The Reading Circle (16 page)

But she wasn't about to settle for letting the flashlight do all the work. “How does this look?” She had just made an upturned nose with her finger and snorted.

“Terrific,” he said. “You're Petunia Pig with an attitude. I love it!”

Maura Beth removed the flashlight from under her chin and pointed it toward the front desk clock. “Well, enough of making third-grade faces. We've waited long enough. Let's just turn off all the switches so we won't spike the utility bill when the power does come back on. And don't you dare slip and injure that rib of yours again. We've just got you practically back to normal.”

They went around together, shining the flashlight here and there, occasionally giggling like children having a grand adventure in the dark. All the others had left long ago, even though the rain and wind outside continued to batter the streets and buildings of Cherico.

“Think your place will have any juice yet?” Jeremy said as they headed toward the front door.

“I don't know. Renette could never get through to Cherico Power. Nobody could. Here, hold this,” she said, handing over the flashlight while she prepared to lock up.

It was underneath the portico a few seconds later that Maura Beth thought of the perfect words for the romantic evening ahead of them. “Let's not worry about the power, though. I have plenty of scented purple candles at home to see us through the night.”

He gave her a rousing kiss and then opened his big umbrella. “You wait here and I'll bring the car around. Doesn't look to me like this mess will be letting up anytime soon.”

Maura Beth allowed the buzz from his kiss to settle down to her toes. What a pleasure it was to be going with a man who still believed in chivalry and treating a woman with respect in this generic day and age!

 

The instant Renette turned the key and walked through the front door of the library the next morning, she knew something was wrong. She couldn't put her finger on it, but she felt it. Once before in her young life, she had encountered a similar feeling. Just a month after she had moved into her first apartment last year, she had returned from a girls' night out to find that someone had broken in and stolen what few items of value she possessed: a TV set, a CD player, and, incredibly, a handful of loose change she always kept in a small crystal dish atop her bedroom dresser. She would never be able to forget the subtle feeling of being violated that seemed to hang in the air; she could almost sense the molecules of contemptuous air that someone had exhaled and left behind while robbing her blind.

She checked her watch and the front desk clock. They were in sync. Five minutes to nine and opening the library to the public. After receiving Maura Beth's call earlier, she knew she would be in charge for a little while.

“I'm running a tad bit late this morning,” Maura Beth had told her. “But I should be there by nine-thirty.”

As nine o'clock approached, however, Renette simply could not let go of the strange sensation that had greeted her a few minutes earlier. After checking the petty change drawer and finding it full, she decided to walk around the library, looking for signs of something else that might be amiss. At first she found nothing—to her great relief. The fiction and nonfiction stacks were neat and tidy, as were the periodical and newspaper racks. In fact, having been plunged into darkness, Maura Beth and Jeremy had not even bothered to move Broderick Crawford, Mercedes McCambridge, and Robert Penn Warren from their strategic positions around the room. Perhaps the famous trio had kept an eye on things, and she was just guilty of having an overactive imagination. Or maybe it was the fact that she hadn't slept well with the threatening sounds of the storm keeping her up.

Then she moved to the juvenile stacks toward the back of the building. What was that sound she was hearing? Something steady and annoying like a dripping faucet. She froze and gasped. There was water, water everywhere. It seemed to have poured in through several leaks in the ceiling above, inundating most of the children's collection and leaving huge puddles on the linoleum floor. Renette did not have an insurance adjuster's grasp of damage figures, but she knew The Cherico Library had suffered a serious blow. That unrelenting storm, particularly that thunder and lightning strike during last night's review, had left its calling card behind long after power had been restored.

Renette trudged back to the front desk and punched in Maura Beth's number, dreading having to be the bearer of such distressing news. More to the point: Was The Cherico Library ever going to catch a break?

 

Maura Beth and Renette sat across from each other in her library office trying to figure out what to do next. They had already made a makeshift sign and taped it to the front door:
LIBRARY CLOSED DUE TO STORM DAMAGE
, it read. Worst-case scenarios were now swirling around inside their heads, and Maura Beth, in particular, knew she had to go about this the right way with Councilman Sparks. Adding roof and floor damage to book replacement costs might not be something City Hall was willing to do at this stage of the game.

Maura Beth could just hear the pontificating councilman now: “I'm so sorry, Miz Mayhew, but the library has become an ever bigger drag on the budget than before. We just can't afford the deductibles. We're going to have to shut you down for good. This damage proves the building has outlived its usefulness.”

