The Peach Keeper

TWO

Whispers

Paxton Osgood had stayed late to finish some paperwork at the outreach center, so it was dusk when she left. She drove home, following the flickering lights of lampposts as they popped on, like drowsy fireflies leading her way. She parked in front of her parents’ house and got out of her car thinking that, if she timed this right, she would be able to have a quick swim before changing and heading back out to the Women’s Society Club meeting that evening.

This plan was carefully hinged on not facing her parents. She’d spent weeks tinkering with her schedule just so she wouldn’t have to stop and tell them about her day the moment she came in. This impatience, this avoidance, was a fairly new development, and she wasn’t sure what to do about it. Up until now, she’d never really minded living with her parents. Once a season, when she went to visit her Tulane sorority sisters in New Orleans, they would all marvel that Paxton still lived at home. They didn’t understand why she’d gone back to live with her parents after graduation in the first place, when she had the money to do whatever she wanted. It was hard to explain. She loved Walls of Water. She loved being a part of its history, of keeping it going. It struck a deep, resonant chord in her. She belonged here. And since Paxton’s twin brother Colin’s job took him all over the country, and sometimes overseas, Paxton felt it was only fair that their parents have at least one child nearby.

But last year, as age thirty loomed ahead of her like a black balloon, Paxton had finally made the decision to move out, not to another state, not even across town, but to a townhouse that her friend and realtor Kirsty Lemon was trying to sell, a mere 6.3 miles from Hickory Cottage. She’d measured it on her car’s odometer and offered it up as a major selling point to her parents. But her mother had been so upset at the thought of her leaving, of breaking up their happy little dysfunctional unit, that she’d been forced to back out. She did, however, move out of the main house and into the pool house, a small step but a necessary one. This was just going to take time.

The pool house gave her some privacy, but unfortunately there was no way to get to it without walking through the main house, so her parents always knew when she was coming and going. She couldn’t even bring in bags of groceries without her mother’s commentary. This was what her daydreams had come to. She fantasized about keeping a box of doughnuts on her kitchen counter and having no one comment on them.

She walked up the steps to her parents’ sprawling home, called Hickory Cottage because of the large number of hickory trees on the estate. In the autumn, the entire backyard became a mass of lollipop-yellow leaves, so bright they lit up the night like daylight. Birds nesting in the trees would get confused because they couldn’t tell what time of day it was, and they would stay awake for days until they dropped out of the branches with exhaustion.

She opened the front door silently, then clicked it shut behind her, knowing her parents would be watching CNN in the den. She would just tiptoe to the kitchen and out the French doors without them ever knowing.

She turned, and promptly fell over a suitcase.

She landed on her hands on the marble floor of the foyer, her palms stinging.

“What on earth was that?” Paxton heard her mother say. Then there was a rush of footsteps coming from the den.

Paxton sat up and saw that the contents of her tote bag had spilled out during her fall. All her lists were scattered around, which instantly made her panic. Her lists were private. She never let anyone see them. She quickly picked them up and stuffed them back into her bag, just as three people appeared in the foyer.

“Paxton! Are you all right?” her mother asked as Paxton stood and brushed herself off. “Colin, do something about these suitcases, for heaven’s sake.”

“I was going to take them to the pool house, but that was before I discovered Paxton had moved out there,” Colin said.

At the sound of her brother’s voice, Paxton spun to face him. She instantly ran into his arms. “You weren’t supposed to be here until Friday!” she said, squeezing him tightly, her eyes closed, breathing in that calm, easygoing air he always carried around him. She thought she might cry, she was so happy to see him. Then she was so mad she thought about hitting him. Dealing with her parents would be so much easier if he would just stop wandering around and come home for good.

“Things wrapped up sooner than I thought on my last project,” he said, pulling back and looking at her. “You look great, Pax. Move out and get married already.”

“No, don’t tell her to get married!” their mother, Sophia, said. “Do you know who she’s seeing right now? Sebastian Rogers.”

“I’m not seeing him, Mama. We’re just friends.”

