CHAPTER 29
The next day, Alice-Ann and Carlton filled their time with working at their respective jobs, then meeting at the cottage, ready to roll up their sleeves and, as Carlton said, “get the house clean and ourselves filthy.”
Alice-Ann brought a change of clothes —an old shirt of Papa’s and a pair of overalls she cuffed to her knees —to the bank along with a small box of cleaning supplies and some cast-off rags. Carlton had purchased items from his parents’ five-and-dime —a broom, two mops (“This job will take more than one,” he told her. “And I have a feeling the first mop and maybe even the second is gonna be thrown in the trash.”), a bucket, and three sponges (“Mama said you’d appreciate these.”). His mother dropped by that afternoon with a large pitcher of tea and four matching glasses —all of which she said came from the store and all of which she said would “go nicely in your new home.”
Then she kissed Alice-Ann on the cheek and, tearfully, thanked her for loving her boy.
Words Alice-Ann was sure had been heartfelt but only made her feel worse than she already did.
Maeve had come to the house as well, arriving shortly after her mother left as though they’d timed their comings and goings, and toting a small bag filled with —of all things —four rolls of Scott toilet tissue and two bars of Palmolive beauty soap. “Doctors prove two out of three women can have beautiful skin in fourteen days,” she mimicked as she pulled it out of the bag and handed it to Alice-Ann.
“What?” Alice-Ann asked, her eyes looking from the soap to her friend. She laughed. “I don’t know what that means.”
“That’s what the ad says. You know, the one Mama and Daddy have down at the store in the beauty bar products. Not soap, mind you. Beauty bar.”
Alice-Ann sniffed the soap wrapped in green paper and sealed with a black band. “Well, it smells fine, but I’m sure I’ll be the third woman.”
Maeve crossed her arms. “Don’t put yourself down, Alice-Ann.” She glanced toward where Carlton had busied himself cleaning the front bedroom while Alice-Ann tackled the kitchen, which alone would take days. Maybe even weeks. “Look,” she continued, bringing her attention back to Alice-Ann. “My brother would kill me if he knew I was telling you this, but . . .” She sighed. “He’s really, really worried about you and Mack.”
Alice-Ann returned the soap to the bag her friend still held, then took the sack and placed it on the grimy kitchen counter Carlton had previously declared “unsalvageable.”
But Alice-Ann had begged for a chance to try, and he’d acquiesced.
“There is no Mack and me,” she said, keeping her voice low. “There never was.” She looked back at Maeve. “Not really, anyway.” Alice-Ann reached to the top of her head, where she’d tied off a bandanna, and pulled. “I’m getting a headache from this thing. I always do.”
Maeve swatted her hands away and untied it. “You’ve got it too tight, silly girl.” She kept her attention on fixing the problem but continued speaking. “You always did. Look . . . I know you, Alice-Ann. The problem, as I see it, is that you never really got over Mack. You loved him and he died, so there’s no real end to the story.” She blinked. “There you go,” she said, stepping back.
Alice-Ann touched the knot. “Gracious. That’s much better. Thank you.”
“The bigger problem is that he didn’t really die, did he?” Maeve’s eyes narrowed. “You know everyone in town is wondering why he called you.”
“How do they even know? Miss Josephine isn’t the gossipy kind and Miss Carriebeth would lose her job if she told.”
Maeve cocked a brow. “But Mister George has always been a talker. And don’t get me started on what Janie Wren has been saying.”
Alice-Ann leaned against the countertop and lower cabinets. “Why? What’s she been saying?”
“I have come to the conclusion that Janie has a thing for him.” She blinked. “I mean, for Mack. Not Mister George.”
“I already knew that, Maeve. About her feelings for Mack.”
“You did? And you didn’t tell me?”
No. She hadn’t. There’d been so many things she hadn’t shared with Maeve since the day she started walking from the bank to the five-and-dime to read to Carlton. From that day on, somehow, Maeve’s brother had taken his sister’s place as her best friend. And in time, more than best friend. “Mack was writing to her, too. So . . . you see?”
