Slow Way Home (35 page)

When the vegetable garden took a turn for the better, so did Esther. It all happened the day Winston and me were playing tennis at his house. Winston saw her first. His eyes grew wider when Esther came tearing through the hedge that separated her way of life from his own.

By the time she reached us, beggar weeds covered the bottom part of her stockings. Her eyes swept across the sparkle of the swimming pool. Anywhere to keep from looking at me. “You like strawberries, I suppose.”

Thinking she might have gone crazy, I looked at Winston for guidance. He just stood there gripping his racket, a line of sweat rolling down his neck.

“Umm . . . yes ma’am.”

“I bought an extra pint this morning and was thinking about making a strawberry pie for dinner.” She pulled at the top of her uniform and tilted her chin towards the pool.

“That would be good.”

“You want ice cream to go along with it?”

“Uh . . . yes ma’am.”

“Vanilla?”

“Vanilla’s good.”

With a nod she stormed back through the hedge. It wasn’t until the branches had stopped shaking that either of us said a word. “What was all that about?” Winston asked.

“I think she might’ve just said she was sorry.”

That night Aunty Gina called to say that she had to go out to dinner with a group from the legislature. The dining-room table had already been set for two. Esther wiped her hands on a dish towel and
Slow Way Home

251

picked up the glass of wine she had poured for Aunty Gina. “No use in letting this go to waste.”

For the first time Esther and me ate together in the same room.

Her words were stiff and spoken with the unsteadiness of a bad actor. “What type of vegetables did your grandpop grow on his farm?”

But as the wine got lower in the bottle, her words became looser.

She even laughed when I told her the story about Mary Madonna flying into the hog pen.

Licking a strawberry from my wrist, I asked, “Did you grow up on a farm?”

“Not a farm really. Well, my dad had a small vegetable garden. He was the manager of this estate up in Newport. That’s in Rhode Island.” She twirled the wine until it looked like it might cascade over onto the arm of the chair.

“How’d you get all the way to North Carolina?”

“That’s a long story. And besides, it’s my story.”

The pictures of the girl down in the cellar came to mind. Maybe that was the reason she didn’t want me to know. She didn’t want me to find out she had killed her stepdaughter. “That girl in those pictures down in the cellar. Is she kin to you?”

The wrinkle between her eyes grew deeper. “Been snooping around down there, have you?”

“Umm . . . no, I mean I just found . . .”

“Those are Mrs. Strickland’s things. I don’t think she’d want you sneaking around down there.”

“No, I just . . . saw this picture and everything.”

Esther poured the last of the wine into her glass and chuckled.

“Poor little Ginny Mae. Mrs. Strickland’s birth name. Nobody knows that except me. When she met Mr. Strickland, she changed all of it.

Oh yeah, she went right down to the courthouse and erased her whole past, as far as I’m concerned.”

As I sat up at attention, the carved chair pressed against my back.

If Aunty Gina erased her past, maybe she could do the same for me.

252

m i c h a e l m o r r i s

“That’s why she’s soft on you, I suppose. Her being taken in by her grandparents and so forth. I still can’t believe she let that colored woman talk her into . . . Well, I guess she aims to do good.” Esther tilted the glass towards me, and a spray of wine landed on her plate.

“And don’t think I don’t know what’s behind all that crying you’re doing. I’ve been around the block enough times to know and . . .”

“How long you worked here?”

She nodded and took another sip. “I worked for her husband’s family first. Years ago they had a summer place in Newport. Then when he sent the family into a tailspin by marrying little Ginny Mae, I was sent to show her the ropes. At first I was going to be the nanny, but that just wasn’t meant to be. Let’s see how long has it been?”

Esther clutched the glass with two fingers and used the others to count against the rim. “Well, her birthday is coming up, so it’s been around thirty-four years. And by the way, we’ll all be prancing around here celebrating her fifty-fifth birthday next week. But mark my word

. . . she’s really fifty-six.” Esther winked and almost slipped as she got up from the chair.

That night while she washed dishes Esther even sang. The words to “Happy Days Are Here Again” rained down to the cellar. Holding the faded picture of the long lost Ginny Mae, I stood directly under the vent and let her words about better times drench me.

