Summer in the South (28 page)

“No, oh, no,” she said quickly. “I don’t want anything.” She smiled, avoiding his eyes. His mouth was wide, generous, with a full lower lip.

He stepped around her. His arm grazed her shoulder, and she could feel the unexpected heat of his body against her skin. “Do you mind if I grab a couple of bottled waters?”

“Of course not.”

“I’ll be right back,” he said.

On the walk between Charlie’s boardinghouse and Jake’s studio, it had occurred to Ava that Will might have been right.
Help me
could have been the scribbling of a desperate man; not the act of a man afraid of violent murder, but a man overcome with remorse or alcohol or depression. A suicide.

Who knew what baggage Charlie might have brought with him from New Orleans? What demons he might have battled? It was so difficult to ascertain a man’s true character glimpsed only through the eyes of others. And the Charlie who presented himself in her novel—how close was he to the real man? She seemed to have reached an impasse with his character. He remained as obscure to her now as he had from the very first sentence she wrote. Surely the Colonel had thought well of him. The Colonel’s journal indicated an almost paternal obsession with his young cousin. A feeling of
obligation
, as evidenced by his willingness to pay Charlie’s tuition at Vanderbilt and his cryptic message in his journal that he was going to give Charlie what was rightfully his, and thereby right the wrongs of their fathers.

But would Fanny’s papa have liked Charlie enough to have him as a son-in-law? Or would the Colonel’s prejudice against a social inferior, despite his many kindnesses to Charlie, have been clear to the young man?

It was obvious from Josephine’s diary that she had detested Charlie. The cartoonish drawings of
The Sheik
were, of course, her ridiculing of Charlie himself. Ava had recognized him almost immediately from the descriptions she’d gathered from others: the dark, sullen face, the hollow eyes, the rawboned appearance of a country boy masquerading in a gentleman’s clothes. Could Josephine’s abject contempt of the man her sister married ultimately have caused him to lose himself in alcohol and depression? Was there a weakness in Charlie, a fatal flaw that only Josephine knew how to exploit?

Ava stood in the middle of the sun-filled studio, thinking about Charlie and waiting for the sound of Jake’s footsteps on the stairs. He returned a short time later carrying two bottled waters. She noticed that he had changed his T-shirt and combed his hair. He gave her a bottle and took the cap off the other one. She was suddenly thirsty, and she tipped her head back, drinking greedily.

When she was finished, she put the cap on and wiped her mouth. “Did you ever hear of Charlie being sick?”

“Sick?” Jake’s eyes were so dark she couldn’t see the pupils.

“Depressed. Or maybe physically ill before he died.”

“To be honest with you, I don’t know a lot about Charlie. Most of what I’ve heard came from my mother or town gossips.” He picked up a rag and began to rub the legs of the coffee table with tung oil. “People say that he was bad to drink, that he was an alcoholic, but maybe that’s just their way of blaming the victim. You know. He was a bad guy, so he deserved to die. That kind of thing.”

“I don’t think he was a bad guy.”

“Well, you’re in a minority in this town.” He continued his long, even strokes, then stopped. He stood, leaning his hip against the platform. “You seem interested in my grandfather. Talking to people, asking questions.”

“I’m just curious about what really happened. I’m just trying to fit all the pieces together.” She was nervous under his piercing gaze and took another long pull from the bottle.

He stared at her fondly but curiously, as if he was trying to see beyond her words to the meaning behind them. Her nervous gesture, her inability to look at him, gave it away. “You’re writing a book,” he said. “You’re writing a novel about Charlie Woodburn.” When she didn’t answer, he put his head back and laughed so long and ardently that Ava finally had to say, “Hush.”

He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He shook his head. “Does Will know?” When she didn’t respond he said, “No, of course he doesn’t.” He sighed, folding and refolding the rag in his hands. “Have you thought about the repercussions? Have you thought about the response the Woodburns might have to a novel like that?”

“I try not to think about it,” she said. “Because if I think about it, I won’t be able to write, and this is the best thing I’ve ever written.” She returned his gaze steadily. “I mean it. I can publish this novel.”

He held his hands up. “Hey, I believe you. It’s compelling stuff.” He wrapped the rag around his knuckles like a prizefighter taping for a match. “But is it worth your relationship with Will and Josephine? Because I can tell you right now, they won’t ever forgive you. They’re not the forgiving kind. I know that from experience.”

