I couldn’t begin to figure out all that was going on around me. There seemed to be issues between Ford and his dad, and Ford and his cousin, that were beyond my ability to comprehend.
Having read all of Ford’s books, I figured I knew all about him, but he surprised me with the story about why his father had been sent to jail. Ford told me with his usual angst, with that poor-little-me face he always put on when he talked about his family, but I ignored it. I couldn’t help but see Ford’s father as a man who epitomized every virtue of a true hero.
While Ford told the story, my mind whirled. I’m sure that Toodles—I hated the name but it fit him-—knew Ford’s mother didn’t love him, but, in spite of that, he’d married her. Then he’d done everything he could to support his wife and give his child a good start in life. That a criminal act was the basis of that start didn’t matter. Toodles had tried to do what was right. He’d risked everything for his wife, for his unborn child—and for his slimy brothers who’d wanted to use Toodles to save their own worthless hides.
I didn’t agree with what Ford’s mother did when she turned her son over to the guilty uncles, but I certainly understood why she’d done it.
In spite of knowing some of what was in that family, I was unprepared for Toodles’s breakdown. First of all, I couldn’t understand what was being said. Toodles said something I didn’t understand, then Ford said he wanted to learn how to play cat’s cradle, and the next second all hell broke loose. Toodles was crying—howling really—so loud that I had to shout over him. I think he was saying something important, but between the crying and his face being buried in Ford’s beer belly, I couldn’t make out his exact words.
But I could see that whatever he was saying was making Ford cry, too. Under my breath, I said, “Get a mop, there’s two of them,” but Noble heard me and laughed. I tried to pull Toodles off Ford, but he hung on like a koala to a eucalyptus tree.
Noble finally put both his arms around Toodles’s barrel chest and pulled him away. The scene had made everyone at the table weepy—except for Noble. He was the only one who seemed to think that what had just happened was “normal.” If that was normal, then Ford’s family was weirder than he’d made them out to be in his books. Was that possible?
Finally, Noble suggested that Ford tell a story and I must say that the idea intrigued me. Could Ford make up stories? He seemed only able to write roman à clefs about his bizarre family.
Taking his audience into consideration—namely, a nine-year-old and an adult child—Ford started telling about two little boys and the jams they got themselves into. From the way Noble was quietly laughing into his plate, I could see that Ford was keeping to his pattern and telling of the true misadventures of himself and his cousin.
I listened with half an ear because I was thinking about something that had happened earlier. That afternoon Noble had climbed in a window of my studio and removed the portfolio containing my photos of Tessa—the pictures I was saving to show Russell. It amazed me that, after having trespassed, Noble brought the photos into the garden and showed them to everyone. As though he had the right to intrude on a person’s private property!
I was seething at his invasion and let him know it. What I wanted to say was that I had a great deal of influence with Ford and if I said something bad, there was a strong possibility that Ford wouldn’t let Noble stay. But since Ford was right there (pouting in a hammock, but there) I didn’t say any of this for fear it might backfire.
I did let Noble know of my extreme displeasure by giving him such a hard look I expected his eyebrows to burst into flame. However, I had to let up pretty quickly, because, after all, he was my employer’s cousin, so I pretended I was interested in his praise. I was quite reserved, though, about what he was saying so he’d know to never again invade my privacy. I listened to what he had to say for a minute or two, then I took the photos to Ford. I wanted to let Noble know that Ford was the master of the household. Besides, now that my pictures had been exposed, I wanted to know what Ford thought of them.
Ford looked at the pictures slowly, one by one, but he didn’t say a word. Nothing. For somebody who could maneuver words as he could, his silence was hurtful. I was at the point where I wanted to grab my pictures away from him when he did the oddest thing.
He kissed me.
He leaned over in that hammock—and that he didn’t tip it over showed he’d spent a lot of time in one—and planted his lips on mine.
I wanted to say, “Ooooh,” in that Valley Girl way of disgust, but, uh, well, it was, well, actually, the kiss to end all kisses. It was a real kiss. With feeling. Emotion.
