SWNOVELS : Chapter 5
“Obstinate, eh? I’ll tame you,” Vidal said, and got up.
GEORGETTE HEYER, Devil’s Cub
Sugar Beth switched the grocery bags she was carrying from one hand to the other, but they were equally heavy, so the change didn’t do much good. As she headed down Jefferson Street toward Mockingbird Lane, she tried to relax her shoulders. The few staples she’d bought, along with a box of doggie treats and another six-pack of Coke, had seemed a lot lighter in the store.
Ignoring her parking tickets hadn’t made them go away, and that morning she’d been forced to pull out her arsenal of charm-weapons against the beefy young tow-truck driver who’d been assigned to haul away her Volvo. Afterward, she’d taken the precaution of moving her car to the Arby’s lot half a mile away. It would have been a nice walk if she hadn’t already made it twice today and if she weren’t hauling groceries. Conjuring up a few gruesome revenge scenarios against Colin Byrne helped distract her for a while, except she’d already been there and done that, which pretty much spoiled the fun.
Her luck hadn’t improved in the week since her disastrous visit to Winnie’s antique store. She couldn’t find either a job or the painting, and she had nothing left in her wallet but moths. At least she’d succeeded in tracking down the surviving members of Tallulah’s canasta club, but only Sissy Tooms said she’d actually seen the painting. Unfortunately, she’d also told Sugar Beth that she was on her way to Vegas to have dinner with Frank Sinatra.
Her cell rang in her purse. As she set down her grocery bags by the curb, she wondered how long it would be before they cut off her service.
“It’s me!” a soft voice chirped as Sugar Beth answered.
She smiled. “Hey, baby.”
“Me!” Delilah repeated, as if Sugar Beth wouldn’t recognize the voice of Emmett’s only child.
“How’s my best girl doing?”
“Good! We painted yesterday. And Meesie said I could call you today.”
Sugar Beth had forgotten it was Wednesday, the day she and Delilah usually talked. “How’s your cold? Any better?”
“I’m taking cough syrup at night. It’s helping. And I painted a picture for you.”
Sugar Beth turned her shoulders to the sharp edge of the wind and hooked her boot heel over the curb. Yesterday had been warm, but the chill had settled in again today, and her fake leather motorcycle jacket wasn’t up to the job. “What’s it look like?”
Delilah went on to describe a painting she’d done of the ocean, then talked about the new angelfish in the aquarium. When it was finally time for her to go, Delilah said what she always did.
“I love you, my Sugar Beth. And you love me, too, don’t you?”
Sugar Beth’s eyes stung. No matter what she had to do, she was going to protect this sweet, fragile creature. “I love you bushels and heaps.”
“I thought so.”
Sugar Beth smiled at her certainty.
As she slipped her cell back into her purse, the old anger at Emmett came back. How could he have been so careless about protecting Delilah’s future?
“I made financial provisions,” he’d said when they’d talked about it. “But when things started to go south, I had to borrow. I’ll never forgive myself.”
Sugar Beth remembered her first visit with Delilah at Brookdale, the exclusive private institution where she’d lived most of her adult life. They’d fallen in love with each other on sight. Delilah’s own mother had died a few years before Sugar Beth had met Emmett, and Delilah had desperately missed her. Much to Sugar Beth’s surprise, Delilah had transferred her affections to her new stepmother. Delilah was sweet, funny, and so very vulnerable—a fifty-one-year-old woman with an eleven-year-old’s mind. They both liked girly stuff—clothes and makeup, Friends reruns, Pixie Stix. Sugar Beth had read her most of the Judy Blume books, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, as well as Mary-Kate and Ashley’s adventures. They gossiped about Leonardo DiCaprio, whom Delilah adored, played Clue, and held hands when they went for walks.
If it weren’t for Delilah, Sugar Beth wouldn’t have been forced to come back to Parrish, but the money for Delilah’s care had run out. Now Sugar Beth couldn’t keep her stepdaughter at Brookdale unless she found the Ash painting. Still, she wouldn’t feel sorry for herself. Unconditional love was a precious gift, and Sugar Beth knew a blessing when she met one.
As she retrieved her grocery sacks, a familiar cognac-colored Lexus sedan pulled up and stopped next to her. The driver’s side window slid down to reveal the imperious face of the Duke of Doom himself, sneer and all. “You look like a bag lady.”
She assumed he was referring to her grocery sacks instead of her jeans and motorcycle jacket. “Thanks, I hope you’re having a nice day, too.”
He regarded her through his invisible quizzing glass. “Would you like a ride?”
