A Peach of a Pair (25 page)

“You haven’t forgotten anything. You know how to rescue yourself, Sissy. You always have.”

“Not out of this mess.” Her face contorted with pain, shame, anger. Instinctively, she touched her belly, then looked at me and shoved her hands by her sides. “I’m so scared, Nettie.”

I took her in my arms and held her while she cried, whispering how very much I loved her and nothing would ever change that.

“I thought if I—I thought he’d love me. But he doesn’t, and it
took—” She pointed to her belly. “This for me to figure out I don’t love him, not like I thought I did.”

“Sissy, you don’t have to marry Brooks because Mother or Daddy say so. Tell them you don’t want to go through with this. If you want, you can go back to Camden with Lurleen and me.”

Sissy’s eyes were downcast. Brow furrowed in pain. “I wanted to stop the wedding. A couple of days ago, I told them I lost the baby. Daddy said nothing. Mother said the invitations had already been sent out. She said not to tell Brooks until after the wedding. She told me there would be other babies.”

“But you didn’t lose it,” I whispered. She shook her head and convulsed into tears.

After a while, she swiped at her eyes with the backs of her hands. “I felt it move yesterday.”

“What does it feel like?” I whispered, smiling, my hand going to her tummy. “Can I feel it too?”

“I’m not sure; it’s so slight.” She moved my hand to her lower abdomen. “Aunt Opal told me it would feel like butterfly wings. I guess it does feel kind of fluttery.” I looked into her eyes and smiled. I loved her so much. It tore at me to see her so unhappy.

“Come away with us, Sissy. Come back to Camden with Lurleen and me. We’ll raise the baby together. Lurleen would adore having a little one around.” But even Camden would treat Sissy no different than any other place would treat an unwed mother. “If you don’t want to do that, you don’t have to marry Brooks. There are homes you can go to—”

“I even thought about that, especially after I lied about the baby to Mother and Daddy, but after I have it, I don’t think I can give it away.” I wrapped my arms around her and held her close. She pulled
away just enough to see my face. “Why did you come back for me? I know I wouldn’t have.”

“I have a very dear friend who lost her sister, got her back again, and then lost her forever. At first I thought I’d come home for her, to finally mend her biggest regret, but that wasn’t it. I didn’t want to lose you forever, Sissy. I couldn’t. I love you, Sissy. I forgive you.”

“But I don’t deserve your love or your forgiveness.”

“Hush now; I love you. I’ll always love you.”

“I don’t know why,” she said against my chest. “Not after what I did, I don’t know how you can still love me.”

“Because we are sisters.”

L
urleen worried herself sick waiting for Nettie to come back. She sat on that little bench between the rose and gardenia gardens. It was a peaceful place surrounded by satsuma trees full of tiny oranges as far as she could see on one side and a smaller grove that backed up to a pecan orchard on the other. And while it was a lovely, even intoxicating place to sit between such fragrant flowers, she still kept her eyes on the woods.

Nettie had given Emily and Lurleen so much and she didn’t even know it. Then Lurleen had meddled perhaps where she shouldn’t have. She’d put this idea of an indestructible sisterhood in Nettie’s head, and Nettie had bought it hook, line, sinker, and half the pole because she wanted to. Needed to. Right now, Lurleen wasn’t even sure there was such a thing. All she had to go by was her and Emily,
who would roll over in her beautiful blue casket if someone called her and Lurleen’s sisterhood ordinary.

But then the girls came out of the woods, not hand in hand like Lurleen had hoped they might but walking lockstep with their arms around each other. Her heart stretched tight across her chest and she’d never been so grateful to be right in her whole life.

Nettie spied her and the pair neared the bench, stopping in front of Lurleen with smiles on their tear-streaked faces.

“Everything all right, dear?” Lurleen asked, already knowing the answer.

Nettie gave her baby sister a squeeze and kissed the top of her head. The girl looked so longingly back at Nettie, it broke Lurleen’s heart in two, but the girl loved Nettie too much to ask her to stay.