She knew he was right; she had known it ever since she began the novel but she’d been unable to stop herself. It had become an obsession. She couldn’t stop now even if she wanted to.

He saw her resolve in her face and he didn’t say anything else about Will. “I have to admit, the sickness angle is interesting,” he said, “but it’s not the truth. Charlie was covered in bruises when they pulled him out of the river. I’ve heard that from several different sources.”

“There are a lot of boulders in that river.”

“True. But one of the deputies who pulled him out told my grandmother that he looked like he’d been worked over pretty good.”

“So you don’t think it was suicide or an accident? You don’t think he was ill before he died?”

“I never heard that he was sick. From what I know of Charlie, he was no suicide. He had too much to live for.”

Ava’s cell phone began to ring. She looked for her purse and he helped her, but it had stopped ringing by the time he found it over by the scroll saw. He held it out to her. She took it, their hands touching briefly. She checked the display, then slid it back into her purse.

“The aunts calling to check up on you?” he said mildly.

“No. Will.”

He didn’t say anything, pushing his hands down into his pockets.

“I better go,” she said.

He walked with her to the door. She thanked him for the water, then stepped out into the fierce heat of midday.

“I’ll see you later,” she said.

He stood in the open doorway with his shoulder pressed against the jamb. “Thanks for the photo.”

“Don’t mention it.”

She crossed the street and headed home, walking briskly, aware the whole time that he was standing in the doorway, watching her.

W
hatever easygoing flirtation she had felt between herself and Jake had disappeared the minute Ava mentioned Will. Or that’s how it had seemed anyway. He hadn’t seemed all that sorry when she said she had to go. He hadn’t tried to talk her out of it. Nor had he mentioned them getting together some other time. Walking down the shady midday streets, Ava realized this now with a stir of disappointment.

It was as if the mention of Will’s name had thrown up some kind of barrier between them, as if whatever was promising and inevitable had faded away.

She walked with her head down, watching her sandals slap against the sidewalk. She knew she should call Will back but she didn’t want to. They had barely spoken since that night in her room, had stopped going around together in the evenings. Now that she wrote at night, she had began to make excuses as to why she couldn’t go out for movies and drinks, and after a while Will had stopped asking. He was pleasant and cordial at Toddy Time, but if they were alone together there was a cool distance between them. Their friendship, she was beginning to understand, would not survive her summer in Woodburn.

The sudden ringing of her phone interrupted her thoughts. It was Rachel Rowe.

“Hey,” Rachel said breathlessly, when she answered. “I’ve been down in the deed room checking the books all afternoon, and I didn’t find any conveyance from Colonel James to Charlie Woodburn. And I had a couple of the old deed dogs down there helping me, too, so I’m confident that there’s nothing recorded. They say they’ve never heard of any such conveyance.”

“What’s a deed dog?”

“A lawyer who does title searches.”

“Oh.”

“I think our best bet is for me to go up to Vanderbilt and check the Woodburn papers. I might find some letter there from the Colonel to Charlie explaining the journal entry. Or I might find a deed. It may be something that was never recorded.” She sounded as excited as a child on a treasure hunt, and Ava couldn’t help but be affected by her enthusiasm.

“Do you mind going up to Vanderbilt?”

“Hell no,” Rachel said. “It’ll give me something to do tomorrow. You get to be my age, you don’t have a lot of ways to fill your spare time. This is perfect.”

“Call me when you get back.”

“I will. I’m just sorry you didn’t find any photographs up in the attic.”

“Yeah,” Ava said. “I’m sorry, too.”

A
fter she hung up with Rachel she walked on, clinging to the shade as best she could. The heat coated her tongue and her throat like warm molasses. She was sorry now that she had chosen the hottest part of the day to walk to town. At that moment a white Ford Explorer came barreling down the street, the driver turning a blank face to Ava. The car skidded to a stop in the middle of the next block and Ava watched in wary annoyance as it began to back erratically toward her. The passenger’s window slid down.

“Get in!” Darlene Haney yelled at her from the driver’s side.

“No, that’s okay, I’ll walk.”

