Blessing in Disguise (9 page)

Instead, over coffee and dessert, she told Sissy what had happened at Dan Killian’s office, expounding as little as possible on the long-ago “suicide” of Margaret Emory’s husband. Luckily, all Sissy seemed to remember about that day was her father and sister being horribly upset, and then policemen arriving on the scene. At the time, Cordelia had pacified her by explaining that Mr. Emory had had an accident, and Daddy had gone there to see if he could help. Even now, Cordelia didn’t elaborate ... partly because Sissy didn’t seem particularly interested in the details, but mostly because she herself believed that what was buried was best left that way.

“I think it’s just spiteful,” Sissy broke in, her cheeks flushed with outrage, stabbing a forkful of her Black Forest cake. “Grace is doing this out of meanness, pure and simple. I remember, when we were young, and ...”

Sissy was off and running on one of her numerous tales of How I Was Mistreated by Big Sister. Cordelia felt a flash of impatience toward her daughter, remembering why she normally didn’t confide in Sissy. No matter whose problem it was. Sissy always somehow managed to turn it into her own little drama.

Cordelia only wished she’d learn when enough was enough. Yet, even so, she took a breath and forced herself to focus on what her daughter was saying.

“... and then, when I slipped and fell in the creek and was practically drowning, she just stood there laughing. Laughing, like my pain was for no other purpose than to amuse her!”

Sissy’s rosebud mouth was pursed in a beleaguered expression, the effect of which was spoiled by the cake she was chewing on. Her dear face, once so pretty, was clearly paying the price of too many such mouthfuls, Cordelia thought sadly. If Sissy were to spend half as much time in that Lucille Roberts figure salon she’d recently joined as she did rooting around for a dress that would hide her figure flaws, she’d be so much happier with herself she might forget about rehashing her childhood grievances.

At the same time, Cordelia felt a rush of affection for Sissy—the child who had clung to her and tagged after her while her oldest was off with a gaggle of hippie friends, or buried in books down at the library. Good, thoughtful Sissy, who called every day just to see how she was doing. Sissy didn’t hold her mother responsible for her own life’s maybe not turning out quite as she’d expected it to. And so what if she was on the plump side ... or if those spoiled-rotten boys of hers hadn’t the manners of a chimpanzee? They’d grow out of it, and Sissy could lose the weight if she put her mind to it.

“There wasn’t but two feet of water in that creek, hardly enough to drown a mosquito,” Cordelia recalled with a laugh, hoping to get Sissy to see the humor in the situation. But, watching her daughter’s face crumple, she immediately wished she’d kept quiet.

“Why is it,” Sissy demanded, “that, whenever you’re mad at Grace and I take your side, you turn right around and defend her?”

“I am not defending anyone. I was merely pointing out—”

“Tell me, Mother, if Grace is such a wonderful daughter, why is she spreading that lie about Daddy?”

Cordelia felt the blood drain from her face. Sissy was right, of course ... but hearing it from her only made it worse. She felt caught between her two daughters, itching to knock some sense into one and to throttle the other.

Then, inside her mind, soothing as a glass of Netta’s iced sun-tea on a hot day, she heard Gabe’s voice say, It isn’t the muddle you’re in that matters, but what you make of it. How simple he made things seem! But he was right.

“I don’t know why your sister is doing this,” Cordelia told Sissy. “But I intend to put a stop to it. You can be certain of that.”

She watched Sissy chase the last maraschino about her plate before finally spearing it with her fork. “Oh, Mother, let’s face it, when has Grace ever once listened to you, or to anyone? Did she listen when you pleaded with her not to toss away twelve years of marriage? Really, the way she acted you’d have thought Win had been fooling around on her with half the women in New York. And I’ve never seen a man cry so, he was that broken up about it. Why, if I hadn’t been there to console him, Lord knows what he would have done!”

“I don’t see Win as the suicidal type,” observed Cordelia crisply.

“Really, Mother, it was just a figure of speech.” Sissy had her purse open now, and was peering into her compact mirror as she applied a fresh layer of strawberry pink to her lips. “What I meant was—oh, damn, don’t you hate it when this happens? You’d think somebody could invent a lipstick that didn’t break apart like it was made of butter.”

“If you didn’t roll it up so far, that wouldn’t happen,” Cordelia pointed out. “Just about halfway is best.”

