Stardust A Novel (4 page)
O’Dell might’ve been a skunk, but his fragrance had just gotten a whole lot sweeter. I speed-read through the rest of the document until my eyes landed on the benefactor line.
Fiona Callahan.
My mouth went dry. Fiona? Some Creole queen with a French-sounding name had stolen my husband? I stared until I was sure I’d burned the letters off the page.
What did Fiona have that I didn’t? How could he? While I may not have been the most exotic woman on the planet, I’d been told I had a pretty smile and nice legs.
The familiar droning started near my ear, buzzing, drilling home the truth: my husband cheated on me.
Twenty. Thousand. Dollars.
I threw the document on the table and snatched the flyswatter from the hook by the back door, and when the light caught the iridescent-winged fly hovering over the Harwell insurance policy, I tensed my jaw, drew back my arm, and smashed it into a bloody smudge.
Right next to the name of Fiona Callahan.
S
outhern manners and turning the other cheek be hanged. The name Fiona Callahan winked up at me from the insurance policy, mocking me in a way that felt like I’d been the one dragged through the swamp mud. Who was I kidding? O’Dell’s infidelity left a hole as big as a moon crater in my heart, and I’d allowed the crater to be lined with the saccharine taste of denial. If I had a grain of sense, I would’ve packed up the girls at once and moved to Dallas. Or Shreveport. Or Nashville. Maybe I could get a job waiting tables at a Western bar and start my life over. And I’m as certain as my name is Georgia Lee Peyton, if O’Dell had walked through the door that night, I would have personally dragged him down to the bayou and drowned him myself.
By three in the morning, I’d riffled through every drawer, shoe box, and place I could think of searching for an insurance policy with
my
name as the benefactor. Nothing. I had a house, bought and paid for—thirty-two hundred dollars, completely furnished, thank you. A savings account with three hundred and forty-six dollars that had to pay for a funeral and our living expenses until I could find a job or move in with Aunt Cora.
Other assets: two girls who depended on me. A 1946 Ford Coupe that was six years old and needed new tires. A gold wedding band from the Mercantile in Jefferson. And a mother-in-law who clung to me like Spanish moss on a cypress tree.
Maybe I’d been living my entire life in a dreamworld where I thought people came back and loved you and would hang the moon if you asked them to. You’d think by now it would have sunk in that people are not necessarily who you think they are. Parents leave their children. Husbands have affairs. Mothers-in-law drink themselves into oblivion, and the one person who wanted to take us to her bosom was an aunt who could’ve been a kissing cousin of Rahab the harlot.
I shuddered and pushed it out of my mind. I’d been down that path so many times I knew every crack in the sidewalk. Tomorrow I would call on Mary Frances and see if she knew anything about O’Dell leaving any life insurance policies lying around. That did give me a glimmer of hope since O’Dell’s daddy had been an independent insurance salesman and had left Mary Frances with a tidy sum when he died. I also needed to check on her. Just because her son didn’t give a fig about me didn’t mean I could abandon her.
Rosey dawdled over her cornflakes while I fortified myself with a second cup of coffee and found her schoolbag, then adjusted the clip in her hair, which flew in more directions than my thoughts.
“All right, time for school. Don’t want you to be late.”
She opened her mouth to protest, then clamped her lips together. We’d already been over it a dozen times. Yes, she had to go to school. No, she didn’t have to talk about her daddy dying. Yes, Mommy would pick her up. And yes, I crossed my heart and hoped to die I would never leave her. Thank goodness, her six-year-old brain didn’t see the irony in that promise.
The air was heavy with bayou smells—rotted earth and mud turtles and boggy pools—smells that tickled the back of my throat, clung to my skin, and reminded me it was God’s way of dust to dust in the swamps. Our part of Mayhaw lay in the crescent of the bayou, and momentarily, I remembered that the other end of town had a completely different texture to the air. Pine needles. The smell of sawdust from the lumber mill up the road. Blue skies above the open meadows where cows grazed. The flashing neon of the Stardust.
After the two-block walk to Robert E. Lee Elementary and another round of hugs and kisses, Rosey shuffled into the front door of the school. As we headed back toward home, a car horn beeped, and I looked up to see my best friend, Sally Cotton, motioning for us to come over. She wore gypsy hoop earrings, sunglasses that covered half her face, and Japanese silk pajamas. “Time for coffee?” Her voice sparkled as always.
“Not today. Going to check on O’Dell’s mom.” Avril bounced up and down, yanking on my arm.
“Please, Mommy, I wanna play with Rae Rae.” Avril couldn’t say Nelda Rae, but she adored Sally’s four-year-old, who sported skinned knees from falling out of trees and had a pair of six-shooters. Cowboys and Indians trumped MeMaw every time.
“Let Avie come, and you can swing by later to pick her up. We’ve a heap of catching up to do.” Avril’s pleading eyes looked up at me, so I opened the door, thanked Sally, and waved as Sally’s Cadillac lurched forward.
Having decided to take advantage of the convenience of O’Dell’s car, I went home, grabbed the keys, and ten minutes later pounded on Mary Frances’s front door, waited a minute, and pounded again. When she didn’t come, I let myself in. “Yoo-hoo! Mary Frances, it’s me… Georgia.”
Doing a quick survey of the living room, I found it wasn’t too disorderly. Magazines scattered about. A cigarette burning in the ashtray, its long ash nearly to the filter. I stubbed it out and almost bumped into Mary Frances, who had apparently been in the bathroom. Her days with her cousin Bertha hadn’t improved her personal hygiene. I’d seen bird’s nests more organized than her salt-and-pepper hair, but she did have on lipstick, so maybe she was improving.
