Cancel the Wedding (13 page)

The unsettled feeling I had vanished when Mrs. Chatham worked her way over to me. She sat down next to me with a huge smile, which I tried to mirror with one of my own. She made me feel safe.

She patted my hand. “Don't mind Emory. He's more bark than bite.”

“I just can't imagine why in the world he would take any interest in my visit to Tillman.”

She put her hands up as if resigned to the fact that Emory had his own reasons for everything. “He was here to talk to me about my garden club. He was all bent out of shape before you even showed up.”

I envisioned Emory wearing a big sunhat and apron tending to a rose garden and I laughed. “He doesn't seem the garden club type to me.”

Mrs. Chatham answered, “Oh no, not for him. He wants his wife to join. She would kill me if I put her up for the club; it's not really her thing. He just wants her in there for the status.”

Status? In a garden club? What a funny world it was in this little town. But that reminded me of something. “Speaking of that, I saw a garden club sign the other day.”

She perked right up. “I know! I hope you don't think I was eavesdropping, but I overheard you talking on the phone about a family graveyard.”

Okay, so technically that was eavesdropping but she was so sweet I didn't care. “Yes, we found my grandparents.”

“You must be talking about the cemetery up on the ridge, at the historical society's land on the lake. I was just thinking today that you might have some luck at that graveyard finding some of your relatives. I'm the president of the Tillman Garden Club this year.” She said that in a way that hinted to me that I was to be dutifully impressed. “We maintain that graveyard as a part of our community service. I knew I was seeing that name somewhere in my mind but I couldn't quite get my hands on it.”

I smiled at her as I finished my drink. There was something motherly and calming about Mrs. Chatham. Her mannerisms were so like my mom's. “It was strange to be there and see the ruins of the house that my mother grew up in.”

She patted my hand in sympathy. “So that was her house? You've never been out there before?”

I didn't feel like telling sweet Mrs. Chatham that my mother never spoke of her childhood and that we had certainly never been there to visit. I just shook my head.

“That's a shame. You know, I used to have a landscape plan of the gardens up there before the house burned down. Rutledge Ridge was known for its hydrangeas.” She hopped up and motioned for me to follow. “Come on. Let's go take a look and see if I can find it.”

As I followed Mrs. Chatham to her office I remembered my mother planting hydrangeas in our yard growing up. She would save our tuna cans and bury them at the roots of the bushes, I regretted never asking her why she did that. She must have been planting them because hydrangeas reminded her of home, of her mother.

Mrs. Chatham's office was as elegant and lovely as the rest of the inn. One long wall was covered in family photos from floor to ceiling. I estimated it to be twelve feet by nine, so roughly a hundred-and-eight-square-foot photo documentary of the Chathams.

One little girl was featured the most frequently. “Mrs. Chatham, is this your granddaughter?” The picture I pointed to showed a toddler covered in red spaghetti sauce and noodles. “She's adorable.”

“Yes, she is! But, oh, is she a pistol. Spit and vinegar, that one. And you must call me Betty.”

I didn't understand the social currency of the garden clubs and she was trying to explain it to me as she shuffled through the papers and books on her shelves.

There were three garden clubs in town and apparently Betty's was the most prestigious. It sounded a bit like a sorority. A candidate had to be put up for membership by at least five current members in good standing and then be approved by committee. The garden club did community work and met for tea and dinners monthly. They had an exclusive garden party every year, which Betty called the event of the season. That reminded me of my mother too. She was always referring to the string of social engagements in the spring as the “season.”

Becoming a member of these garden clubs was a mark of honor for any of the society women in town and apparently Emory decided he needed a foothold in one of them. Knowing that Emory's wife seemed to want nothing to do with it all made me think I might get along with her.

Betty said, “Ah-ha!”

“Did you find it?” I had forgotten what she was looking for at this point.