“You let peasants in your carriage?”
“If I’m feeling benevolent.”
“My lucky day.”
He made her wait while he took his time flicking the locks. She opened the back door and set the sacks behind the passenger seat. Then, since pride did count for something, she climbed in with them and closed the door. “Carry on.”
He draped an arm over the seat and gazed down his long nose at her.
She gave him a haughty look. “I really don’t have all day.”
“Perhaps you should walk after all.”
“Bad for the neighborhood. Having a bag lady around.”
She was pleased to note that he stepped on the accelerator just a little harder than necessary, and his tone was withering. “You’ll let me know, won’t you, if there’s anything else I can do to make you comfortable?”
She gazed at the back of those wide shoulders. “You could take that silly little chain off my driveway.”
“But I find it so amusing.” He turned onto Mockingbird Lane. “I saw a tow truck by your car this morning. I’m dreadfully sorry about that.”
“Oh, don’t be. The sweetest boy was driving it, so reasonable, not to mention attractive.”
“So you managed to dissuade him from taking it away, did you?”
“Now, now. Southern ladies don’t French-kiss and tell.”
She waited for him to say she was no lady, but obvious jabs were beneath him, and he engaged in more subtle warfare. “How’s the job search progressing?”
She managed a breezy flick of her hand. “Career decisions are stressful, so I’m taking my time. You can drop me off right here.”
He ignored her and pulled into the drive that led to Frenchman’s Bride, which took care of his tip. “A lot to choose from, is there?”
“Tons.”
“So I’ve heard. The town is abuzz.”
“I’ll bet.”
He parked near the house and turned off the ignition. “The rumor is that even Louis Higgins refused to hire you at the Quik Mart, and he seems to hire anyone who speaks even a modicum of English.”
“Unfortunately, I was the driving force behind a rather nasty rumor about his little sister in ninth grade. He didn’t seem to care that it was true.”
“The chickens keep coming home to roost, don’t they?”
“Clucking all the way.” She opened the door and began to unload. He came around the hood of the car just then, and she nearly dropped her Coke because he was wearing an honest-to-God black suede duster. And, with his short, rumpled hair, looking way too good in it.
“Let me carry your sacks to the carriage house,” he said. “It’s the least I can do.”
She was too stunned by the sight of the duster to answer. In Mississippi yet.
“I’d hoped closing off the driveway wouldn’t be such an inconvenience. Alas, I was wrong.”
“Not to worry,” she said as she recovered. “With the added exercise, I’ve been able to dismiss my personal trainer.”
Gordon had apparently been hiding out on the veranda because he came trotting across the yard. Byrne astonished her by looking pleased. He shifted the sacks so he had one arm free and leaned down to scratch behind his ears. “So you haven’t run off.”
“Nice dog,” she drawled.
“He showed up a few days ago. He’s a stray.”
“That could mean rabies. I’d call the pound if I were you.”
“He doesn’t have rabies.” Byrne looked even more irritated than normal. “And you know exactly what the pound would do to him.”
“Gas him.” She glared down at Gordon, who could spot a sucker a mile away. Instead of snarling at her as he usually did, he played to his new audience by dropping his head, letting his big ears flop on the ground, and giving a little whimper, the perfect portrait of a pathetic pooch.
“That’s remarkably unfeeling, even coming from you,” Byrne said stiffly.
“Yeah, well, it’s a dog-eat-dog world.” Gordon trotted toward the veranda, more than a little pleased with himself. She noticed an extra waddle in his gait. “You haven’t been feeding him, have you? He looks fat.”
“And what business is it of yours if I have?”
She sighed.
They reached the carriage house. When she turned the knob, he got all critical again. “Why isn’t this door locked?”
“It’s Parrish. There’s not much point.”
“We have crime here, just as any other place does. Keep this door locked from now on.”
“Like that’s going to stop you. All you’d have to do is give it one good kick, and—”
“Not from me, you ninny!”
“I hate to be the one to break the bad news, but if they find my body, you’re the one with the biggest grudge.”
“It’s impossible to hold a rational conversation with you.” He gazed at the living room with distaste, despite the fact that she’d cleaned the whole place from top to bottom. “Did your aunt ever discard anything?”
“Not much. If you see something you like, be sure and make me an offer.”
“I wouldn’t hold my breath.” He headed toward her kitchen, duster flapping behind him.
She shrugged off her own jacket, dropped her purse on a chair, and followed him. “I’ll bet you’d take out your wallet for the Ash painting.”
