The Girl On Legare Street (14 page)

She’d hit the right target, of course, as I’m sure she’d planned. While I was silently weighing the pros and cons of dressing up and leading a tour in a house I hated versus the exposure for my business, Rebecca saw her opportunity to escape and started edging her way to the door. Before I could say anything else, she had reached the doorway. “I can tell you’re busy. I’ll send you more details as we get closer. Thanks again.” With a little wave, she left, leaving a trail of expensive perfume behind.

I stood on the steps in front of the Legare Street house, unsure if I should knock or let myself in. It was the home of a stranger, after all, and the rules of engagement were new to me.

The overnight bag containing the last remnants of the possessions I would need for the next few months or so—my cosmetics, hair products, flannel nightgown and slippers, as well as several worksheets I’d made to accelerate the work schedule and decrease the time I’d have to spend in the house—was slung over my shoulder as I stood contemplating the door. I looked back at my car and General Lee, who sat in the back in his car seat, and his reassuring gaze gave me a boost of moral support.

An unfamiliar white Cadillac sedan was parked in the driveway and Jack’s Porsche, thankfully, was missing. According to Rebecca, he would have brought my mother to her house nearly three hours earlier. It was plenty of time, according to my own calculations, for him to bring in her luggage, attempt to be charming, and leave, which was why I’d waited until five o’clock to make an appearance. I glanced nervously at the early-evening sky before raising my hand to give a tentative knock.

As I waited, I practiced a bland, unemotional expression with which to greet my mother and held it for a long three minutes before I began the process all over again, starting with three louder knocks.

My face began to hurt after another three minutes, so I very reluctantly dropped my hand to the doorknob, hesitating only a moment before turning it. I was surprised to find it unlocked and wondered if my mother had forgotten to lock it or, from experience, if something else might be involved.

Slowly, I pushed open the door, the shock of the carnival-like interior not having dwindled since the last time my senses were assaulted by it. But somewhere, behind the garish colors and tasteless accents, I smelled the familiar scent of these old houses: of polished wood, antique fabrics, and the soft breath of people long since gone but whose presence lingered still. Accompanied always, of course, by the sound of an alarming amount of money being sucked out the door. Despite my growing appreciation for the historic grand dames south of Broad Street, there were still moments—usually after another brutal session of scraping paint from hand-carved moldings or sanding through a century’s worth of varnish—when I would wistfully imagine a wrecking ball solving all of the restoration woes in one fell swoop.

I stepped into the empty foyer, my attention turned to the closed door leading into the drawing room. The subdued rhythm of murmuring voices drifted toward me, and I was reminded of a similar scene from when I was a girl. Dropping my bag, I allowed anger to push me forward. I didn’t pause at the closed door but instead flung it open, my thoughts confirmed when I saw my mother and another woman facing each other in two Windsor chairs. The chairs looked suspiciously like two from my house on Tradd Street that Sophie said she’d find a temporary home for while my floors were being restored. My mother, without gloves, held the hands of the other woman, their palms faceup, my mother’s eyes open and turned toward the ceiling, which I noticed for the first time had inexplicably been wallpapered with purple stars and clouds.

A rush of cold air enveloped me as my mother’s empty gaze shifted toward me, like a moth seeking flame. The lights flickered and dimmed as I stood in the doorway, the strings of plastic beads that hung over the front-facing windows beginning to sway as what felt like a force field around my mother pushed at me like a padded fist. But instead of repelling me, it seemed to be reaching out to me, sucking me toward it. I gripped the doorway, the wood weeping with moisture under my palms, threatening my grip. I looked up again at the hideous ceiling toward the mirrored chandelier with its thirty or more small rounded bulbs and watched as the lights brightened to a startling intensity before one by one each bulb shattered like stars plummeting to earth.

The two women dropped their hands and covered their heads.

“Go!”

I startled, not recognizing the deep voice as my mother’s until she repeated herself. “Get out!” she said, louder. “Quickly. It’s not safe in here!”

Stumbling, I backed out of the room, feeling the force around me begin to diminish, like a child’s fingers being pulled one by one from her mother’s skirts.

I collapsed on top of the pile of my belongings, too exhausted to stand or keep moving. I sat there, breathing heavily, until my mother and her companion emerged from the parlor.

