Secret Lives of the Kudzu Debutantes (31 page)

“He's gone,” Nita said. “And Logan's gone to get a hamburger with his friends.”

Nita told her everything. While she talked, Loretta sucked her top lip
and stared at the shot glass in her hand. If Loretta had been the kind who liked to say “I told you so,” she could have had a field day with Nita. But “I told you so” wasn't Loretta's style. She listened quietly and when Nita finished, Loretta leaned over and hugged her fiercely for several minutes. When she sat back, Nita's eyes were moist.

“I'm disappointed in Jimmy Lee,” Loretta said, letting Eadie pour her another drink. “I would have thought he had more backbone than to skip town when you needed him most.” Loretta had the gift of speaking what everybody else was thinking.

Eadie said, “Virginia pretty much fixed it that he wouldn't be able to hold his head up from shame. I wouldn't be surprised if she hadn't sabotaged Nita's marriage on purpose.” She ignored Lavonne, who shot her a warning glance. She'd always liked Jimmy Lee and didn't like to see him blamed without at least sticking up for him a little bit. Even though he shouldn't have run off like he did.

Loretta nodded fiercely as if this thought had occurred to her, too. “What are we going to do about that old buzzard?” she said. “What are we going to do about Virginia?”

Lavonne said, “What can we do?”

Eadie said, “We're open to suggestions.”

Loretta shook her head ominously and looked at her glass. “I don't know,” she said. “You girls are pretty smart and what you did to get back at the husbands before was pretty clever. But going up against the husbands was one thing; going up against Virginia is something else entirely. Charles Broadwell couldn't drive a nail into a snowbank, but his mother's two shades meaner than the devil himself. We better be ready for trouble if we're going up against her.”

“What do you mean,
we
? Look, Mama, I want you to let me handle this,” Nita said, putting her hand on Loretta's arm. “I've hired Rosebud Smoot and she says it'll take time and money but eventually I'll get Whitney back.”

“The courts take too long,” Loretta said, her stiff little curls twitching. She poured herself another drink. “Just say the word, Juanita Sue, and I'll take care of things my own way.” The way she said it left no question as to her intent.

Eadie looked interested. She leaned over and rested her chin on her palm. “How would you do it, Loretta?”

Loretta tossed back her drink, grimaced, and set the glass down. “Pig sticker to the heart,” she said.

Eadie and Lavonne snickered softly. Nita watched them with a sullen expression.

“All I'm saying,” Loretta said, “is you better have a backup plan in case the courts don't work.”

“I trust Rosebud,” Nita said stubbornly. “I have faith in justice.”

“Justice?” Loretta snorted. “How much justice are you going to get in a court of law when Virginia can afford the best legal counsel in the state?”

Eadie and Lavonne stopped snickering. This thought had already occurred to both of them. “Let me handle it my way,” Nita said tersely.

Loretta played with her glass and frowned. “When's the hearing?”

Nita shook her head. “I don't think it's a good idea for you to show up for that, what with your violent temper and all.”

Loretta drew herself up to her full seated height, which might have been all of four-foot-two. She watched her daughter steadily. “She's my grandbaby and you're my child and I'll be damned if I'll let you go into that courtroom without me.”

Nita sighed. She spread her hands on the table like she was trying to bear up under a weight that was too heavy to carry. Her mother had been fighting her battles for her all her life and it didn't look like she was ready to relinquish that post anytime soon. “Two weeks,” Nita said. “August eleventh. And just so you know, there's a metal detector at the door so don't be getting any ideas about handguns and pig stickers and vigilante justice.”

Loretta smiled fiercely and lifted her glass. “Give me credit for more sense than that,” she said.

“I have faith in Rosebud,” Nita said. “I have faith in justice.”

“If I was to punch Virginia's ticket to the hereafter,” Loretta said grimly, “I sure as hell wouldn't do it in front of an audience.”

V
IRGINIA SAT UNDER A BEACH UMBRELLA SIPPING A MAI TAI AND
watching the cabana boys scurry about carrying trays of tropical drinks. Far out in the pale green waters of the placid gulf, Whitney and Carlisle lay on a couple of rubber floats, their bodies undulating with the gentle waves like a couple of sea anemones washed up after a storm. Virginia stretched her pale legs along the lounger and laid her head back. Her straw hat tipped
slightly above her forehead. The sound of the lapping waves was hypnotic, and after a while Virginia closed her eyes.

