Rock of Ages (25 page)

She sighed, standing straight and tall while Georgia leaned against the kitchen counter.

“That and the easement thing, he seems like he worries about that all the time.”

And so Georgia found out, at last, how worried the Geddies were that they would wake up one day and have a farm no one could get into.

“Why didn't you tell me that was still a problem?” Georgia asked Kenny as they lay on his bed. “I didn't know they were still worried about it.”

“It's such a silly-ass thing to fret about,” Kenny said. “Almost as silly as the mess with the interstate land. I guess I didn't think it was worth mentioning.”

“But it could solve everything,” Georgia said.

Later, she, Justin and Kenny discussed her plan, and then they all went to see Blue.

He appeared unwilling to believe that such a solution was possible, and it occurred to Georgia that perhaps Blue was looking for some reason not to make this commitment.

“This is going to work, Blue,” Justin told him. “If you'll give it a chance, I know it'll work.”

Kenny nodded his head.

“I want to meet you halfway,” he said.

Blue was silent for a few seconds, staring at the ceiling. He looked over at Annabelle, who had come into the small den where they were talking. She nodded her head almost imperceptibly.

“OK,” Blue said. “Let's all go broke together.”

“All for one,” Georgia said, smiling, “and one for all.”

And so it was agreed that the other two partners would give over the two-lane clay track known as Littlejohn McCain Road to Blue and Annabelle, forever, to help make up for the ruined bottom land. There was always something to worry about, Blue would say later to his wife, but now there's a little bit less. Well-meaning promises were one thing, but a deed was something else entirely.

“You can even change the name of the road if you want to,” Georgia said.

“Miss … Georgia, why in the world would I want to do that?”

She called the real-estate woman that same afternoon. The woman showed more enthusiasm for selling the farm than Georgia could remember since she first let her put it on the market, but Georgia told her it was too late, that her son was going to take over the place and try his hand at farming.

The “Good luck” on the other end of the line sounded more snide than sincere.

She looks out her bedroom window, facing west, and sees a burst of red. The temperature is supposed to reach the high 50s today, and Kenny Locklear is out at his homemade golf course, whose grass is now the color of wheat.

She has been in a fog the past week. She replays their two afternoons together in her head, over and over, and she hasn't yet gotten her mind around the fact that Kenny is truly capable of executing a man. Twice, Justin has had to repeat questions to her and ask her where her mind is. Sunday after church, she almost had an accident, backing the van out into the road beside the church without looking. Screeching brakes, a loud, angry horn, and scowls informed her of her mistake.

Yesterday, she forgot it was her birthday until Justin and Leeza came walking into the kitchen while she was still making breakfast. He was holding a flaming cake Leeza, the ever-improving cook, had baked the night before after Georgia went to bed.

The two of them are watching TV when she walks past. Justin looks up but doesn't ask her where she's going.

“Hi,” she calls out when she is close to Kenny, fearful of interrupting his swing on whatever imaginary course he's playing. “I'll bet Tiger Woods would be quaking in his boots if he knew you were working so hard on your game.”

He puts the nine-iron back into the bag and looks at her.

“I love golf. I wish it loved me back.”

He motions for her to come with him. It's a bright, pleasant day, only chilly when the wind picks up.

She falls into step, and they head toward the Rock of Ages.

“Why?” she asks. She doesn't know all the whys she wants to ask, so she lumps them all together.

He seems to understand.

“I've wanted you for a long time,” he says. “I remember the day I met you, more than 11 years ago now. I thought you were the prettiest, sexiest woman I'd ever seen. I thought if I could ever make love to that woman, my life would be complete. The way you smelled, your voice, everything turned me on.”

And I never knew, she thought. How much of life do you miss just because nobody ever tells you anything, or the important things anyhow, and you're too dumb to pick up the signals?

“Have you noticed,” she asks him, “that I'm 11 years older now?” She kicks herself for saying it. Why belabor the obvious, especially when the obvious is not a positive thing?

