Under the Skin (13 page)

I knew what he meant. I’d seen him bristle under Gloria’s annoying, though well-meant, interference and had seen him bite his lip more than once as his mother began to question Amanda about her sudden decision to abandon a lucrative career in modeling for life on the farm.
“Really, Amanda, back home everyone’s wondering … I heard you had an eating disorder and your doctor absolutely forbade …”

Amanda, with far more forbearance than I could ever have shown, had maintained a cool and unruffled calm through the interrogation, laying an admonitory hand on Ben’s when he looked as if he might explode as his
mother asked yet another prying question.
“Was it the kind where you don’t eat or was it the other one—where you eat a lot and then make yourself throw up?”

That beautiful long-fingered hand and a sideways glance had been all it took to remind Ben that Amanda was perfectly capable of fighting her own battles. But he had pleaded too much work on almost every occasion I’d asked the two of them to dinner and consequently Gloria had seen very little of her only child.

Suddenly I felt sorry for my little sister.

And found myself doing the southern lady thing as the silence in the Jeep began to seem oppressive.

“You know, Glory, I’m really glad you liked Miss Birdie. I wasn’t sure you two would find much to talk about but—what
did
you talk about anyway? She and I usually stick to beans and gardens and quilts—all the old-timey stuff, I guess. We—”

“She told me about her angels.” There was a strange, eager excitement in Glory’s voice as she continued. “You know, all those babies that died before the last one finally lived? She told me how she talks to them, up in the graveyard … all her lost babies …”

Her voice cracked and she turned away. As soon as I pulled to a stop in the shade of the pear tree, her door was open before I’d turned off the ignition.

“I’ll grab a quick shower before lunch, Lizzy.”

And she was gone, power walking her way up the path, leaving me dangling somewhere between confusion and jealousy.
Jealousy is so unattractive. What’s the bloody matter with me anyway?

I took a deep breath and got out of the car to follow her. It occurred to me to wonder if the Hummer had made it up this far before turning around but the gravel of the driveway held no clues. A powerful vehicle like the Hummer could creep slowly up the steep road, without any telltale spinning and gravel-spraying.

And if it really was this Eyebrow fellow, wouldn’t he have waited and confronted Gloria? What would be the point …?

There were too many unknowns in this problem.
If it is a problem and not just more of Glory’s histrionics. She really didn’t seem that worried, once I told her Ben had seen the Hummer leave. I thought for sure she’d be wanting me to call Phillip and get the sheriff involved. Have him put out an APB or something
.

Remembering that I needed to fix lunch, I abandoned my scrutiny of the uncommunicative driveway and headed for the porch. As I drew near, I could see Ursa and Molly wagging a welcome at the top of the steps but there was no sign of James.
Probably followed his new love into her room
, I thought, dropping into a rocking chair to give my faithful girls a little attention.

Did Glory get that right, I wondered, about Birdie talking to her dead babies? Miss Birdie’d never told
me
she did anything like that. Of course I knew about the children she’d lost—had even gone to the cemetery with her on numerous Decoration Days and left a flower on each tiny grave.

So common, those little graves—back when the mountain women mostly gave birth at home with nothing in the way of prenatal care and not much money to pay a doctor should a child fall ill.

Molly nosed at my hand, inviting me to scratch behind her long ears. As I did, first automatically checking for ear mites, the thought came to me:
My dogs have probably gotten far more medical attention than the mountain people of Birdie’s youth—more and better too
.

What was the disease that Birdie had told me accounted for so many of those sad little graves in the family cemeteries at most mountain farms? Some form of diarrhea or infant dysentery …

Oncet hit takes a hold
, she had said,
every drop of milk just runs right through them. That’s what took my first, my Britty Birdsong. Aye law, the summer complaint, hit was a cruel hard thing—

Oh, yes, Miss Birdie had told me about her lost babies … and yes, she’d called them her angels. But talking to them up in the graveyard? Glory must have misunderstood—she hadn’t been here long enough to get the hang of the accent. Talking to dead babies didn’t sound like the Birdie I knew.