Sissy tossed the broken end of the lipstick onto her plate, and glowered at her mother. “Well, you’re in a fine mood this afternoon.” Then she caught herself and sighed, “Oh, Mother, I’m sorry. You have a perfect right to be upset. And if it makes you feel any better, I’d like to give Uncle Dan a good sharp boot in the behind.”

“You could boot him from hell to breakfast, but I doubt that would solve anything.” Even so, the thought of it coaxed a tiny smile from Cordelia.

“I’ll bet if you flirted with him he’d come around.” Sissy gave her a coy sideways glance as she peered once again into her pocket mirror, fluffing her hair.

“Sissy!” Cordelia pretended to be shocked, but was unable to keep a startled laugh from escaping her.

“Oh, Mother, I was only teasing.” Sissy was giggling, too, her face, as she dropped the mirror back into her purse, no longer tense and puffy-looking, but softly rounded and even lovely. “You know, I always did think Uncle Dan had a crush on you. Didn’t you two use to go out in high school?”

“Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth,” Cordelia said with a snort, then added quickly, “Anyway, even if he were free and I was interested in him, I’m too old for that kind of thing.”

“Are you?” Sissy stared at her, her smile fading.

Cordelia experienced an uncomfortable prickling at the base of her spine.

She knew what Sissy was getting at, and cursed herself for having inadvertently walked into a trap. “Goodness, what a question!” she hedged with a breathless little laugh.

“Oh, it’s not you I’m worried about,” Sissy went on in that same slyly innocent tone. “It’s just that you can’t be too careful about what some men will think. You wouldn’t want to be giving anybody any ideas, that’s all. I mean. Mother, it’s one thing to be polite to a man who works for you, and it’s another to be asking him in for tea.”

Cordelia felt herself growing hot, her cheeks glowing. “Well, if I don’t have a perfect right to be talking about my own roses with my own gardener, then I don’t know what the world is coming to!”

“He’s not just a gardener, and you know it. I had him for English my sophomore year in high school. He was my teacher, for heaven’s sake. And even then we all thought he was loony, going on and on about Sir Gawain and Ivanhoe and Beowulf like they really existed, like they were his personal friends he was going bowling with that night. Then him chucking it all over to become a gardener, of all things. And now look at him, acting like he’d move in tomorrow if you so much as crooked a finger at him. It’s ... it’s not right!”

Cordelia planted both hands firmly on the table, on either side of her frilly chintz place mat, like a passenger aboard a ship bracing herself for a squall. Barely trusting herself to speak, yet conscious that a woman at the next table was looking their way, she managed a grim smile.

“Caroline.” She only called Sissy that when she was very upset with her, or around someone she knew Sissy was trying to impress. “I think I’m qualified to tell the difference between what’s right and what isn’t.”

Sissy’s pink cheeks flared, and her sly look instantly dissolved into a sheepish one. “I’m sorry. Mother, I was only trying ...”

“Gabe and I are friends,” Cordelia emphasized icily. “Now, are you quite finished? Because, if you still want to go shopping, I don’t have all day.”

“I have the dress all picked out,” Sissy gushed, nearly stumbling over herself in an obvious effort to smooth things over. “I had them put it on hold for me over at Foxmore’s. I can’t wait to show it to you. Oh, I do hope Beech likes it.”

Cordelia plucked her napkin from her lap and carefully folded it before placing it to one side of her cup and saucer. Now, she thought, say something about how it’d be a pity to waste time worrying about what Beech will think, when it’s clear as the nose on your face that his mind—not to mention another part of his anatomy—is elsewhere.

But just then their waitress appeared to ask if they’d like anything else. Cordelia shook her head and asked for the check.

While Cordelia was signing her credit-card slip, Sissy blurted out, “What are you going to do about Grace?”

Cordelia visualized a knob, like the one on a television set that controls the volume, and she was turning it, turning it down, until the hurt and anger booming in her chest were reduced to a whisper.

At the same time, a soft voice in the back of her head was also murmuring. True, it’s all true, she’s only telling the truth.

But she wouldn’t listen to that voice, because, even if it was the truth, Grace had no business spilling it to the whole world, especially now, with the fate of the library hanging by a mere thread.

“I’ll set her straight, that’s what,” Cordelia replied with more determination than she felt. “She mustn’t be allowed to publish this ... this ugliness. There are too many people who believe whatever they see in print.” She thought of Dan Killian, and felt a fresh spurt of anger. “Once I explain it all very reasonably to her, I’m sure she’ll see how wrong it would be.”