At first it was as though Ford was saying that he thought my photos were really, really great. But, then, something happened a few seconds into the kiss and I began to see little stars. Okay, maybe they weren’t little star-shaped stars, but they were tiny multicolored dots of light. It was like when your sleep-deadened leg begins to wake up and you feel hundreds of thousands of tiny points of pain. During my kiss with Ford, I felt those little dots—not of pain, nosirree bob, no pain at all—but they were dots of brilliant color. I saw them behind my closed eyelids as well as felt them.
After a while, Ford broke away. He looked a little startled, but he didn’t seem to have felt anything like what I had, so I played it cool. However, I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off Ford and I took a tiny step toward him. I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t slipped on something. Dazed, I looked down at the ground. Scattered on the grass were about a hundred or so little black rings of olives. Obviously, Ford had picked them off the miniature quiches Noble had made—enough to feed twenty-eight men, the number in his cell block, he’d told me. But I didn’t understand. The night of my second vision, Ford and I had picked up pizzas and he’d asked for triple black olives, saying that he loved them. Knowing that, I’d bought lots of them, and told Noble to put the olives on the quiches with a heavy hand. So why had Ford picked them off?
I didn’t ask because Noble said he was hungry and of course that meant me. I, the literary assistant had to, yet again, go to the kitchen.
After dinner, I got to continue being the high prestige assistant of a famous writer by making beds for everyone. Ford hadn’t bothered himself to make a decision about where everyone was to sleep and, knowing him, he hadn’t even thought about it, so it was left to me. Yet another crucial, executive decision I had to make. When I found out there weren’t enough sheets in the house to make up the beds and I had to go shopping at eight P.M., and when Toodles and Tessa wanted to go with me so I knew a one hour job was going to turn into three, I started planning how big my raise was going to be.
I finally got us back to the house at ten-thirty, Toodles and Tessa loaded down with fourteen cartons of ice cream because they couldn’t bear to leave any flavor behind, and I trudged up the stairs to make beds.
Noble and Ford had finally broken up from whatever they were doing in his office—playing with the train set?—and Noble helped me with the beds. I was feeling pretty overwhelmed by it all, but Noble made me laugh. He saw that I’d sort of taken my annoyance out on the credit card Ford had given me. And, well, maybe I’d had a little fun with Toodles and Tessa as we’d filled four shopping carts full of bed and bath accessories. As Noble carried everything upstairs, he told me that building contractors couldn’t pack as much in the back of a pickup as I had. It was silly of me, but the way he said it made me feel as though I’d been complimented—which I didn’t like. If I started thinking like one of the Newcombes, I was going to leave town immediately.
He got the electric drill I’d bought (in a case, complete with bits) and put up curtain rods while I used the new iron (deluxe, most expensive one they had) to press the curtains before he hung them. I must say that when we finished, Toodles’s room looked great. I’d bought him bug-printed sheets, curtains, rugs, and bath accessories. Well, actually, he and Tessa had chosen them, and Ford had paid for them—was going to pay for them—but I’d okayed it all. The bug fabric was relieved by a blue and green plaid comforter, and the curtains were white sheers with little pockets. They came with six embroidered bugs to slip into the pockets, and Tessa and Toodles had spent forty minutes discussing the other bugs they were going to embroider and put into the empty pockets.
Tessa chose colors for her room. No patterns, no prints, but every sheet and curtain was a different color. In the store I’d been dubious about her choices, but after Noble and I got the curtains up and the bed made, we looked at the room in awe. The kid had talent. Somehow, all her shades of green, purple, blue and yellow worked together. In the cart, the packages had been jumbled together with Toodles’s bug prints, so Tessa’s colors had looked like a mess, like bits of Play-Doh all mixed up—at least that’s what I came up with so I could forgive myself for telling Tessa that her colors were all wrong. But when her linens were all together in one room, they were fabulous. And what I’d not realized was that she’d coordinated all the colors with the old, flowered wallpaper.
“Wow,” I said, looking around. Under torture I couldn’t have remembered what the wallpaper in that particular room was, but Tessa seemed to have memorized all the colors and repeated them in the curtains and linens.
