A Peach of a Pair (16 page)

It had been over three weeks since I received the invitation to Sissy’s wedding, almost two months since I’d received a letter or a phone call from her. For as long as I lived, I never wanted to see her bright, shiny face again. Yet, as much as I hated to admit it, I missed her. “And how long did your
tiff
last?” I asked.

“Seven years,” Miss Lurleen said. Both of us watched Miss Emily sashay back toward the bus, her long shawl flowing, doing her best to move like Ginger Rogers across the broken red clay. “To the day, I stopped speaking to her.”

Seven years? I hadn’t even gone seven months without seeing Sissy’s loopy scrawl over pages and pages of heartfelt letters or hearing her voice, and it already felt like an eternity. The wiry little bus driver, with the great big western belt buckle and cowboy hat instead of the baseball type the other drivers wore, came out of the men’s room and nodded toward us. “Ladies. Time to load up,” he drawled. “Leaving in five minutes.”

S
andwiched between Miss Emily and me, Miss Lurleen was soon asleep, her head bouncing from my shoulder to Miss Emily’s as she sporadically made the gentle
puff puff puff
sound that must run in the Eldridge family.

I dug around in the knapsack, pulled out a bag of penny candy I bought at Zemp’s Drug Store yesterday, and tilted the bag toward Miss Emily. While she always fussed about Miss Lurleen’s sweet tooth, she was the real sugar addict out of the two. She fished around in the sack and pulled out three pieces, the only Hershey’s Kisses in the bag, and handed it back to me.

“Thank you,” she said, popping one in her mouth. “Next time we stop, I hope there’s a diner so we can get some sweet tea in Lurleen.”

“Do you think that’s a good idea? She drank a Coke just now, and I know she hates having to go to the bathroom all the time.”

Before Miss Emily could answer, the little boy a few seats ahead of us spilled an entire cigar box full of crayons and began to wail. But Miss Lurleen didn’t stir. His mother chased the colors down the aisle as they rolled everywhere. I waited until Miss Lurleen’s head shifted back to Miss Emily’s shoulder, picked up the handful that landed at my feet, but couldn’t reach the ones by Miss Emily. I handed them to the woman, who was apologizing all over the place to everyone.

Miss Emily didn’t budge and gave the woman a cross look that sent her scurrying back to her seat. “All this sitting is going to set off Lurleen’s leg cramps,” she fussed. “The tea and the bananas should help with that.”

“Oh,” I said. “Remmy didn’t mention tea. Just bananas.” Although he probably figured there was no need since there’d be enough sweet tea between Camden and Palestine to float a boat, especially with the sisters’ penchant for the stuff.

“That’s because he’s a nitwit. My beautician, Shari Bartholomew, knows everything about everything. I told her Lurleen was suffering with leg cramps and she said, ‘Why, give her her fill of sweet tea and bananas.’ Works like a charm.”

“Good to know,” I said.

“You and Sister have become awfully cozy,” Miss Emily said. As if on cue, Miss Lurleen shifted to my shoulder, head reared back, mouth gaped open.

“We hit it off if that’s what you mean. She likes for me to read to her, and, for the most part, I like her taste in books.”

“She was a librarian, you know. Retired the year before me.”

“I should have guessed.” I smiled at the idea of Miss Lurleen in the stacks, lost in some great classic; although she did love a good romance every now and then. But who doesn’t?

“Oh, she wasn’t just any librarian with her nose always stuck in a book; she was a crack shot too. Loved to hunt as much as she loved to read; I grant you there wasn’t another gun-toting librarian in the state back then. Probably hasn’t been one since.”

“My father’s a great marksman; he’s won a lot of contests, even a couple of statewide competitions. I think he was so disappointed he ended up with girls instead of a son to pass on his love for firearms; not sure it ever occurred to him to teach my sister or me. But I doubt that either of us would have been interested,” I said. “I’m surprised I didn’t see any guns around your house, though; back home, they hang in cases like fine portraits all over the place.”

Miss Emily had the same red-faced expression that she wore when she looked everywhere for her reading glasses. I’d kindly pointed they were on top of her head, but only once because she blessed me out and accused me of insinuating that she was old and doddering. She drew her lips into a thin line; her chin trembled. “Yes, well. She got rid of the guns after the accident.”

“Accident?” Miss Lurleen woke with a start.

“It’s all right, Sister. Go back to sleep,” Miss Emily said.

Miss Lurleen looked around like she was confused and then recognition settled in. She winced hard and shifted her feet about. “Are your legs bothering you?” I asked.

She nodded, worry on her face. “We’re so hemmed in. I know I need to get up and walk the cramps out, but—” She didn’t have to finish the sentence; with the bus pitching from side to side without warning, there was a very good possibility she would fall. “Maybe I should just stand a bit.”

“I’ll help you,” I said. “You can hold on to the seats and walk the aisle. I’ll be right behind you.”

“Some hired help you are,” Miss Emily sniffed. “You should have brought a Thermos of tea.”

“Hush, Emily, and be more considerate to Nettie or I swear at the next stop I’ll get on the next bus back to Camden.”

