Dodging and Burning Read online

  I stood up and let out a nervous half-laugh, half-hiccup, and when I did, I knocked the album with my knee. Photos that had been hidden in the back flap spilled out.

  At odd angles, spread across the floor, were pictures of corpses—soldiers planted in snow like frostbitten flowers, faces black with gangrene and eyes filmy and white; boys’ bodies thrown across a field, tangled in one another, some appearing to have three arms, others none, like some sort of confused monster. Other photos were stranger. In one, a woman was spread wide across a pile of bricks like she’d been tossed there by a giant. I thought of King Kong and Fay Wray. Her floral print dress was open from the shoulder to the waist, exposing her left breast and long strip of dry blood from her navel to her shoulder. In another, a young child, a rumple of lace and curls, abstract in black-and-white, lay on her side, grasping a little stuffed giraffe. I remember wishing I had a toy like that—and then looking away.

  Jay jumped to his feet and snatched up the photos, shoving them back in the album, like he was cleaning up a crime scene.

  When he finished, we sat beside each other again. He turned to me, wearing a feverish blank stare like a mask. For the longest time, he just looked at me, almost like he’d been struck dumb. Slow, like the changing of light on a summer afternoon, softness crept into his eyes. It was odd, even spooky, but appealing somehow, very appealing, like he wanted to ask me to comfort him or he wanted to comfort me, but couldn’t manage either. I was drawn to him like Sheila in “A Date with Death” is drawn to Brimblevine House—and that horrible man. I remember thinking that right then. Part of me wanted to fall on him and kiss him like I’d seen willowy damsels do to their knights in shining armor—B-movie-pantomimed lovemaking. But I hiccupped again, and another part of me, the smarter part, the part that couldn’t shake the photos I’d just seen, said, Take a step back, Cee, and I did.

  “You understand now. Don’t you?” he said.

  I nodded yes, but I didn’t.

  “Okay,” he said, grabbing my hand. I gasped a little, ending the hiccups. He held my palm firm, applying too much pressure, and said, “That’s why I need Robbie’s journal. It’s sure to have more than the stories he made up in it. I never want your parents to find it. They’ll destroy it. It’s what I have left of him—other than you. Please understand. I need it.” Dark swirls of emotion filled his eyes.

  “Okay,” I said.

  He released my hand and said, “Thank you, Cee.”

  3

  A DATE WITH

  DEATH

  The Will

  Mr. Morgan was an old curmudgeon, slumped behind his desk, glowering over stacks of papers and dusty law books. His owlish partner, Edwin Ayres, was more pleasant—and younger. He showed Sheila her seat and offered to get her coffee. She refused politely.

  Mr. Morgan coughed and sputtered out a welcome. “Mrs. Addison, are you well?”

  “Please,” she said. “The name is Sheila. Sheila Fury.”

  “I see,” he said.

  “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice. As soon as I received the letter, I simply had to know the details.”

  “Indeed. Well, it’s quite simple. You, being your aunt’s only living heir, inherit the entirety of her fortune.”

  “Miss Fury,” Mr. Ayres said, “you are a wealthy woman now.”

  “Indeed she is,” Mr. Morgan snorted.

  “What happens next?”

  “We have some papers for you to sign, and you’ll want to sell your aunt’s home, unless, of course, you plan to live in it. But I can’t imagine a young woman such as yourself would want to live in a big old house in the wilds of New Hampshire.”

  “No—but I should see it, shouldn’t I?”

  “Of course.”

  “I imagine it’s a beautiful place.”

  Mr. Morgan grimaced. He had intended it to be a smile. It unsettled Sheila. “Your aunt added a codicil to the will when she became ill. She gave me special instructions to have you read it in my presence.”

  Mr. Ayres walked around the desk and took the envelope from Mr. Morgan and then handed it to Sheila. She broke the seal and unfolded the note inside. Scrawled in a jagged script, the handwriting of a dying woman, were the following words:

  Dearest Niece,

  Whatever you do, do not tamper with ACTUS DEI. Fate is cruelest to those who don’t respect her power.