“I don't see it. You look the same to me. And I'm 11 years older, too.”

She doesn't point out the extra pounds, the graying hair, the cellulite she can see when she turns the mirror just right. Not a bad 52, but 52 nonetheless.

Well, maybe it's true, what he says. She can remember meeting old flames, decades later, and finding that, visual evidence notwithstanding, she could still “see” the boy she used to lust for. Maybe, imprinted in John Kennedy Locklear's mind, is Georgia McCain the way she was when he first took that mental picture, when she was a mere child of 40, two years older than he is right now.

They reach the rock and step around to the west side, facing the sun and out of the wind.

He puts her hand in his. Georgia, who inherited her mother's complexion, has noticed, when they are lying in bed together, that she is, top to bottom, the darker one. Only his hands and face, a farmer's, are more deeply tanned.

“Do you think,” she asks, looking down at those hands and smiling, “that you might be too light-skinned for me? I never knew how pale you were, until …”

“I hope you weren't disappointed.”

“I can't think of anything that's disappointed me when I'm with you.”

He tells her again how good she is, how wonderful, and she basks in it. Indian summer, she thinks, and laughs to herself. When they kiss, they don't separate for five minutes.

“Can anyone see us here?” she asks Kenny, reaching for his zipper.

“Probably not,” he says, “unless Pooh Blackwell is hiding in those woods over there, watching us.”

“Let him watch,” Georgia says. “He might learn something.”

They make love standing up against the old Indian rock, her bottom pressed against the cold stone, one leg bent, as he thrusts against her with an urgency they never experienced inside. She has always been turned on by the prospect of danger, the chance of getting caught or being seen, and she hopes she hasn't offended any Lumbee spirits with her conspicuous climax.

On the way back to the house, he asks her to come inside for a minute.

“OK, but just a minute. I've got to get back. People will talk.”

When they get inside, he hands her a box with a Talbots label on it.

Inside is a long wool scarf, bright red.

“Happy birthday. I didn't know all your sizes, so I figured …”

“Oh, I think you know my sizes pretty well,” she says, grinning, delighted to see that he is blushing. “I think you've taken all my measurements. How did you know it was my birthday?”

“Justin told me.”

“So I guess you know how old I am now, too?”

“Georgia,” he says, “I've always known how old you were. I don't give a shit.”

She goes out for groceries that night. Walking the aisles of the Food Lion, trying in vain to find some tahini because Leeza is suddenly craving hummus and she wouldn't mind some herself, she literally runs into William Blackwell, their carts sideswiping at the end of an aisle.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, then looks up and sees who it is. “William. How're you doing?”

His glare softens. He looks so out of place, pushing the grocery cart, so … domestic. He appears lost, peering over his glasses at her, as if he hasn't done this very often.

“Well, hey, Georgia. Doin' fine. And you?”

Georgia confirms that she's doing fine, too. The way they're shopping, though, they meet again on the next aisle, coming in opposite directions, and then they're beside each other in the checkout lines.

“William,” she says, trying to seize the moment, “can I talk to you?”

He says he's in kind of a hurry. His wife is sick with the flu, and he's got to get home with some groceries. He's worried about the ice cream melting.

“It won't take long, I promise. Five minutes, tops.”

Her van and his car, a big Buick that makes the holy terror of her high school days seem sadly old, are parked near each other. Georgia loads her groceries into the trunk, parks the cart and walks over to where William Blackwell is waiting, leaning against the car.

Georgia knows she doesn't have much time.

She doesn't mention any of her suspicions about his son, just tells him that she was curious about Jenny's drowning and wanted to figure out how it happened.

“I didn't ever mean to imply that Pooh …”

Liar
, the voice in her head whispers.

William holds his hands up, palms facing her.

“Georgia, if it wasn't you, it'd be something else. Pooh's always pissed off about something. I thought it might do him some good to get away from us a little ways, have to make do without his momma fixing half his meals, although she'll do it now if I don't stop her, and drive it over there.”