“No. I don’t see. What should I see?”
“He clearly wasn’t in love with me, Maeve, if he was writing to Janie as well.”
Maeve pursed her lips, breathing in and out a few times before shaking her head and saying, “But he didn’t call Janie, now, did he?”
By Sunday’s church service the whole town had been made aware that Mack would soon return to Georgia —specifically to a hospital over in Savannah —to recuperate fully. His injuries, according to his father, were so extensive they made Carlton’s look like a boo-boo fit only for a Band-Aid. Not that Mister Lance said so, but the insinuation remained all the same.
Carlton commented little about it, and Alice-Ann worked hard to pretend she held no interest other than as the sister of one of Mack’s best friends and the fiancée of his other.
Early Monday morning Maeve blew into the bank like a brisk October wind, her hair flying behind her, and her upper body tightly wrapped in a cream-colored sweater. Her feet skidded across the sparkling terrazzo floor, sending screeches echoing through the cavernous room.
When she reached Alice-Ann, she shoved her left hand under the window, dipping it into the brass plate where checks and cash were passed daily. “He proposed —he proposed —he proposed,” she said between breaths.
Alice-Ann looked to Nancy, who had risen up on her tiptoes to inspect the tiny diamond that twinkled beneath the low-hanging overhead lights. It looked like the farthest star in the sky, but Alice-Ann knew that to Maeve, it rivaled the Rock of Gibraltar.
“Hold on,” Alice-Ann said. “I’ll come around.”
Void of bank customers at that moment, Nancy joined her, followed by Miss Portia. Mister Dooley stretched in his seat as though he might be remotely interested, then settled back to his paperwork with a grunt.
The three women clucked around Maeve, whose hand lay in Alice-Ann’s. “Well, I say it’s about time,” Alice-Ann said, her grin hurting her cheeks.
“You’ve dated a long time, haven’t you,” Nancy said, more as a comment than a question.
Maeve nodded. “Since high school.” She blushed, the rose in her cheeks making her prettier than usual. “We didn’t get serious until after —after we got involved in the war.”
Mister Dooley cleared his throat from across the room. “Never understood why that young man didn’t go off with the rest of ’em.”
Maeve turned. “He tried, Mister Dooley,” she said, raising her voice to meet the expanse of the room. “But they said his asthma was too bad for him to be of any use.”
“Poor Ernie and his asthma,” Alice-Ann said. “Kept him out of sports in school and kept him out of the war.”
Maeve looked back at her. “Ernie thought he could beat the system, but he couldn’t convince the Army that being able to breathe without drowning in your own lungs wasn’t altogether necessary.”
“You know,” Mister Dooley called out again, “over twenty million of our boys in this great United States of America have been drafted.” He raised bushy brows. “Did you know that?”
“Douglas Reddick,” Miss Portia interjected with a turn, “what in tarnation does that have to do with the price of cotton at the market?”
“Why nothing, Portia,” he said. “I just happened to be reading an article about it this morning. Said that out of the twenty million drafted, half got sent home for one reason or another.”
“Well, I reckon Ernie was one of them, Mister Dooley,” Maeve said, pulling her hand out of Alice-Ann’s.
“Twenty percent of that fifty was because they couldn’t read,” the banker shot back. “Ernie can read, can’t he?”
Alice-Ann bit her lip to keep from laughing.
“Oh, heavenly mercy,” Miss Portia breathed out, then gave Maeve an uncustomary hug. Nancy and Alice-Ann blinked at each other as she said, “Congratulations, dear. I’m going back to my desk.” She started toward the area of the bank where her desk stood near Mister Dooley’s. “Doo,” she said, “of course that boy can read. He went to school right here in Bynum, didn’t he? Studied under Nancy’s husband, didn’t he?”
Alice-Ann shook her head as Nancy and Maeve giggled, then mumbled, “I think something is going on between Mister Dooley and Miss Portia.”
Nancy wrinkled her nose as the front door opened. “Customer,” she said. “I’ll take him, Alice-Ann.”
“Let me walk you outside,” Alice-Ann said to Maeve.
