Stardust A Novel (5 page)
I slammed the car door and marched to the office. Cupped my hands and put my nose to the glass. Other than a dusty, stale look, the Stardust looked ready for business. Papers stacked neatly beside an adding machine. A coffee cup still on the counter. Brochures tucked in a wall rack, and on the far wall, cottage keys dangled from a board with numbers above the cup hooks. I jiggled the knob and found it, not surprisingly, locked. When I stepped back, the sagging wooden step creaked uncertainly. I studied the outside. The stucco could use a coat of whitewash, and some new shutters would work wonders.
It bothered me that there was no sign saying
Back after lunch
or
Gone Fishing
. It looked as if the Stardust had simply been abandoned. I had turned to go when I caught a movement of something or someone between two of the cottages. A blur of tan—a deer that had perhaps come to munch on the knee-high weeds. Curious, I crunched my way on the gravel path that led to the sidewalk connecting the cottages like a piece of seam binding. Up close they didn’t look as worn and tired as I’d thought that day in the car. Some of the window boxes were missing, the remaining ones filled with weeds.
I slipped between the cottages where I’d seen the blur and jumped like a kangaroo rat when I nearly bumped into a child.
Taller than Rosey, with fuzzy black braids poking out in a dozen directions, the girl’s eyes were as round as jawbreakers, the whites of her eyes so white they had a blue tinge, and in the center, they were inky black and staring at me like I was a swamp ghost.
“Oh, goodness. Looks like we ’bout scared each other plumb spitless.” I smiled and extended my hand. “I’m Georgia. And who might you be?”
Course I knew she must’ve come up to the Stardust from Zion. The girl, eight or nine, I reckoned, said nothing, just bugged her eyes at me like she was frozen to the spot.
“Say now, you don’t have to be afraid.”
The eyes narrowed slightly as the girl bowed her head, studying pink palms, but not shying away from me. Then, as if her palms had given her the answer, she looked up and said, “My name is Merciful. And I ain’t afraid.”
“Merciful. What a beautiful name. Can you tell me where you live?”
Her head tilted toward Zion. “Yonder. In the trees.” Then her face broke into a wide grin, her two front teeth on the top missing. A giggle started in her belly and shook her pudgy arms and body. “Not
in
the trees. In a house with Maw and Paw and my stinkbug brother. His name’s Catfish, case you’s wondering.”
“Now that you mention it, maybe I was. So what brings you over to the tourist court today, Miss Merciful?”
Another giggle. “Y’ain’t supposed to call me Miss. That’s what we’s supposed to call y’all white folk. Hey, you aimin’ to be the new man here?”
“What do you mean? I’m a lady, for one thing, not a man.”
“You know, the one who goin’ to be running the place. The man. Your man. Like the other one and his lady that was here.”
“Well, the ones who were here before seem to be gone right now, but I would guess they’re coming back. You seem to know a lot more than I do. Care to tell me why it interests you?”
“No reason.” For the first time, the wide-eyed child looked away, down at the grass.
“You surely don’t mean that. Why else would you be leaving your maw and paw and coming up here?” The truth was, Merciful was quite an engaging child, and she was probably breaking every rule forty ways to sundown for even talking to a stranger, a white woman at that.
“Paw’s gone on the lumber trailer with the others, and today is Maw’s turn to take care of Mamey. She don’t know I left.” Then, as though the fact dawned on her for the first time, she backed away, looking toward the trees.
“It’s all right. Your secret’s safe with me. You come here often?”
“No, ma’am. Not no more. Maw says ain’t no use crying over spilt milk. The good Lord will provide.” She studied her bare feet. Wide. Flat. And even though she was a mere child, they looked as tough as alligator skin.
Had the child ever owned a pair of shoes? Understanding crept upon me, a dim candle of knowing that warmed my face. The man—Paddy, I guessed—must’ve employed Merciful’s momma to help clean the cottages. Sally, like every distinguished woman in Mayhaw, had a colored girl two days a week. Tansy. Or was it Fancy? A pleasant woman who busied herself with the dust mop and linseed oil.
