Sweetwater Creek (10 page)

“We’re redoing the kitchen,” Walter said. “Be done by the time you move in.”

“Lulu,” her mother began.

“I want it,” Lulu said. Her voice was clearer and stronger than Emily had heard it. “It’s exactly what I imagined, and what I need, and I really, really want it.”

She and her mother stared at each other for a moment, and then Maybelle lifted her hands and let them fall and smiled ruefully at Walter.

“Then we’ll take it, and with thanks. I have some things that will soften it up a bit—a little French bed and a sofa and armchair and lots of pillows. And a wonderful Mexican rug. It could be quite charming.”

“I don’t want it charming,” Lulu said almost under her breath. “I want it…” Emily could not really hear the rest, but she could have sworn that Lulu said “penitential.”

“Maybe she’s getting ready to go into a monastery, and is practicing on us,” she thought meanly. “I hope it’s one where they can’t speak.”

When they came out into the punishing noon sun, Lulu said, “I wonder if I might use someone’s bathroom? I’d like to freshen up a little.”

“Of course,” Walter said. “Mrs. Foxworth?”

“I’m fine, thank you,” Maybelle said distantly.

“Pouting,” Emily thought. “I’ll bet this is maybe the third time in her life she didn’t get her way.”

“Emily, take Miss Foxworth up to your bathroom. I don’t think Cleta’s gotten to the others yet,” her father said. Emily knew that indeed Cleta hadn’t, and that her father’s and the boys’ bathrooms looked like swampy gymnasium stalls.

“I’ll show you,” she said, and went into the house, with Lulu behind her. Inside it was very dark and silent. Neither said a word until they reached the door of Emily’s room. Then she said, “It’s through there, to the left. I’ll wait for you here.”

She sat down on a tattered brocade bench.

“Thank you,” Lulu said, and went into Emily’s room and closed the door. In a moment, Emily heard Lulu talking aloud, in the same soft croon she had used with the dogs the weekend before. Emily’s heart flopped in her chest like a gaffed fish. Elvis. She had completely forgotten that Elvis was shut up in her room. Apparently her father had forgotten, too. She opened the bedroom door and went in.

Lulu Foxworth was kneeling beside Elvis, who was leaning into her and licking her face. Emily felt anger at both of them rise in her throat like bile.

“He’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” Lulu breathed, turning to look up at Emily. “Tell me about him. What’s his name?”

“His name is Elvis,” Emily said sullenly. “He’s my own personal dog. He usually stays with me. I forgot he was up here.”

“I’d love to see him go through his paces,” Lulu said. “If he’s as good as he is beautiful, my father would move mountains to see him.”

“He…he doesn’t hunt,” Emily said desperately. “He knows how; he’s wonderful, but right at the last minute he just…won’t. We don’t know why. My father doesn’t like me to let people see him.”

“Then I won’t tell,” Lulu said, and gave Elvis another hug, and leaned over and whispered in his ear, loudly enough for Emily to hear. “I bet I know exactly why you won’t hunt,” she said. “I bet it’s because you just plain don’t want to.”

Elvis licked her face again, and Emily sat down on her bed to wait. Presently Lulu came out of the bathroom, freshly scrubbed, and gave Elvis a kiss on the dome of his satiny head. His curly behind wriggled with pleasure. Jealousy chewed Emily’s heart like a rat. She shut the door sharply and went back down the stairs, Lulu following her.

From behind, she heard Elvis whine. She could not remember him ever doing that when she left him. And deep into the night, she woke and heard the clicking of his nails on the cypress floor, pacing, pacing.

THE THIRD WEEKEND
in June, the Foxworths came to move Lulu in. There had been comings and goings all week, miscellaneous black men with trucks, unloading massive, shrouded burdens that might have been furniture or anything at all; Maybelle Foxworth herself, carrying up bolts of fabric and rolled rugs; once an unfamiliar electrician’s truck, from which the unfamiliar electrician produced a window air-conditioning unit and wrestled it, cursing, up the stairs.

“Thought she said she didn’t want any of that stuff,” Emily muttered to her aunt, whenever a new load of provender came.

“I imagine it would be hard to argue with Maybelle Foxworth,” Jenny said.

Lulu herself did not come, not until the final day.

