Twenty-Four

Chloe looked at the sky and pedaled the bike furiously down the old pony path by the water. It wouldn’t be dark for another hour or so, and with any luck, Bailey would drive her home. She refused to think about the possibility of his not being there. He’d scared her earlier in the school cafeteria. She could see it in his face. Something was terribly wrong, something much worse than the amused stares of his classmates.

She turned into the woods and prayed that the rutted, bumpy path wouldn’t pop one of her tires. It was darker here in the shelter of the southern pine forest, the faint rays of a setting sun barely dappling the shadowed stillness. Only extreme worry would have coaxed Chloe into this dark place devoid of human company. She knew nothing about the woods, deliberately pushing aside thoughts of bugs and wild creatures. She concentrated on reaching Bailey’s trailer, praying he would be there cooking up appetizing smells while Lizzie waited patiently on her bench outside. What did they do when the weather was bad for days?, she wondered. Bailey would paint in his shed, but Lizzie would be trapped inside the trailer, breathing the stale air of the single room. Chloe shuddered. Of all her senses, the least she would be willing to spare was her sight.

She had never come on her own like this, so late in the day, on a bike. She hadn’t told anyone, either. “Please,” she prayed, “just let me make it there. I’ll figure out the rest later.”

She coasted into the clearing, stopping the bike by dragging both feet on the ground, and sat back on the seat. She stared in dismay at the Jones’s trailer. It was completely dark. No one was home. Yet, how was that possible? Lizzie never went anywhere. She looked around and sighed with relief. Bailey’s truck was parked near the shed, nearly hidden by trees.

“Hello,” she called out. “It’s Chloe. Is anybody home?”

A bird circled in the sky above her head and two squirrels scampered across a tree branch.

“Bailey,” she called again. “Where are you?”

Again, nothing but silence.

She climbed off the bike and propped it against the picnic table. It was too late to bicycle home. She would have to wait for Bailey. She sat down on Lizzie’s bench and leaned back against the trailer. It shifted against her back as if someone had moved from one side to another. She jumped up and pounded on the door. “Bailey, it’s Chloe. Answer the door.”

“Go away.”

She frowned. It was Bailey’s voice, faint and raspy, but definitely his. She knocked again. “Open the door, Bailey. Something’s wrong. I know it is.”

“It’s none of your business. Go away.”

She tried another approach. “C’mon, Bailey. It’s dark and I rode my bike. I don’t know the way back.”

“I can’t help you. Go away.”

Now she was really frightened. The Bailey she knew would never let her ride home through the dark. “Please, Bailey,” she whimpered. “I’m scared. Where’s Lizzie?”

She heard him curse and fumble with the lock. Finally the door opened. She took one look at his face, at the stubble on his chin, at his torn shirt, the scratch on his face and the bloodshot whites of his eyes, and stepped back. “What’s the matter with you?” she whispered.

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Where’s your mother?”

He laughed wildly, insanely.

Chloe felt the blood pound in her left temple. Suddenly, it was very important to find Lizzie. “Where’s your mother, Bailey?”

His hand snaked out and grabbed her wrist. “You want to know where my mother is?” He pulled her through the door. “I’ll show you.”

She stood quietly for a minute, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dark room. She was terrified, but every instinct told her to remain quiet. Bailey wouldn’t hurt her. Bailey was her friend.

Gradually, her vision returned. Everything looked in its place, neat counters, closets closed, dishes clean and drying in the sink. Lizzie Jones lay on a narrow cot beneath a light blanket, facing the wall.

“Is she sleeping?” Chloe whispered.

A ragged cry burst from Bailey’s lips.

Chloe tiptoed to the bed and bent over the woman. She was very still. Too still. Tentatively, Chloe reached out and touched her cheek. It was cold. Chloe had never seen a dead person, but she knew without a doubt that Lizzie Jones was dead.

With her eyes swimming in tears, she turned back to the boy. “Oh, Bailey,” she said, “I’m so sorry.”

He fell against her, his sides heaving, his breathing harsh. Instinctively her arms wrapped around him and together they slid to the floor. He buried his face in her neck and sobbed while she soothed him with senseless words and silly, half-remembered songs and trite platitudes until her voice was raw and her legs cramped and the violent racking of his body settled into soft hiccups.

She knew she needed help, but Chloe had scanned the walls and counters. There wasn’t a phone in sight and Bailey was in no condition to drive his truck. She desperately wanted her mother or her grandfather and vowed never to go anywhere again without telling someone where she was going.