  Dearly Yours,

  Aunt Madge

  Sheila handed the note to Mr. Ayres. He removed his glasses, read it, and handed it to Mr. Morgan, who glanced at it and chuckled. “Your aunt certainly loved mystery,” he said.

  “What does it mean?” she said.

  “I have no idea.”

  “She wasn’t very lucid at the end,” Mr. Ayres said. “It may mean nothing.”

  “What is ‘ACTUS DEI’?” Sheila asked.

  “It’s Latin. It means ‘act of God,’” Mr. Ayres said.

  “Oh.” She smiled. “That really doesn’t make sense. Poor woman.”

  Mr. Morgan lurched forward: “There’s nothing ‘poor’ about your aunt, Miss Fury.” His eyes were severe. “Telling the future made her a millionaire. If she warns you about fate, I would heed it. She saw much and understood more. She was a very insightful woman.”

  Sheila detected sadness in his tone and around his eyes. What sort of woman was her aunt? Had her father been right to cut off ties? Was she a grifter—or was she the real thing? What did she really know about the future? After all, fate wasn’t cruel to everyone.

  “I just don’t understand what she means,” she said.

  “Perhaps you will. Just remember her advice.”

  Sheila signed several documents and then was on her way. That evening, she celebrated with the girls from work. She bought drinks and dinner for all of them. The next morning, she gave notice at work and made plans to travel to Berlin, New Hampshire.

  6

  BUNNY

  I leaned over the banister at the top of the stairs, being careful not to make a sound, and watched the reflection of my mother and Letitia Greenwood in the large mirror in the foyer.

  “I’m not here to socialize, Carla,” she said in a prickly tone. Letitia wore an ill-fitted gray dress and a mauve turban, decades past its prime. Her lipstick was bright orange, thick, and haphazardly applied. She was clutching a paper bag in her hands, her fingers nervously crinkling it as she spoke.

  “May I ask why you’re here?” my mother said gently.

  “Because of your daughter.”

  “Yes?”

  “She was at my house last night.”

  “Was she?”

  “Without announcing herself. That is—surreptitiously.”

  “If it’s true, then I’m sure there’s a good reason for it.”

  “It is true, my dear. I saw her slinking away in the darkness, like a stray cat.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “Your daughter was in my grandson’s room.”

  Although I could see only the back of Mother’s head, I could tell by the pause in the conversation and the slight slump in her posture she was no longer coming to my defense.

  “Your daughter, my dear, is a little seductress.” The bag crinkled. “And I won’t have her around Jason. He has enough to contend with. The war wasn’t kind to him. This town hasn’t been kind to him, either. I won’t have your daughter toying with him. The Prescotts have taken enough from the Greenwoods.”

  “We wanted to have a celebration for him. We should always celebrate our survivors, but town politics got in the way. We’re as broken up about it as—”

  “All of you are scavengers! You, your husband, and your daughter—picking over the dead and dying.”

  “That is hardly fair, Letitia.”

  “Scavengers!”

  “Perhaps you should—”

  “These are your daughter’s!” Letitia foisted the bag out in front of her. “She left them in my son’s room.”

  Mother opened the bag and
pulled out a pair of women’s pumps. I recognized them immediately; they were Lily’s shoes. Mother knew my wardrobe well and knew they weren’t mine. She relaxed her posture a little. “I’ll get my daughter to verify they’re hers.” She called out, “Bonita. Bo-neee-tah!”

  I backed away from the stairs. My first instinct was to retreat to my room, but I thought better of it. Being falsely accused by Letitia—especially Letitia—burned me. I wanted to prove her wrong. I was not her Cinderella.

  “Yes, Mother!” I called, as cheerfully as possible. Mother and I locked eyes as I approached the top step. Since she was headed to the Ladies Auxiliary that afternoon, her hair was swept up from the sides of her face and tucked into a bun; she had on full makeup, eyebrows carefully sculpted; and she wore her favorite mother-of-pearl earrings—all of which made her seem professional and formidable.