“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “Let’s get you moving.” Miss Lurleen nodded and faltered a bit, almost growling at the pain. She took baby steps into the aisle and then walked toward the front of the bus, three maybe four steps, holding on to the seats for support. She came to a stop and stood, swaying with the motion of the bus; the little boy who’d dropped his crayons earlier looked up at her and smiled.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“
Darrell Jennings
. That is not nice. You say
hello
to someone, you tell them
your
name, then they will politely tell you theirs,” his mother fussed. “I’m sorry. He just turned six.”

Miss Lurleen nodded. “My name is Miss Eldridge, Darrell, and this is my friend, Nettie.” I waved at the boy and he smiled a dallying smile.

“Nettie and Mrs. Eldridge,” he repeated.

“No, it’s
Miss
Eldridge,” Miss Lurleen said. “And you’re a very fine boy, Darrell.”

“
Miss
Eldridge? But you’re so old.”

“I’m so very sorry.” His mother’s face was beet red; she reached over and pinched his chubby little thigh. “
Darrell
, that was rude.”

“Owww,” the boy wailed, rubbing the red mark. “But she
is
old.”

“He’s fine,” Miss Lurleen told the boy’s mother. “Yes, Darrell, I am very old, and I’m Miss Eldridge because I never married.”

He looked like his curiosity was killing him. “But why?” he asked
and then quickly tried to cover his legs with his hands in case his mother pinched him again.

I’d never seen Miss Lurleen interact with anyone other than her sister and Remmy, but it was plain that Miss Lurleen had been very good with children all those years she had her nose in a book. I couldn’t see her face, but I could feel her tense up at the child’s innocent question.

“I just never did,” she said. “But if I’d known someone as smart and as handsome as you, I’m sure I would have.”

The boy nodded, satisfied with the answer, and opened his cigar box again. His mother shifted the box to her lap for safekeeping and gave Miss Lurleen a tentative smile. “Thank you for being so nice to him,” she said. “He’s full of questions; sometimes too full. I’m sorry if he offended you.”

“Nonsense. He just has a curious mind. Is he reading yet?”

“No. Should he be?” The look on her face said she was flying by the seat of her pants at this mother thing.

“He’s bright, inquisitive; there’s no reason you couldn’t start teaching him. And there’s no better place for a child to fall in love with reading than a good book,” Miss Lurleen said.

“Thanks,” his mother said. “I’ll think about it.”

“My friend is going to help me back to my seat now, Darrell, but it was very nice meeting you.” She glanced over her shoulder at me, turned to face the back of the bus, and I took my place behind her. A few labored steps later, she plopped down out of breath but with a satisfied look on her face.

“I hope you told that mother to control her child. Squealing. Crayons rolling around underfoot. What a nuisance,” Miss Emily snapped.

Still out of breath, Miss Lurleen shut her mouth, but only for a moment. “What do you expect, Emily? He’s a child. Honestly, how they let you teach impressionable young minds all those years is beyond me,” Miss Lurleen huffed. “She was a holy terror, Nettie, the teacher who when the poor children learned they were assigned to her either wet their pants or cried themselves sick. And these weren’t little ones like that boy, they were sixth graders. Even the older ones that had been held back and were terrors themselves were scared to death of her.”

“Bite your tongue, Sister,” Miss Emily spat. “Why, I’ll have you to know I taught half of Camden. The half who grew up to be respectable, decent adults, and if they had not had me to jerk a knot in their rear ends, who knows what kind of degenerates they might have become.”

“I stand by my assessment, Emily. And another thing; you’d better stop looking at the world like it’s some poor child you need to browbeat into submission, because that’s what the world will remember you for. And for being petty and divisive.”

Miss Emily opened her mouth to respond but clamped it shut, rolling her lips under her teeth. She didn’t speak; no one did. About an hour passed and the bus pulled into a large terminal in Columbus. The driver announced the bus would leave in half an hour, that there was hot food available at the diner, but to hurry; the bus wouldn’t wait. Everyone filed off ahead of the three of us. I helped Miss Lurleen off the bus and she made a beeline without any help to the nearby ladies’ room.

I’d seen Miss Emily the protector, Miss Emily the know-it-all and the bitch full of sass and vinegar, but looking at her now, she was
wounded over the last exchange with her sister. “She didn’t mean it,” I lied, because I was sure Miss Lurleen meant every word she said.

“I’m her sister. I’m impervious to her accusations and pompous rants. Besides, I’m glad she said it. The crankier she is, the better,” Miss Emily snapped. I was so thunderstruck, I barely heard her last words before she joined the line for the restroom. “Means she’s not going to die.”

N
ettie watched Emily, as closely as she watched Lurleen, maybe more so. While it used to annoy the hell out of Emily, she had grown accustomed to it, and, though she would never admit it to Nettie, it was somewhat comforting. Perhaps it was the kinship she and Nettie shared. Emily knew a fellow belle of the ball when she saw one, and Nettie was definitely that and then some in the life she’d escaped to come to work for Sister. And Emily.