I was putting the salads on the table—my first plan had been pimento cheese sandwiches but the memory of Gloria’s comments about weight control and her meaningful glance at my hips had won out—when she reappeared, freshly bathed and shampooed, and wearing a sleeveless caftan sort of thing in a delicate pale coral. Embellished with intricate silver-threaded embroidery at the neckline, it was pretty enough to be an evening gown but evidently my sister saw it as loungewear.

Lunch was a somewhat silent ordeal. Gloria picked at her salad, still in an unnaturally quiet mood. At first I resisted making small talk but, finally, the stillness began to feel oppressive again and I tossed a conversational ball into the air.

“What was that you were telling me about a weekend workshop in Hot Springs? Is it something you’re planning on going to?”

That didn’t come out well. It sounds as if I’m trying to get rid of her
.

But she perked right up at the question. Abandoning the pretense of eating, she planted her elbows on the table and began to sing the praises of someone called Giles of Glastonbury.

“Nigel, you know, the one who did my hair, says that Giles is the most amazing medium—Nigel attended one
of his readings years ago, right after his mother died, and he was able to talk to her through Giles and find out all sorts of things he needed to know about her estate. I mean, there was
real
communication—she told him where she’d hidden some important papers and she warned him about his then-boyfriend who was stealing from him and
anyhoo
—I was telling Nigel how I sometimes wished that I could just call up Harry and talk to him about my problems—he was so wise and patient and fatherly—at times I think he’s the only one of my husbands I ever really loved …”

Harry—otherwise Harold Holst—had indeed been old enough to be Gloria’s father. Since our own father had decamped, never to be seen again, when Gloria was only four, it was perhaps not so strange that she would have been attracted to this kind older man … And then, of course, there was the money.

Stop it, Elizabeth, and listen to what she’s saying
.

“… of course Harry tied things up very nicely, I’m sure, but sometimes his children …”

Oh, yes. Those grown children of Holst and his late wife. They hadn’t been a bit pleased when Poppa, as they all called him, had married a young wife, capable of bearing any number of half brothers and sisters to share in Poppa’s bounty. But, as it happened, that
hadn’t
happened—though I know it wasn’t for lack of trying, as Gloria had made clear.

I wondered what the terms of the will had been—I remembered Gloria saying that there had been some dispute but she was obviously exceedingly well off.

“… and I do miss him so much. If I could just have one little talk with him and ask him what to do about Jerry. You know, Harry was always so marvelous at giving advice. He made me feel safe … and he understood me …”

Gloria’s turquoise-blue eyes were just at the edge of
tears and once again I found myself pitying my poor little rich girl sister. Two times in one hour had to be a first. I reached for her hand but could manage only an awkward pat. “I’m sorry, Glory. I wish there was something I could—”

The turquoise-blue eyes steadied on me. “As a matter of fact, Lizzy, there
is
something …”

“Hey, Mum, it was brilliant up there! You and Aunt Gloria should have come too.”

I looked up from the pile of unfolded laundry on the bed to see Laurel, her stubby braids adorned with wilting daisies, grinning at me from the bedroom door. My mind had been so busy with trying to figure out how to get out of the promise I’d just made my sister that I hadn’t heard Laurel return.

“Hey, Laur—Glory wanted to walk on the hard road—we only went as far as Miss Birdie’s. But listen, when you were at the top, did you happen to see a big black SUV come up our road?”

Laurel dropped her knapsack. “Nope, I couldn’t see the road. I was down at the northern end of the fence line.” She came and stood by me and began pulling the dish towels from the pile of laundry and folding them neatly.

“By the way, Mum, the fence at that end needs some work. Some of the barbed wire is lying on the ground. I hunted around till I located the staples that had popped out and banged them back in with a rock but the repair job is seriously sketchy. One of the guys probably ought to go up with fence tools and fix it before a cow leans on it again.”

She flapped a blue plaid linen dish towel to shake out some of the wrinkles. “What black SUV are you talking about? Were you expecting someone?”

