Stardust: A Novel Page 2

  “If he’s late, he’s late. Don’tcha think the man could try to get here on time? He knows I like to eat by one at the latest, and here it is, ten after, and he hasn’t arrived.”

  “If it bothers you, why do you keep inviting him over?”

  “Where else would he eat? Gracious, he eats the most horrid stuff on his own. Sardines in that nasty mustard. Peanuts. Gallons of RC Cola. The only vegetables he eats are what I put on the table.”

  “Then why don’t you get married? He’s going to quit asking you one of these days.”

  “Phfft. Feeding a man and living with him are hardly the same thing. Besides, I’ve been thinking.” She rearranged the sweet lime pickles in a relish dish, adding a sprig of parsley. “That crackerbox you call home has got to be awfully cramped…” She set her mouth in a tight line when she saw me shaking my head. “Now let me finish before you start telling me all the reasons you and the girls shouldn’t move in here with me. Why O’Dell didn’t provide you with a proper house while he was alive riles the ever-lovin’ daylights out of me.”

  “We have… had money set aside for a down payment for something more proper—”

  “Had? You mean O’Dell took your savings when he left you?”

  “No, I’ve been dipping into it for groceries, things for the girls. And now there’s the funeral to consider. But it’s not like I’m destitute or anything. I’ll find a job.”

  “I would’ve thought O’Dell’s mother would offer to pay for the funeral, knowing how he ran out on you and the girls.”

  “It’s not a topic I’ve discussed with her. She’s in too much of a state.”

  Aunt Cora pointed a tablespoon at me. “And we all know what state that is. Think of the girls. We could fix up the place here. Lord knows it could use a coat of paint.”

  It wasn’t that I cared about the shabbiness of Mara Lee. It hadn’t bothered me growing up and wouldn’t now. It was more than that, but I couldn’t tell Aunt Cora.

  “My savings should cover the funeral. I’m not the first person who’s lost a husband and found herself in tight straits.” I wasn’t sure the money in savings would be enough for the funeral and the fancy casket I’d picked out to please Mary Frances. But even O’Dell deserved a decent burial. “And I’m sure it won’t be hard to find a job.”

  “Which will be what? It’s not as if you’re trained to be an assistant in an attorney’s office or work at the courthouse. And heaven forbid you’d wait tables down at Ruby’s Café. You’ll need a stable environment for the girls while you pursue something befitting. Living here in the meantime only makes sense.”

  “For one thing, I see nothing wrong with waiting tables. But you’re using us as an excuse not to marry Sonny.”

  The back door slammed, and Sonny came sailing into the kitchen, removing his hat. “My ears was burning. What’re you two lovely ladies saying about me?” He pecked Aunt Cora on the cheek, but she ignored the affection and said, “You’re late, Sonny.”

  I couldn’t imagine Sonny and Aunt Cora married any more than I could picture the girls and me moving into Mara Lee. Aunt Cora and I had been butting heads since the day I landed on her doorstep. I had no reason to believe things would be different now. And I didn’t necessarily blame her. It wasn’t her fault she’d been straddled with an orphan niece, and she had put food in my stomach and clothes on my back.

  A knot the size of Texas wedged into my belly. Thank you kindly, Aunt Cora. I think I’ll take a shot at raising my own girls.

  When he’d finished eating, Sonny folded his napkin and tucked it under the edge of Grandma’s china. “Mayor Sheldon asked me if I had any suggestions for someone to head up the Mayhaw Festival this year. I told him you’d be just the ticket bein’s what a jim-dandy job you’ve done with the March of Dimes campaign.”

  “You can’t be serious. I wouldn’t have the faintest idea where to start.” She raised her penciled-on brows at me. “Georgia, this might be something to get your mind off your troubles. Give you a worthwhile project, and since you’d be in touch with all the merchants in town, you might keep an ear out for job opportunities.”

  “Actually, I hope to be employed before then. The festival’s not until July, and the only part of the celebration I’m counting on is singing in the talent show. Bobby Carl Applegate’s been playing a new song on the radio that’s got a nice beat.”

  “If Bobby Carl’s playing it on KHAW, it’s probably some honky-tonk horror.”

