Magnolia Wednesdays (5 page)

Vivien slid back in her chair and unclenched her jaw. “I mean, I can’t think of anything I’d be unable to research or unprepared to write about.” There that was better, calmer. More like a normal person. “And given the salary range you advertised you’re unlikely to get anyone with half my experience to do it.”

“Yes,” he said. “That’s why it’s listed as entry-level. If I’d realized who you were, I wouldn’t have wasted either of our time.” He started to rise.

“Wait! I mean, no. Please. Sit down.” She lowered her voice as he did as she asked, then drew a deep breath and let it out in an effort to remove the panic from her voice and her eyes. Later, much later, she’d let herself think about the fact that she was begging to be considered for a job so far beneath her.

“Why don’t you just tell me what the job is? And we’ll decide together whether I’m right for it or not.” She spoke sweetly. While smiling. It was one of the most painful things she’d ever done.

“Well,” he sat back and steepled his fingers, which made him look older—at least fourteen. “Our polls show that our readers are tired of all the celebrity articles. Oh, they want to know about Brad and Angelina and their kids, but they want to read about people like themselves, too. But maybe with some kind of kick to it, you know?”

She nodded, smiling with intent interest, just as she would have for the cutaway close-up Marty always shot to cut into the interview.

“What we’re envisioning is a weekly column from the suburbs. A sort of ongoing commentary on the current state of motherhood and apple pie with a few soccer moms beating the crap out of referees whose calls they don’t like thrown in for good measure.” He smiled, warming to his subject. “Snippets of real life as recorded in the real America.”

Vivien stopped smiling and nodding, pretty much blown away that this child had managed to come up with the one topic Vivien was not even remotely qualified to or interested in writing about. She might have stood then and admitted defeat, except that she had a “bun in the oven” and she simply couldn’t afford to be without an income—even one as small as the
Weekly Encounter
was offering.

So she stayed in her seat and arranged her features to telegraph abject admiration. “I think that’s brilliant,” she said. “We could call it Snapshots from the Suburbs. Or maybe Postcards from Suburbia.”

He nodded, starting to unbend. Liking her for liking his idea.

“Maybe it could be written with an insider’s knowledge but from a . . . newcomer’s perspective,” Vivien continued. “You know, like by someone just discovering the whole wonderful world of suburbia. As if an alien space-ship had deposited them in . . . east Cobb, Georgia . . .” She pulled the name of the area where her sister lived out of the air. “. . . and had to learn how to blend in to its surroundings. Live like the natives.”

The editor leaned toward her, his head nodding faster as Vivien painted the picture.

“There could be columns about . . . finding day care . . . a babysitter . . . striving to win the best yard award . . . being a troop leader. Selling Girl Scout cookies. Taking a ballroom dance class.” Again she pulled details of Melanie’s daily life out of her memory, offering them up, trying to convince him even as she tried to convince herself.

She could do this. She wished she didn’t have to, would give anything to snap her fingers and go back to her old life, but she could research and write this column. In a way it wouldn’t be all that different from the way she’d investigated the worlds of gangs, drugs, corporate espionage, and financial machinations in order to report on them.

The suburbs might seem like an alternate universe to her now, but if she went and lived there and immersed herself in the culture, she could turn the weekly column into something much larger than John Harcourt had ever imagined. Maybe aim for national syndication. Or uncover something that could propel her back into investigative journalism.

And she wouldn’t even have to look for an expert to help her. Vivien might never have sat on a bleacher, driven a minivan, or idled in a car-pool line, but her sister had done all of those things and actually seemed to enjoy them.

She felt a slight stirring of . . . not exactly excitement, but a determination to accept her current reality and to do what had to be done. To take advantage of the details that seemed to be falling so neatly into place.

Hadn’t Melanie practically begged her to come recuperate at her house? And weren’t Melanie and her children, Vivien’s niece and nephew, the walking embodiment of suburban life? They were her entrée to this brave new world, her personal tour guides to life in the hinterlands.

All she had to do was take her sister up on her invitation. While she was there she’d stick to Melanie like white on rice so she didn’t miss a single nuance of suburban life.

Vivien looked the young man in the eye and knew she had him. She could never use her own name of course; it would be far too humiliating to ever let anyone know how low she’d sunk and how little she was forced to work for. She wouldn’t even tell her family or Stone. The number of things she wasn’t telling him gave her pause, but at the moment securing this job was her number one priority.