Aunt Cora hadn’t held to the tradition of hiring someone, burdened as she’d always been with raising a child on her paltry fortune, but I’d always had an unnatural curiosity about the folks who came in from Zion on colored day at the Mercantile. I would sneak downtown on my bicycle, pretending to be on an errand, and watch as they paraded into town, their mahogany faces glistening in the summer heat. Their voices, rich and peppered with laughter, filled my heart. Once I left my bicycle in the bushes and shimmied up close, walking along like I was one of them. I offered a pigtailed girl about my age a lemon drop and laughed along with her. By the time I got home, Aunt Cora had already caught wind of my escapade. She whipped the living daylights out of me with Grandma Tickle’s wooden spoon.
The child before me stared at her feet, the dress she wore at least two sizes too big, the print of it faded to practically nothing. Such a respectful girl. Polite. Well-spoken. And whether she was aware or not… captivating.
“Merciful, did your momma used to work here?”
Her head shot up. “Yes, ma’am. And she let me help her collect the bedclothes and take them to the wash room. Over there.” She pointed to a small building behind the office I’d not noticed before. “Ever’ day, we came and did what the man asked. And on Saturday, he gave Maw her money and he’d give me a penny to put in the gumball machine.”
“I bet you liked that.”
Her wide, gap-toothed grin told me she did.
“I think I have a pack of gum in my car. You want a stick?”
Pigtails slapped all around her head when she shook it. “Cain’t be seen on t’other side of the cottages. Maw would take a willow switch to me lickety-split if she was to hear of me talking to you.”
“It’s all right. I won’t tell. And tell your momma I’m sure someone will be needing her help very soon. I’ll be talking to the good Lord, too. Betcha it won’t be long until the Stardust is back in business.”
She nodded, the spark back in her eyes. I extended my hand and took her small, rough one in mine. “Happy to meet you, Merciful. You run on home now before your momma starts to worry.”
M
erciful turned and ran toward Zion, her feet slapping the ground with a happy sound. She was just a speck on the horizon when she slipped into the trees, the pine branches swallowing her in an instant. My heart went out to her, but if what she said was true, Doreen and Paddy had shut the place up. Disappeared, it seemed, although I was sure there was an explanation. Still, it left a hollow spot in me, too, and I regretted not keeping up with their lives. I turned and started toward my car, then stopped when I saw Sonny Bolander pull up and hang his head out the window.
“Georgia, what the devil are you doing out here?”
I breezed up to him. “I could ask the same of you. But the truth is, I noticed all the weeds the day of O’Dell’s funeral, and I realized I hadn’t visited with Doreen and Paddy in a while. Any idea what’s going on?”
“Matter of fact, I came out this way to check on the place. Make sure nothin’s disturbed. The ol’ feller passed last night.”
“Paddy? He died?” My insides flipped, leaving me weak. I steadied myself with a hand on the sheriff’s car.
“Cancer got him. He put up quite a fight. I heard this morning the funeral’s Wednesday over to the Methodist church.”
“Oh, gracious. I had no idea. He was my great-uncle, you know.” And the
man,
according to Merciful in her tattered dress.
“Yes’m, reckon I forgot that. Been awhile since you been out here, then?”
“Too long. Aunt Cora used to have a fit when I sneaked over here as a child. Bad blood or something. Probably some long-forgotten feud like the Montagues and the Capulets.”
“I don’t know nothing about your Louisiana relations if that’s what you’re referring to, but I do know a thing or two about crossing your aunt Cora.”
Inwardly, I smiled. Sheriff Bolander knew his job inside and out, but he didn’t know Shakespeare from a poke in the eye. And part of his job was to know all the goings-on in Mayhaw, so I asked where I might find Doreen.
“They’ve been staying with her sister, Rue Ann Pitts. Over on Jefferson Street.”
I thanked him and waited until he drove off before heading back toward Sally’s to pick up Avril. Maybe the Stardust sign had beckoned me because Doreen needed my help. Being newly widowed, we certainly had plenty of grief to share, and helping her with the Stardust might be just the thing to keep me occupied until I sorted out my life.