My mother immediately crossed the room and took my hands, the feel of her skin on mine as foreign to me as another language. I tried to pull away but she held tightly.

“You felt it, didn’t you?”

I didn’t answer, my eyes traveling to the woman standing behind her wringing her hands and looking as if she wanted nothing more than to leave.

I faced my mother again. “You were giving a reading, weren’t you? You know Daddy doesn’t like you to do that.”

A spark of amusement lit her eyes for a moment. “But this is my house. He has no say in what I choose to do.” She squeezed my hands and peered into my eyes. “Are you all right?”

I nodded and to my relief she let go of my hands and stood. Indicating her companion, she said, “This is Gloria Elmore, an old friend of mine. She wanted to talk to her son.”

I didn’t need to ask if the son was dead; I’d seen him standing beside his mother right before the chandelier exploded, his gaping head wound confirming my suspicion that he was no longer among the living.

I stood, too, and greeted Mrs. Elmore, wondering if she’d been one of the many friends of my mother’s who used to crowd around her at parties and private readings when I was a small child—and whose presence in our lives fueled the tension between my parents.

I waited while my mother led Mrs. Elmore to the door amid apologies and vague explanations of overloaded fuse boxes. The back of my neck tingled as the unmistakable scent of gunpowder filled my nostrils. I glanced around the foyer for my soldier but didn’t see him, not sure from whom he was hiding.

The door had barely closed behind Mrs. Elmore before I rounded on my mother. “What are you thinking? You’ve been back not even a day and you’re already intent on making us laughingstocks in this town. Do you not care that I have a professional reputation to uphold and that your sideshow antics might hurt me?” I held up my hand. “Oh, wait. Never mind. Hurting me has never held you back, so why would I expect it to now? You just go ahead and destroy the life that I’ve worked so hard to build. The part that wasn’t destroyed when you walked out on me and Daddy.”

I began to march toward the door for a dramatic exit but stopped when I realized that I had nowhere else to go. I could hear the smile in my mother’s voice when she spoke as if she realized it, too.

“This is who we are, Mellie. It’s our gift. And we can choose to hide it from the world or we can choose to help others with it. Either way, it’s not going away.”

I felt exhausted all of a sudden, having known the truth of her words since the first time my father shouted at me to stop talking to people he said weren’t there. It was the thing that had bonded my mother and me together, and I’d spent years trying to untie the knots. Unfortunately, as I had learned as a small child, wanting something badly didn’t always mean you’d get it.

My eyes met hers. “Why are you here? Why have you really come back?”

She looked as tired as I felt. She paused for a moment before speaking. Softly, she said, “For you. Everything I’ve ever done has been for you.”

“You have an odd way of showing it,” I said, the anger in my voice gone, the words full of resignation. A flash of light from the parlor caught my attention and my mother and I both turned toward the doorway. I started to move toward it but my mother’s hand held me back.

“It’s nothing,” she said. “Just Mrs. Elmore’s son saying good-bye.”

Confused, I looked at her. She’d spoken with enough departed spirits when I lived with her to know that the type of phenomenon we’d just witnessed wasn’t usual or expected. Something had changed. “But nothing happened until I entered the room.”

She glanced away from me to the pile of bags and moved to pick up my small cosmetics case. “I do think it had something to do with the wiring. I’m sure you can give me a recommendation for a good electrician.” She smiled. “Come on, let’s get you settled.”

I was too old to allow my mother’s and my past to rule my life, and the best way to handle the situation was not to contradict her regardless of how wrong I knew her to be. I picked up my overnight bag. “I need to get General Lee out of the car. But first let me know what room you want me to take. Nothing in the back of the house, please.”

Her eyes lit with amusement again. “You and I are in the two front bedrooms, the ones that connect through the dressing room. The walls are painted lime green, and I promise those will be the first we paint. Can’t see starting each day with a migraine.” She paused for a moment. “There’s also a, um, er, ceiling mural in your bedroom depicting what I think might be a scene from Nero’s last days.You might want to sleep on your side until we can get that fixed.”

I looked at her with alarm but she’d already turned toward the stairs. She was halfway up the staircase before she spoke again. “We need to talk about your fortieth-birthday party. I was thinking Hibernian Hall or White Point Gardens with lots of fireworks. Or the yacht club, but I’d always thought you’d have your wedding reception there, so I’d like to hold out on that one. Regardless, we’ll need to do something with your hair. I was thinking highlights to frame your face. Maybe we should ask Jack what he thinks.”

