Blue Shoes and Tattoos, page 19
Corley shook her head then winced. “Well, maybe so.” And as they moved toward the kitchen, “How can I make sure my dad’s all right? Don’t think Glynn would hurt him, but he has come close sometimes, and if he tried to get money out of Dad…”
“Tomorrow. There are such things as restraining orders.”
Corley shook her head again and gave a small whimper. “No cops. Glynn may be into something…something that could land him in jail for years. And he’s really not a bad person.” She gripped the back of a chair.
“Sit down,” Carolina ordered. “We need to get you away from him.”
Corley looked up as Carolina set the pill and water before her, the tear-starred lashes black pinpoints around angry blue eyes, one barely open, but anger-bright.
“You have no idea what I need—you with your nice, comfortable life. In a house where,” she glanced at Tatters and drew away from his twining her ankles, “nothing worse happens than someone stepping on the cat’s tail!”
Carolina stared, speechless as the girl took pill and water before continuing. “That’s why I need to talk to Freddy. He knows what to do about these things.” She stopped abruptly.
“Just what things does Freddy know about?” Miss Geneva stood in the doorway, her face taut. Even the lips dared not tremble, nor the cheeks quiver, tight with angry alarm. Carolina caught her breath—she’d completely forgotten Miss Geneva.
Corley didn’t look at her. “Freddy doesn’t want you or his mom to know.” She waved a disparaging hand toward Carolina. “Or her.”
To Carolina Miss Geneva appeared to grow an inch taller. “I think it is more to your benefit, Corley, to observe my wishes, not Freddy’s.”
Here was the schoolteacher, through and through. Carolina would have smiled if she hadn’t been so concerned. So concerned that, as the girl continued to stare silently at her bandaged wrist, she dared say, “She’s under medication and terrible stress, Miss Gen. Give her a while.”
The taut stare swung to her. “But Freddy could be in danger—this person might attack him. If you care about him…”
Carolina met the stare with gentleness, not defiance. And old eyes read all her caring in eyes more green than she had noticed lately.
“Tomorrow then.” And she turned on her walker and left.
“You care about him?” Corley looked up at her.
Carolina managed a smile and, she hoped, a flippant tone. “Who wouldn’t care about Freddy!”
The roar of the bike stabbed across the quiet morning as Carolina sponged breakfast crumbs off the counter. Corley was still sleeping—but probably not for long—Miss Geneva had been fed and, after such a night, had most likely gone back to bed.
Carolina couldn’t deny a twinge of pleasure as she heard the bike choke to silence and Freddy’s gritty boots rounding the car to cross the porte cochere. She went to the door.
“Well, well, to what do I owe this eager reception?” He extended hands, palms up.
He sounded like the old Freddy, so she slapped at them lightly and felt a flush. “A warning. You’re probably in for the third degree.”
“Corley?”
“Miss Geneva.” She lifted the coffee carafe, at which he shook his head. “She’s going to want to know what things you’re into that Corley would not tell us about.” His brows went up. Such nice, neat brows… “And why you don’t want us to know. That’s all Corley said, but your aunt heard it.”
“And of course thinks I’m up to no good.”
“Do I hear a strange voice out there?” Miss Geneva, quavery. And Freddy, winking, stepped past Carolina.
“I’ll survive,” he mouthed.
But Corley called. “Freddy!”
“See you in a minute, babe.”
Carolina’s fists tightened. Babe! And she turned back to her vigorous sponging. She’d swept and was replacing Tatters’ newspaper when she heard words hardly distinguishable…
“I’m sorry, Freddy. It just slipped out.”
“It’s okay. How’s the eye?”…and realized the voices now came from her room. Surely it was all right for her to go into her own room.
But Corley’s expression said not. She was sitting crossed legged in the middle of the cot, and Freddy leaned forward from Carolina’s desk chair, elbows on knees. He rose.
“Okay, okay. Here’s your guardian to run me off.”
“You’re fine.” Carolina.
“I’m fine!” But Corley winced with each word.