She blinked and said, “You scared me half to death. What are you up to, Georgia? Ever heard of the telephone?”
“I should have called. I’m sorry. I thought you might want some company.”
“I’ve had all the company I can stand. Three days with my cousin Bertha could drive the governor himself out of office. Why, she went on forever and a day moaning about how horrible my life had turned out. You woulda thought it was her son that drowned the way she kept nursing my last bottle of gin. I’m on my way to Ralph’s so I can get fortifications.” Sure enough, she was half dressed, and I offered to zip the back of her dress, which still gaped open.
“Bertha? The cousin from Corsicana? I never knew she was a drinker.”
“Neither did I. Not becoming for a mayor’s wife, you know. And if she thinks I’m moving to Corsicana so she can mooch off me and the pittance I have left of Earl’s life insurance money, she’s nuttier than a hoot owl.”
“What? She wants you to move in with her and the mayor?”
“No. Just to Corsicana. Thinks I should be near family in my time of need. I set her straight. I’ve got my own family to sustain me right here in Mayhaw.”
When she saw my raised eyebrows, she added, “You, Georgia. You and the girls. You’re all the family I want. Or need.” Her hands trembled as she fumbled with her silver lighter and Pall Mall. “So you didn’t tell me what the occasion of your visit is.”
“I came to check on you. And I have some questions.”
“Could we discuss it on the way over to Ralph’s?”
“He doesn’t open until ten.”
“Yes, my dear, I called ahead. He’s meeting me at the Sweet Shoppe. He knows what I want.”
And indeed he did. And since we were there, I bought Mary Frances a donut and a cup of coffee. Now that we had time to talk, bringing up the subject of life insurance felt mercenary. The dirt mound hadn’t even settled over O’Dell’s grave, and all I could think of was what provisions he left to the girls and me. Practicality won out.
“Mary Frances, I hate to bring it up, but I can’t seem to find a life insurance policy at the house. Do you have any idea…”
Mary Frances twitched. Her shoulders first, then shaky hands. “You think we could cut this short? I need to get home.”
“In a minute. I’m trying to figure out where we go from here. I have two girls who need clothes. And shoes. And food to eat. O’Dell didn’t make a great deal of money… the truth is, I haven’t seen any of his commission money in more than two months.” I hated being so forthright, especially in public, but my lack of sleep and Mary Frances’s twitching had taken their toll. Not to mention every time I took a breath, the name Fiona Callahan flashed through my head.
My mother-in-law sniffed. “I’m sure O’Dell had a good reason. Perhaps a slump in sales. And it’s not that you can’t get a job. I know it’s early after O’Dell’s passing to bring it up…” Her foot slipped off the bar at the counter, and she bumped her coffee cup, splashing it on the counter. I grabbed a napkin to mop up the mess and looked at her. Hard.
“Yes, I do plan on going to work. But in the meantime—”
“Hey, Georgia.” A twangy voice on my left interrupted. I knew the voice without turning—Bobby Carl Applegate. I did a slow pivot on the counter stool to greet him.
“Hey, yourself.”
“Sorry about O’Dell. Man, it gave me the willies when I was reading his obit on the radio.” Bobby Carl. Local disc jockey, newsman, and the boy who gave me my first kiss. Age ten. I smacked him, but he’d acted like he had first rights to me ever since. Silly man.
“Thanks. It was a shock to all of us. We’re still trying to make sense of it.”
“Anything I can do?” He stood close enough I could smell the Aqua Velva he splashed on his fair, though somewhat doughy, face. He’d never outgrown the baby face, and his stature never caught up, either. In high school, I’d towered over him and still did.
“No, but thanks for asking.”
“You aiming to stick around Mayhaw?”
“What else would I do?”
“You never know. A voice like yours, you could raise a few eyebrows at the Grand Ole Opry.”
What a laugh. “I don’t think so. Carrying a tune and being a real singer aren’t in the same league. Besides, you have to be asked to appear on the show. Cut a record or something, which I’ve no intention of doing.”
“Guess you’ll be whuppin’ up on all the other contestants in this year’s talent show then?”
“Sure. If I have time. You never know what I’ll be doing.”
He craned his neck to look around me at Mary Frances, then winked and whispered, “If you need an escort to the dance, you know where to find me.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re a mess, Bobby Carl.”
With eyes narrowed, he said, “Well?”
Shaking my head, I told him to pick on some other poor defenseless widow. Then I paid for our coffee and took Mary Frances home. She remained quiet on the ride, her fingers curled around the paper sack holding her prescription for grief. And life.
I dropped her off, then gripped the wheel, determined not to make the same choices as Mary Frances. Even if I had to dance with Bobby Carl at the Mayhaw Festival, it was better than letting a bottle consume me.
And with a flick of my wrist, I wheeled the car toward Sally’s, intending to take her up on her offer for coffee. Already, though, the morning had heated up, and when I got to the intersection at Main, I knew more coffee wasn’t what I wanted. What I wanted was to go to the Stardust. To check on Doreen and Paddy. Perhaps Paddy had gone for another round of cobalt treatments and they’d closed the Stardust for a spell. There had to be an explanation for its ragged appearance. The least I could do was have a look. They were—in Cora’s words—family. Of a sort.
The weeds had grown even more since O’Dell’s funeral, tangling the ditch and threatening to choke the gravel drive beside the office. No cars in sight. I swung the Ford into the spot reserved for the manager and cranked the window open. To my surprise, a soft breeze filtered in, bringing with it a green, piney scent. Although the bayou veered off behind the Stardust, its presence seemed more remote here at the edge of town. A flutter came to my chest as I took a deep breath and turned off the Ford.