“I can do this for you, and I can make it first-rate,” Vivien said. “But I’m going to have to go undercover in order to write about things the way I really see them. I can use an obvious sort of pseudonym to pique the readers’ interest. And, of course, the
Weekly Encounter
will have to keep my identity secret.”

She smiled and stuck out her hand to seal the deal. “What do you think?”

He barely hesitated, and she realized she should have asked for more money, but she would be employed and she would be reporting. What she made of it would be up to her.

“I like it. I like it a lot,” he said, shaking her hand with real enthusiasm. “We’ll start promoting the coming of a new column next week; that will give you a couple of weeks to get situated and start filing your stories.”

He walked her to the lobby, all but rubbing his hands together in glee. “I’ll set up an appointment for you with HR—they’ll be the only people other than me who’ll know your true identity.”

Vivien felt lighter as she walked outside to hail a cab even though she’d already gained five pounds. Her mind whirled as she thought about all the things she’d need to take care of before she left the city—forwarding her mail, subletting her apartment, making up a suitable cover story. From the backseat of the cab, she punched in Melanie’s cell phone number and waited impatiently for her sister to pick up.

Melanie hadn’t exactly
begged
her to come down to recuperate, but despite their differences they were sisters, flesh and blood. Vivien knew that Melanie would never turn her away.

A well-bred girl from a good southern family might break an unwritten rule or two, but she’d never question a family member’s intentions. Or ask how long that family member intended to stay.

5

I
N HER OFFICE at the Magnolia Ballroom and Dance Studio, Melanie hung up the phone. Resting her hands on the desk, she sat for several long minutes staring through the inset glass wall to the dance floor, trying to process the fact that her sister had just invited herself for a visit and had actually claimed that spending time with Shelby and Trip was one of her prime motivations for coming.

In a corner of the studio a private rhumba lesson was under way. Melanie watched as longtime instructor Enrique Delray patiently guided a recently retired couple through the slow-slow-quick foot movements. With studied grace he demonstrated both how to lead and how to follow, talking the entire time in the vaguely Latin accent that made him wildly popular.

The threesome looked small in the large and decidedly elegant space. Originally built as a freestanding exercise facility, the dance studio was a long rectangle with two abutting mirrored walls and polished hardwood floors. When Melanie had purchased the business and building from the previous owner five years ago, it had been called Let’s Dance! and its claims to fame had been a seventies-era disco ball and a decidedly laid-back teaching approach.

Melanie’s first official act had been to change the name of the studio to Magnolia Ballroom after her favorite room at Magnolia Hall. Then she’d decorated the space to fit its new name, replacing the disco ball with two carefully placed French chandeliers she’d unearthed in the bowels of an architectural salvage store and framing the large plate-glass window that fronted the parking lot with a gold brocade valance and side panels. The draperies in turn framed a collection of white-clothed tables that she’d paired with reproduction Louis XIV chairs. The lone solid wall had been treated with mahogany wainscoting and an ornately carved chair rail.

A “DJ” area where instructors took turns playing music during their classes and for the Friday and Saturday night practice parties had been tucked into one corner of the ballroom. From there, a short hallway led to the rest-rooms and kitchen. Between these, Melanie had created a more casual conversation area with a chenille sofa and an arrangement of club chairs and ottomans designed for sinking into and getting a load off.

Normally, Melanie felt a great deal of satisfaction as she surveyed her domain. Despite the intentional elegance, she had created a warm and welcoming environment and had made it a point to hire instructors who were not only well trained and certified but friendly and enthusiastic. The one thing Melanie had no patience for was “attitude.” Some of their students danced competitively, but many had arrived with no dance experience at all after becoming fans of the hit TV show
Dancing with the Stars
. Others came for the exercise and the opportunity to socialize and de-stress. It was almost impossible to worry while doing the cha-cha or the tango. Or while shimmying across the floor to classic belly-dancing music.

Today her usual sense of accomplishment eluded her as her thoughts circled back to Vivien’s unprecedented visit and the unstated reasons behind it.

There was a cursory knock on her open door and then Ruth Melnick stuck her head inside. “Hi, doll. I’m here.”

