Promises of Home

17

“Your maid won’t let me in,” Nola said by way of introduction. She stood, brushing dank bangs back from her forehead. She was dressed as I’d seen her at Steven Teague’s office: snug jeans, a blue, faded sweatshirt with a napping kitten on the front, a weathered, tan, down jacket splitting at the seams. Red rimmed her mascara-bare eyes.

“I don’t have a maid,” I said. Mark tensed beside me.

“The black lady, whatever she is. So I waited out here.”

“Get out of here!” Mark suddenly demanded. He stepped forward. “We don’t want you around.”

“I guess you don’t, honey.” Nola dug a pack of Marlboros out of her purse. “But I ain’t here to see you. I came to see your uncle.” She extracted a cigarette from the crumpled pack and delicately placed it in her mouth. “You gonna talk to me or tell me to hit the road?”

“He don’t want you here-” Mark sputtered, but I put a hand on his shoulder.

“Mark, go inside.”

He bristled at the order, but he didn’t argue with me. He stomped to the screen door and swung it open.

“Mark?” Nola called. I saw him pause, not looking at her.

“I understand you’ve been real kind to my boy, Scott.” She coughed, her throat raspy with smoke. “I appreciate that.”

Mark wavered on the doorstep, torn between the manners his family had instilled in him and (I suspected) a strong desire to tell Nola to kiss his ass.

“You’re welcome,” he muttered, and slammed the door.

She sat back on the rocking chair that had once been Mama’s favorite place to sit, gossip, and snap green beans. Nola seemed out of place and she knew it. Fumbling in her purse, she didn’t look at me.

“I don’t suppose apologizing to him would have done much good. He wouldn’t have listened.”

“You don’t know that.” I sat next to her.

“Sure I do. He looks like his daddy, don’t he? I figure he’s like him in mind. That man wasn’t one to listen to an I’m sorry.” She flicked her lighter, regarded me for a brief moment, then returned to contemplating her cigarette. “You want one?”

“No, thanks. I don’t smoke.”

“Used to, though, didn’t you? I saw the gleam in your eye when I lit up.” She drew on the cigarette and blew smoke out in a long and luxurious breath. “Tastes real good.”

I was suddenly, shockingly, aware of sexual tension between us. The coy posture she leaned back in, the assured way she looked at me (as though I were an apple for her to pluck), the cool consciousness she showed of her own body, and under the wet smell of rain and the pungent smoke, the vaguest pull of an animal scent. On the basest level, I wanted her and I was unnerved that I did. She saw the truth and smirked. I gritted my teeth and crossed my legs.

“What can I do for you, Nola? I take it you’re not here just because my porch is a scenic smoking spot.”

“I wanted to talk to you. Say I’m sorry for the way I’ve behaved. I was pretty horrible at Trey’s funeral. I had no call to say the things I did about your sister, and I’m sorry I hit you.” She drew on the cigarette.

“What should I say? Apology accepted?”

“Aren’t you a gentleman? You sure look the part.” She laughed, a sandy sound. “I’m not used to men that fix up as nice as you.”

I refused to play in this eat-and-mouse-in-heat game of hers. “Really? Steven Teague dresses real well and you seem kind of used to him.”

If I scored a hit, it didn’t show. She wore too much armor behind the veil of smoke. “What’d he tell you?”

“Nothing. I saw you with him in his office parking lot this morning.”

She laughed. “Pretty sad. He’s not a bad fellow, just doesn’t know how to treat a woman.”

“He didn’t seem interested in what you had to offer.”

Nola shrugged and contemplated the burning ember at the end of the cigarette. “Nope. He’s got too much on his mind for a little fun.”

What did Trey see in you? I thought, and had my answer nearly immediately: sex. She was the kind of woman who would be a quick firecracker in bed, not perhaps the one you’d befriend for life and tell your deepest secrets to, but one that a man’d never forget, even when toothless and bald and blind. The memory of passionate moments with her would be easily found on your mind’s shelves. But maybe that wasn’t entirely fair to her. She’d stayed with Trey after he’d been hurt, probably unable to be her lover.

