Just Kiss Me (10 page)

Cool air from the truck’s vents brushed across his forearms as he drove Vivien back to Berlin’s. He thought of the single women he’d dated since he’d been back in Charleston. Most had been smart and attractive women. A few had even earned his mother’s stamp of approval, but he wasn’t Spence. He didn’t need Nonnie to approve of the women in his life.

He pulled the truck next to the curb in front of Berlin’s and Vivien ran in to grab her dress. His brother had married a bona fide St. Cecilia debutante. Nonnie had been beyond thrilled to have a daughter-in-law, like herself, who’d been presented at the ultra-exclusive St. Cecilia ball held every November. Spence had done what had been expected. He’d married “true Southern,” but look where it got him. In the middle of a brutal divorce and chasing the pain away with booze and women. Henry was different. He wasn’t looking for a pedigree. He was looking for a woman that he would love forever. That he
wanted
to love forever.

After he dropped Vivien off at the carriage house, he pointed his truck toward his small home on John’s Island. The size of the house and the fact that it was only six years old had appealed to him almost as much as the large shop located out back. Before moving into the fifteen-hundred-square-foot house, he’d torn out several walls and made the kitchen, dining room, and living room all one larger space. He’d converted one bedroom into an office and he’d torn out the wall between the other two to make his master suite. The whole house could fit in his mother’s bedroom, but he loved it.

Orange streaks splashed across the sky by the time Henry pulled his truck into his driveway and parked next to the garage in back. Even before he opened the door to his shop, he could smell freshly cut wood and sanding dust. He unlocked the door and flipped on the lights. Besides fresh wood, the building also held the scents of stain and varnish and was filled with molding and millwork machinery. His shoes kicked up a thin layer of sawdust covering the floor as he made his way to the kitchen island he’d fabricated for the penthouse in town. He ran his hand across the gleaming wood as he continued to the clamp table holding the spines and seat of a chair. It matched two others as well as the maplewood table he’d been building for Macy Jane. Now it belonged to Vivien. He’d have to ask her what she wanted done with it.

He thought of Vivien in her hat and sunglasses, all paranoid as if crazed fans were hiding around every corner. As if she might be recognized when in reality, no one had given her a second glance.

The cell phone rang in his shirt pocket, and he looked at the number a second before hitting the talk button. “What’s up, Spence? Are you back in town?”

“Yeah,” his brother answered. “I got home about an hour ago.”

For the past week, Spence had been blowing off steam on a fishing boat in the Florida Keys. “Did you catch anything?”

“Nothing to brag about. I heard about Macy Jane.” Spence paused before he added, “That’s damn sad. She was a nice lady.”

“Yes she was.”

“I heard you took Vivien shopping today.”

He bent down and picked up a bar clamp someone had left on the floor. “You must have been talking to Mother.”

“No. Rowley Davidson just sent me a text. His wife, Lottie, went to school with Vivien, and she showed him something on the Internet.”

Henry walked toward the clamp rack and placed it in the row where it belonged. “Exactly what does Rowley Davidson’s wife, Lottie, have to do with me?”

“He sent me an Internet link to one of those gossip sites.” Spence laughed. “You should take a look.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.” Again Spence laughed like there was some sort of hilarity going on. “I’m saying good-bye now so I can send you the link.”

Spence hung up, and less than a minute later, Henry received his brother’s text. He touched the link with his thumb and waited. A red and black site popped up—along with a photograph of Henry sitting next to Vivien at the King Street Grille. She had a nacho in one hand. He had her bright blue bra dangling from one finger. The cut-line read: Unidentified man fondles Vivien Rochet’s bra.

THE FUNERAL SERVICE
for Macy Jane Rochet took place at St. Phillip’s Episcopal Church. The parish rector, Father John Dinsmore, clothed in his white vestments and aided by an equally impressively dressed verger, delivered the liturgy for the burial of the dead. Secretly pleased that the church was filled to capacity and the mourners would hear his deep, compelling voice, he praised Macy Jane for her love of God and dedication to the community of Christ.

Vivien hadn’t known her mother to have so many friends but, as Vivien was learning, there was quite a bit she’d never known. Quite a bit Macy Jane had kept from her. Quite a bit she’d have to sort out, later. When she had time and space to think and breathe. When she was finally alone and could curl up in a ball.

When Father Dinsmore praised Sister Macy Jane’s love and devotion to Jesus, Vivien almost smiled. Whether it was, “Jesus hates ugly,” or “Lies make baby Jesus cry,” or “You can worry or vex—or insert any verb—Jesus right off of his cross,” Jesus had always been big in her momma’s life.

Vivien sat in the front pew, surrounded by more than a hundred people, but she’d never felt so alone in her life. Not even as a kid, singled out for being different. She wore a sleeveless black dress and her grandmother’s pearls. The princess-length necklace was nowhere near the same quality as the Mikimoto pearls Vivien had given to her mother, but the sentimental value was beyond measure.

She’d combed her hair into a loose bun at the nape of her neck and wore her mother’s black pillbox hat with the netting pulled over her face. She’d brushed waterproof mascara on her lashes and red smudgeproof lipstick on her mouth. Nonnie sat on one side of Vivien and her uncle Richie and his wife, Kathy, sat on the other. Just a few feet away, Macy Jane’s white casket gleamed beneath the chandeliers, and Vivien was grateful that the Episcopal Church required a closed casket. She didn’t think she could hold herself together if she had to look at her momma once more, wearing her pink dress and holding prayer beads in her hands folded across her abdomen.

The worst part was over. At least she hoped it was the worst part. Earlier, she’d done her duty and sat by the open casket while mourners poured in for the viewing. Except for the lipstick that was a shade too orange, her momma looked like she always looked. Like she was asleep and would open her eyes and sit up, and Vivien had had to hold herself tight so she wouldn’t jump up and run out of the room. She’d had to hold herself together when she wanted to tear off her own skin, rip out her own aching heart, or wail like Marta Southerland when she’d approached the casket.

Vivien had held it together during the viewing and during the long funeral. At the conclusion of the service, Henry and Spence and four other pallbearers carried the casket out of St. Phillip’s and to a silver hearse parked at the curb. Across from the church, a large group of boys and teenage girls, middle-aged women and men, stood behind a security barrier guarded by the four big men. In light of the TMZ internet post, Sarah had arranged a security detail to make sure the funeral wasn’t disrupted, but the gathering across the street was solemn. They simply raised one hand in the air above their heads, Zahara West’s rebel brand drawn on their palms. The salute was a sign of respect taken from the Raffle trilogy, and the sight of her fans gave her pause before she dipped inside the silver limo and sat next to Nonnie. Across from her sat her momma’s only brother, Richie, and his wife, Kathy, watching the Raffle fans as if they were about to rush the car. Vivien wasn’t all that surprised to see them. Thanks to TMZ, they knew she was in Charleston. Someone had caught her eating at the sports pub, but the image of her blue bra dangling from Henry’s finger almost made it worth it. She wondered if he’d seen the picture. Did he still think she was just paranoid?