Gone South (39 page)

She’d brought her purse, and it held gloves, a borrowed flashlight, and two shopping bags. She wouldn’t take more than she could fit into the bags.

As her feet crunched through dry grass, the code kept repeating itself in the same rhythm:
3808, 3808
. In a few minutes, she could forget it forever. She would never go back.

A dog barked somewhere down the street. She told herself not to worry about it. He wasn’t barking at her.

That reminded her of Daisy, all alone in that big old house. She’d better not have an accident. Tish would want to know why.
Where were you? Why were you so busy you couldn’t let the dog out?

There was the house she’d grown up in. They’d left those bright security lights on. A single light shone above the doors of the stand-alone garage, farther back on the lot, and more lights glared down from each corner of the attached garage. She’d have to move fast and pray the neighbors wouldn’t look out at the wrong moment.

She didn’t belong there anymore. Even her memories seemed like they were from somebody else’s life. It must have been somebody else who’d climbed off the school bus at the corner every afternoon. Some other little girl had had a playhouse in the backyard and a Shetland pony in the field behind the yard. He was named Boswick’s Big Boy, the dumbest name ever, so she’d called him Buddy. Her mom said that was an awfully redneck name for such an expensive pony, but Mel didn’t care. Buddy was a good name for a good pony. They sold him to a family in Muldro when she was thirteen, and she’d made them promise to keep calling him that.

Walking quickly, she crossed the lawn. She slowed down when she reached the shelter of the bushes. Hiding there, she checked out the situation. There
weren’t any cars in the driveway, and there weren’t many lights on in the house. Just the dim ones they always kept burning.

She reached into her purse for those stretchy little knit gloves. Pulling them on, she felt like a burglar. A criminal. But she was only rescuing a few things that belonged to her. She wasn’t stealing.

“God, help,” Mel whispered, eyeing the little black box that covered the keypad. “Help me pull it off. Please.”

She hurried across the driveway. Wishing she had an invisibility cloak, she raised the black box on its hinges. A soft light came on, shining on the keypad. She typed the code and hit Enter with her gloved fingertip, then held her breath.

The garage door rose—quietly, of course, because the Hamiltons always bought the very best—and the overhead light came on, shining on her mom’s car. The other spot was empty, so they’d taken her dad’s vehicle.

The moment the door rose high enough, she ducked inside. She tiptoed past the car to the door that led to the kitchen and hit the button on the wall. The garage door slid down.

Her legs went weak. She’d made it in. The rest would be easy.

The door to the kitchen was unlocked, as usual. She stepped inside and hurried to her bedroom. Once she was there, the night lights weren’t enough to go by. She had to use the flashlight.

Leaving the gloves on, she shone the light into one drawer after another. She chose jeans, a sweatshirt, two T-shirts, and a few pairs of her superwarm socks, the expensive kind. Then she went into the closet and shone the light over her hanging clothes. She grabbed some dressy pants and shirts for interviews plus a little knit dress that wouldn’t take up much space, and two pairs of shoes.

This was her last chance. With everything packed into the shopping bags, she flashed the light around the room. Her jewelry tree glittered. She pulled off
a pair of plain silver hoops and a silver chain and dropped them to the bottom of her purse. Nobody would miss those. It felt wrong to take anything to pawn, so she didn’t.

She played the flashlight beam over the window, remembering how many times she’d climbed in after curfew. Remembering, earlier than that, how Grandpa John had helped her paint the walls that soft blue.

She backed out of the room. She didn’t want to look at anything else. She didn’t want to remember being a little girl in that house, having a ton of toys and grandparents who came over to help her play with them.

In two minutes, she was outside again, the garage door sliding down behind her. She re-armed the security system and closed the box over it. She was good to go.

The night had turned cold. Nobody was out, and nobody was driving by. The stillness of the neighborhood made her feel as if she were the only person in town who hadn’t gone out with friends or family on a Friday night. Maybe she was.

Glancing toward the smaller, newer garage, Mel wondered if the ’Vette was already gone. Maybe the test-drive guy had bought it, or maybe he hadn’t. She had to know.

Her dad always used the same code on both garages because he was too lazy to memorize different codes, so she’d probably be able to get in and take a peek.

The blinds and drapes at the neighbors’ houses were still closed. She still didn’t see anybody around.

She walked down the short driveway that veered off to the left, leading to the second garage. Horribly exposed by the security light, she lifted the keypad’s cover with her gloved fingers and entered the code a second time.

The door began to rise. The overhead light came on. Clapping one hand over her mouth to keep herself from crying, she watched the blue Corvette
come into view. The chrome glinted like silver, bringing back memories of helping Grandpa John polish it.

She ducked inside, hurried to the driver’s door, and bent over to look through the window. It seemed like yesterday that she’d sat there, one hand on the wheel and the other on the gear shift, while Grandpa John told his corny jokes and sang along with the radio. All that moldy-oldy music like the Beatles and the Beach Boys. He’d loved their dumb songs about cars.
“Melly, you can drive my car,”
he’d sung, and something about fun, fun, fun in a T-Bird.

When nobody else trusted her, he’d let her drive his car. Only on the back roads, and only after she’d proved she could drive a stick without grinding the gears—but still, he’d trusted her. He’d loved her.

“I love you, Grandpa John,” she whispered. “I miss you so much.”