“No, I can't find that darn thing anywhere. But I know it's here. I'll lay my hands on it in a few days. But I found these.” Mrs. Chatham was the poster child for undiagnosed adult ADD. She was holding up a series of books.

I walked over and took the books from her. They were small press printings of local historical society and garden club guides.

“Thank you? That's . . . that's really kind. I'll get these back to you after I read through them.”

“Oh no, you keep them. I have loads. There'll be something in those about your family's house and gardens.”

Oh, that actually did sound interesting. I thanked her again, more sincerely this time, and headed up to our room. I found Logan in her pajamas typing on her laptop while talking on her cell phone and watching TV.

I closed the door behind me and simply asked, “How?”

“What?” She hung up the phone.

“How do you do all of that at the same time?”

She didn't even answer me. It was like asking her how she keeps remembering to breathe.

“What are those?” She was gesturing at the books I was carrying.

“They're local garden guides that Mrs. Chatham gave me. And I'm supposed to call her Betty now.”

Logan closed her laptop and sat up. “Well, you better remember to thank Betty properly or Grandma will roll over in her grave.”

We both looked over at the urn on the dresser that was currently acting as the “grave” of my mother. I said to it, “I know, ivory cardstock with a monogram.” I turned to Logan, “Do you know why Mom used to plant tuna cans under her hydrangea bushes?”

“Yeah, the aluminum in the can keeps the blooms blue instead of pink. Something about soil acidity.”

“How do you know that?”

“ 'Cause I asked her. Duh.”

As I got ready for bed I plugged my phone into the charger and read through my text messages.

The first one was from Leo. It read:
You know I can't come down right now. Sorry! We'll talk Sun. Can you make the dinner party next Tues? Need you to make nice with his wife.

The second one was from Elliott. All it said was:
You two want to play Nancy Drew tomorrow?

Just reading that made me smile. I responded to Elliott:
Yes please. Library?

As I got my feet freed from the trappings of the sheet I heard the ping of my phone.

I grabbed it and saw the reply from Elliott:
Thought I'd take you & Logan to the club. You can see the Rutledge Reading Room. It's anal-retentive office supply heaven—they even have a dedicated paper shredder, you'll love it.

I sent back:
Ha ha. Will you be picking us up in a stolen car?

It went on like that for about ten minutes. Which was about nine and a half minutes longer than it took to make plans.

Elliott drove us up a slow, winding pebbled drive toward his club, which he called the Fells. I was staring out the window, hypnotized by the bright green canopy formed from the rows of ginkgo trees standing sentinel on both sides of the road. I was a little out of sorts this morning after getting very little sleep the night before, which was becoming a habit.

Elliott had whispered, “hey,” for the third time before it registered with me. I looked over at him and he gestured to Logan in the backseat. She was lying down, eyes closed and listening to her music, her feet sticking out the window tapping to the beat. She had become unusually comfortable here.

I took the cold remnants of Elliott's coffee and drained the cup out my window. There was something so delicious about tormenting my poor niece. The wind took the liquid and splattered Logan's feet with a stream of brown droplets.

She screamed, startled, and jumped into sitting position. “Gah, Olivia!”

“Whoops. Sorry, Logan.” Elliott and I were both laughing.

“You two are worse than my brothers.” She pulled a travel-sized packet of wet wipes from her bag and tidied up.

I loved that kid. I mean what kind of teenager travels with wet wipes?

We pulled into the portico of a grand colonial revival building, which served as the main clubhouse for the Fells. The club's full name was the Huntley Fells Clay and Sporting Society, so I could understand why they had given it a nickname.

The stately, whitewashed building looked to date from the early 1900s based on the style of the deep veranda and the hand-turned balusters that lined it. Before I could open the car door a valet appeared out of thin air and was standing with his hand ready to help me from the car.

Elliott led us through the enormous carved mahogany entrance and into the dark, plush lobby. We turned down a wide hallway and stopped in front of a heavily carved, black-painted door with a small brass plate that read:
RUTLEDGE READING ROOM. STAG MEMBERS ONLY
.