“I’m afraid that would stretch even my finances.” He set the sacks on the counter, his big body filling up the small space.
She pulled out a package of E.L. Fudge cookies. “You talked to Tallulah. You believe the painting exists, right?”
“I believe it existed.”
“I hope that’s some kind of fancy Brit talk for, ‘Yes, indeedy, Sugar Beth.’ “
He leaned against the ancient refrigerator and crossed his ankles. “I think it’s quite possible your aunt destroyed it.”
“No way. It was her most prized possession. Why would she?”
“She refused to share the painting during her lifetime. Why would she want to share it after her death? And not to put too fine a point on it, why would she share it with a niece she considered a bit of a tart?”
“Because she believed in family, that’s why.”
He picked up the box of doggie treats she’d just dropped. “What’s this?”
“I’m poor. They’re nutritious.” She snatched them away and tried not to brush against him as she put the Coke in the refrigerator.
“Bugger. That dog showed up the same time you did. He’s yours, isn’t he?”
“Believe me, I’m not proud of it.” She set the Coke on the top shelf.
“You told me to call the pound.”
She was pleased to hear a note of outrage in his voice. “We’re all entitled to our fantasies.”
“If you dislike the dog so much, why do you have him?”
She knelt down to put the doggie treats under the sink. “Because Gordon was Emmett’s, and nobody else will take him. I tried to give him away, but he has a personality disorder.”
“Rubbish. He’s a splendid dog.”
“He’s just sucking up.”
Apparently he decided she’d had enough fun because he began wandering around the kitchen, inspecting the glass-fronted cabinets and the old appliances. The china knob on the bread box came off in his hand. He smiled as he examined it. “It’s unfortunate that you’re having such a hard time finding work.”
“Now don’t you go worrying that arrogant big head about it.” Her knit top rode up as she stretched to put a bag of chips on the top shelf. She knew he noticed because it took him a few beats too long to pick up the thread of the conversation.
“I almost feel sorry for you,” he said. “You have a dog you don’t like, no one will give you a job, and you’re broke.”
“On the other hand, I still have my charm.”
He propped a shoulder against the wall and tossed the china knob from one hand to the other. “I believe I mentioned that I might have a job for you. Are you desperate enough yet?”
She nearly choked on her spit. “I figured you were funnin’ me.”
“I’m fairly certain I’ve never funned anyone.”
“My mistake. Does the job involve letting you feel me up again?”
“Would you like it to?” The way his eyelids fell to half-mast told her she wasn’t the only critter around who knew something about playing games.
“I’d worry so much about frostbite.” Curiosity overcame her need to dish out the crap. “What did you have in mind?”
He inspected the bread box, then took his time screwing the knob on while she held her breath. When he was finally satisfied, he turned back to her, his eyes shrewd. “I need a housekeeper.”
“A housekeeper?”
“Someone who keeps house.”
“I know what the word means. Why are you offering the job to me?”
“Because it’s more temptation than I can resist. The cherished daughter of Frenchman’s Bride forced to sweep its floors and serve on bended knee the man she tried to destroy. The Brothers Grimm as interpreted by Colin Byrne. Delicious, yes?”
“The minute I find Tallulah’s butcher knife, you’re dead.” She jerked open the nearest drawer.
He took his time moving out of stabbing range into the living room. “On the practical side . . . maintaining Frenchman’s Bride is nearly a full-time job, and it’s cutting too deeply into my writing. This would be six days a week, from seven in the morning until after dinner. Long hours and, it goes without saying, each one as difficult as I can possibly make it.”
“Where the hell is that knife?”
“You’ll answer the phone, take care of grocery shopping and simple meal preparation, although I suppose that will be beyond you. The household bills have to be organized, the mail sorted, laundry done. I want an efficiently run household with absolutely no effort on my part. Do you think you could manage that?”
He made no effort to hide his smug contempt, and she told herself she wasn’t this desperate yet. Except she was.
He named a salary that lifted her spirits, and she shot into the living room. “I’ll take it! You mean for a day, right?”
From across the room, Colin watched Sugar Beth’s entire face light up and knew he should feel like a cad. He didn’t, of course. He hadn’t felt better since the day she’d arrived. “Don’t be foolish.” He gazed down his nose at her. “That’s for the entire week.”
She looked as though she was choking, and he didn’t try to hide his smile. The idea of offering her a job had come to him that day at the depot. He’d had time to think about it since then, but until he’d seen her standing on the curb in those tight jeans, cell phone pressed to her ear, looking like a very expensive hooker, he’d rejected the idea as far more trouble than she was worth. Then the wind had caught her blond hair and sent it streaming behind her head like an advertising banner. She looked so untouched by the harm she’d caused, and right then he’d changed his mind.