It was unclear if she was referring to my birthday party or my hair; either way, I’d rather ask a sneaker-clad, camera-laden tourist, or General Lee for that matter, than ask Jack’s advice on anything. I didn’t think I could take his smug satisfaction that I would defer to him on any matter more consequential than furniture placement.

I made a face at my mother’s retreating back, unable to find words to respond. Each footstep as I climbed the stairs was leaden—weighed down with thirty-three years’ worth of unasked questions. I stared at her back and her bare hands avoiding the banister and wondered why after all this time Ginnette Prioleau Middleton had suddenly decided to become my mother. Or why the thought didn’t upset me as much as it should have.

I awoke the next morning to General Lee shivering next to me—our breath visible in cloudy puffs above our heads. The sheets and blankets were lying in puddles around the bed and all four windows were wide open, long vermilion drapes fluttering like moths inside the room. Gathering the little dog to my chest, I struggled to close the windows, then returned to the bed for another twenty minutes, this time with covers, until we were both thawed enough to venture out again.

I wasn’t afraid. Not of these ghosts, anyway. I’d known them since childhood and realized they were simply making their presence known to me. I’d even surprised myself by falling asleep quickly the night before, not caring to dwell on the measure of comfort I’d felt at the proximity of the connecting door to my mother’s room. I’d attempted to read—a university press publication about the origins of the Historic Charleston Foundation loaned to me by Sophie to give me a deeper appreciation for historical homes and the efforts to restore them for our collective posterity—but I’d fallen asleep after the first page. It wasn’t that the book was poorly written or the subject all that uninteresting; it was only that I lived historical home restoration every day and had the nubby fingernails to prove it. There was no reason to relive my misery in bedtime reading.

I took a quick shower in the adjoining bathroom, trying to ignore the mirrored ceilings and walls and the red-velvet-upholstered window treatments that seemed more suitable for a bordello. Keeping my back to the shower spray so I could see the door, I loofahed, exfoliated, shaved, soaped, shampooed, and conditioned with at least one eye open the entire time. After slathering myself with lotion, I hurriedly dressed, then headed downstairs—General Lee following closely.

The sound of murmuring voices, one male and one female, led me to the kitchen. I recognized my mother’s voice and what sounded like her giggling. With faster steps I made it to the louvered saloon-style doors to the kitchen and pushed them open.

My parents, each holding steaming mugs of coffee with a large plate of donuts on the table between them, sat very close and were looking at each other as if they were teenagers at a sock hop. A bouquet of fresh pink roses sat on the counter next to what appeared to be a stack of photographs. They looked up at the same time with matching expressions of guilt and horror as if just caught in the act of consorting with the enemy.

My mother stood abruptly, sloshing coffee from her mug, and that’s when I noticed the red silk negligee, nearly transparent, that barely covered the matching teddy she wore underneath. I opened my mouth to offer to fetch my terry-cloth robe but stopped, somehow reluctant to advertise the fact that my mother wore sexier lingerie than I did. And looked better in it, too. Although both of us had the long and lean Prioleau genes, she’d somehow managed to snag a rogue gene from an unknown limb of the family tree and ended up with breasts. I, on the other hand, had worn training bras through high school and most of college for encouragement purposes only, and even now could probably go braless without anyone noticing.

“Morning,” I said. Then, to prevent myself from saying the only other word that came to mind—“Ew”—I crossed to the kitchen counter where the coffeemaker and a clean mug were sitting, poured myself a cup, then took General Lee outside to relieve himself. When we came back in, General Lee immediately went to the food bowl that somebody—probably my dad—had already filled and I faced my parents.

“Good morning, Mellie. Your father stopped by to bring us donuts from Ruth’s Bakery. It was our favorite, remember? I used to take you there as a little girl.”

I closed my eyes, the steam from my coffee dampening my face. I hadn’t remembered, of course. I doubt I would have been going there all these years if I had. But I’d always wondered if the reason I kept going back had less to do with the wonderful donuts and coffee I got there, and more to do with searching for something I’d lost but could never name.