“Well, I’m not.” He stopped by her, touching her shoulder. Carolina observed her hopeless effort not to shrink from him. “Have a meeting with my ‘Mother.’ The doll man has renamed her…‘your Mother’ this, ‘your Mother’ that.” He wagged his head. “Whatever she is, seems she wants definite answers about my attending some wedding.” Just catching himself as he started to give Corley a pat, he strode past Carolina, who looked at the girl’s unhappy face then followed.
As they reached the kitchen, “Are you going to tell me?”
“Tell you? What Aunt Gen asked? Oh, about the things I don’t want you to know? Eventually. Right now you might wanna check on her.” The uncharacteristic seriousness in his eyes troubled her, yet as she turned to go, he caught her arm and drew her to him, placing a lingering kiss on her surprised and parted lips. “And hold that thought.” This was no teasing. “Sorry about that episode at the grocery store.” He released her, sliding a hand down the braid before turning for the door. For a few moments she stood, as if to move might break something.
Already Miss Geneva appeared to be asleep. Carolina gazed down. Well, none of us got much sleep last night…or does she just not want to talk to me? Still, the breathing was steady and no eyelid flutter. Okay, Miss Gen. A nap, real or pretend, can’t hurt.
At the click of the closing door, Miss Geneva took a deep breath. What have You gotten me into, Lord? That troubled girl in my house…for how long? And what is Freddy up to? I don’t want him involved in her dangerous world. That boy. How I love him. And does Carolina? He’s a child, Father! Hardly nineteen. And she has a birthday in a month or so—twenty-six. Keep her strong in discouraging him. Yet…she would be better for him than this Corley character. Oh, that poor girl, Father. I know we have to help her. The weary old eyes stared reproachfully at the ceiling. I know, I know, You tell us what to do. You don’t say we have to like it.
The house seemed to shake with the guttering throb of Freddy’s starting bike. So he was going to have a talk with Elizabeth again. She was still working on him. She patted the quilt around her. No Tatters. That’s the way with cats, she thought. Never around when you want them. Always when you don’t.
A weak call for Carolina from her room. Oh, Lord, give Carolina strength. And give me strength. She turned on her side to look out at the oak, its leaves flashed with sunlight, and realized she was hungry.
Carolina, distracted, betrayed no surprise at finding her spreading cream cheese on raisin bread.
“She says she’s going home today.”
Miss Geneva put down the knife and stared. “She can’t do that.”
“She’s worried about her dad.”
“She’s injured! How does she think she’d get there?”
“She wants me to drive her.”
Miss Geneva picked up the knife and viciously severed another wedge of cheese. “Well, I forbid you to take the car, so that’s that.”
But for once in Miss Geneva Hopelane Eaton’s life, that was not that.
Freddy returned with a sack of canned soups and clattered them onto the counter at the sound of raised voices. Heated words blocked sounds of his arrival, and when he’d caught the gist of the confrontation, he said, “Hey!” as he approached Carolina’s room. Three flushed faces turned to him in the doorway. “I’ll take you, Corley.”
But his aunt stiffened. “You will not.”
He ignored her, beginning to stuff Corley’s few things into a bag she’d started filling. “I’ll return your stuff,” she said to Carolina.
“I forbid you to take my car, and it would kill her to take her on that cycle!”
“Freddy,” Carolina was pleading. “Please, this is too dangerous.”
“Carolina, you have the keys?”
“Carolina, I forbid you…”
“She’ll be all right, Aunt Gen. I’ll see that she’s all right.”
“You can’t know that. Her brother is dangerous.”
“Carolina, trust me. She’ll be all right. The keys?”
This would be the end of her job. She tried to match his defiance with her own, but who could hold out against those eyes? So…to the drawer where the keys waited. “Call us,” she said as her hand brushed his. But Miss Geneva pushed her walker between them, and reaching past her nephew caught Corley’s arm, careful of the wounded wrist. Seeing that Freddy held the keys, she sighed.
“Corley, when you’ve seen your dad, you must come back, for the next few days at least!” Then as no one protested, she went on more quietly. “That’s the only way I will let you go.” She was trembling and swung unsteadily toward Freddy. “You bring her back or I’ll call and report my car stolen.”