  “Would you come down here? We have a visitor who wishes to ask you a question.”

  I obeyed but didn’t hurry.

  “Mrs. Greenwood claims you were in her grandson’s room last night,” Mother explained, “and you left these shoes.”

  She handed the dirty, black velvet shoes to me as I reached the bottom of the stairs. Once in my hands, I saw immediately they were too big to be mine. I wore a woman’s eight, and these were at least a ten. I hadn’t been close enough when we discovered them in the clearing to get a sense of their size. “I couldn’t possibly keep these on my feet,” I said. “They’re several sizes larger than I wear.” I reached down and plucked the sandal off my foot and held it to the other shoe for comparison.

  Letitia was annoyed. “Still,” she said, “I saw you last night. You were at my house.”

  “I dropped Jay off after the movie, if that’s what you mean.” I replaced my shoe.

  “I saw you. You were slinking away.”

  “No, you’re mistaken,” I said, keeping my voice bright and cheerful.

  “You’re lying.”

  “Now, Letitia,” my mother said, “are you sure you saw my daughter?”

  “I know a Prescott when I see one.”

  “Be kind,” my mother said firmly.

  While I was holding the shoes, it occurred to me Lily must have been quite tall, even striking. From her photos in the grainy newsprint, it was difficult to decide what sort of woman she was—tall, graceful, self-possessed? I looked again at the bloodstain on the instep of the right shoe; it struck me as odd that dry blood was such an unpleasant rust color. I then noticed, on the instep of the other shoe, the name of the designer was partially visible:

  Ferrag …

  Ferragamos! That shocked me. Not only were they expensive, but they were made in Italy—not at all what you would expect to find on an American woman from Jitters Gap, Virginia. They also couldn’t be more than a season or two old, because materials like velvet, cork, and raffia had been used during the war due to the shortages of the nicer leather and steel. Also curious was that on the inside of one heel, “FL L” was written and on the other, “FL R.” The L and the R stood for left and right obviously, which was something I’d seen actresses do. During quick costume changes, they couldn’t waste time sorting out which shoe belonged to which foot. I assumed, then, that F and L were someone’s initials. Perhaps the L stood for Lily—but the F? I didn’t know.

  I held out the shoes. Letitia snatched them from me and shoved them back into the bag.

  “Are you sure I can’t offer you some iced tea or lemonade?” Mother said.

  “No,” she growled. “I need to get back to the house.”

  Once she was safely down the walk, Mother turned to me and smiled.

  “I wasn’t there,” I said.

  “I believe you,” she said. “I think Jay needs you. I’m glad you’re spending time with him.” She shook her head. “Poor Letitia. She really believes we forced her to sell Dixie Dew. She would’ve lost everything—her house, everything—if your father hadn’t made such a generous offer.”

  Father had deeply admired Jay’s grandfather. He had told me that if the shoe had been on the other foot, he might have crumbled just as George Sr. did after he lost his son and daughter-in-law in that horrible accident. “George Greenwood was a true entrepreneur,” he told me once. “He knew our region needed more industry, and he knew soft drinks were going to be big. He had vision. I’m sure he’d hoped to pass that vision along to his son.”

  He didn’t think much of Georgie, Jay’s father, though. When I’d ask him, he’d just shake his head and say, “Well, he was handsome. I’ll give him that.” But most surprising to me was Father’s opinion of Letitia: “She was a beautiful woman in her day. Brilliant too. She set the tone for local society. She had real elegance.” That was hard to believe.

  So I was in Jay’s room, of course. Letitia may have been eccentric and an alcoholic, but she wasn’t crazy.