It was quiet here at this end of the beach, which is one of the reasons she liked coming here. Farther up, closer to Panama City, the budget motels and sprawling condominiums that catered to college students and the middle class crowded the beach with throngs of noisy tourists. But here, in the secluded private beach in front of The Beau Mer Resort, all was quiet and elegant. A long line of brightly colored beach umbrellas stretched along the white sand, each one placed at a discreet distance from its neighbor. Young families dotted the beach like clumps of exotic flowers. All was quiet and indolent except for the harried cabana boys who moved between the poolside bar and the guests like a stream of marauding ants. Virginia knew they would not be called cabana boys in this age of political correctness, but she was at a loss as to what they should be called. Umbrella attendants? Sand waiters?

Reynaldo, the boy assigned to her, stuck his head around the edge of her umbrella. “Another mai tai, Meesis Redmon?” he said. Virginia sighed and opened her eyes. He wore a white short-sleeved shirt with epaulets and white Bermuda shorts, something a British sea captain or a cruise ship director might have worn. She lifted her plastic glass. It was still half full.

“Not now,” she said. “Check back with me in five minutes.”

He nodded slightly and moved off, his sandaled feet sinking deep into the sugary sand with each step. It had been Virginia's experience that Hispanic men were either as devilishly handsome as movie stars, or as dark and squat as gnomes. Reynaldo unfortunately fell into the latter category.

Her cell phone rang insistently and Virginia rummaged in her beach bag to find it. She squinted to read the caller ID. It was Redmon. She was tempted not to take the call. It had been such a pleasant day so far, and she didn't want to ruin it. But if she didn't answer, he'd simply call the bar and have Reynaldo run a message down to her, or worse, get in the car and drive to Destin to deliver the message himself.

“Hello,” she said sweetly.

“Queenie, what in the hell's going on?” he said shortly. “That girl's mama has called my office three times already today. She's called the house off and on all night. You got to talk to her. I tell you, this just ain't right, you running off with her kid like that.”

“Now, darling, we discussed all that,” Virginia said, trying to keep the irritation
out of her voice. “My hands are tied until the judge makes his deci

sion. Until then, we just have to sit tight and wait.”

“I don't want her calling the house. I don't want her calling my office.”

“Don't answer the phone! There's no law that says you have to pick up.”

“You tell that girl to call her mama.”

“Let me handle this,” Virginia snapped. “She's my granddaughter. This is my family business, not yours.”

She could hear him breathing heavily. When he spoke, his voice was hard and resentful. “Well it's my money paying the goddamned attorney fees, so I guess I got a say in what happens.”

Damn it
. She hated to do it, but when all else fails, you do what you have to do. She bit her lower lip, hard, and thought about Snowball, the puppy she'd had as a child. Snowball was a white spitz, the only pet Virginia had ever had, and he'd been bitten by a copperhead soon after Virginia's eighth birthday. A lump formed slowly in the back of her throat, swelling like a tumor.

“She's my only granddaughter,” Virginia said. She thought of little Snowball lying in the dirt, stiff and frozen as a starched shirt left out in a freezing rain. Her eyes misted.

“And she's Nita's only daughter,” Redmon said stubbornly.

“I don't want to lose her,” Virginia sobbed. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She'd buried Snowball beneath a camelia bush in the backyard. The colored children sang hymns while she fashioned a cross out of two pieces of driftwood, and afterward she'd given a sad sermon and they'd all cried together. “I love her so and I've just gotten to know her and now you want to take her away from me!”

“Aw now, Queenie, are you crying?” His voice softened. He cleared his throat several times. “Don't cry, Queenie.”

“I feel just terrible about what happened on the island. I was just trying to make things right, to give Nita's husband a chance to make some money, to make us all one big happy family and now I've ruined everything.”

“Now, Queenie, it's not your fault.”

“You'll never forgive me!”

“I don't blame you for what happened, honey. You know that. How could you have known your family place was nothing but an Indian boneyard?”

