The Three Miss Margarets (13 page)

“Grady, don’t!” She heard a scuffle and the hands were gone.

“Leave me alone!” Grady was shouting at his companion now. “I know what I’m doing!”

“You’re drunk as a skunk. You gotta get outa here.”

“You saying I got to worry about that tramp?
Me?
”

“This ain’t just catting around. She’s a white girl!”

“She’s trash!” But his voice sounded less sure.

“Her mama belongs to your mama’s church, for Christ’s sake. Let’s go.”

Something fell on top of her, her blouse and shorts but no bathing suit. There were sounds like they were moving away. Then a rustle of leaves and a protest from the voice she didn’t know. “Grady, don’t be stupid.” There was a sound she had just recently learned to recognize, of a hand hitting soft flesh. She opened her eyes. Grady’s back was to her. Over his shoulder she could see John Merrick rubbing his jaw.

“Don’t ever call me stupid, you fucking redneck son of a bitch,” Grady said, in a steely quiet voice. Through her pain she saw the fury in John Merrick.

“Dammit, one day I’m gonna—”

“You’re gonna do nothing.” He’d stopped screaming now, and the Georgia lilt was gone from his speech. He was back to his harsh northern sound. “Go on, go home to that hell hole I wouldn’t make my dog live in.” There was a moment when she thought John Merrick might strike out. She could feel how much he wanted to, but instead he turned on his heel and walked away. She watched Grady as he walked to his horrid red car, got in, backed around, and drove off.

I
N THE KITCHEN
, Peggy lifted her head, which had exchanged swimming for throbbing. She had a game she played with herself on mornings like this. The rule was: As long as she didn’t vomit she hadn’t been that drunk. Today she was going to lose the game. She lurched to her feet, vaguely aiming for the hall bathroom, but changed course just in time to make it to the kitchen sink.

She sat again and waited for her insides to settle. Her control was slipping, which was probably cause for alarm. On the upside, she was feeling a hell of a lot better now that she’d been sick. She got to her feet carefully and continued her mission to the bathroom. Li’l Bit would be calling any minute, and somehow it seemed necessary to brush her teeth before talking to Li’l Bit. Even on the phone. Especially on this morning.

She seemed to be destined not to reach the bathroom. The phone rang, sending sharp spikes into her already bleeding brain cells. If she planned to keep up her present lifestyle, she really should look into something a little more mellow for her telephone. Maybe some kind of soft buzzer. She picked up the receiver.

“Hey there, Li’l Bit,” she said quickly, hoping to forestall a lecture. “I’ll be over in about an hour. I got a late start.”

“Are you all right?” Li’l Bit asked. Obviously there had been an early morning conference and Li’l Bit and Maggie had agreed to be gentle with her. Peggy hated it when they did that.

“I overdid it a little,” she offered. Li’l Bit didn’t take the bait. Her girlfriends really had decided to make soft paws. It was actually kind of sweet.

“Maggie isn’t here yet,” Li’l Bit went on. “She called from the nursing home to say she’s on her way.” Peggy groaned inside. The nursing home meant Maggie had told Lottie, an exercise in sorrow that would leave her looking so old and fragile she’d break Peggy’s heart and scare the hell out of her. The thought of losing Maggie or Li’l Bit put her into a cold panicky sweat these days. “I wish she’d called me,” she said. “I could have taken her.”

“She probably didn’t want to wait that long,” said Li’l Bit, with just enough of her usual acid to be reassuring. “You better hurry. Ed is coming over in a little while. Someone saw us at the cabin last night.”

The spikes in Peggy’s head dug deeper. “Oh, God,” she said.

“It’ll be all right,” Li’l Bit said. “We’ll get through it.” But there was something wrong with her voice.

“Li’l Bit, what else?”

Silence. Then, finally, “I had another phone call after I spoke to Ed. It was from a writer. He’s from New York. And he says he’s writing a book about Vashti.”

Bile washed its bitter way up Peggy’s throat, but she swallowed it back down. “Did he say what he wanted to talk about?” she asked.

“General impressions we might have about Vashti.”

“We can do that.”

“And any light we might be able to shed on the night John Merrick died.”

“I see.” Her voice stunned her, it was so calm. But her poor battered mind was sorting fast through a jumble of fears. I always knew someone would start wondering, she thought.

“Peggy, after all these years, even if anyone did want to go back, they’d never find anything”—Li’l Bit paused to search for the right word—”untoward.”

“I wasn’t worried.”

“We have no reason to be.”

And of course Li’l Bit was right.