“Good,” Maeve whispered. “I wanted to tell you something else but I didn’t want the others to hear.”
“Wait,” Alice-Ann whispered back, knowing how easily a voice traveled within the bank.
They stepped outside into the warm sunshine. A half block away, trees that boasted green leaves in spring and summer now stood with their limbs half-naked, a blanket of yellow and red and orange wrapped along their jutting roots.
“Mack’s daddy came into the store this morning to tell us that Mack will arrive in Savannah by Friday.”
Alice-Ann studied the sidewalk. “Friday.”
“I thought you should know.”
She looked up. “Does Carlton know?”
Maeve shook her head. “Not that I know of. He was at work when Mister Lance came in.”
Alice-Ann sighed. “They must be beside themselves.”
“They’re turning the store over to Janie to run for the whole day by herself. Mister Lance said they’d go over Thursday afternoon and spend the night with Miss Myrtle’s sister, who lives over there with her family.”
Mack. Mack would be back on Georgia soil by the end of the week. Mack, whom she’d thought she’d never see again. Not that she would any time soon. Unlike going to the five-and-dime to see and read to Carlton, there was no logical reason for her to go traipsing off to Savannah to visit. She was an engaged woman now. She had Carlton’s feelings to think of.
“I —I lost your letters.” The words played in her memory. “I’m sorry. But in my mind, since I got shot down, I reread them a hundred . . . or more. And I realized . . .”
What? What had he realized? What had he tried to say? “Um . . . I gotta —” Alice-Ann thumbed toward the bank’s door —“I really need to get back inside before I lose my job.”
Maeve rolled her eyes. “Like that’s going to happen, Alice-Ann Branch soon-to-be-Hillis.” Her face sobered and her eyes showed concern. “It is going to be Hillis, isn’t it?” Maeve’s voice seemed to come from the other end of a long tunnel.
“Of course,” she said. Then, remembering to smile, she grabbed Maeve’s hands and added, “Of course, Maeve. Now that you’re engaged to Ernie, Carlton and I can make our plans. I can’t wait to be his wife. Sincerely.” She gave her friend a hug —more to steady herself than anything else —and whispered, “Congratulations. Promise me we’ll talk dates soon.”
Maeve kissed her cheek. “We will,” she said, her voice full of certainty.
But her eyes, Alice-Ann thought later, had held enough doubt for the both of them.
That afternoon she and Carlton worked alongside each other, stripping faded and dusty wallpaper from a back bedroom. With an aluminum bucket filled with sudsy water between them, they silently dipped the sponges Carlton’s mother had sent the previous week, then soaked the walls, wetting the paper enough for it to buckle. Alice-Ann pulled, her fingers red and icy cold. Occasionally Carlton pulled a wide-edged scraper from the back pocket of his dungarees for the more stubborn pieces.
When they’d cleared a sizable strip, Carlton shoved the hand tool back into his pocket and groaned. “Thank the good Lord the former owners only papered this wall once.”
Alice-Ann held up her wet hands, the nails chipped in too many places. “Look,” she said, feigning a pout. “I’ll have to cut them down to the nubs tonight.”
Carlton wiped his hands by rubbing them on his pant legs, then took hers in his, cupping them. He blew warm breath in, which managed to soothe the iciness there but sent shivers everywhere else. “Poor baby,” he crooned, which made her laugh.
She pulled her hands free. “It’ll all be worth it in the end.”
Carlton took a step back to survey their progress, or lack thereof. “I was thinking either a pale yellow or green paint for this room.”
Alice-Ann cocked her head. “Really?” In all honesty, she hadn’t thought that far.
His blush ran from the V of his long-sleeved shirt —which he’d rolled up to his elbows —to his ears. “You know . . . baby colors.”
She really hadn’t thought that far.
Alice-Ann shook her head. “I think pale green or yellow would be nice,” she said, looking at the wall, then back to him. “But not for that reason.” His eyes grew large, so she added, “Not right now, anyway.”
Carlton started toward her and she put her hand up. “Get back to work, you.”