“I’m so sorry you lost your sister.” Sissy kissed Lurleen on the cheek. “Thank you for giving me back mine.”

“No need to thank me, my dear.” Lurleen reached for her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “You never really lost her to begin with.”

•   •   •

W
hat a piss-poor job,” Lurleen hissed. Even from the back of the viewing parlor, the casket didn’t look at all like Lurleen had hoped it would, not like the color of Sister’s eyes or the sky on a cloudless day; it was an institutional, washed-out blue, bordering on dull gray and not at all shiny like it was before it was painted. No. It was the exact color of a pair of eyes, blind from birth, cloudy gray ones
g. damn it
.

Lurleen had pictured something gleaming and blue, something Emily would be proud to be buried in. Why, it was a wonder Sister
wasn’t kicking and screaming to get out of the thing. Nettie cupped Lurleen’s elbow as they neared the hideous box, and Lurleen stopped just as a slice of Sister’s face came into view, her delicate nose, her forehead, silver curls. Just as Lurleen’s knees began to buckle, the pissant director hurried into the parlor, putting on his jacket like he’d just gotten out of bed.

“What is this?” Lurleen snapped, waving at the monstrosity.

“We did the best we could, ma’am,” he said in that undertaker tone that gave Lurleen the creeps. “I told you we’re not painters.”

The thick uneven brush marks were evidence of that. Whoever the imbecile painter was, hadn’t even taken care to put masking tape on the hardware. Jagged, painted lines competed with fat splatters on the fine brass. “A five-year-old could have done a better job. And I told you I wanted the paint the color of her eyes or her dress. No one would wear a dress made out of this abominable hue.” She took a step closer and prayed her anger would get her through the next few moments because honest to God, it was impossible that Emily was gone from this world. That she was in a
g.d.
box.

“I want,” she gritted out, utterly heartbroken and furious at God for taking Emily before her. Grateful Emily didn’t have to feel the loss Lurleen felt now. Sister was never coming back and the void she’d left, the void Lurleen had evaded, slammed into her, nearly knocking her to the ground.

She wanted to collapse on her sister in a puddle of tears. Seep into the fabric of Emily’s pretty blue dress, and lie in state with her. Instead, she swallowed hard and straightened her backbone; the only thing she could do, a way to honor her other half. “I want my money back. For the hideous paint job. And a generous discount for ruining Sister’s coffin.”

The undertaker didn’t say a word, just nodded and left the room. “I’m sorry,” Nettie said with her hand on Lurleen’s shoulder.

Lurleen nodded and edged forward. Emily had too much makeup on for Lurleen’s taste; she would have loved the way she looked, as vibrant as a made-up corpse can. What the undertaker lacked in painting skills, he’d made up for with the way Emily looked, like she was napping during
Backstage Wife
except her lips were a thin line, not pursed together making the gentle puffing sound. Her favorite earbobs didn’t make her lobes angry and red like they normally did, and when Lurleen kissed her forehead she was so very cold.

Lurleen braced herself on the paint-spattered brass railing. Nettie pulled the items out of Lurleen’s purse that Emily never left the house without, her favorite shade of pink lipstick, her gloves, her mirrored compact, and presented them to Lurleen. Nettie froze and her eyes went wide when Lurleen turned her own pocketbook upside down, emptying the contents onto the floor. She held it open for Nettie to drop Emily’s things into and snapped it shut, slipping it into the casket beside Emily, who would die if she got to heaven without her pocketbook.

Lurleen didn’t know how long she stood there. Too long for sure. Nettie picked up the items on the floor, put them in her own purse, and, in a hushed voice, asked Lurleen if she was ready to go. Lurleen shook her head and sat down on a chair in the front row, Nettie by her side. Lurleen let the memories and the grief wash over her. The good and the bad rolling in like the tide, the former far eclipsing the latter. She didn’t think she had any more tears left to cry, but she was wrong. Nettie cried with her, for Lurleen, and perhaps for her own sister.