He didn’t plan to destroy her, but he bloody well intended to see some flesh wounds, or, at the very least, a few honest tears of regret. Even a forgiving person would have to agree that he deserved more than he’d gotten so far. Putting that chain across her driveway had been like going after an elephant with a peashooter. This, on the other hand, should do the job right.
She tightened her grip on the chair, still dazed by the insulting salary he’d offered her. “No human being could possibly be that cheap.”
He regarded her imperiously. “Don’t forget you’ll be eating my food, doubtless using my telephone. Then there’s the miscellaneous pilfering one expects from the help.” Her blue eyes snapped like pompoms. “Just to prove I’m not unreasonable, I’ll take the chain off the driveway.” He paused as inspiration struck. “And, naturally, I’ll provide the uniform allowance.”
“Uniform!”
Oh, yes. Having her slink around his house in tight pants and seductive tops would be too much of a distraction. Just watching her put away groceries had tested his self-restraint: the stretch of those long legs, the four inches of rib cage that had shown when she’d reached for the top shelf. This was the downside of being male. His body didn’t recognize poison, even when his mind knew it was there.
“You’ll be a housekeeper,” he said. “Of course you’ll need a uniform.”
“In the twenty-first century?”
“We’ll discuss the details on your first day.”
She clenched her small, straight teeth. “All right, you son of a bitch. But you’re buying the dog food.”
“My pleasure. I’ll expect you tomorrow at seven.” He began to leave, but he still wasn’t quite satisfied. He needed to make absolutely certain she understood exactly how things would be, and he searched his mind until he found one last nail to hammer in her coffin.
“Let yourself in the back door, will you?”
Colin Byrne’s housekeeper! Sugar Beth stomped around the carriage house until Gordon got so aggravated he clamped his jaws around her ankle and refused to let go until he was sure she knew he meant business. She bent down to examine the skin, but he was too wily. “One of these days, fatso, you’re going to leave marks, and then you’re out of here.”
He lifted his leg and licked himself.
She stalked upstairs hoping a good long soak would calm her down. The bathroom had a claw-footed tub and a single window with a yellowed shade. She dropped her clothes on the old-fashioned black-and-white honeycomb tiles, clipped her hair on top of her head, and tossed some ancient lily of the valley bath salts in the water. As she settled in, she tried to look on the positive side.
She’d already combed every inch of the depot, the carriage house, and the studio, and she only had one place left to look. Frenchman’s Bride. There was nowhere else for Tallulah to have hidden the painting. But why hadn’t she removed it before Byrne had moved in? Unless she’d been too ill by then.
Lincoln Ash had arrived in Parrish during the spring of 1954. Until then, he’d been living in a cold-water flat in Manhattan and hanging out with the equally impoverished Jackson Pollock at the Cedar Bar in Greenwich Village. The established art community had sneered at the work of “the dribblers,” as they tagged them, but the public had begun to take notice, including Sugar Beth’s grandmother, who considered herself a patron of the avant-garde. She’d agreed to provide him with room and board for three months, a studio where he could work, and a small stipend. In return, she’d have bragging rights as the first woman in northern Mississippi with her own artist in residence. Griffin had been sixteen at the time, and he loved telling people that he’d learned to smoke cigars and drink good whiskey from Lincoln Ash.
The water had nearly reached the rim of the tub, and Sugar Beth turned off the faucet with her foot. She thought of Frenchman’s Bride with its deep closets and odd-shaped cubbyholes. More enticing, the secret cupboard in its attic . . . Her grandfather had ordered it built “in case those fools in Washington ever decide to bring back Prohibition.” Did Byrne know about that cupboard? Tallulah certainly had.
She wouldn’t consider his theory that Tallulah had destroyed the painting, but as she sank deeper into the tub, an equally alarming thought hit her. Byrne had bought the house. Did that include its contents? What if he owned the painting now? She knew nothing about property rights, and she couldn’t afford to hire a lawyer. If she found the painting, she’d simply have to get it out of the house without tipping him off, which wasn’t an enticing proposition. But she’d risk that and a lot more because selling the Ash painting would finally give her the money she needed to keep Delilah at Brookdale. As for supporting herself, she’d go back to Houston and wait tables until she could get a real estate license.
