Lookaway, Lookaway (50 page)

Annie said slowly, “If it could save the house…”

“Oh don’t even pretend you would sell your car so we could pay property taxes. No one in this family sacrifices anything for any greater good—it’s not how we’ve ever operated. Your mother would rather have the Jarvis Room at the Mint than sell paintings for … for what? Taxes, groceries, deodorant? The Jarvis Room is her legacy.” He had actually stuck up for Annie, too, trying to convince Jerene that she would do well by the Jarvis Trust for American Art. Of course, Jerene always knew best—Annie would have the paintings at the pawnshop by mid-afternoon on the day she got her hands on them. He continued, “I intend to hoard my Civil War artifact collection until I am a near-corpse and give it to some museum that will display or care for it. And you’ll be driving around…” Duke pointed to the parking lot again. “… in that overpriced car that tells your clients you are successful until you trade it for the next spectacularly overpriced car. There is no point pretending things are not as they are.”

There was nothing now but a desperate emotional appeal. “Dad. I can’t stand to think of our home with other people in it.”

Duke wondered if she would say the thing no one in the family would say to his face. Even Jerene in recent years stopped hinting or expecting there would ever be a change: if only Duke Johnston would go to work again. Resume his law practice.

“It’s the bottom of the market, Dad.” Annie sighed. “A terrible time to sell. Might make the difference in one to two hundred thousand dollars.”

But then a male voice: “You, sir, have some nerve coming in here.”

It was Daryl. Duke thought it was somehow the beginning of a comic riff, and stood up to introduce Annie. “Daryl, my friend. This is my daughter Annie Johnston—”

“Father or daughter,” said Daryl, “no Johnston is welcome in here. We all trusted you, Duke, to preserve our heritage.”

Duke now gauged just how upset Daryl was.

“I believe I—”

“Have you seen what they’re turning the battleground into? I remember you pulled five hundred dollars out of me—sacred earth, blah blah blah. Where Charlotte fought, blah blah blah. And you swore that you’d keep the developers off that site, and damn if you weren’t part of the team developing it all along. Hope you got your thirty pieces of silver.”

“I haven’t seen what they’ve done, Daryl. I—”

Daryl grabbed their bill off the table. “This is on me. Consider it a payback for all the business you got me in April. I guess there’ll be no more re-enactments, thanks to what you and your rich buddies’ve done down there. Now, if you’ve finished up, I’d like it if you folks got on your way.”

They drove toward the trestle in silence.

Annie broke it one time saying, “You know, Bob Boatwright and that crowd are douchebags. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that they didn’t do anything they said they would do. I hear things. I hear … that like Beazer Homes, they’re all being investigated. Predatory practices, false estimates of value, secret lot-splitting after the assessments, big bonuses paid to partners out of development money, earnest monies paid in cash back and forth to each other. I hope they all go to jail, Dad.”

Duke sighed. “Well. Not at least until we move into our home and the ink is dry on the deed.” He cleared his throat. “Then we’ll build a scaffold.”

Oh God. Oh no.

Worse—much worse than he feared …

The riverbank that had served as the “historical field of battle” had been denuded of all grass and trees; some of the great riparian oaks were now fresh stumps. It had been scraped bare by bulldozers, acres of topsoil and red clay exposed; Duke wondered how many shells or buttons or artifacts had been churned under the soil by the earthmovers. That element was, at least, reparable. So they replant their field with grass and make it more of a lawn … all the better to re-enact upon. But Duke walked farther down the shoulder of the roadway to investigate: there were wooden stakes and cement blocks which marked out the dimensions of a tremendous building about to begin its construction. Duke remembered this, a columned porticoed faux-antebellum mansion/activity center for wedding parties, balls, meeting rooms, a high-end bar and restaurant, with a river-deck outdoor restaurant … But it was supposed to be farther upstream! Placing it right in the middle of their field would leave fifty yards or so between it and the makeshift ramparts. The re-enactors would be virtually on the back patio.

Duke never brought his still unfamiliar cell phone anywhere, so he borrowed Annie’s. She looked as downcast as he was.

“I’ll pay you back for these directory assistance calls,” he said.

“Jesus, Dad. Don’t worry about that.”