The man finally walked back into the viewing room, check in hand, and apologized all over the place for the paint. Lurleen
nodded at Nettie; she helped Lurleen out of the chair and they left the parlor.

Their last night in Biloxi was a stark contrast to their triumphant arrival. Lurleen did have Nettie walk her down to the ocean one last time, for Emily. The next morning they boarded the train. Someone must have told the porter about Lurleen’s loss. He put her and Nettie in their finest roomette and had a server check on them, bringing them meals so that they could grieve in private. Or maybe it was to make up for Emily, who was surely outraged for riding in cargo.

After a million times, Nettie finally stopped asking if Lurleen was okay. It wouldn’t change anything.

I
was so busy scanning the crowd at the train station in Columbia, I didn’t realize I had my hand pressed against the window until Remmy raised his and grinned at me. He was standing next to a man I didn’t recognize on the platform. Lurleen stirred beside me. She had slept on and off for most of the way home, but still seemed very tired. Feeble.

Hands on both railings, Lurleen trembled as Remmy supported her under one arm from the front and I supported her under the other from behind. My heart leapt every time Remmy glanced at me, smiling before he went back to concentrating on getting Lurleen safely on the ground. When we were finally on the platform, the man nodded at me and then Lurleen and expressed his condolences as other passengers got off and the workers unloaded and reloaded the train.

“Thank you, Jennings,” Lurleen said warmly to the man who
appeared to be much older than her. He was wearing a crisp black suit, white shirt, and skinny black tie and was melting a bit in the afternoon heart. “Nettie Gilbert, this is Jennings Boykin; he works at the Kornegay Funeral Home.”

“You’re welcome, Miss Lurleen.” The man nodded at her and then at me. “Miss Gilbert.”

“And how are things in Red Hill, Jennings?” Lurleen asked.

“Better than I expect they are for you. Grace says to tell you hello and she was awfully sorry to hear about Miss Emily.”

“While it doesn’t bother me one bit, Emily would be chagrined to hear you call her Miss. Coming from you, it would make her feel old, and we both know how she felt about that.” Lurleen smiled and then turned her attention to me. “Jennings sold my father his first brand-new car.”

“Worked at a lot of things,” Jennings chuckled.

“But you found your calling at Kornegay’s,” Lurleen said firmly.

“Ninety-two and still going strong,” he said proudly.

Now, if I’d been Lurleen I would have worried about a ninety-two-year-old driver taking Miss Emily to the funeral home back in Camden, but the man didn’t look anywhere near that old. I suspect it was his work that kept him young. And his attention to detail. He winced as the ugly blue casket was carried down the loading ramp by four men. Jennings whistled to the workers and motioned for them to bring it his way.

“What in the world?” he said as it neared.

“Don’t start, Jennings. I was trying to do something nice for Emily It’s not like I can’t see with my own eyes it went awry,” Lurleen snapped. “I’m going to get that boy who painted my dining room last summer over to Kornegay’s first thing tomorrow. We’ll wait until
next Sunday for the service and the burial. That should give him enough time to get it right.”

Remmy was looking at me like he could eat me up, but he kept a gentlemanly distance, most likely out of respect for Lurleen and Mr. Boykin. His intense stare made my heart flutter, a hard blush traveled from my top to my toes, and I had to tear my eyes away from him to keep my composure.

The men filed past and Lurleen ran her hand along the side of the casket. “How’re you feeling, Miss Lurleen?” Remmy drawled.

“One minute I’m as fine as I can be, the next minute, horrible,” she whispered, watching the men load the casket into the hearse and shaking her head. “Simply horrible.”

“Let’s get you home,” he said, and we guided her to Remmy’s car with the ragtop down.