“Wow,” I repeated.
Noble was looking at the room in silence, the electric drill still in his hand, like a modern-day six-shooter. He cocked his head at me. “So who picked the stuff for my room?”
“Tessa,” I said. He said, “Good,” then we laughed together. The truth was, at the store, I’d grown so bored with the lengthy discussions Toodles and Tessa were having about the linens that I’d gone to the picture frame department and pre-spent the raise I was going to get from Ford. By the time I returned, they’d filled up two big carts, so I didn’t see what they’d chosen for Noble’s room.
Suddenly, we were both curious. He and I looked at each other, then we ran for the doorway at the same time. When he discourteously didn’t allow me, a female, to go first, we ended up pushing through the opening together, and going nowhere. Had I not been told he was Ford’s cousin, I would have known it then.
I won the first round. In disgust, I stepped back and said, “After you.” Noble looked a little sheepish and when he stepped back, I ran through the doorway and down the stairs. But he wasn’t carrying the extra weight Ford did, so he ended up beating me down the stairs and into the bedroom next to Ford’s.
We looked at each other warily, not sure whether to laugh or not about our little one-upmanship escapade, but then we saw that Toodles and Tessa had dumped Noble’s packages of linens on the bed before the two of them had disappeared, presumably to sample each of the fourteen ice cream flavors.
They’d chosen brown and white for Noble’s room. The dust ruffle was white with a brown toile design of ovals of Roman coins, laurel-wreath-clad men’s profiles in the ovals. The comforter and sheets were dark brown, the curtains brown and white striped. In the bathroom he’d be sharing with Toodles, there were no bugs, just brown towels and soap dishes of crudely-carved, masculine-looking alabaster.
When we finished Noble’s room, it was nearly midnight, and we were yawning, but we took time to stand back and admire our work.
“I’ve never lived in a place like this,” Noble said softly, and I thought that if he got weepy on me like Ford and his dad, I’d kick him.
“Now all it needs is a naked redhead between the sheets and the room would be perfect.”
I was so relieved I wanted to laugh, but I said, “If she’s for you she’d be red above but gray below.”
Noble gave me a look that made me blink a couple of times, then said he’d show me how old he was any time I liked.
I was sure he was kidding. Maybe. Anyway, I went to my room rather quickly and locked the door. Ten minutes later I heard Ford lumbering down the stairs and I wondered what he’d been doing up there alone all evening. I’d told him that I hoped he’d write down that story he told at dinner. Based on the success of the Harry Potter books, I thought Ford might do well to branch out into children’s fiction. Or, in his case, quasi-fiction.
The next morning at breakfast, there were a lot of us, and Noble made pancakes. Great stacks of pancakes. It was my guess that Noble had mixed up enough batter to feed twenty-eight men, but I didn’t ask.
I’m not sure how it came up or who started it—although I think it was Tessa—but by the end of the meal, everyone was planning a party to be given on Saturday night.
Truthfully, I was torn by the idea of a party. What if Russell called and asked me out for that night? I’d have to say no, then I’d be miserable. I imagined myself being in such a bad mood that I’d dump a full bowl of punch over Ford Newcombe’s head.
I knew it would be his head I’d dump anything on because I was only halfway down the stairs that morning when Ford ran up them—yes, ran—to tell me that no Russell Dunne taught at the University of North Carolina.
Of course I defended Russell. How could I do otherwise when confronted with Ford’s I-told-you-so attitude? No drug addict ever enjoyed a fix like Ford Newcombe enjoyed telling me that Russell Dunne had lied to me.
I wanted to push Newcombe down the stairs, but, knowing him, he’d grab me as he fell and probably land on top of me. And with his ever-increasing girth, I’d be flat enough to be pinned onto Toodles’s vest.
So I didn’t do anything physical. I just put on my haughtiest manner and told him that I knew all about everything, that Russell had explained it all to me. Which, of course, he hadn’t.
