I Still Dream About You: A Novel (29 page)

Oh dear, Maggie thought. That was pretty close to saying something was going on between them. But then, considering the flowery language of the times, it was hard to know. Twins have a different relationship than just regular siblings. Still, something was strange. If they had been so devoted, then why had she never come to visit him in Alabama? Why did he always go there? Another mystery.

As she scrolled through the papers, Maggie found a few more photographs of him, but none taken with his sister, as she had hoped. He was usually standing in a group of other men. She could see he was a small man, but still very nice-looking, with a kind face. She could understand why the ladies had been so interested in him, and from everything she had heard, he had obviously liked women and had been very fond of children, and yet, he had never married. But why? It was a puzzle. There were only three good reasons she could think of:

1. He had been impotent.
   
2. He was a secret homosexual.
   
3. He was in love with his sister.
   
4. ???????????????????????
   

Of course, from everything Maggie had read so far, the twin sister had never married either. Maybe she was making far too much of it. Still, it did seem odd.

N
URSE LETTIE ROSS HAD GONE AHEAD TO ENGLAND AND OPENED
the house in Mayfair for Edward and Edwina’s visit. She had arranged Edwina’s dresses in order and laid out the matching jewelry. Miss Edwina was particular about color, but never liked to waste her time having to mix and match her evening attire. Edwina was always happy to be in London, but one day, there was a particular excitement in the air.

At Buckingham Palace, Miss Edwina Crocker had just been presented to Queen Mary, also a lady of proud Scottish ancestry. A string quartet played as she descended the stairs, in a white dress, wearing three white feathers, having just received the title of Lady Edwina Crocker, due to her brother Edward’s enormous contributions to England during the war.

Thanks to America, where one had the opportunity to rise above one’s class, a member of a family who had once been thirled serfs now stood in line at a royal reception in her honor. As Edwina smiled and received guests, she wondered what all those poor men, women, and children of her family would have thought if they could see her standing there today. Could they even have dreamed it? Of course, there had been tremendous personal sacrifices for both Edward and Edwina, but still. “Oh, what a lovely day.”

Although Edwina Crocker’s home was on the north coast of Scotland and her brother, Edward Crocker, lived in Alabama, every year, they always spent three months together in London in a magnificent townhome Edward had purchased. Edwina loved to visit the city, and Edward loved to spoil his sister and cater to her every whim.

Whereas Edward was a shy and private man and, while in London, only came out for special occasions, usually having to do with business, his sister was quite the opposite. Edwina, famous for her beautiful clothes and quick wit, enjoyed a whirl of social activities. An invitation to her Sunday afternoon salon was the envy of all London. Noël Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, and Beatrice Lillie were among her many friends. Although not a great beauty, she had a bright mind, and men found her irresistible. Flirtatious by nature, she’d had numerous love affairs, some with quite powerful men, but like her elusive brother, she’d never married. When asked about it, she laughed it off, saying, “I’m waiting to meet a man as kind and as compassionate as my dear brother, Edward, and alas, I’m still waiting.” This was not good news to the array of hopeful suitors who would have been more than happy to marry into the Crocker family. It was rumored that her brother’s holdings were now up into the millions, and some disgruntled suitors began to wonder if Edwina had specific instructions from her brother not to marry. Some even suspected that Edward didn’t trust her to be left alone in London without supervision, because when he departed London, Edwina departed as well.

They had heard that the father, Angus, had been ruthless, but it seemed that now the brother would go to any lengths to protect his fortune, even depriving his own sister of the joys of marriage and children. This was a sentiment felt on both sides of the Atlantic. When several of his eligible male friends from Birmingham had shown up in London on business and requested an introduction to Edwina, Edward had declined the request politely but firmly. However, as protected as Edwina’s life was, it did not stop her from her fun with the men she fancied in London. She once said to a friend about her numerous affairs, “I know it’s quite scandalous, but I have
to make hay while the sun shines. All I have is my precious three months in London, and the rest of the year, I might as well be living in a nun’s cell.”

Although she clearly enjoyed the company of men, Edwina was quite a champion of women’s rights. At a reception for the great Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, she quipped, “In your delightful play
Pygmalion
, is it not true that you ask the question, Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” “Yes,” he said. “Quite true.” “But my dear Mr. Shaw, my question to you is, Why can’t a
man
be more like a woman?” The great man laughed and had to good-naturedly agree. Such public outspokenness from a woman of lesser means, or one not so closely connected to such a powerful man as her brother, might not have been so well tolerated.

While Edwina and Edward had always lived a protected life of privilege, their Scottish nurse, Lettie, had told them firsthand stories from her own childhood of how women of a poorer class were treated, and later, Edwina had observed it with her own eyes when she had visited the workhouses and tenements. Because of her enormous influence on her brother, Edward’s eyes had been opened as well, and he had responded in kind.