She stopped short like she wasn’t too sure about the convertible. “We’ve got a ways to go to get back to Camden; I’ll put the top up,” Remmy said. She swiped at her eyes, shook her head, and took Miss Emily’s scarf out of her pocketbook. It was as turquoise as the gulf had been that first day. Tying it under her chin, she offered me a yellow one that would have looked lovely on a blond Miss Emily when she was in her prime.

“As much as Emily pretended she didn’t like you, Remmy, she did, and by the way she said she despised your car, I’m sure she adored it. So, if you don’t mind, I think I’d like to ride with the top down. See what all the fuss is about.”

Remmy grinned at her, melting my heart into a little puddle, and then at me, completely shredding what was left. “Miss Gilbert,” he said opening my door. I slid into the seat, stopping on the passenger side, dying to slide on over and plaster myself to him. Eyes full of
wanting, he looked at me, took my hand in his, and kissed my palm. The soft brush of his lips traveled up my arm, my whole body ratcheted up tight, in the very best way, and I didn’t want him to stop.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Lurleen huffed after Remmy looked longingly at me and then put the car in gear to back out of the parking lot. “Kiss the girl.”

Being a Southern gentleman, I expected Remmy to ignore Lurleen or laugh off her remark. Instead, he shoved the car in park, yanked me across the bench seat and gave me a hello kiss the likes I’d never known before. Not even with him. When he pulled away he smiled, eyes on me. “Thanks, Miss Lurleen.”

“Well you looked like you were going to burst if you didn’t kiss her, so you’re welcome. And another thing, you may call me Lurleen.” Remmy’s head jerked toward the backseat. “I believe you earned it.”

Lurleen liked the top down so much that when we arrived at the house on Laurens Street she and Miss Emily shared, she asked Remmy to ride around the block a few more times. When it became apparent she was avoiding her home, she sucked in a breath and told Remmy she was ready. He and I helped her up the front steps; she tried to act like it didn’t bother her when she entered the house, but it was obviously as impossible for her to imagine this house without her sister as it was for me to imagine my life without mine.

Remmy entered the bedroom after I got Lurleen dressed and under the covers; he checked her over like he had every day since I’d known him.

“Did you get some supper?” he asked with his fingers on her wrist, looking at the second hand on his watch. She nodded. I didn’t want to dispute her word because she’d barely eaten two bites, so I kept
quiet. As good as the food on the train was, neither of us had felt much like eating.

“How are you sleeping?” he said, poking at her swollen calves.

“Not at all well,” Lurleen said with a guilty look in my direction. While she’d sworn she was sleeping just fine to me, I hadn’t slept either and had heard her fitful night of tossing and turning. Crying for her sister.

“Do you want something to help with that?” he asked. She nodded and he took a bottle out of his bag and drew up the syringe.

“Knock me out?” Lurleen asked, chin quivering, slight smile.

“If you haven’t slept, this’ll be plenty,” he said and administered the dose. “I’m staying tonight, Miss Lurleen, if that’s okay with you and Nettie. If you wake up and need anything—”

“It’s more than fine with Nettie,” she said with a wry smile, her tongue already a little thick. “And don’t worry about me, if I need you I have that infernal cowbell Emily gave me.”

“Thank you,” Remmy said.

It only took a few minutes before her eyes fluttered shut, then I took his hand and led him out of the room. When he closed the door behind us, I wrapped my arms around him and would have climbed inside of him if I could have. With my face pressed into his neck, he felt like home.

“I never meant to fall like this,” I breathed.

“Awful glad you did.” He slanted his mouth across mine. I heard the thud of his bag on the floor before he scooped me up and started for the sofa.

“Upstairs,” I whispered. He didn’t hesitate, just took me to my room and set me down like I was still fragile, but I was so far removed from that damaged girl who didn’t know what she wanted.

“I missed you.” He took my mouth again, his hands threaded in my hair. I pulled him down onto the bed, laughing. “God, I love you,” he said trailing kisses down my neck. “I know it’s too soon to say that, but I’ll be damned if I can hold it in one more second, Nettie. I love you.”

I smiled against his lips.