Libby decided on a knee-length skirt, pumps and a sleeveless linen blouse. A power suit in the midst of an unemployed town wouldn’t be appreciated. She wore her shoulder-length hair parted on the side with the layers falling against her cheeks, again a simple, wholesome style that spoke of girl-next-store, I’m-on-your-side sympathies.

Russ met her at the library door. She was fifteen minutes early and already every seat was taken. Her audience was mostly made up of men, but there were a few women represented, evidence of progress along the Chesapeake. Someone had donated coffee. The rich smell of chicory wafted through the room.

Libby was nervous. It wasn’t often that so much was at stake. People became emotional when it came to their livelihoods and rightly so. She hoped for understanding and some patience. More than that would be a gift.

She moved throughout the room, greeting familiar faces, making her way to the podium where a microphone had been set up. Russ had been thorough. Libby ignored the mike and cleared her throat. “Hi, everyone,” she began. Her voice was low and well pitched and clear.

Immediately the room went silent.

“Thanks for coming out tonight. It’s good to see you here. I hope what I have to say tonight is worthwhile.” She’d decided against jokes. It wasn’t the occasion and she wasn’t good at pulling them off. She would offer them the facts, get straight to the point and let the chips fall where they may. “I’d like to talk about the ban on blue crab and oyster harvesting and shad fishing. I’ll start by telling you worst and best case and what we can do if it comes to that. Then we can talk about how to keep those of you fed and clothed with your bills paid until this is behind us.”

Russ stood in the back of the room, his stance casual, arms crossed, an expression of polite interest on his face. He was analyzing the mood of the room and at the same time watching Libba disarm the crowd. A pretty woman went a long way toward getting a hard-living man to accept the inevitable without grumbling. In fact, she was so pretty it was hard for him to concentrate on her words. He wondered if it was the same for every male in the room or if he was the only one she had this effect on. Willing himself to pay attention, he focused on the clock above her head and listened.

“Mercury poisoning is a problem,” she said. “As you know, it isn’t a new problem, but for the first time people are eating more fish than meat. One out of two people who eat swordfish, albacore and tuna have mercury levels that are higher than they should be to maintain good health. Pregnant women are particularly at risk because we know mercury moves from the placenta to the fetus almost immediately. This is considered to be a substantial risk, enough to make it illegal not to mount warnings near the fish markets of all grocery stores and on the menus of restaurants.”

“What if you’re not pregnant?” someone asked.

“That goes for most of us,” a man sitting near the door called out.

Several people laughed. Most didn’t.

“Mercury poisoning causes heart attacks,” she replied.

“Those are saltwater fish. What about shad and blue crab?”

“The Chesapeake is brackish. Our fish have trace amounts of mercury as well. But that isn’t why you’re here tonight. That’s my introduction intended to ready you for something much more frightening. I’m not talking about rationing your intake of fish for mercury or parasites. I’m talking about PCBs, chemicals that smooth out surfaces and make nonstick coatings for appliances and paints and almost every other kind of equipment we use. They were outlawed twenty years ago, but because they’re so important it couldn’t be done collectively.”

“No big words, Libba Jane.” Fletcher Sloane’s voice could be heard from the back of the room. “We’re simple folk here.”

“All at once,” Libby amended. “Manufacturers are still allowed to make PCBs as long as they’re disposed of properly, although they’ll have to make less and less as time goes on.”

Billy Dupree leaned forward in his chair. “So, what’s so awful about PCBs?”

“Over time, enough time, they cause health problems,” she said simply, “like cancer.”

“What kind of cancer?” a woman asked.

“Specifically, they’ve been linked to ovarian and testicular cancer and to leukemia. In other words, people who take in enough PCBs become sterile or else they die.”

The room went silent and then angry muttering swelled from the middle of the crowd. “What does all this have to do with us, Libba Jane?” the same woman’s voice broke through.

“An entire generation of crabs have mutated,” she explained, “which could indicate PCBs in the bay. It could also be something else. I’m not sure yet. The lab reports show nothing but what I’ve told you. And that isn’t all. Animals, specifically wildcats and rodents, have also shown up with missing parts. That indicates seepage into the streams, ponds and freshwater creeks. From there, it’s only a matter of time before the subterranean wells are affected.”

“Sharecroppers and country people drink from those wells,” said Fletcher Sloane.

Libby nodded. “Yes. I’m afraid so.”

“What can we do?” he asked.

Others took up his question. “What can we do?”