Chapter Thirteen

Y
EARS AFTER
G
RADY ENDED HER CHILDHOOD FOREVER
, Peggy was listening to a woman’s TV talk show when the subject of rape came up. She learned that rape was something you never got over. You learned to live with it, said the authoritative lady expert, who obviously had never been through it. “No shit,” Peggy had replied to the TV screen. The expert went on to say that decisions made right after the
incident
were crucial to future recovery. Peggy had thrown a small porcelain figure of a Rottweiler at the TV screen.

A
FTER
G
RADY LEFT HER
, she dressed in her torn blouse and shorts. The cut over her eye had stopped bleeding, but her cheek had started to swell and her whole head throbbed with a pain that made her want to pass out or throw up. The other, far more intense pain she was feeling, she refused to think about. She started shaking as if she were cold but she knew she wasn’t. She had to get home before she passed out again. But the thought of Mama’s face and the way Mama would cry was overwhelming. She felt herself start to sag toward the ground and got down on her knees. The ruined bathing suit was in a little heap where she’d taken it off. She picked it up and got to her feet, ignoring the sickening waves in her stomach. She stumbled into the woods where the kudzu was thick and tossed the suit as far as she could. The effort was almost too much for her queasy stomach, but she wouldn’t let Grady have the satisfaction of making her throw up in the grass. She leaned against the trunk of a tree and waited until the nausea passed. One thing was clear to her, through the mists of pain and shock. She understood it without question: Mama must never know about this. Which meant she needed help. Slowly and painfully she made her way back to the dirt road and started back to the highway.

When she passed by the shack, she got off the dirt road and went behind the trees just in case John Merrick might be home and see her. But the old pickup was gone.

Finally she reached the highway. Miss Li’l Bit’s house was on the other side of the road. Cars were parked in the driveway; the other kids were still there. She ducked into the woods and waited.

She didn’t know how long she hid there. Pain made hours and minutes melt together. Finally the kids came out. She could hear them laughing, teasing, and flirting as they got into their cars. Miss Li’l Bit got into her station wagon and drove off with the rest. Peggy kept on waiting.

After what seemed like hours, Miss Li’l Bit came back from driving everyone to the parking lot. Peggy watched until she was in the house and then crossed the highway and rang the doorbell. It was Millie who answered. The look on her face told Peggy everything she needed to know about how her own face must look.

“Could you get Miss Li’l Bit?” She did her best to get the words out cleanly, but her swollen lips made them mushy. Millie understood anyway. She brought Peggy into the main parlor and disappeared. A couple of minutes later, Miss Li’l Bit rushed in. Peggy turned to face her and Miss Li’l Bit stopped cold.

“That little bastard!” she trilled, in her high funny voice. Peggy wanted to laugh, but she couldn’t make a sound.

After that things moved quickly. Millie brought her some bourbon, her first taste of alcohol. Even as a woman in her sixties she would still remember how it found its way into the cold place inside her, a place she thought would stay cold for the rest of her life, and warmed it.

Miss Li’l Bit called Dr. Maggie, who closed down her clinic and came over to clean Peggy’s wounds and stitch the cut above her eye. Then Miss Li’l Bit drew a bath for her, but she was shaking too hard to undress. Dr. Maggie made her swallow a pill and lie down again, until it took effect and made everything seem far away. Then she couldn’t keep herself from talking. Miss Li’l Bit seated herself in a wingback chair, and Dr. Maggie perched on an ottoman, and feeling as if she was in a dream Peggy told them all of it. She told them about the white bathing suit and what the boys said about her. She told them about Mama crying every night and Peggy being the one who had to fix it. And she told them about seeing Grady and realizing she had to make her move and the way she had dumped her new mascara on the ground. Miss Li’l Bit and Dr. Maggie sat still as stones and listened. Peggy didn’t cry once, not even when she told them everything Grady had done. They started saying over and over that none of it was her fault, but their voices were too far away and they must have seen her attention was wandering, so they stopped. After that, Millie and Miss Li’l Bit took off her clothes and sponged her clean. They wrapped her in one of Miss Li’l Bit’s robes that was old and soft, and she lay down on Miss Li’l Bit’s old-fashioned couch and floated on the power of the pill, or it could have been the bourbon.

“Let her sleep now,” she heard Dr. Maggie say through the fog around her. But Peggy couldn’t. Not yet. She forced herself to sit up. Dr. Maggie and Miss Li’l Bit were at her side.

“Mama,” she said. “Don’t tell her.”

The two older women exchanged looks.