“Sleeping,” her mother said, shaking her head at the foibles of debutante daughters. “I never saw anybody sleep so much. Oh, well, she really has had a bad flu, and this last quarter at college almost finished her. I told her, I said, ‘Sweetie pie, what’s so important that you can’t drop it until another quarter? What’s more important than your health?’ Half the time she was off campus in this meeting or that; she’s Randolph Macon’s representative to I don’t know how many intercollegiate things. I finally had to write her a blanket permission to leave campus. I guess she’s catching up.”

The morning of the final diaspora was so hot and humid that the sky was flat and white with heat, and the river was oily and sluggish and black. Sullen, undulating heat distorted the distant hummocks and the woods; everything living on the marshes seemed stilled by it. The cordgrass did not ripple as it usually did, a running fan of gold-green; the Spanish moss on the great live oaks did not wave softly; none of the river’s denizens were out and about. There were no plops, splashes, rustlings, trills, hummings, shrill chants from the cicadas, fizzing pops of shrimp in the shrimp holes. The river itself, at dead low tide, hardly seemed to move, and smelled powerfully of pluff mud. The little slappings it made against the dock pilings had subsided to a sullen wallowing.

Animals and humans were stunned. There was no yipping and scrabbling from the dog runs, as there almost always was, and the Parmenter family, assembled on the front drive to receive the Foxworths, mopped at necks and foreheads and did not speak. Even Walt Junior and Carter, preening and strutting in low-riding cutoffs and torn sleeveless T-shirts that read F
OLLY

I
SA
B
ITCHIN
’ B
EACH
—apparently the courting image of choice in their set—stopped their muttered innuendos and simply stood there, dumb with heat. Their powerfully developed biceps and chests gleamed. At first Emily thought they had oiled themselves like muscle builders in a contest, but now she wasn’t sure if it was oil or sweat. Only her father, crisp in blue oxford cloth and pressed khaki twill, seemed untainted by the corrupting heat. His keen blue eyes were alert, fastened on the end of the driveway, where the caravansary would emerge from the woods.

They heard it first, the rumbling, grinding, crunching of many vehicles, and then it appeared, and the Parmenters simply stared. The line of SUVs, all-terrain vehicles, trucks, trailers, and conventional vehicles seemingly stretched out of sight. Rhett Foxworth came first, in the Land Rover, Lulu hunched down in the passenger seat. Maybelle Foxworth followed in, of all things, a cherry red BMW convertible. She was smiling and waving like a car advertisement, her flawless hair shining silver in the sun. Emily wondered why she had not had a heatstroke, if she’d driven far in a topless car. Walt and Carter resumed their whispering.

“Gon’ need a chauffeur for that baby,” one of them said. “Flip you,” the other replied. Her father glared at them, and they fell silent.

Behind the first two cars, a shining green pickup with M
AYBUD
P
LANTATION
emblazoned on its gleaming side carried a spanking-new upright refrigerator, and the huge ATV trailer behind it, that usually carried hunting dogs, now bore standing lamps, a tall, scrolled mirror, towering green plants, and a large television set. Smaller vehicles behind them were freighted with boxes labeled books, china, microwave, sound system, computer.

Staring foolishly, Emily could not get camels and elephants out of her mind. She furrowed her brow, trying to think why, and from his place inside her Buddy whispered,
“The Jewel in the Crown.
Remember? We saw a rerun of it? The big raj processions, with elephants and camels….”

Entirely without realizing that she did it, Emily laughed aloud. Her father shot her a withering look, but behind her eyes were only dreams of elephants and camels.

The black men who filed in and out of the upstairs apartment all wore forest green shirts and pants embroidered with capital M’s on the pockets, and might have been picked for their uniformity of physical grandeur as well as their prowess as workers. They were absolutely silent, and when the last shrouded object had been taken upstairs, Lulu got out of the Land Rover where she had been napping and thanked them all softly, and by name.

“Miss Lulu,” they responded, nodding their heads. One of them, older than the rest and grizzled gray around his sideburns, bent over and whispered something in her ear, and she hugged him fiercely.

“I’ll see you before long, Leland,” she said.

“You come on back home soon’s you can,” he said.

The line of vehicles filed away down the drive, empty.