Nettie had watched the exchange on the bus like Lurleen and Emily were two thoroughbreds going neck and neck for the finish line at the Carolina Cup. But the truth was, no matter how right Emily was, she’d never win the argument because after John died, Lurleen was elevated to near martyr status. Of course everyone had always loved her, but never loving another man, never marrying,
romanced Lurleen’s life’s story, gave her certain license Emily never had. And Emily wasn’t about to marry, not after her part in John’s death.

Maybe it was Emily’s imagination, but it felt like Nettie somehow understood her. Was it their uncommon beauty that bound them together or was it the secret Nettie carried? No, it couldn’t be that; Emily couldn’t keep a secret if the remnants of her life depended on it. If she could, she never would have told the police what really happened that day. The memory still made her chest squeeze tight, almost suffocating her. But she’d atoned for so many years, surely the scales weren’t so very lopsided anymore.

Lurleen opened the bathroom door and stood in the threshold, her color looked good, better than it had in weeks, but she was breathing so very hard. Maybe this trip would indeed kill her, and then Emily would have more blood on her hands. And for that, there would be no atonement.

Lurleen smiled at the women in line. “Ladies, would you all mind making way for my sister?” she asked. “It’s hard for us old gals to go so long, and she’ll just be a jiffy.
Won’t you
, Emily.” Lurleen looked at her to let her know she’d better not dawdle, but the warmth had returned to her beautiful blue eyes. The women stepped aside, and when Emily reached the bathroom door, her sister put her hand on Emily’s arm. Yes, Lurleen was making her way back from the dead. And Emily was making her way toward forgiveness.

N
ettie had a long line of people behind her grumbling because she seemed to be haggling with the order taker at the window of the tiny food stand.

“I told you,” the dark-haired, hard-looking woman huffed. “We ain’t got nothing without salt, lady. Now I got a line of customers here; are you going to order something or what?”

“Please, it’s for someone who’s ill. Do you have eggs?” Nettie asked.

“Yeah. We got egg salad; I ’spect we got eggs.”

“An egg sandwich, just the egg and the bread, please.”

“Fried or scrambled?” She raised her eyebrows.

“One chicken salad and two egg sandwiches, please. Scrambled would be good,” Lurleen said, sliding two dollars across the counter, “with two teas and a Co-Cola for my friend here.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take so long,” Nettie said to the folks in line as she and Lurleen made their way to one of the benches to wait for their food.

“Getting old definitely has its fringe benefits, but they’re mostly for the bathroom or the food line. Getting a seat in a crowded room, that sort of thing,” Lurleen said. “Besides, we’ll be fine. The driver is at the back of the line, and we’re not gong anywhere without him.”

Nettie nodded and smiled like she had a secret. Lurleen suspected she had many. “I know you love books, but you never told me you were a librarian.”

“You never asked,” Lurleen said, implying Nettie could ask her anything and she’d return an honest answer. She liked Nettie, a lot, but that wasn’t quite the case.

“I didn’t bring any books.” She blushed, pulling the other half of the banana out of her knapsack. “As much as I’ve read to you, you’d think I’d have packed at least one.”

“Maybe you thought I wouldn’t make it this far,” Lurleen joked. “I know I didn’t.”

“Two eggs, two teas, a chicken and a Coke,” the woman who took their order shouted. Nettie waded through the customers waiting for their food and came back holding the three drinks in her hands and the bag clamped between her teeth.

Lurleen took the tea when she’d really rather have had the Coke, but Emily would fuss, and it did seem to help her leg cramps. Sister joined them; they ate their lunch in companionable silence, and Lurleen was right, the driver didn’t get his food until almost dead last, and their stop in Macon was closer to an hour than thirty minutes. Surprisingly, Lurleen wasn’t nearly as tired as she was sure she would be from being drug up one side and down the other. Not that she had any illusions of being healed or even making it to Texas, but if this was an adventure, her last one, she hoped it would be a good one.

“Saddle up,” the driver called, shoving the last of his sandwich in his mouth. Who knew what the next stop would be? Of course they’d have to change buses in Montgomery. If Lurleen made it that far.

Many of the travelers got on other buses in Macon, so there was room enough for each of the women to take a bench seat, put their feet up. Nettie and Lurleen on one side of the bus, Emily on the other. Even with her water pills and avoiding salt, Lurleen’s ankles were huge, but overall she felt pretty good. Just tired.

The gentle rocking of the bus lulled her to sleep, and twice she
almost fell off the seat. Completely addled, she felt Nettie’s sure hands on her shoulders gently holding her in place while Emily tied her shawl and Nettie’s pretty blue sweater together and handed it to Nettie. With one end over Lurleen’s shoulder and the middle of the contraption across her chest, Nettie threaded the other end through the crease where the seat back met the bench and tied it behind the seat like a sling. Nettie gave it a good yank, most likely ruining her sweater; Emily’s shawl was almost as old as she was and completely indestructible. The two of them looked so proud. Lurleen looked ridiculous belted into her seat, but she was able to get some rest without falling on her behind.