Freddy’s eyes flashed disbelief at his aunt, but he grasped Corley’s good arm. And Carolina feared for the girl’s wounds as she struggled to keep up with him in a push to the door. For the first time in all her pain, Corley appeared struggling not to cry out.
Miss Geneva thumped the walker to the door and leaning out called, “Corley, I told you God loves you! And He’s told me to look after you! You mustn’t block His plan!” She surprised herself. What was happening to her? Asking for trouble, but feeling almost exhilarated! The child must come back!
The car came noisily to life. So only Carolina heard her whisper, “Or you might keep me out of heaven.”
They were alone then in the silence of a kitchen heavy with the late sunlight of a summer afternoon.
The walker did not move. And Carolina felt that she might be suffocating. “Miss Gen, I’m so sorry I was—”
But a shaky hand asked for silence. “Fix some iced tea, please, Carolina. I’ll take mine in my room.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Then to relax the tension, dreading the reprimand her employer would make, “And then I’d better get the sheets in the washer.” But she saw no anger on that dear face, only exhaustion.
When she brought the tea, Miss Geneva was in her chair but rose to go to her bed. “It’s Freddy I’m terribly worried about.” She could no more than whisper. “Do you realize that maniac might kill him?”
Carolina took courage and…yes, now seemed to be the time…hugged her. Then held her tightly till some of her shaking stilled and old bones moved to be freed. Then wordless, helped her to her bed.
“Lord, please protect Freddy,” she surprised herself by whispering, and Miss Geneva lifted startled eyes. She patted the nearest hand then reached for the tea.
Tatters, no respecter of crises, jumped up between them, and Carolina gathered him up to leave. But Miss Geneva said, “Stay a minute. Those sheets can wait.”
Carolina spilled the cat from her arms and sank to the bedside, where she sat holding a knobbed hand, tea forgotten, till the oak no longer flashed with sun, and she realized Miss Geneva had fallen asleep against her shoulder.
Freddy didn’t call. And Carolina carefully loosed her hand and went to the porch. She saw him stop the car at the curb…and saw what she’d half expected. No Corley. She watched his lovely lope up the walk.
He put a finger to his lips. “Don’t want her to know I’m here.”
Carolina gripped the arms of the rocker. “Corley? Freddy, is she all right?”
He settled on the top step, gazing at the street. “We went to her house and her brother’s truck was gone. So we checked on her dad…cried when he saw her.” He looked down into the sprawl of keys and held them toward her. “Then she and I had a big fight.”
“What!”
“Yeah, I had planned all along to take her to this place for abused teenagers. I’ve been volunteering there when I can. So I know the place and the people.” He squinted up at her and seemed not to know what to do with his hands without his helmet, so plowed them through his hair. “It’s a good place. But I knew the Hopelane family probably wouldn’t approve without a Federal inspection. Anyhow, I knew she would be safe. You can guess, she didn’t mean to leave her dad, even at Aunt Gen’s threat. Then he told her if she didn’t go with me, he was going to call the cops on her brother.”
“Oh, Freddy.”
“So that’s where she is. And she promised me she would stay at least three days. They’ll let me know if she leaves.” He frowned at a passing car. “Where she’d go, who knows. But her dad assured me he would do something. She might come back here for a while.” He scuffed at a lower step with the toe of his boot, then faced Carolina for the first time. “Can you handle that?”
I don’t want her around you. “I don’t know.”
“Well, maybe we won’t have to find out. Anyhow, I wanna talk to you about some other things, but probably it will have to wait till after the big wedding.”
“Oh, Freddy.”
He grinned. “You said that already.”
“You’re cruel to keep me in suspense!”
He reached to stroke the tattoo on her instep and she froze. It was the first time he’d touched it. Then he rose. “It won’t be so long. Mom tells me the wedding is in two weeks.”
Two weeks? Miss Elizabeth and her wedding? No way! But Carolina left the rocker to lean on the post by the steps. They stood at eye level. Should she ask? She couldn’t help herself.
“And are you…giving her away?”