Opening my eyes again, I turned around to face them. “No. I can’t say I remember.” Never one to resist sugar, I approached the table without looking at either one of them and took a glazed donut.

“I love your suit, Mellie,” my mother said, eyeing me critically. “You should have the skirt shortened, though.You’ve got fabulous legs and you shouldn’t be ashamed to show them a little.”

Swallowing the donut that was sticking in my throat, I said, “In my profession, Mother, I need to be taken seriously and dressing like a hooker isn’t a good way to accomplish that.” I stared pointedly at her revealing outfit.

I took another bite from my donut, surprised my mother hadn’t risen to the bait and said something about frumpy almost forty-year-olds remaining single. I looked back at her and saw that she was staring at my neck.

“What is that?”

Confused, I placed my coffee mug on the table and reached up to the open-neck collar of my jacket and felt the gold heart-shaped locket with the initial
M
. I wasn’t sure why I wore it. It was in bad need of a thorough cleaning and I didn’t even like it that much. It was more like a compulsion that made me keep it around my neck as a sort of talisman, I supposed. For what, I wasn’t sure.

My father stood, too. “I gave that to her, Ginny. We found it on the boat and figured it belonged with Melanie instead of in a plastic bag somewhere. They’d already documented it and tested it so it’s not like I was tampering with evidence or anything.”

My mother didn’t appear to be listening. “It’s like the one in the portrait.”

I nodded, and our eyes met.

She raised her hand, then lowered it slowly. Speaking softly, out of my father’s hearing range, she asked, “Why didn’t you show this to me before?”

The answer was easy. “Because I know what it does to you.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t have thought you cared.”

I paused, considering her words. I had thought about asking her to hold the locket, to see if it would tell her anything, but I knew what some objects did to her. I remembered days when she was feverish and unable to eat, days when the visions and voices wouldn’t leave her alone because she’d handled something with a powerful message. It’s why she wore the gloves, after all. Still, I wasn’t sure if I hadn’t asked because I thought it would harm her, or if I was afraid that she’d tell me no.

I slid a glance to my father, who was pretending he wasn’t trying to listen. “There are other ways to determine the identity of the women in the portrait,” I said.

She took a step toward me and put a hand on my arm before I could step back. “But don’t you see? That’s why I’m here. We need to do this together.” She squeezed my arm slightly. “And I would do anything for you. Anything. Because you’re my daughter, Mellie.”

She said the last part as if it explained everything, as if it filled in all the empty nooks and crannies of my childhood like melted butter on a muffin. It surprised me enough that I hardly noticed when she stepped closer and raised her bare hand, clasping the locket in her fist.

At first, it didn’t appear that anything was happening. Then her hand began to shake as if electricity was coursing through her body. Her eyes rolled back, her eyelashes fluttering, and her other hand came up to grasp her arm as if to keep it still. Her mouth opened, but she seemed unable to speak, or maybe her own words were being silenced by something unseen. Then, in a voice that wasn’t hers in words as thick and heavy as black tar, she said, “Give it back.” She licked her lips, and I saw that they were cracked and peeling now, like someone who’d been swimming in the ocean for a long time. Slowly, the voice said, “It’s mine. It’s all mine.”

Before I could respond or react, my mother pulled away, dropping the locket as if it had burned her. It scalded my skin where it settled, and I watched while my mother flexed and unflexed her fist.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“Yes. Yes, I’m fine,” she said as she walked across the kitchen to the sink and began pouring water over her hand.

My father had stood, and was staring at my mother. “What the hell was that?”

Neither of us answered, either because we didn’t know the answer or because even if we did, it wouldn’t matter if we told him or not; he still wouldn’t believe us.

“Who was it?” I asked my mother, my voice tight.

She shook her head as she leaned on the counter, trying to catch her breath. “I’m not sure.” She shook her head again, as if trying to clear it, then met my eyes with hers. Hers were wide and reddened, and for a moment it was not my mother’s eyes that stared back at me. She blinked hard before speaking. “But I do know that you shouldn’t be wearing that locket. It’s bad, Mellie. It belonged to—her.” She clenched her eyes shut for a moment. “No, that’s not right. It did—but then it didn’t.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” I grabbed the locket, unsure of my attachment to it, but not wanting to lose it, either, and felt only cold metal. I felt sick to my stomach, smelling again the odors of stagnant seawater and rotting fish. I wanted to bolt from the room, to deny that this was happening, but I was stuck watching a scene from a horror film whose ending I could only guess.