“Sebastian Rogers,” Colin repeated as he looked at Paxton. “Didn’t we go to school with him? The effeminate kid in the purple trench coat?”

“Yes, that’s him,” their mother said, as if Colin had agreed with her about something.

Paxton felt her jaw tighten. “He doesn’t wear a purple trench coat anymore. He’s a dentist.”

Colin hesitated a few beats before changing the subject. “I guess I’ll put my suitcases in the guest suite upstairs, then.”

“Nonsense. You’ll put them in your old room. Everything’s just the way you left it,” Sophia said, then she grabbed her husband’s arm. “Donald, our babies are both here! Isn’t this wonderful? Get some champagne.”

He turned with a nod and left the foyer.

Over the years, Paxton’s father had slowly let his wife take over everything, to the point that now he mutely left all decisions up to her, and most of his time was spent at the golf course. As much as Paxton understood her mother’s drive, and how much easier it was to do things yourself than to let others do them, she often wondered why her mother didn’t resent her husband’s absence. Wasn’t that the whole point to being married? That you had a partner, someone you trusted, to help with important decisions?

“I can only stay for one drink,” Paxton said. “I’m sorry, Colin. I have a club meeting.”

He shook his head. “Don’t worry. We’ll catch up later. I need to go out for a while this evening, too.”

Sophia reached over and brushed some of the unruly hair off her son’s forehead. “Your first night here, and you’re going out?”

Colin grinned at her. “And you can no longer give me a curfew. Drives you crazy, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, you,” she said as she walked toward the kitchen, motioning for them to follow her with a flick of her perfectly manicured hand. Her tennis bracelet caught the light and sparkled, as if she were trying to hypnotize them into doing her bidding.

As soon as she was out of earshot, Paxton sighed and said, “Thank God you’re here. Will you please move back already?”

“I’m not through sowing my wild oats.” He shrugged his lanky shoulders. All her family was tall but, at six-five, Colin was by far the tallest. In high school, his friends used to call him Stick Man. His hair was darker than hers—which was a blond she kept meticulously highlighted—but they shared the same dark Osgood eyes.

“You still wear a suit to work,” she pointed out. “That’s not wild oats.”

He shrugged again.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’ve been up for two days straight. I need sleep. So what’s up with you and this Sebastian character?”

Paxton looked away and adjusted her tote bag on her shoulder. “We’re just friends. Mama doesn’t approve.”

“Does she ever? The Blue Ridge Madam looks fantastic, by the way. Better even than the photos you emailed me. I went up there late this afternoon. There are a few landscaping changes I need to make now that I’ve seen it in person, but otherwise it looks like everything is on track.”

“Are you sure it will be done before the gala next month?”

He reached out and squeezed her hand, and it almost made her cry again. “I promise.”

“Champagne!” their father called as he stomped up the basement steps. Colin and Paxton sighed in unison, then went to join their parents.

That night’s Women’s Society Club meeting was being held at Kirsty Lemon’s house, Lemon Tree Cottage. When Paxton got there that evening, Lemon Tree was decked out in all things lemon. The paper lanterns following the walkway to the front of the house had die-cut images of lemon wedges. The topiaries at the door had fake lemons on them. The door itself was covered in shiny yellow paper. Somehow, over the years, these meetings had become less about the actual charities they supported and more about trying to outdo one another in presentation.

Paxton went to the door and knocked. After drinks with her family, she had changed from her work clothes into a white dress and heels, then left at the same time as her brother. Their parents had actually waved to them from the driveway.

Kirsty opened the door. With her short brown hair and tiny hands, she was an optical-illusion woman, mysteriously making everyone around her seem larger than they really were. Paxton was five-ten and had at least eight inches and fifty pounds on Kirsty. She hated how she towered over her, but she never let it show, never stooped or wore flats around her. That would be shifting the balance of power. “Hi, Pax. Come in. You’re a little late.”

“I know. Sorry. Colin came home early. We were catching up,” she said as she entered and followed Kirsty to the living room. “How are you?”