So, at breakfast I was torn. Half of me didn’t want a party because I knew I’d have to attend it and then I couldn’t go out with Russell, while the other half desperately wanted a party so if Russell did ask me out I could say I was busy. I wanted him to know that he’d have to plan ahead to get a date with Jackie Maxwell.
But I didn’t have much time to think about Russell because the Newcombes—and I was beginning to think of Tessa as one, too—were planning to put on a Party. Capital letter. No hors d’oeuvres and drinks, but a major Party.
And you know what? They made me feel useless. Between Noble’s ability to cook for twenty-eight people, Toodles’s and Tessa’s ability to make decorations, Nate’s ability to set up, and Ford’s ability to pay for everything, there wasn’t much for me to do. Except to photograph it all, that is. I popped around with my camera in everyone’s face and snapped, then retired to my studio to develop. I got some good shots, but nothing like the ones I’d taken of Tessa. I took a couple of Toodles sitting up and sleeping with his eyes open, but when I developed them, he looked dead. The pictures were too creepy for my taste. I pinned them on the wall, but I didn’t really like them.
I tried to make a guest list, but soon realized we didn’t know twenty-eight people in Cole Creek. “I could call some of the uncles to come up,” Noble said. I guess I must have looked horrified at that idea because when I glanced up, both Noble and Ford were laughing at me.
When Allie came by that afternoon to pick up Tessa, I told her our problem. Allie said, “Serve food and the whole town will come.” I said I didn’t think that some people—I mentioned no names—liked us so they wouldn’t be there, but that made Allie laugh. “You want me to invite people?” she asked. “Just so the total is twenty-eight,” I answered, but didn’t explain.
Allie left without Tessa. This time, Tessa and Toodles didn’t have to repeat their tragedy act, as Allie was glad for some respite from the constancy of motherhood.
By the afternoon of the party, I still hadn’t heard from Russell and I was beginning to be glad. In fact, I’d almost talked myself out of being attracted to him. I remembered that he was handsome, but so what? Obviously, he wasn’t a good person or he would have called as he said he would. And, besides, he’d lied to me about UNC. He wasn’t a man I wanted anything to do with.
And, too, there was Ford’s kiss. I found myself glancing at him now and then and wondering about things. He’d never told me what happened the night he went to Dessie’s house—and I certainly wasn’t going to ask—but, as far as I knew, he hadn’t seen her or even talked to her since.
As Saturday night grew closer, I was looking forward to it—and the reason for my excitement was that Dessie was going to be there. I was dying for Noble and Dessie to meet because I knew in my heart that those two were going to be a love match. And if Noble took Dessie away, then Ford and I…
I told myself not to think. Besides, just hours before the party I was sent away in Ford’s pickup to get ice and more of everything that might possibly be needed, so that occupied my mind.
While I was out, I bought thirty-one rolls of film. Unfortunately, Ford saw the bag and gave a low whistle. “What in the world are you planning to photograph?” he asked. I grabbed the bag away from him and didn’t answer. But blast it! My face turned red.
And of course Ford saw it. He was the snoopingest person in the entire world. I busied myself around the kitchen while Ford stood there and stared at me, and I could see the little wheels in his head working. Would smoke come out of his ears?
Finally, he gave a smug little smile and said, “The mayor and my dad.”
I could have smacked him with a skillet. I wanted to tell him that he was wrong, but since he was right on, my dratted face turned purple. Ripe eggplant purple.
Laughing, Ford tossed a handful of peanuts in his mouth, and as he was leaving the room, he said, “Look out Diane Arbus.”
Somehow, my face got redder. Diane Arbus had photographed circus people. She loved the weird and strange.
When I heard people’s voices outside, I left the kitchen (it now seemed to be Noble’s territory anyway—which proved that God answered prayers) and went outside. At about seven-fifteen the garden gate opened and in walked Miss Essie Lee and Dessie. It was amazing that the human body could take such disparate forms. Dessie was all lush woman, while Miss Essie Lee was as thin as a three-day-old stalk of wheat, and about as juicy.
I couldn’t help staring at the emaciated woman and remembering what Russell had told me. Had this woman helped pile rocks on someone? Had Miss Essie Lee really helped commit a murder?