She didn’t fall asleep until well after midnight, and then a nightmare awakened her. She lay there for a moment, skin damp, heart thumping, the dream still with her. Usually she found Gordon’s snores irritating, but now the raspy sounds coming from the bottom of the bed were a comforting reminder that she wasn’t entirely alone in the world.
She’d dreamed about Winnie again. Not the sophisticated woman she’d seen in the antique store last week, but the insecure girl who’d hidden behind her hair and stolen what Sugar Beth wanted the most.
Daddy, you were a real jerk, you know that?
She could never recall exactly how she’d come by the knowledge of her father’s other family—bits and pieces absorbed here and there, snippets of conversations, glimpses of her father in places he shouldn’t have been. Eventually she’d come to understand some of the subtler dynamics of his relationships with the two women in his life. Diddie was Griffin’s mercurial unobtainable Scarlett O’Hara, Sabrina his nurturing, loving Melanie Wilkes; but her earliest memories were merely of her father walking away.
“Watch me do a cartwheel, Daddy.”
“Not now, Sugar Beth. I’m busy.”
“You’re coming to my dance recital, aren’t you?”
“I don’t have time. I have to work so I can pay for those shoes you’re scuffing in the dirt.”
She’d approach him with a book to read, only to have him stand up before she could crawl in his lap. He’d walk off to make a phone call just as she brought him a painting she’d done to please him. She suspected flirting came so easily to her because of the arsenal of little-girl tricks she’d used to get her father’s attention. None of them worked.
She’d been in third grade when she’d discovered she wasn’t her father’s only daughter, and it had all happened because of his disapproval over her schoolwork.
“You got a C in arithmetic? You have the brain of a flea, Sugar Beth. One more thing you inherited from your mother.”
He didn’t understand how torturous school was for her. All that sitting when she wanted to giggle and dance, to jump rope with Leeann and play Barbies with Heidi. To decorate cupcakes with Amy and lip-synch Bee Gee songs with Merilynn. One day after he’d made her cry with another lecture about how stupid she was, she came to the conclusion that her bad grades were the reason he didn’t love her.
For six whole weeks she’d tried her hardest to change that. She sat still in class and finished every bit of her boring, boring homework. She listened to the teacher instead of talking, stopped drawing happy faces all over her workbooks, and, in the end, she’d gotten straight A’s.
By the time she brought her report card home that April afternoon, she was nearly sick with excitement. Diddie fussed over her, but it wasn’t Diddie’s approval she craved, and as she waited for her father to come home, she imagined how he’d smile at her when he saw what she’d done, how he’d swing her up in his arms and laugh.
“What a smart daughter I have. I’m so proud of you, my Sugar Baby. Give your daddy a big kiss.”
She was too excited to eat dinner. Instead, she sat on the veranda and waited for his car. When it grew dark, and he still hadn’t appeared, Diddie told her it didn’t matter and made her go to bed.
But it did matter. On Saturday morning when she awakened to discover he’d already left the house, she grabbed her precious report card—that magic passport to her father’s love—and sneaked out of the house. She could still see herself flying across the yard to her pink banana-seat bicycle and tossing her report card in the basket. She jumped on her bike and took off down Mockingbird Lane, sneakers pumping, her lucky horseshoe barrettes warm against her scalp, her heart singing.
Finally, my daddy’s going to love me!
She no longer remembered how she’d known where to find the house he sometimes stayed in with the other lady, or why she’d thought he’d be there that morning, but she remembered the tidiness of the brick bungalow, the way it sat back from the street with the curtains drawn over the front windows. She’d left her bike in the driveway behind his car, taken her report card from the basket, and raced for the front steps.
The faint sound of his voice coming from the back of the house stopped her. She turned toward the stockade fence that surrounded the tree-shaded yard and approached the partially opened gate, the report card clenched in her sweaty hands, a giddy smile taking over her face.
As she peeked through the gate, she saw him sitting in a big lawn chair in the middle of a flagstone patio. His yellow shirt was open at the collar, revealing the shiny tuft of dark hair there that she was never, ever allowed to pull. Her smile faded, and a creepy feeling came over her, like she had big spiders crawling up her legs, because he wasn’t alone. A second grader named Winnie Davis lay curled in his lap, her head against his shoulder, legs dangling, looking like she sat that way every day. He was reading a book to her, using funny voices, just like Diddie did when she read to Sugar Beth.
Spiders were crawling all over her now, even in her stomach, and she felt like she was going to throw up. Winnie laughed at one of his silly voices, and he kissed the top of her head. Without being asked.
The magic report card slipped from her fingers. She must have made some sort of sound because his head shot up and he saw her. He set Winnie aside and leaped to his feet. His heavy black eyebrows collided as he glowered at Sugar Beth. “What are you doing here?”