Maybelle Foxworth came out of the barn and tripped toward them, smiling.

“You wouldn’t believe your little apartment,” she said to Walter. “It dressed up a lot better than I thought it would. If I were a single girl like Lulu I wouldn’t at all mind living in it. If it was a bit closer to town, I mean. We plantation people,” and she beamed at Walter, “have gotten used to living in the boondocks. But I think young girls need a bit more life around them. Well, anyway, you all come up and see it when we get it all straightened up. About another hour, I think. Lulu, aren’t you the least bit curious? The air conditioner’s going strong and it’s cool as a cucumber up there. I need you to tell me where to put the last few things.”

Lulu nodded her head to the Parmenters and followed her mother back into the barn and up the stairs. Emily strained to hear, but she did not think that a word passed between mother and daughter.

Rhett Foxworth had long since gone back to Maybud, pleading an appointment with a representative of the forestry service, to talk about the longleaf pines that were Maybud’s cash crop.

“I expect you know how it is, Parmenter,” he said, shaking Walter’s hand. “If it ain’t one thing, it’s another.”

The Parmenters sat in the shade of the front piazza for a while, drinking iced tea from sweating glasses that Cleta kept refilled. Of them all, Cleta seemed the only one not curious about Lulu and her family.

“What do you think of her?” Emily had asked her, after the Foxworths’ first visit.

“She a pretty thing,” Cleta said. “Got real pretty eyes and hair. But she too thin and way too jumpy. Like to jump out of her skin if you speaks to her. There’s somethin’ wrong with that child. Beyond bein’ sick and tired, I mean. It ain’t normal, a pretty rich girl like her hidin’ out here all summer.”

She would say no more, despite Emily’s attempts to engage her in chat about Lulu Foxworth.

Maybelle Foxworth came back down the stairs out into the corroding sunlight, fanning herself. Lulu was behind her. Despite the smothering heat, Lulu looked so dry as to be almost desiccated. There were even little dry lines around her astonishing eyes. Emily was annoyed that it did not mar her spectacular good looks. Even without makeup, even with the gilt hair down her back in a single pigtail, even with red rimming her eyes and a sprinkling of freckles visible across her nose and cheekbones, she still caught the eye like wildfire. Her white shorts and T-shirt were bone-dry, and her long, muscular legs were a silky matte tan, not glistening with sweat like everyone else’s.

“Maybe she’ll be okay up there in that air-conditioned little apartment of hers, but I’d like to see how long she lasts in the dog ring,” Emily thought with sullen satisfaction.

“No, I can’t stay,” Maybelle trilled to Walter, who was offering iced tea and benné seed cookies. “Lulu says she needs a long nap and will shoot me if I hover over her, and I’m late for a bridge game. She’d love to show off her apartment later this afternoon; she promised me.” She slewed her eyes around at Lulu, who nodded and smiled. It was like a smile drawn by a child in spilled flour.

Maybelle Foxworth hugged her daughter fiercely and said, “You call us tonight, remember? And you know you can come home whenever you want to.”

“I’m fine, Mama,” Lulu said in her soft, slightly dark voice. “Thanks so much for everything you’ve done. Tell Daddy, too.”

And she smiled again all around, murmured “Excuse me,” and vanished into the darkness of the barn stairwell. Her mother stood looking after her, a frown knitting her pale brows.

“You all look after her for me,” she said, this time to Jenny. “She’s not as grown-up as she thinks she is.”

“Of course we will,” Jenny said. “It will be a pleasure.”

Maybelle Foxworth got into the little red BMW and purred away into the heat haze. The Parmenters all looked at each other. It was three o’clock Saturday, June sixteenth, and the world was entirely still.

Lulu did not, after all, appear in the late afternoon with an invitation to view her domain. But she did come to the front door and knock softly on the screen, and when Emily answered it, said politely, “I hope you’ll forgive me for not giving you the grand tour just yet. I have some phone calls to make, and I want to edit things a little before you see it. Mama gets…overenthusiastic sometimes.”

By that time Walter and Jenny had appeared at the door.

“I can’t wait to see what it looks like,” Jenny said, smiling.

“Right now,” Lulu said, “it looks like a New Orleans cathouse.”