•   •   •

I
t wasn’t until he left, just before dawn, that the cowbell rang loud and clear. I dressed and hurried downstairs to find Lurleen propped up in her bed reading. When I helped her to the bathroom, she was a little steadier than she had been the night before. Instead of going back to bed, she came into the kitchen with me and drank coffee while I rummaged through the refrigerator to find something for breakfast.

On Miss Emily’s command, I’d cleaned out the refrigerator before we left on our trip, so there wasn’t much. Some spoiled milk, some condiments, and a big bowl of banana pudding topped with a thick caramel-colored meringue.

I didn’t think Miss Emily had believed me when I told her to bathe the banana slices in lemon juice, but she must have because they didn’t look too bad to have been a week old. We had the pudding for breakfast with coffee, although there was barely enough to make a decent-sized pot.

“It would be rude of me to ask how your night was,” Lurleen said, stirring her coffee while my face turned ten thousand shades of red. “But just so you know, my sleep was deep and dreamless,” Lurleen said. “Which brings us to today. What are your plans, Nettie?”

I swallowed hard. What were my plans? After Remmy made love to me last night, my mind was full of wants and needs, none of them
having anything to do with my immediate future. Remmy and I hadn’t slept at all; when we weren’t kissing, touching, I was telling him about the trip. Going home to Satsuma. Sissy.

“I really want to call home and see how the wedding went, whether it was good or bad or happened at all, but I won’t.” I scraped my bowl to avoid looking at Lurleen. “Sissy told me she’d call or write when things settled down. I don’t know how, but I know she’s okay; I’m just not sure what that means.”

“Yes,” Lurleen said, “but what are
your
plans?”

“We’re out of those Eskimo Pies you love so well, out of everything really. I thought I’d go to the A&P after breakfast. Stop by the pharmacy; you’re almost out of digitalis too.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it, Nettie.”

“Well, I’m staying. Here. As long as you’ll have me, if that’s what you mean,” I said firmly.

“Fair enough, but only because I’m a selfish old maid who doesn’t want to die alone. Now, what do you want to do with yourself besides take care of a fussy old woman with one foot in the grave?”

“Whether you like it or not, Lurleen, both of your feet seem pretty firm on this side of the grass for the time being.”

She laughed and closed her eyes as she savored the last spoonful of pudding. “Well, any day above ground is a good one.”

“Remmy says he never expected you to make it back from Palestine alive; he thinks you’re immortal.” She laughed at the very idea. “And I’d really like it if you were,” I added softly.

She handed me her bowl and I rinsed it out along with mine. Stirring her cold coffee, she put her spoon down, eyebrows raised. “I’m serious, Nettie. You’re far too young not to have plans.”

I nodded. “My roommate’s wedding is in a few weeks.” I loved
Sue, but I hated the idea of leaving Lurleen alone, even for the wedding. “I thought I’d ask Katie Wilkes or one of the women from your church if they could stay with you that weekend. It would be awful to miss Sue’s wedding; I’m kind of the maid of honor, and I did promise her I’d be there.”

“So you shall. Is Remmy going?” She smirked. “From the way he looks at you, I’d say he’s got designs on wedding plans of his own. And June weddings can be quite contagious.”

I blushed hard. “I haven’t asked Sue yet if it would be okay, but I hope so.” Would Remmy think I was trying to drop some big hint? Coerce him? Katie would have a field day with that.

“I haven’t been to a wedding in ages.” Lurleen smiled. “No one wants to invite a spinster to their wedding; they must think it’s bad luck.”

“Would you like to be my date, Lurleen?” I asked.

“I would think if you’re
kind of the maid of honor
, they would let you bring two guests.”

“I’ll ask Sue, but I’m sure she won’t mind.”

“And after the wedding?”

“I want to go back to school when the time is right.” I put my fingertips on Lurleen’s shoulder; she tipped her head to the side, sandwiching my hand there. “But much more than that, I want to be here for you.”