Toodles and Tessa had been hanging some of the origami insects they’d made on the trees when I saw Toodles stop and stare at Dessie. His arm was extended, a red paper giraffe hanging from his fingertips, when he halted.
No, no, no, I thought. Toodles had the mind of a child, but he was actually a full-grown man. Was he going to be like his son and fall madly in love with the over-endowed Dessie?
For a moment, I was frozen in my tracks. What in the world could I do to stop this? As I walked toward Toodles, I tried to compose myself and think about what I could say to end it before it started. That his son was already having an affair with Dessie? That Toodles would have to get in line? That if Dessie Mason had any interest in a man like Toodles it would be so she could make a sculpture of him and sell it?
By the time I’d taken the three steps to reach Toodles, I’d come up with nothing I could say. He was still staring, his arm still extended, the little giraffe still swaying in the breeze—and his tongue was hanging out. No subtlety in him!
“She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” he said, and I let out a groan. Why was it that when I wanted to understand him, I couldn’t, but now that he was saying something I didn’t want to hear, his speech was perfectly clear?
When he started walking toward Dessie, I put out my hand to stop him, but he just brushed past me. I was contemplating finding Ford and seeing if he could do something with his father, when the most extraordinary thing happened:Toodles walked past Dessie as though he didn’t see her. As I watched, my mouth open in disbelief, Toodles kept walking until he came to Miss Essie Lee. Looking up, since she was taller than he was, he gifted her with his paper giraffe.
I wanted to run to Toodles and protect him. What would that stiff-backed, dried-up old woman do to him? I’d taken one step forward when I saw Miss Essie Lee’s face soften, and she became a wholly different person.
Toodles crooked his arm, Miss Essie Lee slipped hers into it, and the two of them walked toward the food table. As far as I knew, they hadn’t exchanged a word with each other.
Feeling as though I’d just witnessed something out of a science fiction movie, I wandered back into the house. It was said that like attracted like. Ford’s stories about his family made it clear that they knew all about various and sundry criminal behavior. Was Toodles subliminally attracted to Miss Essie Lee because the woman had participated in a murder?
The kitchen table and the countertops were covered with huge bowls full of food. I was standing there, munching and thinking about what I’d just seen, when Ford yelled, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
I jumped half a foot. “Nothing,” I said. “Why are you yelling at me?”
Walking across the kitchen in two strides, he took a bowl of potato chips off the table. I had a potato chip—one of those thick, crinkly kind—on the way to my mouth. I looked at the thing as the nutritional poison it was and dropped it on the table.
Ford was frowning at me as though my eating a potato chip was immoral. I spent three seconds thinking about defending myself and starting a fight with him, but, instead, I stretched out my hand. Taking it as though he were a toddler, he followed me outside.
I hadn’t been wrong in what I thought I saw. Miss Essie Lee was standing on a bench, Tessa was handing her origami creatures, and the thin woman was hanging them in the high branches. When Miss Essie Lee started to get down, Toodles took her by her narrow waist and swung her down. As she put her hands on his shoulders, she giggled like a teenager.
“Your father’s in love,” I said, but Ford was staring just as I had been a few moments earlier, so he couldn’t make a sound.
It was sometime later when I finally saw Miss Essie Lee alone. By that time the party was in full swing and very loud. Earlier in the week, Ford and Noble had gone shopping and bought some serious speakers. The good news was that if the speakers ever broke, we could rent them out as condos.
Finally, there came a moment when I saw Miss Essie Lee standing by the fence by herself, drink in hand. As always, she was wearing one of her antique blouses, but her hair had come down a bit from its usual tight style, so she looked kind of good. I nearly ran over to her before Toodles returned and I lost my chance.
It took me a moment to get myself under control enough not to stare at her. Of course I wanted to know if she was a murderer, but that happened long ago, and right now there was something more urgent that needed attention. “So what do you think of Ford’s father?” I yelled over the music.
“He is as pure as a sonnet,” she said, her voice carrying better than mine. “Did you know that he doesn’t know how to read? Isn’t that refreshing?”
