BLACKWATER:The Mysterious Saga of the Caskey Family (109 page)

"Higher up?" asked Elinor. "Or lower down?" Previously Lilah had lived on the twenty-first floor.

Lilah didn't answer at once. She glanced around the table, clucked her tongue, sighed, dropped her napkin into her lap, and said, "Well, I guess I may as well go on and tell you..."

"Tell us what?" asked Tommy Lee quickly.

"...because you will worm it out of me before I get out of here, anyway. And if I say it now, maybe you will let me have some peace."

"What is it, honey?" asked Malcolm.

"Two things," said Miriam. "First one is, I'm staying in New York. I'm not coming back here."

"We figured that," said Grace dryly, "when you said you had moved two blocks away."

"And the reason I'm staying is that I'm going to law school in the fall. Columbia again."

The Caskeys all thought about this for a few moments, and then offered their congratulations. It was thought a wise decision; there were so many others she might have made that wouldn't have been wise at all.

"Any particular kind of law?" asked Billy.

"I'm not sure," replied Lilah. "Tax law, probably."

"Good," said Miriam. "Then you'll be able to help us. Billy and I go through I don't know what all every year with those people we hire up in Atlanta."

"Maybe," said Lilah. "Maybe I'll help—and maybe not. Maybe I won't go into tax law at all."

Some discussion followed now on the business of taxes and lawyers in general, a discussion in which Lilah took no part. When finally there was a pause, Lilah spoke up with exasperation, "Well, doesn't anybody want to hear the other part of my news?"

"I thought that was it," said Lucille. "You're staying in New York, and you're going to tax law school."

"That was just one thing," said Lilah peevishly. "I was counting those two as one."

"What else then?" asked Tommy Lee.

Lilah looked around the table to make sure that she had everyone's attention. "Now, I don't want you all to jump all over me," she warned.

No one said anything, and that counted as a promise not to disapprove no matter what she was about to tell them.

"I got married last week," said Lilah. "On Thursday."

The Caskeys said nothing, partly out of shock, and partly in fulfillment of their promise not to express displeasure. She could hardly have said anything more stunning.

Grace, at last, with an exaggerated gesture of peering around the room, said, "Is he here? Did you bring him?"

"I did not," said Lilah definitely.

"You could have," said Miriam. "There's plenty of room."

"He wouldn't come," said Lilah. "I did ask him."

"Why not?" asked Billy. "Why wouldn't he come?"

"He hates Alabama," replied Lilah. "He came down here in '64 and '65 for all the civil rights business, and he got hosed down and beaten up and thrown into the Selma jail. He says fie will never set foot in Alabama again."

"This man have a name?" asked Lucille.

"His name is Michael."

"Does he have a last name?" asked Miriam.

"Woskoboinikow." The whole table looked blank. Lilah repeated the name very slowly. "Wosko— rhymes with Roscoe. Boin—like boing-boing. Ikow— like he coughs. Got it? Woskoboinikow. Real simple. It's Polish. He's not. Or his grandfather was, I guess. He's from Cleveland. So now I'm Lilah Woskoboinikow. I've already had my checks printed up. If you want to see them, I've got them in my bag."

"And what does he do?" asked Billy. "Now that he's out of jail?"

"He's a plasma physicist. A scientist," she explained when everyone regarded her blankly.

The Caskeys shook their heads. It was just like Lilah to have got married without warning to a man with a name that no one had ever heard of or could rightly pronounce or remember how to spell, whose job involved something they had never heard of, and who refused absolutely ever to come to Alabama.

"Are we gone be allowed to meet him?" Miriam asked.

"If you come to New York," said Lilah.

"Let me ask you something," said Miriam.

"What?"

"Does Michael know how much money you have?"

"I don't have any money of my own," Lilah reminded her.

"Does Michael know how much money we have then?" Miriam persisted.

"I've told him," Lilah replied. "But I don't think he really realizes it. Michael doesn't know anything about money. I've been handling all his finances for the past year. I don't think he cares."

The Caskeys sighed, and once the immediate shock was over, it occurred to each of them that they should have known all along that it would happen precisely this way.