The words stuck in her throat. She couldn’t explain about the magic report card, about how proud he was supposed to be.
He stalked toward her, a short-legged, barrel-chested banty rooster of a man. “What do you think you’re doing? Go home right now.” He stepped on the report card, lying unseen on the ground. “You aren’t ever to come here, do you understand me?” He grabbed her arm and dragged her back toward the driveway.
Winnie followed, stopping just outside the fence. Sugar Beth started to cry. “W-why was she sitting in your lap?”
“Because she’s a good girl, that’s why. Because she doesn’t go places where she’s not invited. Now get on your bike and go home.”
“Daddy?” Winnie said from the fence.
“It’s all right, punkin’.”
Sugar Beth’s stomach hurt so much she couldn’t bear it, and she gazed up at him through an ocean of tears. “Why’s she calling you that?”
He didn’t bother looking at her as he pulled her farther away from the house. “Don’t you worry about it.”
Sobbing, she turned back toward Winnie. “He’s—he’s not your daddy! Don’t call him that!”
A swift, silencing shake. “That’s enough, Sugar Beth.”
“Tell her not to call you that ever again!”
“Settle down right now, or you’ll get a spanking.”
She’d pulled away from him then and hurled her small body down the drive, running past her pink banana-seat bicycle, out onto the sidewalk, sneakers thudding, her little girl’s heart exploding in her chest.
He didn’t come after her.
The years passed. Sometimes Sugar Beth caught glimpses of Griffin in town with Winnie, doing all the things he never had time to do with her. Bit by bit, she began to understand how he could favor one daughter over the other. Winnie was quiet. She got good grades and loved history the same way he did. Winnie didn’t throw temper tantrums because he wouldn’t take her to Dairy Queen, or get dragged to the front door by the chief of police for underage drinking. And Winnie had certainly never given him heart failure her senior year because she’d skipped her period and thought she was pregnant with Ryan’s baby. No, perfect Winnie had waited until after Griffin died to do that. Most important of all, Winnie wasn’t Diddie’s daughter.
Sugar Beth hadn’t been able to punish Griffin for not loving her, so she’d punished Winnie instead.
Gordon stirred at the foot of the bed. Sugar Beth rolled to her side and tried to will herself back to sleep before the memories took her any farther down that dark path, but her mind refused to cooperate.
Senior year. The after-school poetry showcase Mr. Byrne had required his classes to attend . . .
At the end of the performance, the stage had fallen into darkness, and two figures smeared with yellow fluorescent paint stepped into a dim puddle of black light. Stuart Sherman and Winnie Davis. Sugar Beth no longer remembered anything about the poem they’d dramatized. She only remembered that something made her turn toward the back of the auditorium, and there she saw Griffin standing under the exit sign. The father who’d been too busy last October to spend five minutes waiting on the courthouse steps so he could watch her ride through town on the back of Jimmie Caldwell’s vintage Mustang convertible with the homecoming crown on her head hadn’t been too busy to come see his other daughter recite poetry. She knew what she was going to do.
She lingered after the showcase with Ryan and some of his friends in the parking lot until enough time had passed, then she announced that she needed to get the eyelash curler she’d left in her gym locker. The sound of the shower greeted her as she’d made her way inside the almost empty locker room. Winnie, with her yellow fluorescent face and neck, her painted arms and feet, was the only girl in the showcase who’d needed to clean up before she could go home. Sugar Beth worked quickly, and as she left the locker room, she envisioned the yellow paint washing down the drain and taking her father’s illegitimate daughter right along with it.
“Guess what,” she’d announced to the boys as she returned to the parking lot. “The girls’ locker room’s empty. Y’all’ve been threatening since sophomore year to go in there. This’ll be your last chance before we graduate.”
It hadn’t taken any persuading to get them to follow her: Deke Jasper, Bobby Jarrow, Woody Newhouse, and Ryan, of course, the most important person in her plan. Woody and Deke started scrambling for paper so they could slip notes through the vents in their girlfriends’ gym lockers. They were making too much noise, and she shushed them. “Some of the teachers might still be around.”
It happened just as she’d imagined it. Winnie stood naked by the lockers as they came in, hair plastered to her head, water still glistening on her skin, a bewildered expression on her face as she looked for the clothes and towel she’d left on the bench. But they were gone, hidden in Sugar Beth’s locker. Even the stack of towels that normally sat in the corner had disappeared, stuffed behind the equipment bin.
