “no, of course not. How would I know someone in your photos?” But the way Matt was looking at her made her know that he didn’t believe her. Bailey gave a laugh that she hoped sounded carefree and unconcerned. “They just reminded me of a couple of truly dreadful people I used to know,” she said. “It gave me chills for a moment.”
“Want to tell me about them?” Matt asked softly.
“They aren’t interesting,” she said quickly, then stood up. “You know, I’m going to pass on that movie, if it’s all right with you. I think I’m a bit tired, and I’d like to go to bed and read for a while. Well, good night,” she said before he could reply, then she nearly ran to the privacy of her bedroom, where she shut the door and leaned against it.
The teenagers in the photo were Atlanta and Ray, and they were standing in front of the house that Jimmie had left her, the house that she was in now.
Fifteen
Once she was in her bedroom, Bailey picked up her address book and turned to Phillip’s numbers. Maybe she should call him and tell him what she’d just seen. Maybe it was significant that she’d seen a photo of Jimmie’s brother and sister in front of the house that Jimmie had left her.
But Bailey put the address book down. She’d always known that this house belonged to Jimmie, hadn’t she? And if he grew up here, so did his brother and sister. And it wouldn’t be unusual for a person in a small town to have photos of other people in that town, would it?
As she opened her chest of drawers and got out her nightgown, she told herself that it would be best if she just stayed out of whatever had happened so long ago. She’d seen the way Janice had reacted today, and she’d seen the way Matt’s hand quivered when he showed her photos of his father. It would make everyone feel worse if she started asking questions about the past. “Who are these fat, sulky teenagers, and what is a photo of them doing in with pictures of the Golden Six?” was not something she could ask. If she could make Janice furious with one remark, imagine what she’d do if she asked a hundred questions.
She put her address book back into the bedside table drawer and headed for the shower. All in all, it would be better if she concentrated on the business she was trying to start with Patsy and Janice.
Feeling better with the decision made, she turned on the shower water, then saw headlights reflect off the trees outside her bathroom window. It looked as though Matt had decided to go to the movie by himself.
Without thinking about what she was doing, Bailey turned off the shower water, put on her big terry cloth robe, and left her bedroom. The house had that empty feeling that it did when Matt wasn’t there to fill it up. “Matt?” she called, but there was no answer.
Her heart beating in her throat, she walked softly down the short corridor to his bedroom. The door was slightly open. “Matt?” she called again, then put her hand on the door. If he shows up, I’ll tell him that I was . . . She thought, but she couldn’t come up for a reason for her snooping, not to herself, much less to tell him.
On his bed, which she saw was neatly made, was the shoe box full of photos. Bailey didn’t think; she just sat down on the side of the bed, turned on the lamp, and removed the lid.
There were three photos that Matt hadn’t shown her. One was of a very young Matt and his brother Rick, wearing pajamas, standing in front of a Christmas tree, surrounded by opened presents. Sitting on the floor, looking at his eldest son with eyes full of love, was his father.
The picture made Bailey, knowing what happened later, want to cry.
The second photo was of an older Matt sitting on his father’s lap behind the wheel of a car. When Bailey looked on the back, the picture was dated July 1968. In less than two months, this man would walk out on his family forever.
Shaking her head, Bailey put down the picture and picked up the one of the two teenagers. She held the photo up to the light and looked at it for a long time. There was no doubt that they were Atlanta and Ray. And it was no doubt that the house in the background was the one Jimmie had left her.
Find out the truth about what happened, will you, Frecks? Jimmie had asked. But the truth about what? About Atlanta and Ray? Were they somehow connected to the Golden Six? Is that why their picture was mixed in with photos of Matt’s family? Matt said he didn’t know who they were or why their pictures were there, so maybe it was just a coincidence, or an accident. Maybe Matt’s mother had thrown out lots of pictures, but Matt had saved only the ones of his father. Maybe this photo had been stuck to the back of one of the good ones with a bit of ketchup.