That set me back a bit. “Yeah, well, I guess it is,” I managed to say.
“You don’t know how tired I get of literacy. Everyone talks to me about nothing but what’s inside books.”
“But I thought—”
“That because I’m a librarian that I want my entire life to be about books? Not quite. We all want a life.”
Suddenly I thought of how Russell had lied to me about himself, or at least omitted some basic facts. Miss Essie Lee might possibly have a dubious past, but I still didn’t want her, or any woman, to get hurt. “Did you know that Mr. Newcombe has…Well, that he’s…”
“Spent his entire life in prison?” Leaning toward me, she whispered loudly, “I find that fascinating, don’t you?” The next second her face changed. She was a girl seeing her first boyfriend. “There he is,” she said as she ran toward Toodles, leaving me to stare after her in shock.
It was about a half hour later that I saw Russell. I was closing the garden gate—why, I don’t know because everyone within hearing distance, invited or not, and far more than my original twenty-eight, had shown up—when an arm reached out and grabbed me. As the arm spun me out of the garden and toward the alley, I let out a little scream, but it was stopped by a man’s lips on mine.
It took me a few seconds to realize that it was Russell, but his body next to mine made me forget that I’d decided I no longer found him attractive. Plus, I’d had three of some fruity drink that Ford had been making in a blender and telling me that he’d fortified with six essential vitamins.
Still, I could pretend to be furious. I pulled my mouth away from Russell’s and said petulantly, “You didn’t call me.”
Still holding me, he nuzzled my neck. How did we go from two encounters to this? I wondered, but I didn’t push my body away from his—his hard, lean, muscular body. Damn Ford and his vitamin drink. Was the thing half rum or two-thirds?
“I’m sorry, Jackie,” Russell said in that divine voice of his. “I couldn’t call. My father’s been ill, but he’s all right now. We thought it was a heart attack, so I went running back to Raleigh, but it was just anxiety. I was angry about the whole thing, but relieved. Can you forgive me?”
“They have telephones in Raleigh,” I said even more petulantly. Are there degrees of petulance? Could I go from medium to high? “You don’t teach at the University of North Carolina,” I shot at him.
Smiling, Russell pulled me closer. “Not anymore. Not as of this spring. I quit because I’m working on a personal project and because I’ve had two other job offers.”
He started to kiss my neck again, but I turned my head away. His arms were around my lower back, my hips against his. “Why didn’t you tell me that?” I asked.
When Russell dropped his arms from around me, I wanted to take the question back. I wanted to be the injured party so he’d coax me into forgiving him. As he looked up at the stars, some wonderful person turned the music down. “I can’t figure out what you’ve done to me,” he said softly. “I’ve thought of nothing but you since I met you.”
I tried to make my heart stop racing, but I couldn’t. He was describing the way I felt about him.
Turning, he looked at me. “Promise you won’t laugh, but for three days after I met you, I was like a cartoon character. I was walking into walls.”
I tried to focus my rum-laden mind so I didn’t blurt out that that’s just how I’d reacted to meeting him, too.
“I’m just a boring college teacher who took some time off to do some research, but I can’t think about my work because I keep seeing your face.” Reaching out, he ran the back of his fingers along my cheek, and I could feel his touch all the way to my toes. “I don’t usually reveal things about myself to people but to you…I told you more in an hour than I told the woman I almost married over the course of three years.”
I forgave him. Damn, damn, and double damn, but I forgave him. Maybe he was lying. Maybe he never had been a teacher at UNC, but then maybe he had secrets he couldn’t tell anyone. And didn’t we all have secrets? Wasn’t I sitting on some pretty big ones myself?
I slipped my arm into his. “Come to the party and meet everyone. Ford’s father and his cousin are here, and I want to show you some photos I took.”
Backing away, Russell glanced at the fence as though he were afraid of something. “They wouldn’t like for me to show up in there,” he said.
Why?! I wanted to scream, but my head was so fuzzy that it was difficult to think. I took a deep breath. “I told Ford about you.” I stiffened my shoulders as I prepared for his anger. After all, I’d promised him I wouldn’t.