  “Yep. Hank Williams. But it’s real catchy—”

  Sonny burst out laughing. “Whatcha aimin’ to sing? ‘Your Cheatin’ Heart’? That’d bring the bandstand down.”

  Aunt Cora’s face splotched crimson. “Sonny Bolander. I told you”—she looked at the girls sitting wide-eyed at the table—“oh, never mind. It doesn’t make any difference.”

  My mind was still back on what the sheriff said. What, exactly, had she told Sonny for him to make the cheatin’ heart comment? Obviously, my efforts at keeping O’Dell’s infidelity confidential hadn’t been very effective. The whole town must’ve been laughing behind my back at the funeral. Poor Georgia Peyton. Reckon she didn’t have much chance, being raised the way she was. Too bad the cheat she married drowned in the bayou.

  “Maybe I can sing this year, Mommy.” Rosey straightened in her seat. “I like Rosey Clooney on the radio.”

  “It’s Rosemary, and yes, six is old enough to be in the talent show. We might even do a duet.” I shrugged at Aunt Cora. “Guess the mayor will have to find someone else.”

  Aunt Cora laughed. “Where y’all get that penchant for singing is beyond me. None of the Tickles could carry a tune in a rain barrel. Now, who wants dessert? I made strawberry shortcake.” That was the thing about Aunt Cora: she could shake off a disappointment as easy as flicking a crumb off the table.

  By the time we’d polished off the dessert, Avril was rubbing her eyes, trying to stay awake.

  “I’d better get the girls home and put Avril down for her nap.”

  Sonny leaned back. “I’ll help Cora here with the dishes.”

  He winked at her, and I thought I caught a flirtatious look in her eye when she said, “Why, Sonny, that’s the nicest offer I’ve had all day.”

  I asked Rosey to find Avril’s shoes and the rag doll she toted around wherever she went while I helped clean off the table. A few minutes later, Rosey appeared with the shoes but not the doll.

  “Avie’s baby is up in the sky room, but the door’s stuck. Come with me.”

  “What were you doing up there? Those stairs are too steep for Avril.”

  “It’s okay. I carried her down, but we left her baby.”

  “It’s a wonder you didn’t drop her on her noggin.” I did a playful knock-knock on Rosey’s mane of outrageous curls. “You’re the best big sister in the world watching after Avril, though. C’mon, I’ll go with you.”

  The room Rosey called the sky room was the third story of the turret. I’d always called it the crow’s nest, but Rosey thought sky room was better because it was like flying with the birds up high. We went to the doorway at the end of the second floor hall, which accessed a steep staircase in its own enclosed space—sort of a secret passageway. I had to give the door a hip shove to get it open. The old house sucked in humidity like a swamp-starved crawdad.

  Rosey and I climbed the steps and entered, the brightness startling after the dark climb. The light also drew my attention to the dust and the cobwebs that had been there since I was a child and spent many an hour viewing the world of Mayhaw from my private perch. Mostly I’d kept an eye out for the return of Mama and Daddy. They would come from the Stardust, I knew, since in my child’s mind that was the last place they’d been. I would stretch out on the window seat, propped up on my elbows so as not to miss anything going on below. Or sometimes, when Aunt Cora shooed me away, I sat cross-legged, one eye on whatever book I’d checked out from the library and the other eye on the walk. Her gentlemen callers always came to
the side door of Mara Lee, and when I would ask Aunt Cora about them, she would laugh and tell me, “The most stimulating conversations are with men. Women don’t know the art of talking about world events or good literature.” Which to her was Shakespeare and Charles Dickens and William Faulkner, books she schooled me in with fervor. I ingested them like medicine, of course, and when shooed away for the evening I retreated to the crow’s nest with my own beloved Jane Austen and Agatha Christie stories.

  Grown up now, I shuddered at the memories and looked out across the world of Mayhaw. Not a lot had changed. I leaned into the glass and looked toward the Stardust. I could make out the postage-stamp roofs of the individual units, the office a slightly larger version of the cottages. Even from so far away, they had a flaky, dusty look, not a patina of something that had aged with grace. The split in the top of the star pierced me with sorrow. My throat grew thick. Letting my eyes relax, I stopped straining for the detail and rested my forearms on the window sash. The air around me stilled so all I heard was Rosey’s soft breathing as her body pressed close to mine.