Nola tilted her head back, regarding me. “I bug you, don’t I? You can’t quite put your finger on me.”

“Look, your apology’s accepted. Maybe you just should go. I don’t think my sister would appreciate you being here.”

“But you appreciate it. You’re sort of glad I came by.”

I didn’t like having my response to her rubbed in my face. “I don’t fancy being anyone’s third choice, now that Ed Dickensheets and Steven Teague have declined your charms.”

“Who said they have? Oh, I was curious to kiss Steven. That a crime?”

“You looked more like you were arguing with him. You looked like you were crying.”

Her eyes frosted. “He won’t do something for me. I sure wish he would. But that’s neither here nor there. Ed’s been very kind to me since I’ve come here.”

“Frankly, he didn’t look like he was that enamored of you at the funeral. And neither did Wanda or her mother.”

“Course he didn’t. I embarrassed the hell out of him. And I absolutely could not care about that man-woman he married or that bitch of a mother-in-law he’s got.” She stood and walked to the end of the porch, thumbing her spent butt into the bushes. “I don’t think your sister killed Trey anymore.”

The rain pattered on the porch roof, picking up in intensity. “Do you know who did?”

“No. But I think Hart knows.”

“Hart? Good Lord, if he knew, he’d tell.” I stood. “He practically helped raise Trey, he sure as hell wouldn’t shield his killer!” I forced my voice back down to an acceptable level. “Why do you think he knows?”

She didn’t answer me until she’d lit another cigarette and took a fortifying hit from it “When we got back to Mirabeau, Trey made us drive first to Hart’s farm, even before we went to my uncle’s house. He said he had to see Hart before he saw anyone else in town. Ain’t that weird, what with his own child here?” She shook her head. “I loved Trey, but he was an odd fellow.”

I saw the boy Trey cockily setting back his black cowboy hat and charming my skeptical mother with a smile. The friend staring up at the stars with me, picking out the ones to wish on to ensure he’d get a date with Arlene Poteet. The man, holding his newborn son with wonder and shock on his face.

“Odd fellow,” I murmured. “What did he and Hart have to say to each other?”

“Strangest thing,” Nola said. “We stopped the car short of Hart’s house, and Trey insisted on wheeling himself up to the porch. I honked the horn and Hart came out. He nearly died with shock when he saw Trey-you could just see it in his face. Trey just said to him, ‘Hi, Hart, I’ve come home. I’ve missed you. Can we go in and talk?’ Simple as that. Hart was practically in tears. He went down and, real shy like, shook Trey’s hand. They spoke to each other for a while. I couldn’t hear what they said, but I know Hart wanted us to stay there with him instead of my uncle. I’d have liked that, but Uncle Dwight was expectin’ us.”

“I don’t find anything odd about this, Nola. Hart’s always considered Trey family.”

“I ain’t done. We went into the house for iced tea and talked a bit. Then Trey said he wanted to see his daddy’s grave. Hart said sure, Louis’d been buried out by the creek. Trey told me just he and Hart’d go out there and they’d be back soon. So Scott and I turned on the TV. I went back into the kitchen and Trey and Hart hadn’t gone down yet. They were outside, on Hart’s back porch. Talking. I wasn’t trying to overhear ’em, but I couldn’t help it. Trey was upset. He said to Hart that if”-and she closed her eyes in concentration-“ ‘it hadn’t been for Daddy, I wouldn’t have had to leave. I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to forget it all. No one knows, do they?’ And Hart said, ‘Just Steven Teague.’” She opened her eyes and looked at me.

I was stunned into silence, waiting for her to speak again.

Nola shook her head. “It ain’t nothing Arlene or Mark did that drove him out of here. It was something to do with his daddy. I thought y’all ought to know.”

“Why didn’t you say anything to the police?”

“Because I was sure your sister had killed Trey.” She shrugged. “I’m sorry. I’m telling you this because I thought maybe you and Arlene should know he left town because of something his daddy did. Not anything y’all did. If you want, I’ll tell the police, if you think it matters.”

I sat back in my chair. “Thank you,” I managed to say.

The only noise for a minute was the splatter of rain.