She wanted very badly to start up the engine for old times’ sake, but that would be so, so stupid.

Tish’s Saturday started with Daisy whining outside her bedroom door before sunrise. Mel’s enthusiasm for adopting a dog for the weekend must have worn off already, but it wasn’t the dog’s fault. Half asleep, Tish staggered through the routine of taking her out, bringing her in, and feeding her. By then, she was wide awake so she started the coffee and made toast for breakfast. Through it all, the door to the guest room remained closed.

Eating her toast, she wondered how the car show was going for George. Maybe she would call him later. Hearing his voice might help her recapture a little bit of that lovely, heady happiness she’d felt on Wednesday night. Because, somehow, she’d lost track of it the night before, sitting in an elegant living room surrounded by fashionable gardeners.

By the time the sun came up, Daisy was snoring softly on the couch. Tish put on a warm jacket and work gloves. She headed outside with a trash bag to start the yard cleanup. Si and his wife had left the place in a state that would have horrified the members of the garden club. Broken bird feeders. Old clay pots. Windblown trash.

But it was her yard now, and she’d have it cleaned up in no time. Standing at the bottom of the back steps, Tish smiled. Now she could raise her own vegetables. She had plenty of room. She couldn’t grow mangoes and avocados, but she would have camellias at Christmas the rest of her life.

One of the camellia bushes stood apart from the others. Most of its petals
had fallen in a circle around its lower branches, like a pink slip that a girl had dropped past her ankles to land on the floor, but some of the other camellias hadn’t bloomed yet. Their bloom times were staggered instead of making one brief show of color.

Last year, they’d been Silas Nelson’s camellias. Before that, they’d belonged to George’s mother, Jerusalem James Williams Zorbas, better known as Rue. And before that … Tish had no idea, but she’d read that a camellia bush could live a hundred years or more, with proper care. It was possible—barely—that Nathan and Letitia had planted at least some of them, but they probably wouldn’t have tended them with their own hands. They would have hired someone. She hoped Nathan had paid decent wages, but she suspected he hadn’t.

Tish wondered how many times the property had changed hands. Public records would go back only so far. There wouldn’t be any records of the Native Americans who’d once lived on the land. They were the true native southerners.

Mrs. Nair’s lithe black tomcat stalked around the corner of the house, leaving a green trail through the dew-silvered grass. So big that he could have beat up George’s tiny handful of a dog, the cat prowled through Tish’s yard without giving her a glance.

“Snob,” she said. “You should join the garden club. You would fit right in.”

She had to admit, though, that the hostess and several other people had been friendly and welcoming. Either they weren’t up on their local history and gossip, or they’d decided to overlook it.

It was nearly ten and Tish had moved on to raking leaves when Mel finally wandered onto the back porch. She waved, then sat on the top step and pulled a cigarette out of a new, uncrushed pack.

“How was the garden club?” she called, lighting the cigarette.

“I learned all about iris borers and Japanese beetles and other pests.”

“Yuck.”

“Exactly.” Glad to give her blistering palms a break, Tish came closer, dragging the rake behind her. “But it inspired me to get busy with the basic yard cleanup.”

“Want some help?”

“Yes, I do. It’s part of the deal, remember? Housework and yard work.”

“Yeah, I remember. Sorry.” Mel took another drag from her cigarette. “Can I finish my cigarette first?”

Tish watched the smoke drifting into the clear air and sighed. “Go ahead.”

Mel sighed back. “Thank you
so
much.”

“Are you feeling all right?”

“Yeah. I’m just tired.”

“But you were already in bed when I got home last night.”

“That doesn’t mean I slept well. So, did anybody freak out last night when they learned your name?”

“Most people didn’t pay any attention to me, and nobody mentioned carpetbaggers. I’ve decided not to worry about those old stories anymore. Every family has at least one skeleton in the closet.”

“Yeah.” Mel stared at the sky. “Everybody does terrible things sometimes.”

Tish took a hard look at her. “How did you spend your time while I was gone?”

“I went for a walk. A long one.”

“Did Daisy behave herself for you?”

“Huh? Yeah. Yeah, she was great. Thanks for taking care of her this morning.” Mel ran down the steps, dropped her half-smoked cigarette on the grass, then ground it out and kicked it under a bush. She reached for the rake. “I’ll do the raking.” Her voice cracked.

Tish hung on to the rake. “What’s wrong, Mel? What’s going on?”

“I’m helping with the yard work. That’s what’s going on. You want help, don’t you?”

“Yes …” Tish’s sore hands settled it. She let go of the rake.

Mel took the rake and disappeared behind the camellias.

Tish tilted her head, listening. She’d never heard anyone rake so fast and hard. The rake was a weapon, and Mel was slashing the ground with it.

George walked slowly across the crowded parking lot through blue smoke and delicious aromas. The first full day of the car show was winding down, and the folks who’d come prepared had hauled out tailgate parties and grills. He enjoyed the freedom of being dogless, but he wished Tish could have been there with him. It would have been at least twice as much fun.

He’d already gleaned a wealth of information from his fellow Chevelle enthusiasts, and he’d picked up a few necessary parts from vendors—after calling Calv to make sure they were the right ones—but the sense of camaraderie was beginning to fade.

These people didn’t necessarily like him; they liked his car. He was just a man alone. He would spend the night in a small and overpriced motel room, eating carry-out with no company.