“Makes you think Councilman Sparks and the weather are in cahoots,” Renette said offhand, as if reading Maura Beth's mind.

“Here all day yesterday I was worried about the effect that storm might have on Jeremy and his travels, while I should have been thinking about this old wreck of a building taking it on the chin,” Maura Beth answered.

“Speaking of Jeremy,” Renette said, abruptly changing the subject, “are things still going well for you two?”

Maura Beth leaned in, lowering her voice as if afraid of being overheard. “He spent the night again, and it was nothing but wonderful. I'm not much of a kiss-and-tell person, but let me just say that Jeremy is everything I've ever wanted in a man. He truly has leaped out of page twenty-five of my LSU journal of hopes and dreams. The only thing bad about last night was he had to get up so early this morning to get back to Nashville. There I was at the front door at the crack of dawn, giving him a kiss and reminding him once again not to speed on the Natchez Trace on the way back. I couldn't help feeling a little antsy about it all. But he got me back good. He said, ‘Thanks, Mom. I promise I will!' ”

They both laughed, but the reality of the library damage quickly returned. “So, have you come up with a plan yet?” Renette said.

Maura Beth nodded with authority. “Yes, but I need some help to make sure I'm on the right track. And I know just the person to call.”

And with that, she picked up the phone and dialed Nora Duddney's number.

H
aving removed and carefully disposed of her gum, Periwinkle walked into her lawyer's office with confidence, shook his hand firmly, and took her seat across from him without hesitation, sitting straight up in her chair. The fact that she was on a mission of some kind could clearly be discerned by any objective observer, and it was certainly not lost on Curtis L. Trickett, attorney-at-law.

“I could have dropped the receiver on the floor when you told me what you wanted to talk about, Peri,” he said, sitting down and settling back at his desk.

“I bet you were thinking that if you lived to be a hundred, you'd never understand us crazy women, huh? Or maybe you thought I'd been struck by lightning in that terrible storm we had last week and my brain was scrambled.”

“Well, maybe I did for a second or two. But you're one of Cherico's real success stories, so I have to begin by giving you the benefit of the doubt.” He folded his hands in his lap and appeared to be mulling things over, while Periwinkle couldn't help but notice that in the ten years she'd relied upon his expertise to obtain her divorce settlement from Harlan Lattimore, Curtis Trickett had seemingly not aged by a single skin cell. He still had that healthy shock of brown hair that gave him an irresistibly collegiate, almost boyish look; then there were those delicious dimples that appeared magically whenever he smiled, which was often. He was, in fact, the definition of perpetual eye candy who just happened to have a University of Mississippi law diploma hanging on the wall behind him.

Well, it just wasn't fair. She had to go through the time-consuming fuss of having her hair dyed out at Cherico Tresses at annoyingly frequent intervals, not to mention slathering lotion on every part of her body she could reach every night just to maintain the illusion that forty hadn't recently come and gone. Men didn't know how easy they had it!

“Let me be honest with you, Peri,” Curtis continued, trying to keep a smile on his face. “After all you went through with Harlan Lattimore, you say you're seriously thinking of marrying him again? I certainly didn't see this coming. I'm—well, I'm stunned.”

“Don't be. He hasn't even asked me yet.”

Curtis looked more perplexed than ever, as his dimples ran away and hid. “Then why are you here? Are you going to be the one to ask him?”

“No.” She said it emphatically, as if he had just insulted her in some way.

He leaned back further and shrugged. “Okay, I give up. You talk and I'll just listen.”

For the first time since she'd entered his office, Periwinkle relaxed enough to lean back in her chair. Then she exhaled dramatically. “I'm no trusting teenager anymore, Curtis. That's all I was when Harlan swept me off my feet years ago. He was my first, and I just thought he had the answers to everything. Over the past couple a' months, though, we've been seeing a lot of each other, and he says he's a changed man.” She sat with that for a moment, realizing that what she had just told Curtis was the crux of her problem, and she needed to emphasize it.

“I want to believe all the pillow talk, and I have every reason to believe it so far. Harlan's everything he was the first time and more. I mean that in the good sense, of course. To be honest with you, I think he's gotten even more attractive over the years. But I'd like to think I'm older and wiser now. Well, there's no question about the older part.”

