Summer in the South (14 page)

“And then Mother remodeled the kitchen and one of the upstairs bedrooms, the room where the Captain used to sleep—she made it into a bathroom—and when they opened the walls, they found old whiskey bottles and French postcards hidden there, the old perv. Then things really got crazy. Pictures flying off walls, the workmen’s tools being moved, faucets turning off and on by themselves. Let me tell you this: if someone was spiteful in life, you can be sure they’ll be spiteful in death!

“After a while the contractors all quit and Mother was so afraid that it would get out, that people would be talking about the family, as if every family on this street doesn’t have their own ghosts to deal with.” He sipped his drink and rolled his eyes as if expecting her to acknowledge the truth of this statement. “Anyway, after college I had this friend who lived in Atlanta. He was an architect and he’d had a lot of experience remodeling old houses and chasing off the family ghosts, so he arranged for a psychic he knew to come to the house when Mother was away and do a cleansing. And after that everything stopped. It stopped just like that.” He snapped his fingers to emphasize his point. “And do you know what Mother did? A few weeks after things got quiet she said, ‘I miss the Captain,’ all sad and depressed, as if she wasn’t grateful at all that I’d gotten rid of him. But I can tell you when her damn Wedgwood plates were flying off the shelves she didn’t miss the Captain!”

Ava was quiet for a moment, sipping her drink, and then she said, “Is Woodburn Hall haunted?”

“Oh, yes. By the Gray Lady. Supposedly, she’s the ghost of Delphine Woodburn. She walks up and down the stairs in a long black dress. She was always mourning the death of one of her children. They used to die off like flies in those days. They say you can hear her crying at night.”

“Have you ever seen her?”

“No, but Will has. He used to see her when he was a boy. Hasn’t he told you?”

She looked across the yard to where Will stood talking to a woman in a low-cut flowered dress. She remembered that day at Longford when he’d ridiculed the idea of ghosts. “No,” she said. “He hasn’t mentioned it.”

“I’m surprised. He used to be terrified as a boy to go anywhere near the stairwell.”

T
he woman in the low-cut dress appeared to be an old friend of Will’s. She stood talking to him for a long time, laughing loudly and touching him from time to time on the shoulder. Drawn by her loud laughter, Fraser looked across the lawn and said, “Sweet Jesus, who invited Darlene Haney?”

“I did,” his mother said, coming up behind them. She had strolled over with Josephine, Fanny, and Clara to check on Ava. They all held rocks glasses in their well-manicured hands. “And I want you to be nice. She’s a guest.”

“What were you thinking?” Fraser said. “I don’t remember seeing her name on the list.”

“Well, I was over at the Debs and Brides Shoppe where she works and she mentioned the party. She said she so wanted to meet Ava, and really,” she looked at Fraser helplessly, “what was I to do?”

“You mean she invited herself.”

“Now, Fraser,” his mother said, wagging her finger in his face. “You be a gentleman.” Her cheeks were pink from the heat and the gin, and she seemed slightly tipsy. She slid her arm around Ava’s shoulders and said, “Having fun?”

“Yes. Thank you. Great fun.”

“Oh, look, Fraser, her glass is empty. Be sweet and run up and get Ava another martini.”

“I’m fine,” Ava said, remembering Will’s warning not to drink too much. She was trying, belatedly, to pace herself.

“Are you sure? Well, maybe some iced tea then.”

“Dear God, Mother, don’t fuss,” Fraser said.

Across the lawn, Will had excused himself from Darlene Haney and walked away, stopping to speak to a young couple Ava hadn’t met. Darlene stood for a moment, sipping her drink and looking around the yard, then, noticing the group of young matrons, she set off unsteadily to join them. She was wearing high heels that sank into the soft earth with each step so that she walked with an odd lurching motion.

“I taught Darlene in school,” Clara said, watching her navigate the lawn. “She was such an interesting character. Darlene Smollett, she was back then. Before she married Eddie Haney.”

“Oh, now,
that
was a match made in heaven,” Alice said, and Fraser snorted.

He leaned over and said in a stage whisper to Ava, “Eddie was bad to drink.” And when she looked at him blankly he made a motion like someone tugging on a bottle. “He was the quarterback up at UT where Darlene was a cheerleader and he was rumored to be a top NFL draft pick. No doubt Darlene thought she’d won the lottery when she landed him.”

“That’s right,” Alice said. “Chased him until he caught her.”

Fraser snorted again and looked at his mother appreciatively. They were like a couple of schoolgirls. Ava imagined them sitting around at night with their cocktails gossiping about the townspeople, each trying to outdo the other in outrageousness.

“They came back here and had one of the biggest, tackiest weddings Woodburn has ever seen,” Fraser said. “And then Eddie blew his knee out his senior year and had to come back and go to work in his daddy’s body shop and that was the end of Darlene’s dreams of grandeur. I guess being an auto mechanic’s wife was not nearly as glamorous as being an NFL quarterback’s wife. The marriage didn’t last. Eddie ran off with a cocktail waitress—imagine that—leaving Darlene with three boys under the age of six.”

“Poor thing,” Ava said. “That’s terrible.”

“You don’t know her,” Fraser said darkly.

“Yes,” Fanny said, shaking her head sadly. “I hear those boys are quite a handful.”

“You don’t know her yet but you will,” Alice said in a sweet, cautioning voice. “Because here she comes.” Darlene had seen them and was waving wildly. She launched herself and began to cross the lawn in their direction, her large bosom jutting before her like the prow of a ship.

“Quick,” Fraser said bleakly. “Run. Hide.”