“You and Mahatma Gandhi.”

“There’s no need to get smart-mouthed with me, Caroline Ann.”

“What I meant was, it won’t do any good your talking to Her Royal Highness,” Sissy said with a sniff. “Why, just the other night, Beech was saying wasn’t it a shame that Win and Grace were divorced, because that Win, he had such a way with her. He could convince anyone a dollar bill was pea soup, and they’d eat it. Ha! If Beech ever tried that with me, I’d have the dollar spent before he could get the words out of his mouth.”

I doubt Beech Beecham would know how to hang on to a dollar bill if it bit him in the behind, Cordelia thought. Lucky for Sissy and the boys I made that trust airtight so he couldn’t get his sticky fingers on it.

“Dear, have you ever thought that maybe Beech isn’t—” she started to say, but Sissy cut her off with an impatient wave.

“Listen, Mother, about Win? I have an idea. What I was thinking was, you could talk to Win yourself. Get him on your side, so to speak. He’s still the father of your grandson, isn’t he? You’ve a perfect right to be involving him in this. And he is a lawyer, after all.”

“Are you saying ... ?” All thoughts of Beech vanished.

“I’m not saying anything. Just suggesting, is all.” Sissy’s blue eyes were round and innocent as a baby’s. “Win could try to reason with her on your behalf. As your attorney.”

Cordelia, numb for a moment, felt Sissy’s words wash over her like icewater. Some kind of legal action? Against her own daughter? The very idea!

“About that dress,” she said, unable to consider such an awful possibility another moment. “If you don’t want to be late picking the boys up from school, we ought to go over and have a look at it while there’s still time.”

“Oh, never mind about the boys, Beech is picking them up,” Sissy informed her with an airy wave that set the charm bracelet squeezing her plump wrist to tinkling.

“Doesn’t he have to be at work?” Cordelia asked, her tone guarded.

“Why, sure, but he’s got this meeting not too far from school, where they’re building that hotel—some kind of big rental-car deal he’s helping put together. It’s keeping him pretty busy these days, I can tell you. ...”

I’ll just bet.

It was on the tip of Cordelia’s tongue to tell Sissy just how busy Beech was, but then she stopped herself. Sissy’s remarks about Gabe made it clear that she thought her mother had lost all perspective—and probably her marbles as well—where men were concerned. Besides, Sissy was so looking forward to this party. How could she spoil it for her?

“Why don’t we stop in at Joan & David afterwards?” she said brightly to Sissy as they crossed the parking lot. “I’ll bet you could use a new pair of high heels to go with that dress. My treat.”

She’d been intending to stop in at the Book Nook instead, to pick up a book on heritage roses that she’d ordered for Gabe, but maybe Sissy was right. Even if she didn’t intend it as such, he might get the idea that she was interested in something more than friendship.

And if he did? Would he merely smile to himself, no more than mildly flattered by the infatuation of a woman ten years older than he—a woman who occupied a social realm that was a whole other world from his?

Nonetheless, Cordelia felt her face grow warm, ashamed of the thought that rose in her now like a tulip’s first green blade pushing its way up through frozen ground—the thought that Gabe Ross was just the sort of man a woman would want to be taken seriously by. ...

“Lobelias, they’d be just the thing for that spot. Don’t you think so, Gabe?”

Cordelia squinted against the late-afternoon sunlight as she surveyed the newly mulched area under the hundred-year-old pecan tree where a colony of bleeding hearts had recently been uprooted.

Gabe Ross, kneeling in the soft earth of the perennial bed below the porch, set aside his thinning shears and stood up—slowly, stretching his arms and his back as he did so, clearly reveling in the pure pleasure of the movement. Remembering Sissy’s cutting remarks, Cordelia took in Gabe’s sweat-stained canvas hat and the crumbs of peat moss clinging to the soiled knees of his khaki trousers, and wondered if perhaps there
was
something not quite normal about a man who would toss away a respectable teaching position to become a gardener.

But under his hat’s dog-eared brim, Gabe’s brown eyes, the color of strong brewed tea, were so bright and lively with intelligence—no, more than that, a kind of wisdom that didn’t come from books or teaching
Beowulf—that
she immediately felt guilty.