Calls to Bob Boatwright turned up a secretary who, after delay, her hand over the receiver, muffled voices and a TV broadcasting CNBC running in the background, returned to declare Bob was traveling on business. Calls to Mr. Yerevanian never picked up. Calls to Mr. Brownbee didn’t even get to a message box. Duke called the landscape architect that he had spoken with before, Mr. Arens, and he indeed was in his office. But he told Duke he had been let go from the assignment, and that others—he didn’t know who—were in charge now of designing the area around the trestle. They (Bob and his fellow investors) had asked that the clubhouse and restaurant be moved closer to the trestle as a sound buffer for the homes; when the new embankment downstream raised the Catawba River twenty feet—

“What embankment? They’re going to flood the whole area?”

Yes, said Mr. Arens, they envisioned a marina to come out from the ramparts so the fisherman-motorboat crowd could take advantage of new waterfront.

Duke heard his own weak voice. “But what of the historical park to be made around the trestle?”

The former architect said that it had been in his design, but that design was rejected. He was sorry he could not be of more help. Duke nonetheless was gracious to the man who had drawn such a heartening design for the path from the parking area to the trestle, a monument near the ramparts, a circular sawdust trail for an eventual statue, perhaps, and a paved trail through the muddy marge under the trestle that would lead to an outdoor display, a series of three plaques, the pictures on which would be chosen by Duke—with text by Duke Johnston as well. All of that, Duke knew in an instant, was never going to happen.

“What have I done?” he said simply to his daughter. “They couldn’t have gotten the building permit without me. I raised a small fortune from friends, family, the Charlottetowne Country Club, to preserve this site and then … I was instrumental in destroying it.”

Annie didn’t insult him, at least, by saying he was some blameless victim. “They were awful men you were dealing with, Dad.”

“I suppose you should take me home.”

They rode in silence again. Duke didn’t feel the gloom lift even when he saw the familiar
WELCOME TO NORTH CAROLINA
sign.

Annie said quietly, “You could sue.”

“Nothing was in writing, darling. It was all gentleman’s agreement stuff, handshakes and promises. I’ve known Bob at Charlottetowne for ages. Besides, my compensation for my help with this development…” Here Duke raised his hands to cover his face—he was overwhelmed by what was happening to such a long-held dream. “My compensation was held in an escrow account which I would transfer back to them when I took possession of our new home. They had worked out this legal way to give your mother and myself a condo for our troubles. I can’t sue them and expect them to pay up.”

But now Annie was sniveling. “I’m so mad at myself.”

Duke was surprised she was so upset. “Oh it’s my folly, sweetheart. No need to be so upset. Not the first time what I’ve done has come to nothing.”

“I’m upset over
my
folly,” she said. “Oh bother.” She was tearing up enough not to be able to see properly, so she pulled into a Kangaroo service station lot, parking off to the side. She fished through her purse for some tissues. “I had to make these last stupid, stupid house purchases. So fucking greedy—sorry about the language.”

“It’s all right. I’m fucking mad at fucking Bob Boatwright.”

Annie laughed, at last. “Fuck those … fuckers.”

“Yes, absolutely. Fucking … what did you just call them?”

“Douchebags. Fucking douchebags.”

“Fucking swine, fucking low-life criminals.”

Annie laughed again, wiping her eyes. “The F-word doesn’t sound dirty coming from you. Why is that?” She sighed. “I knew the market was sinking but I went all in. I had tens of thousands on hand last year. Thousands I could have lent you and Mom. I might as well tell you a fantasy of mine. To buy our house through a third party and turn around and give it back to you as a surprise. But then you said Uncle Gaston was coming through so I spent it all on three homes in Lakewood. They’ve lost half their value since I did it, too.”

“Oh darling.”

“I so
wanted
to give you your house back.” She hit the steering wheel, biting her lip, then wiping another tear. “And maybe make up for my loud, misspent youth when I put you and Mom through the wringer.”

Duke shook his head. “You spend your own money on your own life—your mom and I have had our time in that house, in Charlotte. And it’s time for a new phase.” He didn’t much believe it himself, but it was the view from where he now stood. He surprised himself by adding, “
I
am the only utter failure in the family, sweetheart. Not working these last twenty years. I should have gone back to the Law, much as I didn’t like it.” Duke felt his own eyes filling, in pure self-loathing and disappointment. Couldn’t this one thing—the Skirmish at the Trestle, the memorial park—couldn’t this one project have succeeded? The world had strewn petals in Duke Johnston’s path that he might make something of himself, every skid greased, every impediment removed, and nonetheless he had assiduously failed the cheering crowds at every turn of the race. Every aspiration muffed, every earnest stroke of ambition shanked, he was a bumbler and a flop. He put a hand out for a tissue. He didn’t want to cry in front of Annie, so he said something about needing to blow his nose and pretended to do it while dabbing his eyes, and she pretended not to notice, although it made her start crying again.