The boys froze. All the blood drained from Winnie’s face.
“Holy shit,” Woody whispered.
Winnie could have laughed and run back into the shower room—the whole thing would have been over. But she didn’t. Instead, she stood there, paralyzed by the poisoned arrow she hadn’t seen coming.
She wasn’t long-boned like Sugar Beth. She had short arms and legs. Her hips and thighs were a little plump for her narrow shoulders. Not fat, just fleshy enough to make her ever so slightly bottom heavy. A dab of white caught Sugar Beth’s attention, and something unpleasant quivered in the bottom of her stomach. A string poked through the damp patch of pubic hair between Winnie’s thighs. She was having her period.
Winnie’s eyes went to Ryan. Only Ryan. All the boys saw the string, but Ryan was the only one who mattered. This was exactly what Sugar Beth had anticipated, but now she felt sick, as if she were the one standing there, naked and humiliated.
Winnie let out a low, keening wail and stood in front of them, arms at her sides, the white cotton string poking through her pubic hair.
The door of the shower room burst open, and Mr. Byrne came in. “What’s going on in—”
He uttered a low curse as he saw Winnie. His hands flew to the buttons of his old black shirt. Within seconds, he’d peeled it off and wrapped it around her.
He shot the rest of them a furious look. “Get out of here! Wait for me in the hall.”
The expression in those green eyes chilled Sugar Beth. He knew this was no accident, and he also knew who was responsible.
She fled from the locker room, from the building, feeling as naked as Winnie. Her stomach cramped, just as if she were the one having her period.
Ryan called out from behind her, “Don’t run, Sugar Beth! You’re only going to make it worse.”
She ignored him and raced for her car, but she couldn’t find her keys. She sank to her knees, pulled open her purse with both hands, and dug inside, plowing through wadded tissues, makeup, pens, and a field trip permission slip she’d forgotten to turn in. A tampon that had come unwrapped lay in the bottom of her purse. She bit her lip.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mr. Byrne coming toward her. He was bare-chested, his dark hair long and loose. “Get back in here now.”
Ryan’s eyes were pleading. “Come on, Sugar Beth. Do what he says.”
She fumbled with her purse. Tried to think what she should do. She’d lie and say she hadn’t known Winnie was in there. Their principal was a friend of Diddie’s. How much trouble could she get into?
Slowly her heartbeat returned to normal. There was no reason to be so upset. She grabbed her purse, shoved the contents back inside, and stood up. “What’s the big deal? The whole thing was an accident, Mr. Byrne. We didn’t know she was there.”
“You knew, all right.”
God, she hated him. The first day of school she’d thought he was cute—weird, but so sophisticated that he even made Ryan seem immature. But when she’d gone up to him after class to flirt a little, he’d been a jerk, completely unfriendly.
Deke, Bobby, and Woody were waiting inside the gym door. Ryan wouldn’t narc on her, and Deke and Bobby were tough, but Woody was afraid of his dad, so she shot him a hard look that told him he’d better keep his big fat mouth shut or she’d do something ten times worse than anything his dad could dream up.
“Would anyone care to explain?” Byrne had a skinny chest, and he looked stupid standing there without his shirt, but he didn’t seem self-conscious about it.
Sugar Beth told herself she hadn’t done anything that terrible. Winnie should have just run back into the shower room. God, she was such a dweeb. She should have laughed it off. That’s what Sugar Beth would have done.
She wondered if Winnie would tell Griffin. In Sugar Beth’s entire life, Griffin had never once mentioned his other daughter’s name to her.
“We didn’t know she was in there,” Deke said. “We thought the room was empty.”
Byrne had this little zit on the side of his chin. Sugar Beth focused on it because it made her feel better knowing he still got zits. “Is that right?” he said.
“Yes, sir.” They nodded.
Byrne’s gaze went from one face to the next, looking for the weak link and finding it when he came to Woody. “All of you?”
Woody gulped. His eyes went to Sugar Beth. “Uh-huh.”
“Then what happened to her clothes?”
Nobody had an answer for that.
“Sugar Beth, come with me. The rest of you can go.”
The boys scrambled away, all except Ryan, who stayed by her side.
“You, too, Galantine.”
“If it’s all the same to you, sir, I’ll stay here with Sugar Beth.”
“It’s not all the same. I wish to speak with her alone.”
Ryan got this stubborn look on his face that said he intended to stay right where he was. But he had a scholarship to worry about, and Sugar Beth was afraid Byrne might try to screw it up. Besides, she didn’t want Byrne thinking she needed her boyfriend to protect her. “Go on,” she said.