They both chuckled softly, but Curtis didn't let her comment stand. “I think you look even better than you did ten years ago, Peri. Your success at The Twinkle is very becoming to you, and why shouldn't it be?”

She felt herself blushing and lightly touched her cheek with the tips of her fingers. “Thank you for saying so, Curtis. A woman always likes to hear compliments like that, and I do try hard at whatever I put my mind to. So that's what my visit to you is really about. You're right—I have had a lot of success with The Twinkle. I'm also smart enough to realize that our little Greater Cherico is a zero sum game when it comes to the restaurant business. Oh, our fast-food joints'll make it no matter what—I'm not talking about them, of course. But we're too small to keep everybody trying to be more upscale in the money.”

Curtis arched his brows and gave her a sideways glance. “Has Harlan ever talked about how he's doing when he's with you? Do you think he has ulterior motives here?”

“No, we haven't discussed things the way you mean. But I'm reasonably sure The Twinkle has cut into The Marina Bar and Grill's business. Some of my customers have told me how they used to go out there by the lake to eat, but now they like my ambience and food better. I haven't tried to go after Harlan's business deliberately, but I'm pretty damned good at what I do. I know I've got the touch. For instance, business has been even better since I hired Mr. Parker Place as my pastry chef six months ago. We get all the ‘sweet-toothers' now, as I like to call 'em. Plus, The Twinkle is right smack dab in the middle of town. A couple of my suppliers have also mentioned to me that I'm now their biggest customer here in Cherico by far. When I was Harlan's secretary and bookkeeper, he was practically the only game in town.” She paused when she saw Curtis nodding his head.

“I think I see where this is headed.”

She took a deep breath again. “Good. Because this time around, Curtis, I want to do the wise thing if Harlan and I do get hooked. I have too much to lose now. So if he asks me to marry him soon—which I think could happen the way things have heated up between us—I want to protect myself. I thought having you draw me up a prenuptial agreement would keep me happy in love and solvent at the same time. It'll also tell me everything I need to know about him truly being a changed man and all. Whaddaya think?”

Curtis leaned forward, cleared his throat, and rested his hands on his desk, looking every inch the most composed and successful attorney in Cherico. “I think you're very smart to think of it. And you're right—prenups sometimes thin out the pretenders in love. Or predators, as the case may be. As a practical matter, I'll need to know all the details of your restaurant business, take a look at your tax returns, personal property, and investments, of course, but I can draw up the document any way you like.”

Periwinkle looked greatly relieved. “I want your deluxe agreement. That's my style, you know.”

“I didn't doubt it for a second,” Curtis said, his dimples returning full force.

“So you see—I'm not so hard to understand after all, am I? I want something, and I go for it. First time I saw Harlan Lattimore, I wanted him, and then I got him, along with a lot of heartache that I didn't see coming. He's been saying to me all along that if I'll just give him a second chance, I'll never regret it. Well, if he signs on the dotted line, I know I won't.”

Curtis gave her a quick, sympathetic nod before adopting a somewhat fatherly tone. “Peri, have you thought about what you'll do if he refuses to go along with the agreement?”

“I'll cross that bridge when I come to it,” she said, briefly averting her gaze. “But I'm a big girl—have been for a while now. I've bounced back before, and I'll do it again if I have to.”

 

Locke Linwood was lying in his bed watching Miss Voncille sleeping beside him in the moonlight that had flooded the room. On such occasions, she became the mature angel of his dreams, and he was reminded of how completely she had transformed his life. After another session of their gentle lovemaking, they had cuddled for a while. It had not taken her long to drift off, but he had stayed in the afterglow moment a bit longer. Eventually, it had faded, and once again his thoughts had turned to the issue of marriage. The
All the King's Men
review and potluck had come and gone, and he had informally agreed to give Miss Voncille his decision by mid-May. He had actually been surprised that she had not pressed him before or after the library event. Then again, they had both been distracted by the loss of power that had greeted them at her house on Painter Street later that evening.

Since then, she had not brought up the subject even once, and he was beginning to feel a bit guilty. Of course, he knew why he kept postponing things. Her name was Pamela, and her portrait was hanging on the walls in the living room; her stunning, other-worldly letter was in the bookcase beside the portrait. Perhaps it all was mostly settled in his mind by now, but the same was not true of his heart.