I gave her the brief version of the mysterious Hummer
and Gloria’s insistence that it was one of her husband’s friends looking for her. Even before I’d come to the end of my tale, Laurel was shaking her head.

“What do you want to bet it was some lost sightseer? Or Witnesses with
Watchtowers
? A stalker? Boy, Aunt Glory’s something else—”

Laurel clapped her hand over her mouth and looked toward the doorway. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Oops! Where is she anyway?”

“On the front porch, making some phone calls,” I said. “Making reservations.”

I smoothed out a stiff and scratchy sun-dried towel and began to fold it, not trusting myself to go on in an adult fashion. I like to think that my daughters and I have no secrets from each other but though I like to think it, I know it isn’t so. There is much I don’t know about their love lives; sometimes I’ve learned of a new man only after he’s been discarded—or done the discarding. I only know what I’m told and I try really hard not to ask.

By the same token, I don’t tell the girls everything. I try to present a façade that is strong and serene, above such petty emotions as curiosity … jealousy … annoyance …

Right
.

“Reservations? Like for dinner somewhere?” Laurel plucked the napkins one by one from the heap of clothes and linens. “You don’t iron these everyday ones, do you?”

“Not those. Just folding them will be fine. No, the reservations are for a weekend workshop in Hot Springs—a
psychic
workshop with someone called Giles of Glastonbury.”

Laurel’s lips quirked. My skeptical take on such things is well known to my family and friends. I don’t
insist that
all
such stuff is made-up baloney. In fact, I’ve had a couple of very strange experiences that I can’t really explain—yet another part of my life I don’t talk about. But I do believe that at least some of the New Age gurus infesting the Asheville area are little more than scam artists.

“I know, Mum—don’t get you started. But at least it’ll give you a break from Aunt Gloria for a few days.”

“Not really.” I was struggling to fold a fitted sheet—an origami-like skill that has always eluded me. “She wants me to go with her.”

“… late again … all night … later …”

The message on the voice mail had been left while I was down closing up the chickens and Gloria was on the porch in the midst of another interminable phone call. The words had been garbled—wherever Phillip had called from, the reception was poor. Not unusual, in this county of mountains and valleys and deep, dark hidden coves. Not surprising either, since these hidden coves are exactly the sorts of places the sheriff and his men often find themselves—called to break up family disputes, surveilling (is that a word?) suspected marijuana patches or the far worse meth labs.

I looked at the lemon pound cake waiting on the counter and the remains of supper drying out on top of the stove. The long and erratic hours a cop had to keep, Phillip had once warned, invariably put a strain on his relationships.

Invariably
.

Was this what I wanted?

Suddenly the idea of a weekend in Hot Springs at the elegant Mountain Magnolia Inn seemed appealing. Gloria could commune with her late husband and I … well, I could spend some time thinking about this
wedded state I was about to enter—and about Phillip Hawkins.

I scraped the unappetizing remains of the dinner into the chicken bucket and went in search of the letter from Aunt Dodie. This time I would read it and pay attention.

The shriek was part of the dream I was having—Aunt Dodie’s response to my telling her I
had
to get married. But the persistent knocking, followed instantly by a hand on my shoulder shaking me awake, had no part of my dream chat with Dodie.

“Lizzy! He was
there
! Right in my bedroom! For god’s sake, where’s
Phillip
?”

Thursday, May 17

G
loria stood gibbering beside the bed as I pulled myself into consciousness—only to realize that Phillip still wasn’t home, though the luminescent dial on the clock at the bedside proclaimed the hour to be 4:23.

It was mid-morning when he finally showed up, obviously exhausted after an all-night stakeout of a suspected meth lab, culminating in the arrest of four suspects and an abortive chase up a wooded mountain slope after three more. Phillip was filthy, smelly, and uncommunicative, saying no, he didn’t need any breakfast—just a long hot shower and some sleep.

And Gloria was freaking out, insisting that he listen to her story of the man she called the Eyebrow and the thing she’d found under her pillow. Grabbing Phillip’s arm, she positioned herself in front of him to prevent an escape and began to pour out her story.