Kirsty rambled on about her perfect husband and her lovably unruly boys and her fabulous part-time job as a real estate agent.

The twenty-four members sat in folding chairs set up in straight rows across the living room. Some had snack plates in their laps, full of scoops of lemon-chicken salad, lemon and broccoli mini-quiches, and tiny lemon meringue cups from the buffet table. There was a small table at the back of the room where three teenage girls, dressed in party clothes, whispered among themselves. They were called the Springs. These were the daughters of committee members being molded to take their mothers’ places when the time came. This was a young woman’s club. After a certain age, it was understood that you were no longer welcome, and that your daughter was expected to take your place. As a rule, rich Southern women did not like to be surpassed in either need or beauty. The exception was with their daughters. Daughters of the South were to their mothers what tributaries were to the main rivers they flowed into: their source of immovable strength.

Paxton smiled at the girls as she walked over to them and gave them small bags of chocolate. As president, she always gave the girls gifts at meetings, to make them feel included. They all hugged her, and she squeezed them back. She’d assumed she’d be married and have kids by this age, that she would be grooming her own daughter for this, as her friends were doing. She wanted it so much she would dream about it sometimes, and then she would wake up with the skin at her wrists and neck red from the scratchy lace of the wedding gown she’d dreamed of wearing. But she’d never felt anything for the men she’d dated, nothing beyond her own desperation. And her desire to marry wasn’t strong enough, would never be strong enough, to allow her to marry a man she didn’t love.

She skipped the food, as she always did because of the looks some of her friends gave her, eyeing her wide hips, and went to the front of the room, saying her hellos along the way. A strange breeze slithered by her, which sounded like whispers of secrets. She shook it off distractedly.

She took out her notebooks at the podium. “All right, everyone, come to order. We have a lot to discuss. RSVPs for the gala are pouring in. And Moira has a request that the Madam open to overnight guests early, so that some elderly attendees coming in from out of town can stay there the evening of the gala. But first, the reading of minutes from the last meeting. Stacey?”

Stacey Herbst stood and flipped through her notebook. She had recently started dying her hair red and, though everyone told her they missed her brown hair, the truth was she looked better as a redhead. But she would probably go back to brown soon. What people thought meant too much to her.

Stacey opened her mouth to read the minutes but, amazingly, what came out was, “I steal lipstick every time I go to the drugstore. I can’t help myself. I just drop a tube in my purse and walk out. I love that none of you know, that it’s a secret I keep from you.”

She slapped her hand over her mouth.

Paxton’s brows rose. But before she could say anything, Honor Redford, who had been president of the club before Paxton had taken over, blurted out, “Ever since my husband lost his job I’ve been afraid I won’t be able to afford the club dues, and none of you will like me anymore.”

Moira Kinley turned to the woman sitting next to her and said, “You know why I like going places in public with you? Because I’m prettier, and you make me feel better about myself.”

“I had that new addition built just because I knew it would make you jealous.”

“I really did have a boob job.”

“I know you have a bladder problem, but I tell everyone that the reason you have to go to the bathroom so often is because you’re bulimic.”

Now everyone was talking at once, and each thing they said was more outrageous than the last. Paxton stared at them impatiently. She thought at first that they were playing a joke on her, because some of them thought it was funny to try to get a rise out of her, as she was notoriously unflustered. But then she realized that everyone looked panicked, their eyes like horses running scared. It was as if everything they were secretly thinking had suddenly been given a voice, and they were powerless to stop it.

“Order,” Paxton said. “Everyone come to order.” This had no effect. The din escalated. Paxton stepped up onto her chair and clapped loudly, then yelled, “Come to order! What is the matter with you?”

The noise dissipated as everyone looked up at her. She stepped down. She could feel it now, an uneasiness creeping along her skin. She blinked a few times, because things suddenly seemed distorted, like looking at your reflection in a spoon. She had to stop herself from blurting out that she was in love with someone she shouldn’t be, something she’d never admitted to anyone. But now she was aching to say it. God, it felt like she would die, that she would choke on it, if she didn’t get it out.