“You be nice,” his mother warned in a low voice, and as Darlene got closer she smiled and called, “Come and meet Will’s friend.”

They watched her come and Ava, afraid she might stumble and fall against the table, stood up to greet her.

“Oh, my God, you must be Ava,” Darlene squealed, opening her arms wide. She held Ava out in front of her, looking her over. She was smaller but with her high heels they were almost the same height. Darlene was blonde and very pretty in the way that beauty pageant contestants and TV commentators are pretty, with their perfect makeup and hair and trim figures. “How
are
you?” she said, pumping Ava’s hand. A cloud of perfume billowed around her like smoke.

Ava, feeling suddenly tongue-tied by this effusive welcome, stammered, “I’m well, thank you. And you?”

“Oh, aren’t you
precious
?” Darlene pulled her into another flowery embrace. “I just know we’re going to be
good, good
friends,” she said.

“Which translated means, ‘I just know we’re going to be enemies for life,’ ” Fraser said darkly.

“Now Sparky, don’t be ugly,” Darlene said, pulling away from Ava and letting her feline eyes sweep over Fraser.

He flushed a dull red. “Don’t call me that.”

Darlene ignored him. “I am just so happy to meet Will Fraser’s Chicago friend,” she said, smiling to show her perfect teeth. “I hear you’re real smart. And so pretty, too!”

Ava noted that her accent was more nasal than the slow, deep-throated accent the aunts and Clara and Alice used. The older women’s voices were like water bubbling in a brook, while Darlene’s was a discordant twang.

“Who would have thought that you and Will went to college together?” Darlene said blithely, her eyes scanning Ava. “Who would have
thunk
it, as we say down here.”

Fanny giggled. “That’s right,” she said. “We have our own language.”

Darlene gave Ava’s arm a little shake. “If someone down here says ‘bless her little heart,’ about someone—well, that means they’re mortal enemies.”

“Kind of like saying ‘we’re going to be
good, good friends
,’ ” Fraser said.

“And we don’t
push
a button,” Darlene said. “We
mash
it. We don’t
take
someone to the store, we
carry
them.” She giggled again and put one hand to the side of her mouth. “And if someone down here says your baby is
sweet
, well, then, you know it’s ugly.”

Ava shook her head. “Someone needs to write all this down for me. I’ll never remember it.”

“Isn’t she
darling
!” Darlene cried and Fraser said, “Another adversarial statement.”

“You know, you’re really starting to bug me,” Darlene said.

“Fraser, why don’t you refresh everyone’s drink?” Alice said pointedly.

“What, and leave Ava alone with the succubus?”

Josephine said, “Oh, Fraser, really.”

Darlene said, “What’s a succubus?”

“Now that you mention it,” Ava said, giving her glass to Fraser. “I think I will have another drink.”

L
ater, Ava asked Will, “Why do they call Fraser ‘Sparky?’ ”

“It’s just a nickname some of the town kids gave him. They liked to tease him because of his—uniqueness.”

“You mean his gayness?”

“Who called him Sparky?”

“Darlene Haney.”

“That figures. They always fight like cats.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Jealousy, I guess.”

D
arlene Haney had invited Ava to lunch, so on Tuesday she walked the few blocks from the house to downtown Woodburn. It was a hot, sultry day. Cicadas hummed in the trees, and bits of yellow pollen floated on the air like duck down. The sidewalk was old and buckled where the tree roots had pushed through, upending the bricks. All along the street the few people she saw waved to her from their yards and shady porches. “Good morning,” they called, and she said, “Good morning.” Her manner was brisk. She was embarrassed by their attention, wishing she had paid more attention to the names of those she had met at the barbecue.

The Debs and Brides Shoppe faced the town square with its large fountain and ubiquitous statue of the Unknown Confederate Soldier. Large oak trees surrounded the square, with benches scattered beneath their shady branches. Everywhere there were masses of blooming shrubbery, and from the old-fashioned light posts lining the street hung baskets of ivy geraniums, petunias, and verbena. Most of the shops lining the square sported striped awnings and hand-painted signs, and the whole effect was quaint and charming and looked like something from a turn-of-the-century movie set.

The shop was crowded with debs arraying themselves for the Gardenia Ball. Darlene, looking flustered and overworked, raised her hand when Ava came in and shouted, “I’ll be right with you.”

They walked next door to the Kudzu Grille to order lunch. “Whewee,” Darlene said, lifting her hair off her neck with one hand and fanning herself with the other. “It’s hot enough to boil spit on a sidewalk.”

They sat at a small table near a window overlooking the square. “What’s good?” Ava said, looking down at the menu. “I’m really not sure what to order. I’m still getting used to Southern food. I’ll have to order the fried green tomatoes, of course, because I’ve never had them and hey, when in Rome.”

“There’s really only one thing to order and that’s the blue plate special,” Darlene said, closing her menu and reaching for Ava’s. “Collard greens, corn bread, black-eyed peas, and squash casserole for two,” she said to the waitress. “Oh, and a small plate of fried green tomatoes. And two sweet teas.” They watched her walk away.

“Well,” Ava said, looking around. The restaurant was beginning to fill up, and Ava was glad they’d found a table. She’d agreed to meet Darlene for lunch because it had occurred to her that Darlene might be willing to share information about the Woodburns. Specifically, Charlie Woodburn.

Darlene gave her a tight, fierce grin and slapped Ava’s arm. “I am so glad you came!”

Ava as always, disarmed by Darlene’s direct, friendly approach, said, “I’m glad I came, too.”