Tommy Lee Burgess, in his new position as Miriam's assistant in matters relating to the Caskey oil properties, had grown in stature not only in his own eyes but in those of his family and the community at large. He was, in fact, thought quite a catch. He wasn't handsome, and he certainly was overweight, but he was good-natured and kind—and very rich. Tommy Lee, however, showed no interest whatsoever in any one of the thirty or forty thousand marriageable young women in Baldwin County, Alabama, and Escambia County, Florida. Tommy Lee was content to stay at home with Grace and Lucille. His recreation was still hunting and fishing, and occasionally innocently carousing with the men who worked the oil rigs in the swamp south of the farm. The fact was—and all the Caskeys knew it— that Tommy Lee was hopelessly in love with Lilah Bronze; had loved her since the day he had moved in with his grandmother next door to Lilah. He had been mightily disappointed that Lilah did not go to school at Auburn, and now he was more severely distressed to discover that she had up and married a man whose name nobody could even pronounce. He said nothing at the dinner table when Lilah made her startling announcement, but on the drive back to the farm through the dark deserted countryside, he leaned forward from the back seat and, resting his chin on the seat between Grace and Lucille, remarked ruefully, "I could have told everybody. I could have told everybody it was gone happen just this way."

"How would you have known?" asked Lucille. "Nobody could predict that."

"I could have, if I hadn't been foolish. But I wanted to believe that someday Lilah would come back here."

"You're disappointed, aren't you, Tommy Lee?" sighed Grace.

"I sure am," Tommy Lee admitted in the dark.

"You shouldn't be. Look at the way Lilah treats people. I never thought I'd be able to say this about anybody, but Lilah Whatever-her-name-is-now is harder to get along with than Miriam ever was. You even wanted to marry her, I guess."

"I would have. I would have married her in a minute."

"And have been miserable from that very minute into all eternity," said Lucille. "She would have led you around by the nose."

"I know it," said Tommy Lee wistfully.

"You know what I think?" said Grace.

"What?"

"I think you ought to go and speak to Lilah and tell her how you feel."

"What good would that do?" said Tommy Lee. "I had my chance. I didn't say anything. Now it's too late."

"Then this is the time to say it," argued Grace. "When it's too late for her to say yes. And you'll get it off your chest. I know you, Tommy Lee. I know you'll carry this around like a two-ton safe on your back unless you go up to Lilah and tell her what you feel."

"Better do it," agreed Tommy Lee's mother.

"Turn the car around," said Tommy Lee, throwing himself mightily against the back seat. "Drive back right now and I'll do it."

But Grace continued on through Babylon toward the farm. "Go tomorrow," she advised. "Do it in the daylight."

So Tommy Lee drove back to Perdido the following morning and arrived before Lilah was e.ven up. Melva had delivered Lilah's breakfast on a tray, and Lilah was sitting up in bed. Tommy Lee knocked on the door jamb, and Lilah said, as she buttered her toast, "Miriam's already gone down to the mill, Tommy Lee. I don't know where the hell Malcolm's gone off to."

"I came to see you," said Tommy Lee.

"Then come on in and sit on the edge of the bed," said Lilah. She looked up and smiled at him. Lilah was a handsome girl, the handsomest girl Tommy Lee had ever known, and once Tommy Lee had gone out with the Auburn homecoming queen. Lilah's smile was radiant, and it was also the kindest greeting she had ever given him.

"What are you doing here?" Tommy Lee began awkwardly.

"I am eating my breakfast. You know, you can't get grits in New York for love nor money."

"No, I mean, what are you doing in Perdido? If you just got married last week, why aren't you on your honeymoon?"

"Michael couldn't get off right away. We're going down to the Caribbean in the winter sometime. It doesn't matter anyway. I hate all that business."

"What business?" asked Tommy Lee.

"Wedding business," returned Lilah. "That's why I didn't tell anybody. I didn't want anybody to do anything. We went down to city hall. It was very impersonal," she added with something very like pride.

Tommy Lee shifted his weight on the bed, nearly upsetting Lilah's tray.

"You are big as a house, Tommy Lee," Lilah remarked. "If you don't be still, I'm going to make you move over to a chair."

"I've missed you all that time you've been in New York," said Tommy Lee.

"And I've missed you, too,".said Lilah, blowing on her coffee to cool it.

"Have you?"

"Yes. I wouldn't say so if I hadn't. I didn't miss Grace and Lucille, for instance. I did miss you, though."