“We had a very privileged upbringing,” she said at last, “and you gave us that, so you’re off the hook for that one, really. If we haven’t made a great success of it, it’s our fault, not yours.” She blew her nose, composing herself. “It’s never been about money for me—or for any of us, Bo, Josh, Jerilyn. I guess we had Mom the Materialist who kept her eye on the checkbook.”

Duke did not like the note of judgment in Annie’s voice, but he was not going to argue with her now over how she treated, always treated, her mother. “Someone had to, Annie. We all managed because Jerene was the one providing for the family. We’d have starved without her.”

Annie was quiet a moment. “I envy you two. What you guys have I will never know. Nor Josh or Jerilyn, it looks like. We all took for granted you and Mom, married forever, happy, ambling along. All of our peers’ parents were getting divorced, once, twice, serial divorces, half brothers and stepsisters and all kinds of convoluted family arrangements, and you guys…” More tears. “You guys were the Rock of Gibraltar. That’s where I fucking dropped the ball, where I couldn’t follow suit.”

Her father patted her shoulder. “You are too harsh with yourself.” Duke then waited, sort of knowing what was coming next.

“Chuck and I are divorcing. Or, he informed me we were. He’s taken up with a lawyer in Nag’s Head, Olivia Something, and she has convinced him he is entitled to some of my commission money, since he floated me for the first year when I got up and running here.”

“Convenient, then, that you’ve run out of cash just as Olivia Something is trying to take it from you.”

Annie pressed the tissues into her eyes again, stifling a sob.

Duke offered comfort: “I didn’t think Chuck was the sort to cheat on you. I didn’t know him well—you saw to that. But I thought he would not have done that to you.”

Without looking at her father, she said in a small voice, “I cheated first. With some of my real estate partners. No excuse, but we had too many late nights and late dinners and … Chuck was three hundred miles away in Hatteras. So he can have his money. If he can find any of it.” She recovered, the confession made.

Duke wondered about Annie somberly, just as he had after her abortion pronouncement at Christmas dinner last year: had she ever made a discrimination that something was too personal to tell or that a parent might not want to hear it? And now, with the confession made, Duke could see that she was lighter in spirit. After all, it was now his to dwell upon, not hers; she had dropped her adultery into his lap.

“About the money,” she was now saying, “I don’t care—this is capitalism, right? Boom and bust, bubble and pop. But in the matters of the heart I should have imitated you and Mom. I should have held out for my generation’s equivalent of Duke Johnston, instead of the foolish choices I did make.”

Annie started the car again, meeting her father’s eyes anew as they gave each other a warm, exhausted smile.

Then Duke turned away, looking out the window at the dreary suburban sprawl of south Charlotte. Most of it developed now, what used to be fields. Only briefly would a vacant farm lot appear, fallow acres filled with weeds, a
FOR SALE
sign, some distant trees not yet subject to the axe.

*   *   *

Her name was Miranda Mabry.

He had been re-elected for the third time to the city council of Charlotte in 1983. People were beginning to talk about his taking on one of Charlotte’s congressional seats … that is, if he didn’t want to make a run for mayor, and from there, governor. A fellow city councilman who was going back to his law practice, Bud Shackleford, approached Duke about this shining star in his office, this bright, capable, lovely young woman named Miranda Mabry, who had crafted three legendary resolutions that overhauled the city finances, the means of school board funding, and parks and recreation respectively. Charlotte was a largely black, largely Democratic city, a city of trucking and freight and salvage, mill workers and farm folk, and if the Republicans could hold their own outside of Myers Park it was because of the party’s populist-but-reasonable, frugal-but-progressive reform agenda, and Miranda was its mastermind. She was certainly going places but maybe the first place she ought to go is Duke’s office so they could find an issue to catapult him into greater prominence and maybe the mayor’s chair. She’s a looker, said Bud. Just about sank my marriage over that girl, he confided.