Somewhere in her early seventies with beautifully coiffed white hair, a direct manner better suited to her New York beginnings and barely softened by her decades in Atlanta, Ruth had been taking lessons at the Magnolia Ballroom almost as long as Melanie had owned it. Ruth’s transition from student to friend and unpaid worker had been gradual, but Melanie could no longer imagine the studio without her. Ruth had warm brown eyes that assessed people at the speed of light. Beneath her gruff exterior beat a heart so big Melanie wasn’t sure how it fit inside her slightly barreled chest. Ruth manned the front desk three afternoons a week and seemed happy to fill in whenever Melanie needed her. She also continued to take classes more, Melanie thought, to fill her days than anything else. And possibly, Melanie suspected, to add to the studio’s financial bottom line without facing charges of charity.

“There’s been real interest in the new Wednesday night belly-dancing class,” Ruth said. “And I still have to answer a few email queries. I’m thinking about taking it myself.” She gave an exaggerated shake of her wide hips.

“It’s great exercise and a lot of fun. I’ve got Naranya scheduled to teach, but I’m going to be there, too. I can always fill in in a pinch.” Over the last year Melanie had added a number of dance-based exercise classes and a mommy/toddler class on weekday mornings and was constantly on the lookout for ways to increase revenue. “Let’s remind the instructors to push it in their classes, and I want to make sure it’s mentioned in any calls soliciting former students.”

“Will do,” Ruth said. “I just gave a tour and brochure to a bride-to-be. The wedding’s not until April, but she signed up for belly dance. Cute—about thirty, redheaded. Said she was looking to add a less painful form of exercise to her workout schedule.”

“Maybe that’s how we should be marketing the class,” Melanie said. “As an ancient Middle Eastern weight-loss technique.”

“I like it.” Ruth laughed, then looked pointedly at the clock on the wall. “Don’t you need to get going?”

“Yes.” Melanie glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to go pick up Shelby and get her to the tutor, but I’ll be back to do the eight and nine P.M. classes. Diedre’s out sick.”

Melanie sprinted out the door. In the parking lot, she fired up the Honda Odyssey, then aimed her trusty steed east on Upper Roswell Road toward the high school where Shelby was undoubtedly already waiting and fuming.

At a red light she texted Trip to confirm that he’d made it home on the bus. She had barely hit “send” when the driver behind her laid on the horn. Startled, Melanie accelerated, almost running into the SUV in front of her. Cautioning herself to calm down, Melanie focused on the road as she covered the last miles to the school’s front entrance.

“You’re late,” Shelby said in greeting. “If you’d let me drive to school like everybody else, I wouldn’t have to stand around like a total geek waiting for you to show up.”

“Hello to you, too.” Melanie resisted responding to the taunt. Nor did she comment on the fact that Shelby’s skirt was far too short and her makeup much too heavy. Or explain that she would gladly have let Shelby drive to school if she hadn’t already demonstrated a tendency to simply drive right by the building without stopping.

These were just a few of the countless things Melanie didn’t say to her daughter because anything she said was like a match to tinder. And because ever since J.J.’s abrupt and unexpected death two years ago, the three of them had lost their tether as if they were planets shot out of their orbits, ripped free of their gravitational pull.

“I’m adding a belly-dancing class to the weeknight schedule,” she said, looking for a non-incendiary topic of conversation.

Shelby half shrugged, the subject not even important enough to require the movement of both shoulders.

The drive to the tutor wasn’t all that far; like everything in the northern suburb of east Cobb, ten to fifteen minutes would pretty much do it. But Melanie wasn’t prepared to pass those minutes in silence like some hired chauffeur. She searched for another safe topic.

“Aunt Vivi called. She’s going to come stay with us for a while. She said she wanted to spend some time with you and Trip.”

This did, in fact, capture Shelby’s attention. She turned to face Melanie. “She always acts like she can’t wait to get away from here. What’s the point of going somewhere that you can’t wait to leave?”

This was a good question, especially since Melanie was fairly certain Vivien had shattered some land and speed records bailing out on them after J.J.’s funeral, something Melanie had been too numb to fully process at the time.

“Well, I’m sure it’ll be nice to have her around.” Melanie said this without any certainty whatsoever.

“Right.” Shelby gave her the look she’d been perfecting for some time now. The one that said her mother was a complete and utter moron. “Like she ever cared about any of us.”

As she pulled to a stop in front of the tutor’s house, Melanie whipped her checkbook from her purse and began to fill it in, her efforts centered on
not
thinking about her sister’s reappearance, her daughter’s hostility, or the amount of money that flew out of their bank account on a weekly basis. “Here.” She handed the check to Shelby, then watched her daughter climb out of the minivan with a big splash of thigh. “I’ll be back in forty-five minutes.” Which she sincerely hoped would be enough time to get to the grocery store, stock up, check out, and get back to the tutor’s.