“I don’t expect y’all to ever take to me.” Nola looked at me with complete candor. “But I’m gonna stay in town for a while, even if Ed won’t leave that stupid sow he married. This’d be a good town for Scott. And I thought if he and Mark are gonna stay friends, I ought to mend fences.”

“Wait a second. Not that it’s much my business, but why are you picking up with Ed and Steven when Trey’s barely cold in the ground? I thought you loved him.”

“I did. I do. I’ve cried and cried till I ain’t gonna cry anymore. But I don’t like being alone. I need to feel needed. Don’t you know that feeling?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t understand how she could woo another man so quickly, unless grief propelled her, and Ed or Steven or any other fellow was just a temporary substitute for Trey, a comforting imitation. Suddenly I felt deeply sorry for her. But I didn’t offer my sympathy or condolences. She just would have misinterpreted it.

“You said you thought Hart knows who the killer is? I don’t understand.”

She stubbed out her cigarette on the porch, crushing it under her rain-spotted shoes. “Whatever reason Trey left- Hart knows what it is. Steven knows what it is. And I think that reason is why Trey was killed. And maybe Clevey, too.”

“Is that why you were kissing Steven?”

She smiled wanly. “No, Steven’s a nice man, but not nice enough. Scott’s been having awful nightmares since Trey died. He’s jumpy and nervous and I’m worried about him. I wanted Steven to counsel him, y’know, talk to him. But I don’t have the money for it. I hoped he’d give me credit. He won’t.”

“I’m sorry Scott’s having a hard time.”

“I am, too.”

“Scott came here. He told us that Trey and Clevey had argued, that Clevey wanted Trey to take part in some revenge scheme they’d make money out of.”

“Trey wouldn’t have done anything like that,” Nola protested. “You find out exactly why Trey left and we’ll know why he died.”

I watched her drive away. She’d been the last real companion of Trey’s life, as different from Sister as possible. Outwardly, at least. I believed they both shared a core of unsuspected strength that made them both survivors in a world that had been less than kind.

She’d given me plenty to consider. Some secret involving Louis Slocum, Mirabeau’s best horse trainer and drunk. Something that Steven, Hart, and Trey were all privy to. Had Clevey found out as well? He must’ve. He had to have known. And it got him killed.

Hart couldn’t have killed Trey. First, he cared too much about him. Second, he had an airtight alibi that Junebug had already confirmed-checking out horses on a farm miles away in Fayette County. But in our talk out on the back porch, Hart’d denied knowing why Trey had left six years ago. He’d lied. And just how the hell did Clevey fit into this? And the attack on Junebug?

I’ve never been a swift thinker. I stopped dead in my tracks, my hand reaching for the door. Steven Teague, if Nola’s story was true and she’d correctly interpreted the conversation she’d heard between Hart and Trey, knew the reason for Trey’s leaving. And here he was counseling Mark, giving me pithy advice on how to handle the trauma that’d nearly destroyed our family. While knowing all the while why Trey had forsaken us. And how the hell would Steven know-he wasn’t even living here six years ago! Someone had told him-perhaps Clevey, who he was counseling? God, that had to be it!

My face felt hot and a slow throb of headache started a surging pain in my temples. My mind felt dizzy, trying to trace the web of Trey’s life. I stepped inside and shut the door.

Clo sat with Mama in the living room, avidly watching a talk show with the sound turned real low. Mama doesn’t like noise much anymore. Clo glanced up at me.

“I wasn’t about to let that white trash in this house,” she proclaimed. “Be mad at me if you want.”

“I’m not mad at you. Where’s Mark?”

She jerked her head toward the kitchen. “Back porch, I think. How’d his therapy go? He feeling better?”

I didn’t answer her, heading out to the porch. It was empty, the rain the only sound, tapping like fingers on foil.

“He’s not there,” I called back to Clo, stepping into the kitchen.

“Well, he called Bradley Foradoiy and chatted with him a minute. Then he said he was going out on the porch and listen to the rain.”

Bradley. Oh, God, and Mark was so single-minded about discovering what was going on at the Foradorys’. I phoned Davis’s number. One ring. Two rings. Three rings. An answering click.

And then the screams.