Charles Valley 2007
Laurel had told Mom and Katie she'd meet them at the house of a friend of hers. She called the friend Li'l Bit, which Susie loved because it was so Harper Lee. R.B. had volunteered to drive them there. “I've never been to Charles Valley,” he'd said. “Usually when you work with Laurel Selene, she comes to wherever you are.”
“The trip from Massonville to Charles Valley should take you about four hours,” Laurel Selene had told Mom on the phone. “It's easy to find Li'l Bit's place. It's on a pie-shaped wedge of land in the middle of Highway 22 about twenty minutes outside of town. The house will be way back from the road and it'll kind of pop up from out of nowhere. Just make sure you don't miss it behind the magnolia trees.”
It was a good thing she'd said that, because the house did appear from out of nowhere, and they would have missed it otherwise. R.B. turned up a gravel drive that had pine trees and flowers along the sides. The house was big and white with dark green shutters, and a wide porch that wrapped around it on three sides. On the porch were a swing, a large wooden chair that looked like it had been made for a guy, and a girly rocker made out of wicker that was all loopy and lacy, with a flowered cushion for a seat.
There were three women on the porch; one was sitting in the guy chair, one was on the swing, and the third was leaning against the porch railing. She had red hair pulled back in a ponytail and she was waving to them.
R.B. stopped the car, and as Susie, her mom, and Katie started walking toward the house, the red-haired woman came down the steps to greet them. She wasn't pretty exactly but Susie liked her looks. Her face was round, and she had round, brown eyes, and a mouth that was kind of round too. She was probably a few years older than Susie's mom, but she didn't have any makeup on, so she looked younger. She was wearing cowboy boots, a T-shirt, and jeans, and she was pregnant. “Hey” she said. “I'm Laurel Selene.”
Everybody shook hands with Laurel Selene, and the two women on the porch stood up so she could introduce them. “This is Miss Li'l Bit.” She gestured to the woman who had been sitting in the guy chair. Miss Li'l Bit was tall—not fat, but really big—and her gray hair was flying around her face. She was old enough to be Laurel Selene's grandmother, and she'd probably never been good-looking, even when she was a girl. She had kind eyes, Susie thought.
Miss Lil Bit stuck out her hand, and said, “How do you do?” Her voice was high and it sounded hooty.
Then the woman in the swing came over. She was as tiny as Miss Li'l Bit was big, and even older. But you could see that she must have been really pretty when she was young. She still was pretty in an old-lady way.
“This is Dr. Maggie,” Laurel Selene said.
“Maggie, please,” she said. Her voice was so low it kind of rumbled, which was strange coming from someone who was so small.
They went up onto the porch, and from inside the house, a dog started barking. “Petula, either go out or come in,” said a man's voice. The door to the house opened and a guy wearing a doctor's coat over blue jeans came out carrying a chair. He was very cute.
“I don't need that,” said Laurel Selene.
“Yeah, you do,” he said. “You can't sit on the stoop anymore. By now you need a crane to haul you to your feet.”
She gave him a dirty look, but she let him settle her in the chair. “This is my husband,” she said. “Dr. Perry Douglass.”
He told them to call him Perry, and they all did the introducing thing again. Then Perry said he guessed they needed more chairs, and R.B. said let him help get them, and Miss Li'l Bit's dog, Petula, who had to be a hundred years old, came outside and lay down near Susie's chair, which was awesome because then Susie could pet her. Miss Li'l Bit said they must want something cool to drink, and she brought out iced tea, lemonade, Cokes, and a glass of milk for Laurel Selene. Then she and Dr. Maggie started telling them about the Garrison Trust, which was connected to something called the Garrison Gardens and the Garrison Gardens resort.
“Garrison Gardens is one of the premier horticultural attractions in the United States,” said Miss Li'L Bit with her high voice. “We have visitors from all over the world coming here to see our azaleas in the springtime. Of course it's strictly nonprofit. ”
“And then there's the resort.” Maggie said in her low voice. “Which is strictly for-profit. Although a few years ago, it was not in good shape financially And the gardens were doing poorly too. Laurel Selene turned all of that around when she took over.”
“Laurel Selene has worked wonders,” Miss Lil Bit hooted. She and Maggie talked as though they were finishing each other's thoughts. First you'd get the high voice, then the low one—it was like listening to a flute and cello.
“These people didn't come all this way to hear this,” Laurel Selene broke in, but she didn't sound like she thought she could stop them.
“They are going to be working with you,” said the high voice.
“They should know how clever you are, Dear One” added the low.
“Absolutely, Dear One,” her husband said, grinning at her.
“You see, this is a rural community, and the people here depend on the Garrison enterprises for their livelihood. I'm afraid in the past those in charge have taken advantage of that fact,” Maggie rumbled.
“But Laurel has proven that you don't have to exploit your employees to be successful,” Li'l Bit said. Then she added, “Laurel Selene very much reminds one of dear Mrs. Roosevelt.”
That made Laurel Selene's husband laugh, but Laurel Selene said, “If we're going to hand out bouquets, Randa and Katie should know Lil Bit is the one who will be underwriting the last two productions for the theater.”
So Mom and Katie thanked her a lot and Miss Li'l Bit blushed bright red and said she'd always loved opera, and she wasn't doing all that much, and she didn't know why Laurel Selene had even bothered to mention it. And Mom and Katie talked about how glad they were that they had made that phone call to Laurel Selene at the Garrison Trust and how they almost hadn't done it, but they'd figured there had to be some reason why they found all those newspaper clippings about Myrtis Garrison.
Susie thought about telling them about the Fates, but decided they might not be quite right-brain enough.
R.B. asked if anyone knew if Miss Myrtis had donated money to the Venable Opera House in the old days. No one did know for sure, although Maggie remembered that Miss Myrtis had said once that the theater was America's greatest melting pot. Then Dr. Douglass had to get back to the clinic he ran with Dr. Maggie down by the old railroad station, and R.B. wanted to see it, so he went to follow in his car. After they were gone, Miss Li'l Bit asked if she could give anyone a refill on their drinks, and Laurel Selene looked at her glass of milk with a sigh and said, “I'd kill for a nice cold beer.”
“Not for a while, Dear One” said the low voice.
“She's having twins,” the high voice confided.
“Two girls.”
“Tell them the names, Laurel Selene.”
“Sara Jayne and Margaret,” Laurel said. “Sara Jayne is for my mother and Margaret will be called Peggy.” And Laurel Selene, Miss L'il Bit, and Dr. Maggie all turned to look at the wicker rocker that no one had sat in all afternoon.