But Russell didn’t get angry. Instead, he gave a little one-sided grin and said, “What did he say?”
“He was jealous.”
Russell laughed and the sound made me feel warm all over. “Does he have reason to be?”
He was reaching for me again, but I stepped back. “Ford has doubts that the whole town would dislike you merely because you gave Dessie Mason a bad review.”
Russell smiled, his eyes bright even in the dark. “I’ve been caught.” He looked at me for a moment, as though trying to decide whether or not to tell me the truth. “The research project I’m working on?”
“Yes,” I said, and, somehow, I knew what he was going to say.
And Russell could see that I knew. Shrugging, he turned away. “Since I was in my twenties, I’ve been angry about what happened with my mother. Can you understand that?”
Oh, yeah, I thought, and nodded.
“All I’ve wanted to know is what happened. What really and truly happened. Does that make sense?”
So many words crowded my brain that none of them would come out, so again I nodded.
“I’ve asked too many questions in this town. People don’t want to see me.”
I didn’t say so, but Ford and I had been in the same situation. “Miss Essie Lee,” I said.
“She’s just one of them.”
“One of the main ones since she helped put rocks on that poor woman.”
Russell looked startled. “No, her sister did that.”
“But you said—”
Russell’s eyes flashed in a way that made me take a step back. “No, her sister did that. You must have misheard me.”
I put my hand on the gate latch. He was beginning to frighten me.
“I’m sorry,” Russell said as he put his hand over his face.
Please don’t weep, I thought. There was enough crying around me as it was. But when Russell looked up, the anger was gone.
“I really am sorry. I’m so tired that I’m short tempered. I may have said that Miss Essie Lee was directly involved because…”
I stood there in silence, waiting for him to continue.
When Russell looked at me, his eyes were those of someone who had known great pain. “Can I trust you? I mean really, really trust you? I need someone to confide in.”
Part of me wanted to throw open the gate and run back inside. I knew that he wanted to tell me something about the crushing, but I didn’t want to hear it. I agreed with Ford that we should stop working on the crushing story because it looked as though I was involved. I did not, under any circumstances, want to hear or see something that would make me remember what I might have seen.
But there was that age-old man-woman thing, so I heard myself whisper, “Yes, you can trust me.”
“I think my father may have…have taken what happened into his own hands. I think he may have—” Russell took a breath. “I think my father may have killed some or all of those people who put stones on that woman.”
It was good that Russell’s pain was getting through to me, or I would have been tempted to tell him that Ford had found out about the deaths. But I said nothing. I really and truly didn’t want to become any more deeply involved in this.
I guess Russell could see that my silence meant something. Reaching out, he took my hand in his. “I’ve told you so much. You…” He paused for a moment while caressing my fingers. “May I see you again? This week sometime?”
I nodded. He and I needed to talk. With no lies and no secrets—if that was possible, that is.
“Come Wednesday,” I said. “At two. And, Russell, if you’re too busy to show up, don’t ever contact me again. Got it?” Amazing at how good that felt!
He nodded in understanding, his eyes twinkling. Then, smiling, he leaned over, kissed me on the neck, and slipped away into the darkness.
I went back into the garden and there was Ford, a CD in his hand, and he was looking at me curiously. “You okay?”
“Sure,” I said, and tried to change my face from serious to party. “If your father marries Miss Essie Lee, does that mean you’ll have to call her Mom? Will you have to speak at the garden club once a month?” I widened my eyes. “Will she move in with you?”
When Ford gave a groan of true fear, I went away smiling.
After that, I danced and had a good time. But in the back of my mind I was thinking about Russell. And Ford. At times what the two men had told me seemed contradictory, but Russell always seemed to have a glib explanation.
You know what was really in my mind? When he was a child, Russell had been bundled away in the night, and now he suspected that his father had murdered the people who’d crushed that woman. What kept going around my head, no matter how loud the music or how frantically I danced, was that maybe my dad had helped Russell’s dad kill those people and that’s the real reason my father and I had spent our lives running.