  Jay hadn’t been particularly subtle in dismissing me after we returned from spying on Frank Vellum. I wanted to know what he and Ceola were up to, why they were having their own secret club of two, so I pretended to leave and crept around the corner of the summer porch to listen. I could hear them moving around, but they weren’t talking. After some rustling of pages and a period of stillness, I heard Jay say, “You understand now. Don’t you?” Then he asked for Robbie’s journal, which I knew nothing about at that point. He said, “I never want your parents to find it, because that’s all I have left of him,” or something to that effect. She promised to give it to him.

  Why hadn’t Jay said anything about the journal to me? Again, I felt like I had in the middle of Culler’s Lake: my feet swiping the darkness below me, my arms beating the black water, my body out of accord with my better sense. Wait for me! Wait for me! What was I doing lurking in the bushes outside of the Greenwoods’ house, or for that matter, Lily Vellum’s home? Why was I always running after Jay?

  As I stepped away from the porch, the night was silent and expectant. The fireflies drifted noiselessly across the overgrown lawn, and heat lightning flashed in the distance. Using the dim light from the house as a guide, I crossed the backyard and found my way around several obstacles—an overturned wheelbarrow, a slack clothesline, an attempt at a stone-lined decorative pond. I could see the house faintly, only suggestive of how it appeared in the light of day, the white paint peeling off in dirty ribbons, the roof over the porch sagging under the weight of a fallen tree limb, water pooling around the edge of the house, forming a fetid moat, out of which algae and feathery mosses spread over the brick foundations. Miss Havisham’s lair—only this Miss Havisham had long traded her wedding dress for muck boots and yellow rubber gloves.

  “Bonita Prescott, that you? That you?”

  I flinched when I heard my name.

  “What are you doing slinking around my home?”

  I ducked into a shadow by the edge of the woods. Letitia was standing at the back door of the house, framed by light.

  “Fucking Prescotts,” she grumbled, and I could tell she was drunk. She switched on another light, and I saw that she held a bottle in one hand and a shotgun in the other, grasping it by the barrel. In a soiled housedress and a toppling updo, she was a far more pitiful creature than I had first imagined. She tossed the bottle off the porch, wedged the shotgun’s stock in her armpit, and waved the barrel around, stumbling forward a little. I was frightened.

  “Bo-NEEE-tahhh!” she cried, steadying herself against a porch support. That was my cue to move. I dashed back through the forest and made my way to the car. I heard her calling my name again in the distance.

  A day or two after Letitia’s visit, I found Jay at our kitchen table finishing off a piece of lemon pie. Mother, her dark Spanish features particularly radiant, sat across from him, making small talk, genuinely pleased he was there. When I saw them together, I hesitated at the door. Jay seemed so content, so handsome. Then he glanced up at me and said, “This pie is amazing.”

  “You can have a slice any time,” Mother said, getting up from the tabl
e. “I’ve got chores to do. Bunny, do you want a piece?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “I’ll leave you two. Remember what I said.” She winked at Jay.

  “I promise,” he said.

  After she left the room, I said, “Where have you been, and what were you promising my mother?”

  “I’ve been keeping off my leg. It feels better today.”

  “And the promise?”

  “To drop by more often.”

  “She feels responsible.”

  Jay took his last bite of pie.

  “We need to talk,” I said.

  “I’ve got to show you something.”

  “Your grandmother came by the other day, and she had Lily’s shoes. She claimed they were mine. She saw me leaving your room. She thinks we’re … that I’m your girl.”

  “I want to show you something. Come with me.” He pushed away his plate and got up.

  “Aren’t you going to respond?”

  “Pssh. Don’t worry about her.”

  I followed him to a grove of trees near the pond on his grandmother’s property, my attempts at conversation batted away like badminton birdies. In the center of the grove was a dead tree, an old oak, which a few years before had been struck by lightning. Jay had used it as the subject for several of his photographs. It was out of place next to the thick foliage of the other trees. It had been hollowed out by termites and had shed most of its bark, which revealed the brittle, bone-white wood underneath. Jay cleared some cobwebs from a small opening at its base.