  For several moments we stood there, mother and daughter, spitting images of each other according to everyone who saw us. “Two redheaded sprites,” Aunt Cora said. Then I saw it. As if waiting for me to witness, the star and lettering of the Stardust Tourist Cottages sign sputtered and shone, the neon pulsing, beckoning. I knew the sun had merely taken that moment to glint off the frame around the sign, but I watched in awe, afraid to take a breath.

  Longing wrapped itself around me while hunger gnawed its way through my insides. The rhythm of my heart pounded in my ears, and like the flicker of the Stardust sign, I felt a surge of knowing this moment had a purpose. Something tangible. And strong. And at the same time as elusive as the parents who’d dumped me in Mayhaw.

  “Mommy. Did you see that? The star winked at us.”

  I slumped onto the window seat, drew Rosey into my arms, and kissed an errant curl. “Yes, it did, sugar. Yes, indeed.”

  I pulled Rosey in tighter. A visit to Doreen and Paddy at the Stardust was long overdue. Funny how God draws your attention to things like that. Yes, indeed.

  [ CHAPTER 3 ]

  I’m not a big believer in signs and premonitions. Obviously, if I were more attuned, O’Dell’s straying from me might have caught my attention sooner. But the more I tried to shove the incident in the sky room from my mind, the more it invaded my thoughts. I’ll admit the Stardust did have a grip on me as a child, like when having a pulled tooth, I couldn’t keep my tongue from running over the hole it left behind. Like the hole in my life Mama and Daddy once filled. The truth was, even at six years old, I knew it was odd we had stayed at the Stardust when we came for Grandfather’s funeral. Odder than odd. There was a world of room at Mara Lee, and a perfectly decent hotel downtown a stone’s throw away. Being the Stardust’s owner’s distant relatives hardly seemed a logical reason.

  That knowing only fed my imagination, giving birth to a dozen scenarios throughout my childhood. No matter which theory I entertained, it always ended with me dreaming of Mama and Daddy’s magical reappearance at the Stardust.

  If pressed, Aunt Cora would laugh and wave away my questions with, “The past is like the color of your eyes. You can’t change it so you might as well get used to it.” Which was ludicrous in light of the fact most folks in Mayhaw lived in the past and revered statues of Confederate generals and waved Southern Cross flags in the Founder’s Day parade.

  To her credit, Aunt Cora did lavish me with the best she could. New shoes for Easter and the first day of school. And she put forth valiant efforts to turn me into a lady. To her utter dismay, my fiery hair matched my temperament, and I balked at every turn. All I wanted was to climb trees and wear britches like the boys. Which gave Aunt Cora the vapors more often than not.

  My only consolation was the beat-up bicycle Mr. Wardlaw from the newspaper let me ride if I would deliver the weekly Mayhaw Messenger to the far end of town. Would I? I hiked my dress up and off I went. My favorite destination was the Stardust. I spent hours with Doreen, who let me count the change in the cash register while she knitted from her rocking chair behind the desk. And when I told her Aunt Cora would have a hissy fit if she caught me at the Stardust, Doreen would put a finger to her lips. “It’ll be our secret.”

  I outgrew my days of Doreen and Paddy when I got interested in boys, but on the occasions we ran into each other in town, they were always warm and asked about Aunt Cora or my girls or how O’Dell was doing. Sadly, I’d not been to visit in a long time and vowed to remedy that the following day.

  That evening, I bathed the girls, tucked them in, and settled into going through the things that I’d brought in earlier from the trunk of the car. Two complete sets of The Book of Knowledge. O’Dell’s hard-sided briefcase, which I knew held sales brochures and a tattered copy of his treasured five-point sales pitch. A duffel bag with a change of clothes, a toothbrush, and assorted toiletries, including a bottle of aftershave that always reminded me of mosquito repellent. I unscrewed the lid and drank in the scent of O’Dell. It was pungent and yet had a sweetness I’d never noticed, and I expected to look up and see him standing there with his lopsided grin. I chewed on my bottom lip to stop its quivering, screwed the lid back on the bottle, and tucked it in my drawer of underpants before I went back to sifting through O’Dell’s things.