Looking past her own first perception of William Blackwell, she realizes she might be seeing a man who is tired of fighting but doesn't really have another strategy.

“He's twenty-nine years old,” he says. “Twenty-nine. My God, at twenty-nine, my fourth child had just been born. I was living in my own house, farming two hundred acres. I wasn't exactly a model citizen, didn't want to be, but I knew I had to be a man by a certain time, and that time sure as hell was well before I turned twenty-nine years old.”

“They grow up slower,” Georgia says, thinking of hers. “Every generation seems to.”

He gives her a sharp look, a glimpse of the boy who used to bully football and basketball players.

“Some of us don't have the luxury,” he says. “I mean, Pooh ain't got what you'd call a lot of options.”

He crosses his arms.

“I got to admit, I was a little upset with you, Georgia, when I was told you thought foul play might have been involved in Miss Jenny's death. Not as upset as Pooh, but it did seem like you was pointing fingers.”

Georgia starts to protest, but she doesn't feel like lying to appease William Blackwell.

“OK. When I realized the ring was gone, and later when I found that shoe …”

“Which you never should of been out there looking for in the first place. God knows what that boy would have done if he'd of caught you trespassing.”

“… I didn't know what to think.”

“He's been in some trouble,” William says. “I can't deny that. But the idea that he might have had something to with Jenny falling in that pond, that really hurt.”

“I was making too much of it,” Georgia says. “I have trouble letting stuff go when I sink my teeth in.”

“Yeah,” William says, grinning, “you always was a stubborn little girl. I still remember you arguing with that ninth-grade science teacher, the one that didn't want to hear about us coming from apes and such.”

“Well,” Georgia says, “I'm here to tell you I'm wrong. Jenny fell in the pond and drowned, period. I've been a little crazy lately, probably haven't been thinking everything out like I should. Would you tell Pooh that? It's to the point now where I don't even feel safe going to see him.”

She knows that mentioning the hanged cat, the anonymous call, will only make him more sure she's persecuting his son.

William promises that he will talk to Pooh.

“You know,” he says, as he pushes himself off the fender, “I didn't want those boys of mine to grow up the way I did, feeling like I had to fight all the time just to get some respect. It wasn't any fun.”

For any of us, Georgia thinks.

“But, I don't know, it's just in the blood with some people. I think if we hadn't found a place … if Miss Jenny hadn't died and we hadn't inherited the house, one of his brothers might of shot him by now. He was always stirring something up.

“Georgia,” he says, as she turns to go, “Jenny fell into that pond. Maybe you don't like the way she left us the house and all, but that was her doing. Didn't nobody twist her arm. And didn't nobody push her into that pond.”

He doesn't say it angrily, but like someone who really wants to be believed, and who wants to believe himself.

“Good enough,” Georgia says.

She reaches out to shake his hand, not knowing what else to do. It takes him a couple of seconds to understand. His grip is surprisingly gentle, as if he is afraid he might hurt her.

“Just, you know, give him a little distance,” he says. “He'll simmer down.”

Back at the house, though, the dream teases her again.

Let it go, she tells herself. Let it go.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

December 10

Suddenly, I remember.

When we would visit Jenny and Harold, Jenny would always have some kind of sweets for us. She loved to bake.

I said once, when I was all of 6, that I really loved Miss Jenny's teacakes, and Mom or Daddy repeated it to her, of course. One of the things about living around East Geddie was that you could say something, not even something in the least memorable or witty, and it would be remembered for the rest of your life.

From then on, we always had teacakes when we visited the McLaurins. I mean, from then until I left for college. Hell, Jenny mentioned my saying that the last time I visited her. People around here either really care what you're saying, or they don't have enough to occupy their minds. Either way, I'd have to say I've had a couple of husbands who didn't try as hard to please me as Jenny did with those tea cakes.