Bailey turned the photo over. There was no sign of ketchup or any other stain, but there was a faint date penciled on the back. She turned the picture this way and that and all she could make out was 196—. The last number of the year, she couldn’t read.
Slowly, she put the photos back just as she’d found them, then stood up and smoothed the bed. She didn’t want Matt to know that she’d been snooping.
She went back to her own bedroom and took a shower, and as the water cascaded down on her, she decided again that it was best not to ask any more questions. What had happened was over long ago, and it was better to let it stay dead.
Sixteen
After two more days with Janice and Patsy, Bailey admitted defeat. It was clear to her that the three of them had the knowledge to run the company once it was started, but getting it started was out of their league. For one thing, they couldn’t even agree on a name. And where were they going to get the money, if they did get themselves organized?
Bailey made herself a cup of tea, took a pen and a sketch pad outside, and tried to come up with some ideas for a name and logo for the company, but she was stymied. After an hour, she went back inside to get more tea, and on impulse, she picked up the cordless phone and her address book, took them outside, and punched in a number.
As the phone rang, she held her breath. What would her reception be?
Carol Waterman answered on the first ring. All Bailey had to do was give her name, and words came flooding from Carol’s mouth. “I thought maybe you were Phillip calling. He’s never home now, and the children and I haven’t seen him in a month. He wants to quit working for ‘them,’ and he’s told them twice that he’s quitting, but their response has been to give him more money—so much money that Phillip agrees to stay a while longer. Phillip won’t tell me what those two are up to, but from the look on his face, it’s not good.”
While Bailey was listening, she was doodling on the sketch pad. In front of her was the mulberry tree, and she idly outlined the undulating branches of the old giant. For the life of her, she couldn’t work up any sympathy for Carol. What had the two of them expected when Phillip took a job with lowlifes like Atlanta and Ray? That receiving billions would turn Atlanta and Ray into nice people?
“So what you’re saying is that you have time on your hands and access to lots of money.”
Carol hesitated. “I guess I am,” she said tentatively. “What do you have in mind?”
“I was wondering if maybe you’d be interested in joining in a business that I and a couple of friends are starting.”
“What kind of business?” Carol asked cautiously.
“It’s—” Bailey looked at the sketch on her pad. “Before and After is what we’re working on now. It’s a branch of . . . of the Mulberry Tree Preserving Company.
”
“I won’t have to cook anything, will I?”
“No, that’s my job.”
“I see,” Carol said, and her voice was cold. “So what else do you want from me, besides to give you and your friends money?”
Bailey knew too well what Carol was feeling. When she was first married to Jimmie, a lot of people had offered her a lot of things, but she soon found out that all they wanted was his money. “How about publicity?” Bailey said off the top of her head. “Advertising. Think you’d be any good in that area?” Heaven knew that she and Janice and Patsy weren’t!
Carol was silent so long that Bailey thought she was going to hang up. “Before I married Phillip, I was training to be an actress.”
Bailey wanted to say, What good is that to us? but she didn’t. She couldn’t afford to offend Carol, a person with access to money. “Maybe you could . . . You could . . . be the lead actress in our commercial.”
“Great! What’s the plot of it?”
“We’re still working on it, and of course we’ll need your input.”
“You haven’t written a word, have you?”
Bailey laughed, and when she did, the tension left her body. “Not even one. I can cook; Patsy can run a factory; and Janice is a money manager. But the three of us are stuck about what to do to let people know that we have a bunch of jams and jellies to sell. You think you could help us?”
“Maybe,” Carol said slowly. “If I can find time between hair and nail appointments. You know how that is.”
“All too well,” Bailey said, trying to keep the excitement out of her voice. She’d called Carol hoping to get money, but talent as an actress was even better. “Maybe you could—”
“Get the next plane out of here and meet with you and your new friends and do something with my brain besides decide whether to wear the navy or the black?”
Bailey laughed. “Do you know where I live now?”
The Mulberry Tree Page 22