She waited until it was quiet again, a straight, slender figure with an intense message. “Someone is leaking toxins into the bay. More than likely it’s been happening for quite a while because, as I said, an entire generation of fish and animals has been affected. That doesn’t happen overnight. The good news is whoever it is probably doesn’t know he’s doing it. That should make the situation easy to correct. What I need is information. I need you to go out into the surrounding areas and find every company that makes machinery or paint or building supplies—” she hesitated “—or anything else that looks odd. I need you to find out how their waste is disposed of and where. You won’t be able to do it officially. You’ll have to ask people you know. Maybe some of you can even get inside to see for yourselves.”

She paused and her voice lowered. “I can’t do this alone. It would take one person years to gather this kind of information, and by then the fishing industry on this side of the bay would be destroyed.”

Russ was moved. It was a plea, a poignant one, made more so because she’d put it so that everyone in the room believed she was working for them.

“Now for the practical part.” She bit her lip. “This isn’t going to be easy for you. It’s never easy for people with a lot of pride. Accepting handouts isn’t your thing. What I propose is that the fleet owners give their employees Reduction in Force notices for lack of work. That allows workers to collect unemployment for up to six months. Here, in Maryland, that’s two-thirds of your take-home salary. It’s not the same as a handout because you’ll be unofficially working for me, which is the same as working for the government. I believe that we’ll have this under control in less than six months. It’ll take some time to get things going again, but I think it can be done.”

She looked around the room, making eye contact with nearly everyone there. “I don’t know of any other way to fix this,” she said softly. “I guess you could try to get other jobs and hope that I’ll come across the problem on my own. Or you could take your boats farther and farther out into the bay. But there’s a risk. I’m sure you’ve already figured it out. Marshyhope Creek is too small to have such high incidences of leukemia. People are being affected. We could wait for a task force to declare this an environmental hazard area. But no one likes to do that. It destroys tourism and real estate values and it could take years to recover. If anyone has a better idea, I’d like to hear it. It doesn’t need to be tonight, but please come forward soon. I’m open to anything.” She was silent for a long moment and then she smiled.

“Think about it,” she said. “If you have no more questions, I’ll say thanks for coming out tonight and please help yourself to coffee and a piece of cake.”

They came up courteously, one by one, to shake her hand and tell her it was good to see her home again. She knew no one would offer an opinion. It was too soon and these were men slow to reach a decision. They would think and talk and think again, and not until the entire issue had been debated a thousand times would they take a side. She only hoped it wouldn’t take too long.

Russ waited until they were alone. “You look worn out,” he said. “How about coming home with me for a swig of Jack Daniel’s and a view that’ll make your heart drop?”

“I’ll pass on the Jack Daniel’s, but a glass of wine and the view would be nice.”

“I’ve got that, too.”

“You’re on. I’ll meet you there.”

Libby walked up the steps of Hennessey House and went through the screen door just as she had a thousand times before. Russ was true to his word. A glass of clear, sparkling wine and a plate of crackers and cheese sat beside his Jack Daniel’s on the back porch table. She picked up her wineglass and sank, gratefully, into a chair. “I’m glad that’s over,” she said.

He leaned against the railing, hands in his pockets, and looked at her thoughtfully. “You were great,” he said, “a real natural in front of people. I’d forgotten that about you.”

She shrugged. “So did I.”

“I never really gave you credit for wanting the acting thing so badly. I thought it was a phase that would pass. I thought you’d marry me, we’d settle here and raise a houseful of kids.”

“You mean like, every pretty girl wants to be an actress?”

He winced. “Something like that.”

“You were right. It was a phase, a very short one.”

“That’s the reason you left, isn’t it?”

She looked out across the dark water. “Partly.”

“Why did you stay in L.A. all those years, after it was over?”

Libby wondered the very same thing. She sipped her wine and tried to explain. “I’m not sure I realized the dream was truly over for a long time. When I did, there was Chloe and I was in school. I had too much pride and didn’t want to give my parents the satisfaction of knowing they were right. I’m not sure I wouldn’t do it all over again.”

He separated himself from the railing and walked toward her. “You broke my heart. Do you know that?”

“You’re not entirely blameless.”

He stopped, surprised, pulled out another chair and sat down facing her. “You’ve alluded to that before and I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She drew a deep breath. She’d known this moment was coming. She’d rehearsed it for years, choreographing every expression, editing the words. It was time for opening night.

“I found out about you and Shelby.”

Russ could feel the blood in his cheeks. “Excuse me?” “

Shelby can be very distracting.”

“If you’re referring to that scene at the club, you’re making more of it than it was.”

“You don’t have to defend yourself, Russ,” Libby said softly. “Shelby’s very persuasive. You’re not the first man she’s gone after with a vengeance. It’s like a game with her. The harder you resist, the greater the challenge.” She twisted a strand of hair around her finger. “I don’t think you were much of a challenge, though, were you, in the beginning?”