She swallowed and managed to say instead, “Kirsty, I think something might be wrong with your air conditioner. I think we’re being affected by fumes.”

“At least I have my own house,” Kirsty murmured as she got up and crossed the room to the thermostat. “At least I don’t live in my parents’ pool house.”

“Excuse me?” Paxton said.

“Wh … I …” Kirsty stammered. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

Paxton rallied everyone and got them to open all the windows and take deep breaths. The sticky July heat crawling into the room quickly made everyone sweat through their light summer powders. The meeting was called to order, and the list of things needing to be addressed was checked off, but Paxton could tell some women just weren’t listening. It was close to ten o’clock when the meeting finally ended. Everyone kissed one another’s cheeks and rushed off to their respective houses to make sure everything was all right, that homes hadn’t burned down, that husbands hadn’t left, that their best dresses still fit.

Paxton sat in her car in Kirsty’s driveway, watching cars peel out, thinking to herself, What in the hell just happened here?

Instead of going home, Paxton drove to Sebastian Rogers’s house. She saw that his lights were still on, so she pulled into his driveway.

When Sebastian moved back to Walls of Water to take over old Dr. Kostovo’s dental practice last year, he’d also bought Dr. Kostovo’s house, because Dr. K was retiring to Nevada to get away from the moist Walls of Water air that bothered his arthritis. It was a dark stone house with a decorative stone turret. It was called Shade Tree Cottage, and Sebastian once told Paxton that he liked the drama of the place, that he liked to pretend he was living in an episode of Dark Shadows.

She knocked on his door. Moments later, Sebastian opened it. “Hello, beautiful,” he said, and opened the door farther for her to enter. “I didn’t expect to see you tonight.”

“I just wanted to say hi,” she said as she walked in, and the words sounded lame, even to her, as if there necessarily had to be an excuse, even though she knew he didn’t mind her stopping by.

She walked to the living room and sat on the couch, where he’d obviously been watching television. Judging by the outside, one would expect swords and coats of arms on the walls inside, but Sebastian had instead made the interior light and comfortable. He had moved back not long after she’d decided against buying the townhouse, and she’d enjoyed watching this place turn into his own. She even secretly envied his independence sometimes. She took off her shoes and tucked her feet under her as Sebastian sat beside her and crossed his legs at the knees. He was wearing drawstring pants and a T-shirt. His feet were bare, his toenails neatly trimmed.

Sebastian was a beautiful man, his face as delicate as a John Donne poem. Everyone presumed he was gay, but no one really knew for sure. He neither confirmed nor denied it, not in high school, and not now. Paxton was fairly certain, though, that she was the only person here to have ever seen proof. In high school he’d been thin and fair, wore eyeliner and long coats, and carried a satchel when everyone else in school had L.L.Bean backpacks. He’d been hard to miss. That’s why he’d caught her eye in the Asheville Mall their senior year. Asheville was about an hour outside of Walls of Water, and Paxton and her friends went there nearly every Saturday. Sebastian had been in the food court with at least a half-dozen other flamboyant teenage boys, boys not from Walls of Water. This was a different crowd, one not seen in small towns. She and her friends had been walking by when she’d spotted him. Suddenly, one of the exotic boys with black spiky hair and elbow-length black-and-white fingerless gloves leaned over the table and kissed Sebastian full on the mouth, deeply. At some point during the kiss, Sebastian had opened his eyes and seen her. Still kissing the boy, his eyes followed her as she’d walked away. She couldn’t remember ever seeing something as bold and seductive.

Thinking back to that kiss, it seemed so unlike him now. He was very controlled these days, almost asexual in the sharply tailored suits he wore to work, complete with silk ties so smooth they caught light.

“How was your day?” he asked, propping his elbow on the back of the couch, so close he almost touched her.

“Okay, I guess.” She reached over and lifted his half-empty wineglass from the coffee table and took a sip.

He tilted his head. “Just okay?”