Stealthily, Locke drew back the covers and swung his legs over the side of the bed, finding his fuzzy slippers right away. He slowly crept to his closet and threw on his robe, tying it loosely around his waist. He looked back once to see if Miss Voncille was still asleep and observed the barely perceptible rise and fall of the sheet covering her body. All was well.

“Pleasant dreams,” he whispered while blowing her a kiss.

Out in the living room, Locke stood in awe of Pamela's portrait. Here was another angel in the moonlight, one that had borne him children and provided financial security with her family fortune. He had held her hand at the altar at the beginning and again at the hospital on her deathbed at the end. How could Miss Voncille possibly compete with that?

He decided to speak to the portrait in whispers. “You look particularly beautiful tonight,” he began. “Not to belabor the popular song, but moonlight really does become you.”

It did not strike him as strange at all when the lovely features captured in oil came to life and whispered back. “Hello, Locke. Don't you have better things to do than stare at me in the middle of the night?”

He took her chastisement in stride. “Honestly, I didn't think you'd notice. Incidentally, how are you doing this?”

“We have our ways.”

He frowned and blinked. “We?”

It had been a long time since he had enjoyed her gentle laugh, but suddenly there it was, surrounding and soothing him like a muted church organ playing communion music. “We—meaning those of us who are no longer with you physically.”

Her answer made eminent good sense to him, so he proceeded. “Do you have a moment?”

Even though her arms had not been painted, he felt strongly that she was stretching them outside the frame even as she answered him. “Oh, God, yes. I've been up here for a lifetime just waiting for somebody to say something to me. And now, God bless you, here you are.”

“You have to know I think about you all the time.”

“I do. And I appreciate your thoughts so much. But speaking to you like this is so much better. I'm so much more than delicate pigments on canvas. There's real feeling running all through me. At least that's what I hear people saying about me all the time—‘What feeling there is in that portrait!' they like to say.”

Locke paused for a moment. He had to phrase this next part just right. “I wanted to ask you about Voncille. Specifically, how you felt about her being in the house . . . in our bed? She's there right now.”

There was her special laugh again, and it put him at ease. “You already have the answer to that. I put it in my letter.”

He took a step back, scratching his head. “Which reminds me, how did you figure things out so far ahead of time? Voncille and I continue to marvel at everything you put in there, especially everything you anticipated. There've been times when I've even thought of charging admission to let people read what you wrote.”

“I see you've kept your sense of humor,” she said, every brushstroke that composed her face lighting up.

“It's something everyone should keep in their pocket wherever they go, no matter what happens.”

“Aptly put.”

Then he wondered if he dared ask it. If anyone would know the answer, surely she would. “Do you know when I'll join you?”

For the first time during their surprising conversation, she appeared to hesitate. “Actually, I'm not at liberty to say. What I can tell you again is what I expressed in my letter. You have to go on living your life. Don't put anything on hold because of me. I'm just fine.”

“You couldn't even give me a tiny hint of what comes next?” he said, sounding just like a little boy asking her to reveal what she'd given him for Christmas.

“Doesn't work that way, Locke. You have to do the living first.”

He gave her a sly smile and took a deep breath. “You know, your eyes were what made me fall in love with you. I took one long look deep into them and thought you held the secrets to the universe.”

Her colors almost seemed to be glowing now. “That's what I like best about this version of me, Locke. Who would have thought that a little paint and turpentine could capture a soul so well?” Then she bore into him with those eyes of hers. “Do you have everything you need from me now?”

“I think so.”

“You can talk to me anytime, you know. As I said, your thoughts are nice, but any oil painting worth its burnt umber and alizarin crimson likes to have its brushstrokes tickled every now and then.”

Miss Voncille's voice suddenly intervened. “Locke?”

“It's time for me to go,” Pamela said. “Don't be a stranger now.”

“Locke,” Miss Voncille repeated, shaking his arm gently, “you're talking in your sleep.”

Locke woke up and turned to see Miss Voncille sitting up in bed, smiling at him. “What?” he said, feeling completely disoriented.

“You were talking in your sleep, honey.”

“Was I?”

“Umm-hmmm. Well, actually it was more like mumbling.”

He sat up and looked around the moonlit room. “How about that?” Then he chuckled under his breath. “That was the damnedest dream I've ever had. I thought you were the one who was asleep, and at first I was watching you and then I got up out of bed and the craziest part was—”