“Get in, dammit! I don’t got all day.” Darlene’s face was red, and she seemed agitated and tense. Her pleasant, docile mask had slipped. A tennis ball whizzed by her nose and bounced off the front dash, and Ava could see three shadowy figures bouncing around in the backseat. Her sons.

Darlene swung her arm over the backseat and someone yelped and said, “Dammit, Mama, it was Ridley who threw it, not me!”

Ava got in. The boys strapped into the backseat ranged in ages from four to seven, and went by the names of Stansbury, Ridley, and Bob. The two elder ones hugged the windows and the youngest, Bob, sat in the middle. Bare-chested, he had taken his T-shirt off and was attempting to strangle Stansbury with it.

“Lord help us,” Darlene said, slamming the SUV into drive. “What I wouldn’t give for a margarita.”

“Are they okay?” Ava asked, nervously eyeing Stansbury, who was beginning to make loud choking noises, much to his brothers’ amusement.

“Oh, they’re fine. They’re just playing is all.” Darlene had just come from her mother’s and she was in a sour mood. She put the music up loud in the back so they wouldn’t have to listen to Stansbury.

They drove to the light and stopped. Darlene made a conscious effort to regain her composure, plumping her hair with her fingers and glancing at Ava with a forced smile. “So where have you been?” she asked sweetly.

“Nowhere. Just out for a walk.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Been down to see Jake Woodburn’s shop?” She glanced in the rearview mirror. “Come on, boys!” she said. “Y’all behave. Miss Ava won’t like you if you’re ugly. Bob, stop playing with Stansbury and put your shirt back on. If y’all are good, Mama will turn up the music. Would you like that? It’s
Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Y’all’s favorite.”

“Darlene, the light’s green,” Ava said.

She pumped the accelerator. “Doesn’t he have the strangest taste in furniture?”

“Who?”

“Jake Woodburn.”

“His stuff is cool.”

“Oh?” Darlene arched one carefully sculpted eyebrow. “Do you think so? No one around here buys it except for the Adirondack chairs. Everyone wants one of those, so now he doesn’t make them anymore. Isn’t that just like Jake?”

“I guess so. I don’t really know him.”

“Oh?”

“Freebird!” Bob shouted happily from the backseat, twirling his T-shirt above his head.

Darlene couldn’t wait to tell Will Fraser she had seen Ava coming out of Jake Woodburn’s shop. She would call him just as soon as she got home and got the boys fed and hosed off. Will probably wouldn’t like it at first. He was sure to get angry, but she was certain he’d calm down eventually and realize she had his best interests at heart. Sooner or later, Will was going to learn to appreciate her loyalty. Sooner or later he was going to wise up and realize that there was only one girl in the world for him, and that girl was Darlene Smollett Haney. By God.

She gave Ava a sly look. “You know, Will was engaged once before,” she said. “He was engaged to a girl named Hadley Marsh.”

“I know all about Hadley,” Ava said, wishing she’d never climbed into the car. She wasn’t about to let herself be dragged into another of Darlene’s ambushes.

“You do?” Darlene said brightly. “You know about Hadley? Who told you?”

“You did.”

Darlene giggled. “Did I?”

“So did Will. And Jake.”

“I can’t imagine either one of them talking about her! Still, water under the bridge. Don’t you worry. It was a long time ago. I’m sure neither one of them gives her much thought these days.”

Ava ignored her implication. “She sounds like a great girl. If both Will and Jake were in love with her, she must be special. I’m sure I’d like her if I met her.”

Darlene smiled. “Oh, really,” she said.

“She sounds like someone I might be friends with.”

Darlene snorted. “Obviously they didn’t tell you everything.”

“What do you mean?”

They drove for a while in silence listening to the boys sing “Freebird.” When Ava couldn’t stand it anymore she said, “Okay, tell me. So what happened to her?”

“Who?” Darlene asked innocently.

Ava swiveled her head and stared. “Hadley,” she said.

Darlene smiled serenely. She glanced at Ava, then back at the road. “She’s dead,” she said.

“Dead?” Ava said. She stared stupidly at Darlene.

“She died in a car accident seven or eight years ago on her way home from visiting Will.”

T
hey didn’t speak for the rest of the ride to Woodburn Hall. Ava kept her eyes turned to the window, trying to regain her composure in the face of Darlene’s obvious bombshell. She didn’t want to give Darlene the satisfaction of knowing she’d rattled her.