Hazel Morton waved from her front porch where she was busy sweeping. I returned the wave and made a mental note to return her potato salad bowl—the one she brought to the house as part of the bereavement parade of food. While I was at it, I should bake an angel food cake for Doreen and her sister.
Two blocks from Main Street, I passed Dickie Mingo on his bicycle. He was eighty if he was a day and still peddling down to the Sweet Shoppe for a bacon and tomato sandwich every day at noon.
Noon already?
I had no idea I’d been gone so long.
I pressed on the foot feed and sped over to State Street to Sally’s home. She lived five houses down from Aunt Cora in a bright yellow plantation house—one that her in-laws’ oil money had preserved and kept in grand style. From the day her in-laws moved to Houston and left her and Hudson in charge of the house, Sally had slipped into being Mayhaw’s mistress of philanthropy as easy as pulling on a pair of kid gloves.
She met me at the front door and waved me back to the sunroom, where she’d fed lunch to Avril and Nelda Rae and set a place for the two of us.
“You must be parched. Want some mint tea? I was hoping you’d come along and try out this new chicken salad recipe I’m serving for the Magnolias next week.”
I took the tea from her. “You’re a lifesaver, and I’m glad to be the guinea pig for your garden club. Matter of fact, I’m starved.” Avril slipped onto my lap and lifted her ketchup-smeared face to mine.
“Miss Sally let me put ketchup on my cheese sandwich.”
“That was nice. Have you and Nelda Rae had a good time?”
“We watched
Howdy Doody
.”
“Cowabunga!” Nelda Rae shouted with a mouthful of applesauce, which dribbled down her chin.
Sally chided her. “Don’t talk with your mouth full. And if you girls are finished, run out and play. Remember, stay in the shade. Don’t want you catching any infantile paralysis, you hear?”
When the girls had gone, she settled into the wicker seat and raised her glass. “To summertime. Remember when our only concerns were catching crawdads and making our daily trip down to Marley’s for an ice-cream cone? Now, every time you turn a corner, there’s talk of a new case of polio.”
“It is the season. Vigilance, Aunt Cora says. But how can you be vigilant about something that comes out of nowhere?”
She shuddered. “They’re even showing those horrible clips at the movies. Kids on crutches. Spooky shadows that, I swan, have me looking over my shoulder and making the kids do the chin touch to see if their necks are still screwed on straight.” She bobbed her head forward, touching it to her chest, her hoop earrings dancing against her olive complexion as she demonstrated.
“It’s not like you to be such a worrier, Sally.”
“Hud’s cousin’s girl down in Houston just came down with it. No earthly idea where it came from. One minute they think she has influenza. The next her legs have gone spastic, her neck is stiff, and she’s lost her wits. It’s scaring the tar out of me. Let’s pray we don’t get an outbreak here.”
I raised my own glass. “Amen.” The summer disease. The crippler. There were worse things than losing a husband. It could be one of my own girls.
Sally shuddered. “What am I thinking? You’ve got the world on your shoulders, and I’m carrying on about something that, Lord willing, we’ll never see.” She flicked a black curl away from her face. “So, tell me, how is Mary Frances?”
For a moment I had to think back. It seemed like days had passed since I’d seen her, but as Sally waited, waving a carrot stick at me, I shrugged. “You know Mary Frances. She’ll be okay.”
Sally snorted. “We both know Mary Frances will never be okay. So you’ve been over there all morning?”
I nibbled a corner of the chicken salad sandwich. “Mmmm. This is delicious. What did you do different? Is that pineapple I’m tasting?”
“No, it’s not pineapple. Surely Mary Frances hasn’t held you captive all this time? Trust me, Georgia, you are going to have to break gently from her. It’s time for you both to move on.”
“It’s not as easy as you think. I feel I’m being pulled in too many directions at once. Mary Frances. The girls. And now Aunt Cora wants us to move in with her.”