Flying Shoes (43 page)
Authors: Lisa Howorth
Downstairs, she put back the tree book and made her rounds, putting dishes in the dishwasher, turning off the five hundred lights that had been left on, herding Puppy Sal and the Pounder into the kitchen for the night. She passed William Byrd’s portrait and the little hieroglyphic diary page on the wall, and stopped before it.
Was life better then or is it better now? she wondered. So much had been simpler then, at least for white people, but they had worked their asses off, even if they did have slaves, their terrible non-secret. All the sickness, too. Byrd’s baby son Parke had died of something as simple as a fever when he was only ten months old.
My wife had several fits of tears for our son but kept within the bounds of submission.
Jesus. But life had to go on. Byrd, so much like Charles: straightforward, a control freak in a mostly good way, taking care of bidnes. She thought to honor Byrd, there in the darkened hall. She danced, doing a couple jiggy steps and a pirouette that she thought might resemble an eighteenth-century minuet or a contra dance. She curtsied to him. Then, to honor Stevie, she went all interpretive, bending and contorting, throwing her chin to the ceiling, and drawing her fists to her heart in anguish, and then she Monster Mashed and Monkeyed. For herself and her youth on Cherry Glen Lane, she Swam and Ponied, and for her children she did a little Cabbage Patch and a Bus Driver that would have horrified them. All solo, partnerless dances, she realized. Charles was a good dancer, but he preferred to dance solo, sixties style, too. Did they even remember how to dance with a partner? Did they even want to?
She climbed the stairs once again, so tired, to their bedroom. There was Charles’s long sleeping form, snoring softly. After undressing and slipping on her nightgown, which smelled soothingly of herself, Mary Byrd eased into bed so as not to wake Charles, who probably had a zillion things to do the next day and needed his sleep. She didn’t; just the usual. She closed her eyes, resolving to have good health, good thoughts, and good humor, thanks be to God Almighty. Before falling quickly to sleep she thought, Ha.
The thing about teaching old dogs is true. This book was written in longhand on yellow legal pads, and only with the technical assistance of Katie Morrison, Megan Prescott, Elizabeth Dollarhide, my son, Beckett Howorth IV, Lee Durkee, Bernard Kuria at Safari Wine and Spirits/Copytime, and, especially, my daughter Claire Howorth has this book been made presentable to the twenty-first-century world. I thank them for their expertise and extreme patience.
For answering questions, I thank Les Standiford, Detective Joe Matthews, Ollie Carrothers, Andy Howorth, Padgett Powell, Dent May, Tim Junkin, Tucker Carrington, Dolph Overton, Ken Coghlan, Tom Rosser, Dr. T. Starkey, Doug Roberts, Davis Kilman and the Richmond Public Library, and WFS. A heartfelt apology goes out to FB.
I thank Laurie Stirratt, Diana and Gary Fisketjon, Joey Lauren Adams, Anne Rapp, Jim Dees, Claiborne Barksdale, Mike Nizza, Inge Feltrinelli, Janie Wells, Karl Ackerman, and Katie Blount for reading, listening, and laughs, and for keeping my spirits up. I’m grateful for the regular ass-kickings I received from Nicky Dawidoff, Kristina and Richard Ford, Doug Stumpf, and my mom, Claire Del Vecchio Johnston. Sarah Crichton and Alex Glass gave me invaluable attention. I thank Jon Massey and Jeff Dennis for their care and ’vigilance. My husband, Richard, and my daughter Bébé helped me and put up with negligence and smoke. Thanks to the Virginia Historical Society for permission to quote from and take liberties with
The Secret Diary of William Byrd
, and to the Mississippi Forestry Commission for
Mississippi Trees.
I hope the late Townes Van Zandt would have been okay with me swiping the title from a great song, and thanks to his son J. T. Van Zandt for his blessing.
I was given wonderful places to write by Darrell Crawford and David McConnell, Thomas Verich, and Debra Winger and Arliss Howard. The MacDowell Colony gave me not only time and space but the confidence to go forward with my writing.
During the writing of this book, we lost some important Mississippi writers who have inspired me in many ways: Larry Brown, Barry Hannah, Willie Morris, Lewis Nordan, and Josephine Haxton (Ellen Douglas). I miss them and am so grateful to have had their friendship. The late Dean Faulkner Wells, who published her fine memoir just before she died at seventy, showed me that it was never too late.
Thanks, of course, to everyone at Bloomsbury USA and UK, especially my editor, Nancy Miller, who kept the faith, and George Gibson, Lea Beresford, Laura Keefe, Nate Knaebel, Patti Ratchford, and Summer Smith; and all at ICM, particularly Dan Kirschen and my badass agent, Lisa Bankoff.
I thank my family—Johnstons, Neumanns, Valenzas, Del Vecchios, Woods, and Howorths—for their love and support. My late sister-in-law, Susan Barksdale Howorth, gave me an iPod (loaded by my nephew Stewart, who won’t let me live down the fact that I excitedly first put the iPod to my ear) for easy access to the music I needed. Special thanks goes to one of my bros in particular, Sam Johnston, without whose pursuit of the facts concerning the still unsolved murder of our brother, Steven Francis Johnston, I could not have written this book.
I hope I haven’t left anyone out. If I have, blame my sketchy memory and not my lack of gratitude. For you all, or at least most of you, my love’s bigger than a Cadillac.
—L.N.H.
Lisa Howorth was born in Washington, DC, where her family has lived in the area for four generations. She moved to Oxford, Mississippi, where she married her husband, Richard, and raised their three children. They opened Square Books (named by
Publishers Weekly
as the 2013 Book Store of the Year) in 1979.
@SquareBooks
Copyright © 2014 by Lisa Howorth
All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce, or otherwise make
available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without
limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording, or
otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does
any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution
and civil claims for damages. For information address Bloomsbury USA, 1385 Broadway,
New York, NY 10018.
‘‘Memo from Turner’’ written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
Published by ABKCO Music, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents
are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York
Bloomsbury is a trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Howorth, Lisa.
Flying shoes : a novel / Lisa Howorth.—First U.S. Edition.
eISBN: 978-1-62040-302-0
1. Women journalist—Fiction 2. Cold cases (Criminal
investigation)—Fiction 3. Sexually abused boys—
Fiction 4. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3608.095729F59 2014
813´.6—dc23
2013039124
First U.S. Edition 2014
This Electronic edition published June 2014
Designed by Simon Sullivan
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