  I took his briefcase to the kitchen table. No one from the regional sales office had attended the funeral or sent a bouquet, so I thought the least I could do was find their information and let them know about O’Dell. Like me, perhaps they didn’t know he’d gone missing.

  When a fruit fly buzzed near my head, I waved it away, impatient to finish the task I’d started. I clicked open the gold latches of the briefcase, only to be interrupted again. This time by the telephone.

  Aunt Cora.

  After dispensing with the pleasantries, she said, “We didn’t get a chance to discuss when you and the girls could move in. I’ve decided to clear out your old room, and we’ll go down to the lumberyard for paint—”

  “Hold on. I don’t recall agreeing to any such thing. It’s nice of you to ask, but I thought I made it clear.”

  “It’s for the girls. You can’t expect them to deal with the tragedy of their daddy dying and having a mother who’s off working or going to secretarial school… whatever it is you decide to do in light of your new circumstance. What do you intend to do with them? Avril’s practically a baby.”

  “She’s three years old, Aunt Cora. And it’s not like I have to decide today. I’m considering my options. Maybe a change of scenery.” I stretched the phone cord over to the table and leafed through the papers in the top of O’Dell’s briefcase. Pretty much what I expected. E-Z payment plans, folded street maps of Tyler and Kilgore.

  “Don’t be daft, Georgia. Moving away from the only home and family you’ve ever known won’t accomplish anything. That’s why God made families. To take you into their bosom in times of trial and tribulation.”

  “Aunt Cora, it’s a miracle we didn’t kill each other when I was under your roof. Not that I didn’t love you then… and now… but we’re just not meant to—”

  “One thing’s for certain—you’re as exasperating now as you were when you were a child.”

  “So there’s your answer, and if it’s any consolation, I’m not moving away.”

  “That’s good.”

  The map of Kilgore stared up at me. Was that where the other woman lived?

  “There’s Mary Frances to consider, for one thing. She’s having a tough time, and her cousin who came to the funeral is leaving in the morning. I’ll have to check on her, take the girls by to visit their grandmother.”

  “She’s a misery all right. ’Twouldn’t surprise me if this pushes her plumb over the edge. But you can only do so much. Mercy, she could hardly stand up at the graveside, and I don’t think it was grief wobbling her legs.”

  The fly buzz-bombed me again.
I shooed it away with the street map, which only encouraged it as it circled around and lit on the table.

  “Georgia, are you listening to me?”

  “Yes, just thinking. I’m not ready to decide what the girls and I are going to do. Could we talk about this later?”

  “Whatever suits you.”

  I hung up and then went back to sorting through O’Dell’s business, half expecting the fruit fly to interrupt me again. When it didn’t I picked up the next item on top—a small leather ledger with the telephone number of the sales office. Several pages of names followed, with check marks beside them in various columns that appeared to be the record of O’Dell’s customers. Had I wanted to torture myself, I could’ve tried to guess which one of the customers was my replacement. The O’Dell knot tightened in my belly, and I realized I didn’t want to know. Knowing would somehow burst the illusion I’d been weaving to keep O’Dell’s reputation intact. For the girls. His swaggering mother. And oddly enough, for me.

  I wrote down the name and number of the sales office and removed the last item in the briefcase—a trifolded document with a string clasp on it. It was the kind I’d seen on Aunt Cora’s last will and testament where she bequeathed me the family mansion and all her worldly goods. Since she was only forty-two years old, I didn’t expect to inherit anytime soon.

  My fingers trembled as I unwound the string in the figure-eight way it was secured, took a deep breath, and leaned back in the kitchen chair. It was an official document, but not a will as I’d assumed it would be. Instead, it had the seal of the Harwell Insurance Company and in bold print gave the amount of life insurance due the benefactor in the event of the death of O’Dell Thomas Peyton. I gasped. Ten thousand dollars. Then I gasped again. The double indemnity clause for accidental death entitled me to twenty thousand dollars.

  O’Dell might’ve been a skunk, but his fragrance had just gotten a whole lot sweeter. I speed-read through the rest of the document until my eyes landed on the benefactor line.