Seventeen
Miss Geneva loved the old chapel. She had asked to be brought early so she could sit in complete quiet among familiar things, remembering all they represented and had meant in her life: the rose stained glass window Grandfather had given; the pew she now sat in, and a half-dozen around it, handmade by great-great-grandfather Ellington Hopelane. Their crude lines were softened by a rich patina due to
years of dedicated care she had encouraged…all right, demanded…from teenaged nephews and nieces. They had needed to have a hand in things, to feel themselves an active part of their heritage.
She had sat here in this pew almost every Sunday of her life till these last years. Had seen Elizabeth’s first wedding, a glorious affair with white gown, endless train and flowers like clouds of heaven. And Frederick so tall and handsome. Somehow she couldn’t help feeling a wedding was more permanent if it started with all the trappings…and that one had lasted but at what a price. Who could know? Only Elizabeth…
She coughed into her handkerchief. No negative thoughts. Must give this day every positive thought possible.
Now Carolina touched her shoulder. “I’m putting your walker in the narthex. I’ll bring it when the ceremony’s over.”
Carolina dodged young women in jeans and T-shirts bringing in baskets of white lilies and sprawling ferns. So much for quiet, Miss Geneva sighed. The groomsmen were arriving with laughter and, she suspected, crude jokes. Which silenced when they saw her. Theirs were familiar faces, but she couldn’t recall a single name.
One approached her brashly. “Miss Eaton…hello! I’m Brandy, Freddy’s buddy. Good to see you out and about.” Leaning toward her, offering his hand. She took it briefly. A gentleman always waited for the lady to offer hers, and she detected a note of condescension. It wouldn’t hurt, from what Freddy had said about this friend, for him to know she kept tabs on them.
“Oh, yes. Friend of the romantic moonlight bike ride.”
He stepped backward and she thought he might fall. Which verified for her what she had really known all along: Freddy had told the truth. She decided to have mercy. After all, only a boy. Embarrassed that she might know about his broken romance… Never mind, my dear. You will survive as most of us…
“I understand you boys have learned some exciting stunts on your bikes.”
And he gripped the pew, swallowing, lips jerking in a smile. “Oh, yes, ma’am. We have! Well, good to see you.”
She nodded him away. Boys. She’d never had a problem with them in the classroom. But Draughn. What had she done to him that even his sister’s wedding didn’t bring him back? Then Carolina was slipping past her into the pew, whispering, “Remember to save Freddy a seat on the aisle.”
Miss Geneva straightened. The soloist had begun…some song she had never heard. What was wrong with “Oh, Promise Me”? Or “I Love You Truly”? Old, she sniffed, like some of us. She tried to understand the words but finally gave up. It must be about time…she clenched her hands together over a stomach tightening with nerves. Oh, Father, please let everything go all right…not only now but in the years ahead. It’s Elizabeth, Father…
And there was Garrett Gleason, crammed into a tuxedo with a vintage sheen like his, she chuckled. But completely unaware of it. His grandson’s best man. And the woman across the aisle smiling and nodding to her must be the sister.
Suddenly there was Hannah almost dancing down the aisle in a sparkling white dress with bows everywhere, white stockings, and sequin-bright ballerinas. She had wanted blue ones but her Aunt Elizabeth finally persuaded her to accept silver. Giggling, she tossed a handful of flower petals—were they rose petals?—toward Miss Geneva, who pretended to catch them. Then caught her breath. A piano had burst into the melody of “Somewhere over the Rainbow.” What on earth were they thinking? She turned to stare up the aisle. There must be some mistake. But Carolina touched her arm and smiled reassuringly.
As Miss Geneva stared at her, Carolina nodded. So this was what it had come to! Well…
But Betts, stunning in a sheath as iridescent as the inside of a sea-washed conch shell, that hair smoothed down in a respectable style, blew her a kiss. Miss Geneva gasped. Was there no dignity in modern weddings? Then she grew concerned. The child looked thin. Greg? And of course he wasn’t here. But Betts held a smile old eyes knew too well, perfected forty or so years ago to cover up any misery or mischief of childhood.