His bottom lip protruded in an overdramatic pout before he chuckled and resumed the painstaking task. After a few minutes, he cleared his throat and said, “Did you hear the big news?”
Alice-Ann’s spine tingled. “About Mack?” she asked, as though the news were not big at all.
“Mack?” He dropped his hand and stared at her.
She blinked several times. “He’s coming to Savannah. To a hospital there. I don’t know where exactly —Maeve didn’t say.”
“Maeve?”
“I mean, it could be Candler or St. Joseph’s. She didn’t say. She did say that his parents are going over on Thursday to spend the night with Miss Myrtle’s sister. They’re leaving the store in the hands of Janie Wren.” Alice-Ann shrugged. “I’m sure she’ll do just fine there by herself.” His face remained stonelike, and for a second, Alice-Ann forgot to breathe. “I take it that’s not what you meant when you said ‘big news.’”
“I was talking about the news out of Europe.”
Alice-Ann turned back to the wall, worked her torn fingernail under a strip of the paper, and then pulled. “No, I haven’t heard. What’s happened?”
Peripherally, Alice-Ann saw him rest his hands on his hips and felt his eyes continuing to stare at her, his face unchanging. She turned. “What happened in Europe?”
“When is he coming?”
What was the use, really? “Friday.”
He chewed on his bottom lip. “Do you want to go?”
“No. No, of course not.” She swallowed as her brow furrowed. “Why would I want to go?”
“You were in love with him, remember?”
Were. She had been. Yes.
Alice-Ann returned to pulling on wallpaper, wishing she could, as simply, peel back the layers of time. Or at least eradicate everything that had happened in the last five minutes.
Or the last five years.
“I wasn’t,” she said. “Not really.”
Carlton took a step toward her and leaned his shoulder against the half-papered wall. “Look at me.”
She shook her head, keeping her focus on what was left of the floral pattern, the large once-pristine moonflower nestled in a bed of now-faded green leaves. “Carlton, please . . .”
“Alice-Ann.”
She cut a sideward glance. “Carlton,” she whispered, begging. “I don’t . . .” Tears formed and pooled before spilling down her cheeks.
“Come here,” he said, gathering her into his arms, where she sobbed openly as he smoothed her hair and kissed the top of her head.
Why had he done this? Why? To make her cry? To force some kind of confession out of her?
Okay, then. Yes, she wanted to see Mack. Of course she did. He had been an important part of her childhood. Of her growing up from little girl to young woman. But he wasn’t —he hadn’t been —
“Since I got shot down, I reread them a hundred . . . or more. And I realized . . .”
His voice seemed to echo in the room, drawing her back to the question she’d asked more times than she could count over the past few days: What? What had he realized? That he loved her? That she was his one true love as he had been hers?
Carlton reached into one of his pant pockets and removed a handkerchief, his initials stitched perfectly with silky blue thread in one corner. “Here you go,” he said, his voice tender enough, but still inquiring. Still raising the question she knew they both wanted the answer to.
If she wasn’t still in love with Mack, why was she crying so hard?
Alice-Ann blew her nose, then reached up and wrapped her arms around the neck of the man who thought her to be so beautiful. The one who had kissed her first. The one who had placed a ring of promise on her finger. She had to make him see . . . to understand how she felt. About him. Only him.
“Carlton,” she whispered, then pressed her lips against the cool skin of his neck, continuing around his throat as he tilted his head back, and feeling his Adam’s apple quiver as she kissed him there.
When his hands came around her forearms and he pushed her away, she stumbled, blinking.
“I thought we weren’t going to do that,” he said. “Remember?”
She dropped her face into her hands. “I only wanted . . .”
The sound of his picking up the bucket caused her to look at him again. He was halfway out of the room. “I think we need to go, Alice-Ann,” he said, his voice firm but unsure.
“I only wanted to prove to you that it’s you I love, Carlton. You.”
He stopped at the door leading into the tiny patch of a room that served as throughway. His shoulders sagged and he spoke without turning. “Prove it to who, Alice-Ann?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Me? Or you?”