Russ froze, his glass suspended in midair, and wondered if he was going insane. “What’s your game, Libba Jane?”

Libby swallowed, promising herself that this time she would shelve her temper. She began calmly enough. “For all her faults, Shelby was my dearest friend and you were my boyfriend. Those relationships are sacrosanct. I had to choose, Russ, and I chose friendship.”

He was beginning to get angry. “You’re way off base. I’ve never been interested in Shelby.”

“Really? What about when we were kids? Was I the first girl you ever slept with?”

“Why bring that up now?” he asked warily.

She kept her eyes on his face, forcing him to look at her. “You knew exactly what to do. There was no awkwardness, no fumbling, and you lasted a long time.”

“Since when are you the expert on seventeen-year-old virgins?”

“Eric wasn’t much older when I married him.”

He whitened, surprised at the sudden twisting of his stomach. Libba had never directly alluded to the intimate aspects of her marriage. If he pretended hard enough, he could almost believe it never existed.

She didn’t give him a chance to regroup. “It was Shelby, wasn’t it?”

Russ twisted his glass in his hands. “Whatever I had with Shelby happened a long time ago, Libba, long before there was anything between you and me. Let it rest.”

Her voice cracked with emotion. “There was never a time before you and me. I’ve known you since I was eight years old.”

“It wasn’t the same,” he insisted. “I didn’t think of you that way.”

She was bitterly, blazingly angry, but only her eyes gave her away, her eyes and the words, clear and slow, that formed on her lips. “You’re a liar, Russ Hennessey. You were sticking your tongue down my throat since I was fourteen years old. You would’ve done more too if I’d let you. Don’t tell me your affair with Shelby was anything but complete and total betrayal. You cheated on me.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“No. Mitch told me, the summer I met Eric Richards, the summer I broke your heart.”

It was true, all of it, and he was guilty, although he never expected his own brother to betray him. Why no longer mattered. Mitch was gone and whatever motivation he had in those long-ago days when they were kids was gone with him.

There was no good rationalization for his lapse with Shelby twenty years ago in the peanut fields, except that he’d been sixteen years old with raging hormones and the girl he preferred wouldn’t let him do more than run his hands up and down the front of her sweater. Not that he would have done anything more. There were two kinds of girls in Marshyhope Creek, those who put out and those you brought home to Sunday dinner. Shelby was the first kind and Libba, the second. He would no more have expected Cole Delacourte’s daughter to drop her panties than he would have expected Shelby to wear any.

In the end, it hadn’t mattered. He and Libba had fallen in love, the serious, forever, one-man-one-woman kind of love, and because Libba never did anything halfway, the panties and everything else had come off after all. None of which explained why she was madder about events that occurred in the distant past than she was about anything he’d done since.

He spoke quietly with no hope of immunity. “Like I said, it was a long time ago. People make mistakes. I made mistakes. We were kids. There was never anyone after you. What’s the point of all this now?”

“I wanted you to know why I left and why I’ll leave again if I have to and why I don’t want to hear about your broken heart. You have no idea what you did to mine when I found out about you and my best friend.”

“All right, Libba. I apologize. I’ll do whatever you want.”

Libby’s eyes widened. She hadn’t expected instant capitulation, not from Russ.

“There is one condition, though.”

Of course. She should have known. Here it was, right from the horse’s mouth. “What is it?”

“We play it out in the open, so that everyone knows about us, your daughter, mine, your parents, my ex-wife.”

Color flooded her cheeks and chest. She’d grown up in a household where protocol was a way of life as natural as bees on honeysuckle and confession on Saturday. In her world, more specifically in Nola Ruth’s world, there was no room for bypassing formalities.

She wet her lips. “How am I supposed to explain to my daughter and my parents that I’m sleeping with my old boyfriend?”

His expression was unreadable. He dumped the bourbon out over the railing, opened the cooler on the porch and pulled out a beer. Popping the lid, he threw the flap across the deck and into a trash can. “You’ll think of something,” he said. “You always were good with words.”

The night was warm and the alcohol made it warmer. Libby poured herself another glass of wine. “I have a condition, too.”

“What is it?”

“Shelby’s on the prowl again. I don’t want you encouraging her.”

“The thought hadn’t occurred to me.”

“Like I said, she can be persuasive.”

He lifted her chin. “Is that why you’re mad at her, because you think there’s something between us?”