The night of the birthday party Esther was in high excitement. As she barked orders, waiters moved in all different directions. Trays of crab cakes and salmon-draped biscuits drifted above the heads of the guests as hired help weaved in and out of the crowd. Following the tray with boiled shrimp, I passed Mrs. McMasters and the other ladies from the bridge club. Men in ties and ladies with sparkling pocketbooks flooded across the hall and into the library. Strains from the jazz band called me out to the patio. Aunty Gina was leaned against the piano playing with a long strand of pearls, while Judge Jackson and two other old men held court around her.

Slow Way Home

253

One man lit a pipe and blew the smoke straight up at the stars.

“Now, Gina, I know you’re sick to death of this special session, but if Ways and Means would go ahead and get that budget out of committee, we could all go home.”

“We’re working on it,” the other man said. “I figure by the end of August we’ll be free.”

“The end of August,” Aunty Gina moaned. “Lord, that’s just about the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. I’ve got to be out before then.

Brandon will be ready to start school. I’ll have missed the whole summer.”

“She’s right,” Judge Jackson said. “The end of August seems ex-treme. Besides, all the papers will hang you boys for spending taxpayer money on such a long session.”

The man with a pipe nudged Judge Jackson. “Oh, I know the solution. Just go ahead and fund that annex of yours and then we can all go home.”

Judge Jackson smiled and held up his glass just as Aunty Gina spotted me.

“Well hey, honey. Come over here and speak to these old friends of mine.” As she adjusted my tie, the men winked at each other.

Nairobi entered the patio carrying a glass of champagne and wearing a turban that matched Aunty Gina’s hair.

“Look, Nairobi’s here.”

“Well, if it’s not Harriet Tubman herself.”

“Now, Conner,” Aunty Gina said.

“Excuse me,” the man said, “but there’s just so much social good I can stand in one night.”

Esther was directing everybody outside when Judge Jackson found Winston and me in the library counting out the drink umbrellas we had collected. “Young man, Gina’s asking for you.”

When I finally made it through the crowd, she was standing on the band stage. As she bent down to whisper in my ear, the dampness of her breath tickled. “Honey, there are going to be so many candles on this cake I need your help blowing them out. Are you up for the job?”

254

m i c h a e l m o r r i s

When the biggest three-tiered birthday cake I had ever seen came rolling out on a cart, the band took the cue. Soon the entire group fanned over the grass and down to the hedge was singing “Happy Birthday.” With her hands draped around my shoulders, all I could do was glance up and see her smile. Faces from Raleigh’s finest shone back at us, and in the crowd Nairobi’s yellow turban was the brightest of them all. Winston and his parents stood in the middle. He waved, and I lifted my hand, but then resisted doing anything that might cause embarrassment. The people who looked back at me on that stage seemed like those I’d find in
National Geographic
, foreigners from distant lands. And, like the photographer who took those magazine pictures, I was just a visitor passing through.

“Are you ready now? Make a wish and we’ll share it together,”

Aunty Gina whispered. Leaning over the cake, she clutched her chest and the bottom part of the pearls swayed. Against the candles she looked younger and batted her eyes the same way I imagined Ginny Mae doing whenever her grandparents gave her a cake. At the same time we closed our eyes and strained to blow away the past.

After the last guest had left and the band was packing up, Aunty Gina and me sat on the patio steps. She had pulled off her shoes and rubbed the ball of one foot. Esther stripped away the cloths from the scattered tables. “Esther, come over here and rest before you work yourself into a stroke.”

“I’d rather keep going. Once I stop, then I’m afraid I won’t be able to get back up.” She was carrying an armload of white linens up the steps when Aunty Gina reached up to touch her hand.

“Thank you for a wonderful birthday. I declare, it was the best yet.

Well, the best since Preston left us.”

“Oh, don’t butter me up. I’ll still plan the next one too.” Esther patted the armful of linens. Before walking inside, she reached down to touch Aunty Gina the way I thought she might do if she was in a fancy store and tempted by fragile china.

“Isn’t the sky just gorgeous tonight?” Aunty Gina sighed. The spray of her breath warmed my arm.