Tommy Lee was silent for a few moments, not knowing how to go on. Melva came up again to see if everything was all right with the breakfast, and Lilah asked her to bring a tray for Tommy Lee.

"I just ate out at the farm," Tommy Lee protested.

"You haven't stopped at just one breakfast in ten years," said Lilah. "Have another one, and keep me company."

"So you're going to be a lawyer," said Tommy Lee, putting off the inevitable.

"I intend to make a fortune," said Lilah vehemently.

"Why?"

"What do you mean, 'Why?' Everybody wants to make a lot of money."

"You have a lot of money, Lilah."

"I don't have one thing that's mine," said Lilah.

"If you wanted it, all you'd have to do is ask somebody for it. Just ask the first person in the family you ran up against and they'd write you a check for a million dollars, I know they would."

"I know they would, too," said Lilah quietly. "And you know me, Tommy Lee. You'd know I'd never ask."

Tommy Lee shrugged. "I guess," he said. Melva brought another breakfast on a tray and Tommy Lee moved to a wide chair. When Melva had left, Tommy Lee said, "Lilah, you want me to write you a big check? I would, you know, and I'd be pleased to do it. I'd keep it a secret, too. Nobody'd find out about it."

Lilah looked up and considered this. "Tommy Lee," she said, "would it make you happy if I let you pay for my law school?"

"It sure would!"

"Then I'll let you do it. Don't tell anybody, though."

"I won't," Tommy Lee promised. "But you know, they're gone figure it out."

"I know that," said Lilah. "Just don't you be the one to tell them."

For a few minutes they ate in silence, and then Tommy Lee said, "You know what?"

"What?"

"I have been hoping and hoping that you would come back to Perdido."

"I'm here."

"I mean for good," said Tommy Lee. " 'Cause you know why?"

"Why?"

" 'Cause when you got back, I was gone ask you to marry me."

"I know that," said Lilah.

"You did!"

"Of course I knew that, Tommy Lee. Every fool in town knew that. And I'm no fool."

"So you would have said no?"

Lilah considered this. "Maybe. Maybe not." She considered a few moments more. "Probably I would have said no."

"Why?" Tommy Lee asked with more curiosity than chagrin.

"Because that's what everybody would have wanted. That's what everybody would have expected. If I had married you, it would have been just like Miriam and Malcolm all over again. I didn't want that. It's not that I think you and I would have been unhappy, Tommy Lee, it's just that I have no intention of hanging around this place doing what people expect me to do."

"So you married that other man instead?"

"That's right."

"Is he as smart as you are, Lilah?"

"No. He's not even as smart as you are, Tommy Lee, not when it comes to practical stuff. But Michael knows a lot about plasma physics, and I guess he'll probably be important someday. And he does what I tell him to."

"Guess he'd have to do that."

They were silent for a few minutes, then Lilah sent Tommy Lee down to the kitchen for more coffee. When he came back up, she had put aside the tray and brushed the crumbs off the covers onto the floor. She sat up straight in the bed, brushing her hair.

"Don't you be upset now," she warned him.

"About what?" he asked, pouring coffee into the cup that she had placed on the bedside table.

"About me not marrying you."

"I'm not upset," said Tommy Lee. "I told you, I'm just disappointed. I'm real unhappy, but I'm not upset."

"Now I'm going to tell you something," said Lilah. "But I'm not going to tell you this unless you promise not to breathe a word of it to anybody—not Grace and Lucille, not Miriam, not Elinor, and not anybody."

"I promise," said Tommy Lee solemnly. "You want me to shut the door?"

"Nobody's around," said Lilah, dismissing that suggestion. "I want you to do something for me."

"Anything."

"I want you to be smart."

"Lilah, I'm not sure—"

"I want you to learn everything there is to learn about those damned wells out there, and whatever else it is that makes this family so damned much money."

"That I can do."

"And then you come up to New York and you visit Michael and me and tell me all about it. Everything you can find out, you understand?"

"All right," said Tommy Lee.

Lilah smiled. Indulgently, she condescended to explain: "I'm going to inherit from somebody somewhere along the line. Maybe from Daddy, maybe from Miriam, maybe from Elinor—who knows? So then I'm going to be rich. I'm also going to be a lawyer. Now what nobody else knows here is that at Columbia I majored in business."