“The bright spot was that Colin got here earlier than expected. The landscaping at the Madam is going to be done on time for sure now. But the club meeting tonight was so odd. I’ve never seen anything like it. There’s still so much to do for the gala, and suddenly everyone seems distracted.”

“How so?”

She paused, thinking about it. “Whenever I would get too nosy as a child, my grandmother would say, When you learn someone else’s secret, your own secrets aren’t safe. Dig up one, release them all. That’s what the meeting was like. Everyone was admitting things, secret things. And once they started, it was like they couldn’t stop.”

He smiled. “I’m confused. Isn’t that what the meetings are all about? Gossip?”

“Not like this,” she said. “Trust me.”

“Then do tell,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “What secrets have the society ladies been keeping? What’s your secret?”

Paxton tried to laugh, but it made her head hurt. She rubbed her forehead. “I don’t have secrets.”

He kept his eyebrows raised.

She had to admit to something now. But definitely not what she’d almost admitted at the meeting. “I’m dreading telling my grandmother about the gala. I promised my mother I would do it tomorrow morning, but I don’t want to. I really, really don’t want to. And I feel terrible about it. Nana Osgood helped found the club. It was wrong to keep this from her for so long. But she’s just so …”

Sebastian nodded. He knew. “Do you want me to go with you?”

“No. She treats you horribly.” Ever since she and Sebastian had started spending their Sundays together—something she looked forward to all week, like counting down the days to Christmas—he’d been coming with her to her weekly visits with her grandmother on Sunday evenings. She wasn’t going to make him come with her on a weekday, too. That was too much to ask of anyone.

“She treats everyone horribly, darling.” He reached over and took the wineglass from her and set it down, then took her hand in his. “Let go of that tightfisted control. You don’t have to do everything yourself.” He looked her in the eye and said, “I’ll go with you to see your grandmother tomorrow.”

“Really?”

“You know I’d do anything for you.”

She put his hand to her warm cheek and closed her eyes. His skin was cool and soft. He’d once told her that if she washed her hands as many times as he did in a day, moisturizer would become her best friend, too.

She realized what she was doing, and her eyes flew open. She let go of his hand and stood, fumbling with her shoes. “I should go,” she said, while trying to wedge her feet back into her strappy heels. “Thanks for letting me vent.”

“You’re such a ball of energy. Do you actually sleep?”

She gave him a weak smile. “Occasionally.”

He slowly uncrossed his legs, watching her thoughtfully as he stood. The moment they’d met again when he’d moved back, just by chance after her book club meeting at Hartley’s Tea Room last year, Paxton had felt a sting she’d been completely unprepared for, like a shock of electricity. She hadn’t recognized him at first, she’d known only that he was staggeringly beautiful, almost otherworldly, and she’d wondered what he was doing in Walls of Water. She had resolved to call around and find out who he was as she’d unlocked her car door, still staring at him as he’d walked to his car, parked a few spaces down. He’d opened his door and tossed the bag he’d been carrying from the Slightly Foxed Bookstore inside, then he’d turned to see her staring at him. He’d stared back, then smiled slightly and said, “Hello, Paxton,” which had blown her to pieces. He’d had to remind her that they had gone to school together. They’d ended up back in Hartley’s Tea Room, talking for hours. By the time they’d parted ways that afternoon, she’d been done for. And the reality of it would still catch her off guard. No matter how many times she told herself that nothing good could come of this, that she was just setting herself up, she couldn’t seem to help her feelings for him.

“Good night, lovely,” he said. He reached out and petted her hair almost apologetically. And that’s when it hit her so hard it made her chest hurt. He knew.

Appalled, she turned to the door. How long had he known? All along? Or had she done something recently to make him suspect? My God, what an awful night this had turned out to be. It felt like the universe was playing tricks.

“Pax? What’s wrong?” he asked, following her.

“Nothing. I’m fine. I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” she tried to say brightly as she walked outside into a cloak of humid darkness.

And she could have sworn she heard the whisper of someone’s laughter.