Inching down Johnson Ferry Road toward the Publix Super Market, she called home to make sure Trip was actually there.

“How was your day?” she asked after his mumbled greeting.

“Fine.”

“Good.”

There was a long pause. Melanie sighed and checked her rearview mirror before forcing her way into the other lane. She ignored the horns that blared in protest. She knew just how pissed off the woman behind her probably was at losing an entire car length, but she simply didn’t have the time to poke along right now. “I’m going to pick up some groceries and a frozen pizza for dinner. Will you preheat the oven to four hundred in thirty minutes?”

“Okay.”

“And set the table?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yeah.”

This was the extent of her conversations with Trip these days. He wasn’t hostile like Shelby, didn’t act out; he just didn’t seem to have much to say to her. Or anyone else for that matter. Even the psychologist she’d taken him to in the months after J.J.’s death had admitted he’d been largely unable to get her son to speak.

Once inside the grocery store, Melanie raced through the aisles, tossing things into her cart, nodding to acquaintances—also mostly working moms—the full-time stay-at-homes having presumably wheeled through the aisles at a more leisurely pace earlier in the day.

In the checkout line she tried to understand why after all these years of grocery shopping she could not assess the quickest line. She’d avoided the checkout people that she knew moved too slowly, sidestepped the apparently single father who’d just started unloading a cart overflowing with microwave dinners, high-sugar cereals, and a stunning assortment of junk food, and passed by the elderly woman who was studying a debit card she apparently had no earthly idea how to use. Yet she’d ended up stuck behind an off-duty employee who’d brought in her newborn so that every other employee within a mile radius could come coo over it.

Finally she was out of there and speed-pushing the cart through the parking lot where she was almost mowed down by other women with the same grim focused looks on their faces that she knew must be on hers. She was five minutes late to the tutor’s and arrived to find Shelby out on the driveway.

Shelby spent the six-minute ride home texting. Her thumbs flew over the tiny keyboard, her gaze fixed to the tiny screen that had become her lifeline to the world, or at least that part of it that mattered to her. Every few seconds there was the sound of an incoming message. This was followed by more thumb action.

“Who are you ‘talking’ to?” Melanie asked.

“Nobody you know.”

“I don’t have to know them,” Melanie replied carefully, although she knew she should. Should know everyone Shelby hung out with. Meet their parents. Be on top of things. “I just need a name. Some clue as to who you’re friendly with.”

“Jason and Ally.” Shelby’s fingers never slowed nor did she offer another iota of information. She grimaced in distaste when Melanie asked her to take a few of the grocery bags into the house. Inside, Melanie pried Trip away from the PS3 and sent him out for the rest of the bags. He didn’t grimace. Or speak.

Shelby was texting again before Melanie had even unwrapped the pizza. After she slid it into the oven, she made Shelby stop long enough to mix a salad and forced Trip to turn off the TV and set the table, but even she wasn’t looking forward to a meal during which she would try to pry information about their days from them and they would give her the smallest possible drips and drabs. She had to be back at the studio in thirty minutes.

Melanie helped herself to a slice of pizza. “Shelby, turn your phone off now. You know we don’t bring them to the table.”

Her daughter pushed the phone away from her and sent an ugly glare at her mother. Melanie didn’t comment; the ugly looks had become pretty much par for the course. But she did pocket the phone, then smiled and attempted, once again, to start a conversation.

“So who do you think will be going to the World Series?” she asked her son. When J.J. had been alive, this question might have prompted a dinner-long discussion with good-natured taunting and real vested interest. Trip, who had once lived and breathed sports, baseball in particular, just shrugged.

They consumed the meal and cleared the table in silence, technically together but locked in their own little worlds. Melanie would have liked to blame their lack of communication on the fact that two out of three of them were teenagers and, therefore, horribly hormonally imbalanced while she was clearly stressed to the max. But she was afraid the real reason was J.J.’s absence; the vast emptiness he’d left between them seemed impossible to fill.

“I’ve got two classes tonight,” she said as she prepared to leave. Without comment she returned Shelby’s phone and pocketed the key to Shelby’s car, which had been taken from Shelby three weeks ago when her truancy had been discovered. “I should be back by ten thirty.”