“She has to know, dear,” Dr. Maggie began, in her gentle low voice, but Peggy cut her off. “No!” she said. Tears pushed up against her eyes, and the crying finally started. “Mama can’t—” she tried to say, through the sobs. But there was no way to explain that for her frightened little mother this would be too much.

The two women soothed her. They said she should go to sleep now and they would talk again later. So she let herself drift off, and while she did Miss Li’l Bit called her mother and said there had been an accident. A car and Grady Garrison were mentioned. And as Peggy could have predicted if they’d asked her, Mama had hysterics and wanted to know if Grady was hurt because she was afraid the Garrisons might blame Peggy. They told her that both Peggy and Grady were all right, although Peggy was bruised and shaken and had taken something to make her sleep. Miss Li’l Bit suggested it would probably be better if Mama didn’t come to get her until later. Her mother agreed eagerly. If Miss Li’l Bit and Dr. Maggie were stunned by how easily Mama turned her daughter over to virtual strangers, they never said it.

When Peggy woke up, before her mama came to get her, Dr. Maggie tried to talk to her again. Miss Li’l Bit sat by silently.

“You’ve been through a terrible ordeal,” Dr. Maggie said. “Your mother should know.”

“No.”

“She can help you.” Out of the corner of her eye, Peggy saw Miss Li’l Bit shift impatiently.

“No, she can’t. All she’ll do is cry.”

“I’m sure she’ll be upset, but—”

“She won’t want to hear. She’d rather I lied to her. If I tell her what happened she’ll say I’m lying.”

“Peggy, she wouldn’t!”

“She will! Because that would be better. I’m damaged goods now.”

“Child, what a terrible thing to say.”

“You think everyone else won’t say it?”

“Your mother—”

“Mama wanted me to
marry
him! Don’t you understand? I was supposed to get
married
! Now who’s going to want me?”

“You’re still the same person you always were.”

“No, I’m not! And you know it! You know what people will say. If anyone finds out, that’ll be the end for me.”

“But the police—” Dr. Maggie started to say.

“I don’t want to talk about it! I just want to leave it alone.”

Miss Li’l Bit stepped in. “Maggie, you know what will happen to her if she tries to tell the police that Grady Garrison raped her. Dalton will have a dozen witnesses who’ll say she went willingly.”

“And the bruises on her face?”

“An accident with the car. Or she tripped and fell. I don’t know how the lawyers will argue it.”

“Don’t you think this is a conversation she should be having with her mother?”

“She just told you her mother will be useless. I agree with her.”

“That is not for you to say.”

“You didn’t hear the woman on the phone.”

Dr. Maggie didn’t answer. Miss Li’l Bit moved so Peggy had to look at her.

“I understand why you don’t want to say anything, Peggy. But the boy shouldn’t get off scot-free. Maggie and I can do something about that.”

“Li’l Bit—” Dr. Maggie broke in, but Miss Li’l Bit cut her off.

“We can, Maggie,” she said, and after a second Dr. Maggie seemed to understand what she meant because she nodded slightly. Then she turned to Peggy. “We can’t make this right, dear,” she said, “and I’m still not sure it wouldn’t be better for you to go to the police and take your chances—”

“I won’t,” Peggy said.

“Then will you give Li’l Bit and me permission to help? It’ll be better than doing nothing.”

They stood in front of her, two women who were older than she was and probably way smarter. They weren’t telling her all of this would go away if she trusted them. They weren’t saying they could make it all better. They were just offering to help her as much as they could. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had done that.

There were sounds of a car in the driveway. A car door slammed. Mama had come to get her. In another minute she would be ringing the doorbell. When she saw Peggy’s battered face she would burst into tears. Peggy would have her hands full calming her down enough so she could drive them home. Suddenly she felt tired. Miss Li’l Bit and Dr. Maggie were still waiting for her answer. “You do what you think is right,” she said. And she moved to the front door to bring in her mama, who was already sobbing loudly out on the porch.

By the time Peggy woke up the next morning, Grady had left town. He was going to work on the new resort his family was building near their lodge in Montana. The police hadn’t been contacted. And according to Miss Li’l Bit, who came to visit, Mr. Dalton didn’t know a thing. A few days later, a note came from Myrtis Garrison inviting Peggy to tea.

She didn’t want to go. But Dr. Maggie and Miss Li’l Bit said she should.

“You made a big decision when you chose not to report what happened, Peggy,” Dr. Maggie said. “It wasn’t right that you had to, but now that you’ve done it you have to make it work for you.”

“Myrtis Garrison isn’t the warmest person, but she’s fair,” Miss Li’l Bit said. “Give her a chance to do what she can to make amends.”