Back home in America, Edward’s Birmingham banker noticed that thousands of dollars were being donated to many female causes; one check alone for fifty thousand dollars was sent to Margaret Sanger in New York, a radical famous for promoting birth control. The banker later confided to an associate, “I don’t know who she is, but he has some woman in his ear, telling him what to do.”

He did indeed. What the banker did not know was that both brother and sister had an immediate and personal interest in safe and effective birth control.

I
F BRENDA HAD A WEAKNESS, OTHER THAN ICE CREAM AND DOUGHNUTS
, it was wigs. She loved wigs—not just any wigs, but good, expensive wigs. She didn’t shop at Miss Delilah’s House of Wigs, like her older sister did, or at Wow Wigs out at the mall; she ordered her wigs online from ExclusivelyYoursWigs.com. She had the Tina Turner wig, the Diahann Carroll wig, and this morning, she came in to work wearing her new Beyoncé wig, which she was not happy with. “It looked better in the ad,” she said.

At around ten
A.M.
, Brenda came into Maggie’s office and whispered, so that Ethel wouldn’t hear her, “I need you to take me somewhere at lunchtime, okay?”

“All right, where?”

“I have an appointment with a psychic healer.”

“Oh, no. Not another one.”

“Yes, but this one’s from the Philippines, and he’s only going to be here for one day.”

Maggie shook her head. “Oh Lord, where is this one going to be?”

“At the old Humdrum Motel, out on old Highway 8.”

“Oh my God, honey, why do you want to waste your good money? You know those people are fakes.”

Brenda said, “No, they’re not! Tonya had a tumor removed last year.”

“Brenda, that man had a chicken gizzard up his sleeve and just told her it was a tumor. You told me that yourself, remember?”

“Well, I could have been wrong … Whatever he did, it worked—she doesn’t have a tumor anymore.”

“How do you know she had one in the first place?”

“She might have; she said she felt a hundred percent better.”

“Are you sure you want to go out there? I don’t think it looks good for a reputable real estate agent to be seen going to some charlatan like that.”

“Nobody is going to see us.”

“All right. But why do you need me to take you?”

“Because I don’t think I should drive after surgery. I want to see if he can help me with my kidney stones.”

“I thought you were going to use the power of positive thinking on them.”

“I am … this is part of it.”

“Have you told Robbie where you’re going?”

“No, she doesn’t believe in alternative medicine.”

“Brenda, I don’t think this would be considered alternative. This is more on the hocus-pocus side.”

“Oh, come on, Maggie, please. It will only take a little while.”

“Well, of course, I’ll take you, but promise me you won’t tell Robbie I took you out there. I don’t want her mad at me.”

“I promise.”

L
ATER
, M
AGGIE SAT
in the parking lot of the Humdrum Motel, waiting on Brenda and flipping through the Multiple Listing Service book to pass the time. Forty-five minutes later, Brenda came out of Room 432 carrying a small brown paper sack and grinning from ear to ear. She opened the car door, announcing, “I’m cured! Here they are.”

She opened the bag and pulled out a small glass jar, full of what
looked to Maggie suspiciously like gravel from the driveway of the Humdrum Motel, but she didn’t say anything.

“And it didn’t hurt at all!” said Brenda.

“What are you going to do with them?”

“Keep them.”

“Where?”

“Oh, I don’t know; maybe in my medicine cabinet. Why?”

“Well, if it were me, I’d throw them out. What if Robbie finds them?”

Brenda thought about it and then took out her cell phone and called her older sister, Tonya. As soon as she answered Brenda said, “Listen, this mayor may not happen, but if Robbie ever calls you about a jar of kidney stones, tell her they’re yours. Okay?” And then she hung up. Five seconds later, Brenda’s phone rang. After a moment, she said, “You don’t need to know why, just tell her,” and hung up again.

Maggie said, “I wish I had a sister I could boss around.”

Brenda laughed. “Well, I would give you Robbie and Tonya, but nobody would believe it.”

After she dropped Brenda and her “kidney stones” off, instead of going right home, Maggie changed her mind, and made another trip down to the library. When she got there, she sat down and started to look at microfilm again.

Maggie scrolled forward in time and found a January 16, 1939, headline:

Then another, dated April 28, 1939:

Edward had died just three days after his sister. Maggie had been guessing about his being in love with his sister, but now she began to wonder if she had been right, and whether his death really had been an accident or if Edward had been so despondent over losing his sister that he had done exactly what Maggie was planning to do. Another clue that he had been in love with Edwina.

Maggie kept looking, but she did not have any luck finding anything more about the Crocker twins. Just as she was about to get up and leave the library, she saw Miss Pitcock walking over. Miss Pitcock had worked in the library archives forever, and Maggie had known her since she was in high school. Miss Pitcock asked her if she needed any help finding anything. Maggie told her that she was doing research on Crestview and on Edward Crocker and his sister, Edwina, in particular. Miss Pitcock’s eyes lit up behind her thick glasses. She told Maggie she would be delighted to help, that anything about old Birmingham history was her specialty.