Emily and her aunt laughed aloud; how could you not? Walter Parmenter frowned at them and once more invited Lulu to share their dinner. Emily stared at him. Where did “dinner” come from? Supper was what they had at six o’clock.

“You’re very kind, but I’m going to make myself an omelette and go to bed and read. You don’t know what a luxury that is. Just try doing it in my mother’s house.”

When she left to go back to the barn in the failing light, Elvis whined and looked up at Emily.

“Stay,” she said, more sharply than she intended. He sat, staring up at her with soft hurt in his golden eyes. She leaned down and hugged him.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I promise not to take it out on you.”

Elvis had been given a reprieve from Walter insofar as Lulu was concerned, as she had already seen him in Emily’s bathroom, and had given Emily her promise not to tell her father about him. So he had yard privileges. But he was still under house arrest when anyone else connected with the dogs visited.

Emily agreed. It was better than nothing.

When she and her father went out to the kennels and runs at eight o’clock the next morning to feed the dogs and puppies, Lulu was already there, sitting on a sack of Eukanuba puppy chow with an armful of Daisy’s puppies. They were squirming and wagging their stumpy tails and licking her face, and she was smiling as blissfully as if she had had a vision of heaven. Her eyes were closed, and her face shone with soap and puppy spit. In the early-morning light she glowed golden, like a well-rubbed amulet, and a faint curl of English lavender soap hung about her. Even in frayed cutoffs and hollow of eye and cheek, she was just as beautiful as ever, and Emily wondered sourly what it would take to diminish that impact. She wondered, also, how it would feel to know that you were so wonderful-looking that you could just forget about it. Emily thought little about her own looks, but it was not because she knew she was beautiful. As long as her looks were out of her mind, her steady ripening did not frighten her.

“I hope I’m not doing anything wrong,” Lulu said to Walter when he and Emily arrived. “I just couldn’t resist.”

“No,” he said, beaming. “Actually, small puppies like these need to get used to people early. It socializes them. Play with them whenever you want to. It will give poor old Daisy a rest.”

Emily simply looked at her father. He had never allowed the puppies who were to be trained to the gun to enter the house. It spoiled and confused them, he said. Instead of responding to just one person, as a good hunting dog should, they’d learn to respond to everybody—disastrous for a flushing spaniel.

He looked down at Emily and reddened slightly.

“I just finished that book by the monks of New Skete, that everybody says is so great,” he said. “They train some of the best dogs in the world, and they’ve convinced me that a lot of contact is probably a good thing after all. I was going to suggest to you, Emily, and to the boys and Rouse if he ever turns up again, that you should all spend as much spare time as you’ve got just being with the very young ones. Pet them, groom them, play with them. They need to get used to being indoors, too. I can’t have them all over the big house, but I’m thinking about making a sort of living room out of that big empty storage room in the barn. Sofas and rugs and lamps, a radio, stuff like that. Maybe a Mr. Coffee and an ice maker for you all. The pups could learn a lot about what not to do in there, like chewing electric cords and, ah, urinating on the rug. It would be a good early start to housebreaking. Maybe all of you could take turns spending an hour or so with them there after work.”

“Oh,” breathed Lulu Foxworth, “let me do that. The rest of you have other chores, I know, and I would
love
to have the puppies for a little while every day.”

“We’ll give it a try; see how it works out,” Walter said. “Meanwhile, you could take one or two at a time up to your place, if you’d like to. Only I’d hate to think of what those little teeth could do to all your pretty things.”

“I wouldn’t,” Lulu said.

Even on that first morning, Lulu proved to be a natural with the dogs. Emily was working with four ten-week-old puppies from Ginger, who was a sweet-tempered and patient mother, and whose puppies Emily had never had trouble communing with. She knew she would not tell Lulu Foxworth that most of the time she could just think with the dogs; Lulu would think her totally insane. She had decided she would show Lulu the conventional way that Sweetwater started their pups off, and see if she caught on. After thirty minutes, it was clear that she did. Emily had begun teaching Bandit, a big, happy male puppy, to sit by pushing his behind down gently and saying firmly, “Hup.” Her father had once told her that it was the traditional spaniel sit command, but she had never had to use it. Also, she raised her right hand, so the puppy could get used to visual signals that would serve him well in advanced training. Lulu watched her every move.