“We are not as we seem, remember? Maybe it’s all connected.” My mother’s gaze didn’t waver as I struggled to say something glib, to make the memory of the voice go away, to pretend that I couldn’t see and smell things that weren’t there.

“What the hell is going on here?” my father demanded again.

My mother and I just stared at each other in mutual understanding, while my father looked on. It had always been that way with the three of us, and I wasn’t really surprised to see that nothing had changed in the intervening years.

She closed her eyes for a moment, then swallowed before walking toward my father. “Don’t say another word. This is beyond your understanding and your ability to see things that aren’t black-and-white. I will not have this argument again with you, so leave it be.”

My father looked at me for support or argument—I wasn’t sure which—but I could only turn away. I felt like a child again, unable to choose sides between two teams I loved equally.

Pulling her shoulders back and trying to look as regal as a person who was wearing less than a yard of flimsy material could, my mother said, “I’m leaving now so you can tell Melanie what you told me earlier and then discuss your plans for the garden. Melanie will be in charge of that, so you won’t need to deal with me at all. I’m sure we can all agree that’s for the best.” She started to leave, then turned back to my father, and I wondered if he’d heard her voice shake, too. “And I’ve told you before, don’t call me Ginny. My name is Ginnette.”

She took another donut and wrapped it in a napkin before making her grand exit through the saloon doors, trying to disguise her unsteady steps, the sound of her high-heeled slippers fading away as they tapped down the hall.

I stared after her for a long moment, wondering when it had happened that my mother had changed from stranger to ally.

I held up my hand, anticipating what my father planned to say. “Don’t say it because I don’t want to hear it. Let’s just agree to disagree so that we can discuss the garden.”

His gaze shifted to the locket around my neck and then back to my face. He looked wounded, but there was nothing I could do about that. Trying to get him to understand our ability to see things he couldn’t was a lot like trying to get permission to build a skyscraper in downtown Charleston. “Fine, if that’s the way you want it. But all this hocus-pocus . . .”

“Daddy,” I interrupted.

“Right.” He scooped up the photographs on the counter, then held out a chair for me and I sat at the Shaker table, another remnant I recognized from my house on Tradd Street. I made a mental note to have a little chat with Sophie. I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself after hearing that voice. It wasn’t something one easily forgot or pushed aside.

My father sat down next to me and began shuffling the pictures in his hand. He fixed me with a clear-eyed stare that I was still getting used to. I could smell his cologne, and I wondered how long it would be before I stopped expecting the odor of stale beer and sour whiskey that accompanied all of my childhood memories of him.

After a deep breath, he said, “They completed the forensics tests on the remains yesterday and they’re releasing the news to the press later today.”

I stiffened, my leg bouncing erratically under the table.

My dad continued. “The authorities will be in touch to make it official, but my buddy told me that I was allowed to tell you and your mother the results ahead of time as long as you kept it to yourselves.”

“Of course,” I said, my lips dry.

“They determined that the body was definitely that of a female of approximately five feet two inches tall. And that she was between twenty and twenty-four years old at the time of her death.”

I closed my eyes briefly, remembering the voice, knowing he was right. I managed to stay calm. “Anything else?”

He nodded, still flipping through the photographs. That was another thing I’d noticed since he’d been going to AA; his hands were always moving as if attempting to keep them so busy that they wouldn’t notice the absence of a bottle or glass clutched in them.

“You already know about the skull injury, but they also found some sort of genetic anomaly in the hip. He explained it in some kind of medical jargon, but it’s basically a joint issue that can be surgically taken care of today, but back then you would have just lived with a limp.”

I leaned forward. “A limp? Nobody in the Prioleau family has ever limped as far as I know—or had surgery to correct it. I can double-check that with Mother. And with Rebecca. She’s apparently done a lot of research into our family. Maybe she’s found something, too.”

He nodded, his hands still flipping through the photographs. “I’m hoping whoever it was is unrelated to you so this whole thing goes away quicker.”

I met his eyes but could only nod. He wouldn’t want to know that nothing would go away until my mother and I could make her go away. Or until I decided to leave the house on Legare to its ghosts.