I looked at Elliott and asked, “Stags?”

As he opened the door he said, “Kind of a club within the club.”

I walked past him. “Ah, the Fells exclusive club has an elitist men-only enclave. Nice.”

Logan followed me into the room, “How do you know it's men only?” Then she answered her own question. “Oh, stags. Right.” She held her hands up like antlers on the top of her head.

Elliott rolled his eyes at both of us. “It's not that exclusive.”

Logan put her laptop on the table and looked up at Elliott. “Is it okay that we're in here? I mean it said members only, plus we're girls.”

Elliott was turning on lamps and opening the heavy shutters on the windows letting the early yellow light of morning pour into the room. “Of course it's okay. You're my guests.”

The room looked like a typical gentlemen's clubroom in a hunting lodge. The rich wooden floor was layered with threadbare oriental rugs and there were a few clusters of mahogany card tables and chairs. The room smelled faintly of whiskey and pipe tobacco. The focal point of the room was the large fireplace, above which hung an oil portrait.

I asked, “Why is it called the Rutledge Reading Room?”

Elliott pointed to the portrait. The room had been named in honor of Judge Winchester Rutledge, a third-generation Stag and my grandfather.

So here I was, in the forbidden room of a restricted club, in the town I had never heard of, staring at an oil painting of my grandfather above the fireplace. He bore a shocking resemblance to my nephew Will.

Elliott put his bag on the table. “I meant to give this to you in the car.” He pulled out a sheet of paper. “Surprise.”

It was my family tree printed in landscape orientation. On the far left-hand side it listed my name and Georgia's name. Then connected by a line, my mother's name and my father's name. My father's side had no lines connecting him back in time but my mother's side did. It had every name listed from the graveyard with the dates of birth and death, the connecting lines to marriage, and then scribbled in at strange angles was any more information Elliott had found out about that person.

I ran my hand over the family tree. All of these people, all of these lives lived. Who were they? What traits did they pass on to Georgia and me? To Georgia's children?

At the bottom was a note: “Who was the ‘O' grave marker for?”

“Thank you so much for this.” My voice was barely above a whisper. “I can't tell you how much this means to me.” I was choked up for some reason seeing all of this order applied to something that had at first been a mystery and then was merely a jumble of names and gravestones.

“It was no big deal. Like I said, the computer program pretty much just spits it out.”

It has been my experience with computers that they never really just spit anything out. I knew he was downplaying however much work he'd put into this. I glanced up at the image of my grandfather staring out into the room from his perch above the mantel.

Elliott continued. “And we have a lot more to find out.”

I decided to be clinical about this too. I tried to think of it as just research and I wondered what angle his story would take. The old “town under the lake” edge or more of a “long-lost Rutledge returns home” bent. I thought I would just follow Elliott's lead. “Okay chief, what's on our agenda today then?”

He did that cute thing where he rubs his hands together like he's making plans for a great caper. “It seems only appropriate, since we're in the Rutledge Room, to do some research about your grandfather.” Elliott pointed to the four walls of bookshelves. “These were his books. Most of them are law books, but there are some journals in here too. Maybe we'll find something.”

I asked, “When were they donated to the club?”

“I thought you'd ask that. It was shortly before the house burned down. I think donating the books to the club saved them from being lost.”

I wondered what had prompted my mother to donate the books. I would probably never know, so it was pointless to speculate.

Elliott continued. “We can search through the newspaper archives too. There's got to be a lot of information about your grandfather because he was a judge in this county for seventeen years.”

Logan raised her hand, which was so cute and endearing. It reminded me that she was still just a little girl. “I'll do the newspaper archives.” She looked at Elliott. “They're online, right?”

“Yes, they are. I'll log you in and you can start going through them. A lot of the back editions have just been scanned, so word searches and queries don't work very well. There's a lot of hunt and peck.”