When she didn’t answer he laughed. “You’re a fool, Libba Jane. The only times I’ve ever looked at anyone else is when you wouldn’t have me.” His voice lowered. “Stay with me tonight.”

She shook her head. “I’ll sleep with you, but waking up beside you is something different.”

He frowned. “Explain that.”

She held his gaze, her eyes shadowed and colorless in the moonlight. “This is about sex. I’m not interested in a relationship.”

He looked incredulous. “You’re kidding.”

“No.”

He moved close to her, his eyes narrow and serious. “Tell me why you’re here if you don’t want anything real.”

“Lust,” she said bluntly. “You’re sexy and attractive and it’s been a while.”

A slow, amused smile crossed his face. “Shame on you, Libba Jane. You’ve changed. What would your mama say?”

“More than likely my mouth would be around a bar of soap.”

He set the beer down on the deck and reached for her hands. “I don’t believe you,” he said softly, “and I can think of better uses for your mouth.” Circling her palm with his thumb, he lifted her other hand and pressed his lips against the skin inside.

She couldn’t seem to breathe properly. His mouth moved from her palm to the inside of her wrist, to the tip of her elbow. She leaned back and closed her eyes, content to wait for whatever came next.

Russ took his time, his lips moving from her shoulder to her collarbone, settling for a time on the pulse in her throat. Finally; when she was all boneless heat, he found her mouth, holding her still while his tongue plundered and swept and teased until her arms wound around his neck and she pressed against him, urging his hands into places familiar and new.

One at a time he eased the buttons from their holes, pushing aside the white linen, exposing the lacy scrap that barely concealed her breasts. She was fuller than he remembered, with mature breasts and long, silky legs. He wanted to see her, all of her. He lifted his head. “Let’s go upstairs.”

She nodded. Leaving her blouse in the chair, she gave him her hand and followed him up the stairs and into the large front bedroom that had once been Beau and Cora Hennessey’s.

The bed was high. He pulled her after him, and there, in a tangle of sheets, he played her, caressing and kissing and probing until she wound her legs around his thighs, cupped his cheeks and pulled him into her. She felt his body go rigid and tight, and for a long, timeless moment he didn’t move. Burying her face in his neck, she tasted salt, smelled his scent, heard his harsh, shallow breathing. Finally, it began, the rhythmic moving, slow at first and then faster and still faster until, caught up in a swirl of desire and motion, she lost track of time and direction and space and gave herself up to the moment, to warm arms and hair-roughened legs and the warm, wet heat exploding inside of her.

Libba lay on the bed, her head pillowed on Russ’s shoulder, marveling at the wasted years of her marriage, wondering why she’d waited so long to satisfy such a basic primal need. Russ slept beside her. She didn’t want to analyze her feelings for Russ Hennessey. It was too early for that, and sex, she knew, tainted the truth, wrapped it in a rosy haze that faded all too quickly, like a room in the harsh light of early morning after a party.

She’d thought of Russ over the years and imagined him married to someone else, someone after Tracy, an outsider, a stranger, a woman from somewhere other than Marshyhope Creek. It could still happen and if it did, she would be prepared. She closed her eyes and imagined what the future Mrs. Russell Hennessey would look like. Red hair... no, that was too close to home. Blond would be better. Libby’s mind wandered. A tall, athletic blonde with strong features and straight, even teeth. Russ noticed teeth. It was odd, really, his fetish for a woman’s mouth. Most men noticed breasts, legs or hips. With Russ, it was teeth. It was one of the first things he’d noticed about her, way back in the third grade, the way her teeth, baking-soda white and much too large for her mouth, clung to her bottom lip when she laughed. For years after, he had remarked on her childish overbite and how she’d finally grown into her smile. Whoever Russ’s future wife was, the woman would definitely need good teeth.

Libby was prepared to accept a stranger, a woman who even now walked and slept and ate and talked, a woman whose life existed somewhere else on the planet. What she couldn’t accept was someone who’d shared the same childhood, recalled the same memories, a woman who’d known Russ when he was a boy as Libby had known him. Those years were hers alone, the free, joy-filled, gilt-touched hours of a magical childhood. They were all she had of unfettered happiness and she wouldn’t share them.

Carefully, she extricated herself from Russ’s arms, pulled the covers over him and gathered her clothes. Downstairs she found her blouse, her purse and keys and quietly let herself out of the house. It was after midnight. The roads were dark and empty. Hopefully everyone would be asleep at home and she wouldn’t be required to come up with an explanation, an absurdity for a thirty-seven-year-old woman, but still necessary.

The last thing she expected was her family home ablaze with lights and two police cars, red lights blinking, in the driveway.