Virginia took a Kleenex out of her beach bag and blew her nose. “Nita will blame me. She'll think I did it on purpose, and she'll never let me see
my granddaughter again! Don't you see, Bob, I had to do it. I had to get the judge involved or I'll never see Whitney again! Nita will keep her from me for spite!”

“Now, sweetheart, I don't think she'd do that.”

“Trust me,” Virginia said. “I've known her longer than you have. You have to trust me, Bob. I'm not trying to keep the girl from her mama, I'm just trying to make sure I get to see her, too!”

“Okay, honey, we'll let the judge decide. I just don't want the girl to go without calling her mama. She's a good mama.”

Virginia clenched her teeth and stared out at the gulf. “And what am I?” she said. “Aren't I a good grandmother?”

“Well, of course you are, honey. No one's saying you aren't.”

“I have to go now,” Virginia said. “I'll call you later.” She hung up. Out in the water, Whitney stood up and began to walk slowly toward shore, dragging her float behind her like a limp blanket. Virginia wiped beneath her eyes with the Kleenex. She readjusted her sunglasses and snapped her fingers.

“Reynaldo!” she said, waving her glass. “Another mai tai.”

Whitney walked slowly up the beach. When she got a few feet from her grandmother, she stopped and dropped the float at her feet. She stood squinting at Virginia, her hand raised above her eyes to shield them from the sun. “I need to call my mother,” she said. “Can I have my cell phone now?”

Virginia smiled amicably. She finished her mai tai and then set the empty glass in the sand. “Of course you can, dear,” she said. She leaned over and took Whitney's cell phone out of her beach bag. She watched as the girl walked a few paces down the beach, and then frowning, turned around and shouted, “It won't turn on. It's not working!”

Of course it wasn't. Virginia had removed the battery that morning.

“Oh no,” Virginia said. “Bring it over here and let me see it.” Whitney gave her the phone and Virginia pretended to fiddle with it for a while. “It may just need to be recharged. Did you bring your charger? No? Well, that's okay. You can use the phone back at the condo, if you like.” Virginia smiled brightly.

Whitney frowned and kicked her foot in the sand. She put her hand over her eyes and squinted at her grandmother suspiciously. “This isn't about the fight you had with Mommy, is it?” Virginia had told her briefly about the custody battle this morning, while Carlisle slept. Virginia had done her best
to make it sound like it was nothing more than a simple argument over how many nights Whitney got to sleep at her grandmother's house and how many at home. More like a friendly disagreement than an argument. That's how Virginia had explained it. A silly argument that would be decided by a nice, kindly old judge. But Whitney wasn't stupid. She'd watched enough Lifetime for Women movies to know what a custody battle was. Her grandmother had made her promise not to tell Carlisle any of their “family business,” so the first thing Whitney did once they got down to the beach was tell her. “Oh my God,” Carlisle squealed, “custody battles are the best! That means they both want you, which means you get to have anything you want, and do anything you want to do because no one wants to tell you no.” Carlisle went to the Barron Hall School. She'd been one of Whitney's friends back before Nita left Charles and ripped Whitney out of Barron Hall to enroll her in public school. “No one wants to piss you off because they want you to like them best. Kara Stockett's parents got into a custody battle over her and she got a Kate Spade purse for Christmas and a trip to Paris. Oh my God, Whitney, that's awesome!”

Yes, it was indeed, awesome. Whitney had watched enough reality TV about rich California kids living in Orange County not to appreciate the potential drama of the situation. Only instead of parents or boyfriends fighting over her, it was her mother and her grandmother.

“You said I could call Mommy whenever I want,” Whitney said sullenly. “You said I could go home whenever I want.”

“Well, of course you can, darling.” Virginia clapped her tiny hands and then opened her arms wide to Whitney, making room for her at the foot of the lounger. Whitney sat down and let her grandmother hug her. “You can go home just as soon as the judge makes his decision about where you're going to stay. But for the time being, we'd like you to stay with me and Papa Redmon because we can take care of you best. We can buy you dresses and take you shopping and pay for you to go back to the Barron Hall School, if you like. And just as soon as your mother gets back some of the money that Mr. Motes took from her, then you can go back to live with her. Of course, you can visit her whenever you want. And if you'd rather stay with her, even though she can't give you new dresses or take you shopping or send you to the Barron Hall School, that's all right, too.” Virginia watched her closely to see if her gamble had worked.