The locker room door opened just then and Winnie came out. She was wearing her gym clothes and carrying Byrne’s shirt. Her hair hung in a wet tangle, the ends dripping on her gym shirt with its bulldog mascot. She didn’t look at Sugar Beth but at Ryan, and her expression was so full of anguish that Sugar Beth wanted to shake her. Didn’t she have any pride?
“We didn’t mean anything,” Ryan said softly.
Winnie ducked her head and walked away toward the front of the building. She was still carrying Byrne’s shirt, as if she’d forgotten she had it in her hand.
Ryan gazed at Sugar Beth, his troubled expression filling her with shame. She didn’t want him here, didn’t want him to see any more. She rose on her toes and gave him a light kiss. “Call me when you get home from work.”
He didn’t look happy about it, but he finally turned away and headed for the parking lot.
Byrne opened the locker room door. “In here.”
She realized she was a little afraid of him, and she hated him even more for that.
“Open your locker,” he said as soon as they were inside.
Shit. She hadn’t thought far enough ahead. “My locker?”
He waited.
She tried a counterattack. “You shouldn’t be in here, you know. It’s the girls’ locker room.”
“Open the bloody thing, or I’ll get the janitor to cut off the lock.”
She thought about choosing another locker, Amy’s or Leeann’s, but he’d figure that out pretty fast.
Screw it. If he wanted to make a big deal out of this, that was his problem. She walked around two banks of lockers until she came to her own and twirled the combination. Her fingers were clumsy, and it took her three attempts to get it right. Finally, it clicked, but she didn’t open it.
His bare arm brushed her shoulder as he reached past her. He pulled open the small metal door.
Winnie’s clothes lay in a crumpled pile on top.
He didn’t say anything for a long time. He simply gazed at her, and she got this awful feeling that he could see right through her skin.
“Is this the kind of human being you want to be?”
She felt small and ugly. She bit off the urge to tell him how her father loved Winnie and not her, how she’d tried to be pretty enough, sweet enough, special enough, to make him notice her, but nothing had worked.
“Please inform your mother that I’ll stop by to see her this evening.”
Relief swept through Sugar Beth. Diddie would chop him into little pieces. She wanted to laugh in his face, but she couldn’t find a laugh anyplace inside her.
By the time he arrived at Frenchman’s Bride that night, Sugar Beth had done her work, not accusing him of attacking her—it would be another few weeks before she thought of that—just complaining about him to Diddie. How he put her down in class, embarrassed her in front of her friends. How his attitude had upset her so much that she’d done something really stupid. Something involving Winnie Davis.
Diddie wasn’t predisposed to feel sympathetic toward her husband’s illegitimate child, and as she met Colin Byrne, steely politeness undercut her gossamer blond beauty. “I don’t see the need to make such a fuss about a silly prank. I’m sure Sugar Beth meant no harm.”
Since Byrne wasn’t Southern, he didn’t understand how much power a softly spoken woman could wield, and unlike so many other people, he wasn’t rattled by Diddie. “She did mean harm, though. She’s been systematically persecuting Winnie Davis all year.”
His bluntness set Diddie’s teeth on edge, not to mention the fact that he had long hair, something she’d disapproved of from the beginning. “You’re an educator. I expect you to understand that the roots of this difficult situation lie not with Sugar Beth but with my husband’s lamentable bohemian lifestyle. My daughter is every bit as much a victim as . . . that girl.”
“What happened today was cruel.”
“Cruel?” Icicles dripped from the magnolia petals. “The lateness of the hour must have fatigued you, Mr. Byrne. I can think of no other reason a teacher would say something so unprofessional about one of the finest young women to ever attend Parrish High.”
“Perhaps it’s a cultural barrier, Mrs. Carey, but in England fine young women don’t subject others to humiliation.”
“I’ll see you out.”
In the end, Sugar Beth received nothing more than a mild reprimand from the principal, a man who owed his position to her mother’s influence. Winnie, in the meantime, let her hair grow longer and ducked to stay behind it.
Gordon raised his head from the bottom of the bed. Sugar Beth got up and went into the bathroom for a glass of water. Winnie had done well for herself. The best part of Sugar Beth—the part that believed in cheering on anyone who fought the odds and came out a winner—tried to feel good for her. But the old ghosts loomed too large, and she couldn’t manage it. One more item to add to the long list of things she still needed to do penance for.
She headed back to the bedroom, hoping for sleep. Tomorrow stood a chance of being one of the most miserable days of her life, and she needed to be ready.