Mama insisted that she wait until the swelling went down and her eye was no longer black and blue. Then Peggy went to tea. She had little sandwiches with no crusts and cookies with almonds in them on the patio that surrounded the pool where Grady had said he was going to take her swimming. Miss Myrtis sat upright on a white wicker lounge chair and said she was not well and she found herself in need of someone young and energetic to run errands for her for the summer while she recuperated. And if Peggy was interested, she named a salary that was three times what Mama had ever made in her best week at Boots’s. And Peggy said yes, she would like very much to work for Miss Myrtis. They never once mentioned Grady.

When she brought home her first week’s pay, Mama was ecstatic. And if she suspected that the sudden windfall had anything to do with her daughter’s accident, she never asked. Just the way she had never asked what happened to Peggy’s new white swimsuit.

When summer was over, Peggy kept on working for Miss Myrtis, often skipping school when she was needed. Only by now they had stopped pretending that she was simply running errands. She was a paid companion to a sick woman who had not regained her strength after her heart attack because she was never going to.

Even sick, Myrtis kept to an incredible schedule. She was on the boards of more hospitals, rescue missions, children’s homes, and soup kitchens than Peggy could count. It was not enough to simply give a check, she told Peggy; she believed in being involved. She spent her days going to endless teas and lunches and planning meetings. At night, especially during the season when the Lodge was full, she and Dalton entertained. Before she got ill she was up before dawn every day, she told Peggy, with something as close to pride as Myrtis Garrison would allow herself.

Dalton and Myrtis didn’t have servants; their household staff was provided by the resort. Every morning Myrtis called the housekeeping department at the Lodge, and maids, gardeners, waitresses, or whoever was needed would be sent over. On the day of a party, food in steam trays and chafing dishes would show up as if by magic.

But illness was sapping Myrtis’s strength. She stayed in bed later and later in the morning, and she needed naps in the afternoon. Now it was Peggy who arranged the flowers that came over every other day from the resort’s cutting gardens. If a party was planned, it was Peggy who saw to it that the maids swept the patio around the pool for the cocktail hour and Peggy who ordered the platters of spicy cheese wafers and tiny butter biscuits with country ham that Myrtis was famous for.

On the days when Myrtis was so tired she had to bow out of the dinner or the happy hour, Dalton would take the guests over to the Lodge, while Peggy and Myrtis listened to the radio or played endless games of canasta until he got home. If Peggy thought Myrtis was in pain, she learned never to ask. And when she did something extra like polish the silver because it hadn’t been done in a while and she couldn’t stand to see anything so beautiful get tarnished, she learned that her boss would never say thank you. Myrtis signed Peggy’s generous paycheck every week, and that was it.

Peggy didn’t mind. From the moment she walked into the oversized log cabin, she loved it. All the living room furniture was built to order, it was big, and it looked like it would last for eternity. The walls and floors were heart pine, the hardest local wood you could find. The rugs on the floor were old and dark, antiques that had cost a fortune because they had already lasted through other lifetimes. Money was never mentioned. Whenever something needed to be fixed or replaced, it was. There was a sense of plenty and order that felt wonderful to Peggy after years of cornbread suppers.

But there were times when something cold and black seemed to descend on her and threaten to bury her. She knew it was left over from the day in the forest, and no amount of silver polishing or flower arranging would help. Those were the days when she found an excuse to ride her bike to Miss Li’l Bit’s house. She would get there in the late afternoon after Dr. Maggie had finished work, and the two women would be sitting on the porch, enjoying the first cool breezes of the day. There would be a Coke for Peggy, Miss Li’l Bit would sip her icy cold sweet tea, Dr. Maggie would have a lemonade as tart as she could stand it, and the talk would start. Names Peggy dimly recognized—Picasso, Faulkner, Welty, Marx, and Freud—flew over Peggy’s head like birds migrating in autumn. Fierce debates were waged over Miss Li’l Bit’s taste for murder mysteries by Dashiell Hammett and Dr. Maggie’s love of Frank Sinatra. Miss Li’l Bit said opera was the greatest art form, although she had given up someone called Wagner after all the country had been through in the war with the Germans. Dr. Maggie owned a television set, but Miss Li’l Bit felt the infernal boxes were the end of civilization. Miss Li’l Bit was devoted to Reddi-wip and cake mixes, but Dr. Maggie felt they were the work of Satan and would not have them in her house. As they talked and argued, Dr. Maggie emphasized her points with manicured hands tipped with scarlet nails, while tendrils of Miss Li’l Bit’s bushy hair pulled out of the knot at her neck.