Slow Way Home

255

Stars dotted the sky like the diamonds she wore on her fingers.

“This is the type of sky that makes me think of western North Carolina, up in the mountains where I grew up. My grandfather used to say if you could grab a handful of stars on a clear night, your dreams would come true. I’d try for that cluster right over there to the right.”

“What did you wish tonight?”

She giggled but never looked away from the stars. “Now, honey, you’re not supposed to tell or it won’t come to pass. Look at that Big Dipper. Mercy, that is gorgeous.”

When the last piece of band equipment was packed, chirping crickets were the only music we had, and it settled on me like the wine Esther enjoyed.

“Why did you ask about my wish, honey?”

“After we blew out the candles, I thought maybe we should’ve wished for the same thing. You know, maybe it would make it come true if we both wished for it.”

“I know what you wished for, honey. I know.” Her eyes sparkled as easy as the stars. Before I could think, I reached over and held her hand. The rings were cool to the touch, but the skin was as delicate as her dress. There was nothing to gain or any games to be played that night. Aunty Gina was just one more person I could add to Nana’s list of people who loved me.

Twenty-three

E
sther was the one who told me that company was coming for dinner. It happened on a hot Saturday morning while we pulled weeds from the garden. Tufts of hair tangled with sweat and were pasted against her forehead. “Mrs. Strickland’s planning for company tonight. Cut off some squash on your end. She told Judge Jackson my squash casserole is even better than the one in that Junior League cookbook.”

The comment was offered in her usual no-nonsense tone, but the very name caused me to stop digging.

That night I greeted Judge Jackson with a firm handshake and solid eye contact that would’ve made Miss Helda proud. While a Lawrence Welk album played on the library stereo, Esther served drinks. The dining-room table was set with roses and the big candleholders that Esther had polished special for his visit sparkled even brighter than usual. Nervous energy and Aunty Gina’s perfume tangled the air.

After I gulped down supper in the kitchen, I stopped by the library.

“Good night, Aunty Gina.” I kissed her the way I had the night of her birthday, but my eyes were on the judge.

“Good night, honey. Sleep tight.”

She didn’t even have to remind me to stop by his chair and stretch out my hand. “Good night, sir.”

Slow Way Home

257

As I walked up the stairs, I stomped extra loud. Halfway to the top I turned and ran down to the cellar. The swinging lightbulb cast shadows across the letters lined up on the table, and strains from Lawrence Welk’s orchestra hummed like a nest of wasps. Under the air-conditioning vent, their words sounded as if I was hearing them on an out-of-range AM radio station.

“May I freshen your drink before we go into the dining room?”

The judge coughed extra loud and then cleared his throat. “One more please.”

When they moved into the dining room, I drug the stepladder over to the opposite side of the room. A spider’s web and clumps of dust dangled from the corner of the ceiling. When Aunty Gina reported that Bobby and Sissy on
The Lawrence Welk Show
were really married, I almost gave up straining to hear. Besides, Esther was the one who had told her that anyway.

“I don’t get the opportunity to look at much television. With this session I don’t see how you make the time.”

“Oh, gracious, I don’t. I just have two TV bugs in my house.

Brandon keeps it going round the clock.”

“You’re coaching him to be a charming young man.”

A fork dropped on the table, and the sound drowned the judge’s words.

“Well, speaking of Brandon, have you had a chance to look at his grandparents’ case?” Aunty Gina asked.

“You know we’ve talked . . .”

“Blah, blah, blah. That’s all we’ve done. Now, did you read those case notes?”

A silence followed that made me curl my toes and desire a bathroom.

“Gina, let’s skip shoptalk tonight.”

“Did you, Jackson?”

“Now, Gina. What you’re asking me to do breaches on unethical.

I mean, reducing a sentence for people who crossed state lines with a child . . .”

“Honey, that child you’re talking about was their grandson. They saw fleeing as their only way to protect him.”

258

m i c h a e l m o r r i s

“I just don’t know . . . You know usually I’d help any way I can.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“But this is a murky situation. Murky at best. A custody battle between grandparents and a mother. At the time there was no just cause why she shouldn’t have had him.”