Her Sister's Shoes (4 page)

Faith hesitated. Did her mom think they still lived in the cottage next door, or was she simply confused about whose driveway was whose?

“I know it’s hard to see with the sun glaring through the windshield, but that’s our old driveway.” Faith pulled up next to the mailbox at the end of her sister’s driveway. “This is Jackie’s.”

“Oh right,” Lovie mumbled. “Of course.”

Her mama popped the top off a Maybelline tube and smeared lipstick across her lips. Lovie had always worn the same shade of cherry red lipstick, but the woman who grinned over at her looked like a clown with penciled-on eyebrows, flushed cheeks, and bright orange lips.

Four

Jacqueline

F
rom the balcony
off her second-floor kitchen, Jackie wa
tched the party preparations taking place on the terrace below. The band members tuned their instruments and tested their microphones. The bartenders iced down beer and opened bottles of wine. The caterers placed trays of sushi and bowls of shrimp on the tables while the wait staff stood ready to offer the guests fried oysters on Ritz crackers with a dab of remoulade sauce.

The late afternoon sun was inching toward the horizon. A full moon would soon rise over the high tide, bringing with it the promise of a lovely summer’s eve. Tiki torches illuminated the path leading down to the dock, which was outlined by strands of hundreds of little white lights. The stage was set for Jackie’s guests to dance
the night
a
way.

That is, if anyone actually showed up.

She felt a bit guilty for not sharing her birthday with her sisters. All three of them were born during the first week of June—the first, the second, and the fourth—Jackie, Sam, and Faith, respectively. Sam was two years younger than Jackie, and Faith six years younger than Sam. When they were little, the girls always celebrated their birthdays with one great big party on June 3, the one nonbirthday, neutral day of the
week.

The parties were chaotic affairs, usually set up on the lawn with games of Pin the Tail on
the Donkey and Musical Chairs. After a peanut butter and jelly lunch, the three girls would blow out the candles on a full-size vanilla sheet cake. Next came the required thirty minutes of rest to allow their food to digest. Then children and grown-ups migrated down to the dock for an afternoon of swimming. It’s a wonder no one ever drowned, with kids of all ages diving and cannonballing from the dock.

The parties grew smaller as the girls grew older. In recent years, the burden of hosting the party had fallen on Jackie. For as long as she could remember, she’d thrown a dinner party on June 3 for the whole family—husbands, children, and Lovie—complete with a catering staff to execute her elaborate themes. She’d planned everything from the traditional hamburgers-and-hotdogs-on-the-grill cookout to a festive Hawaiian luau. One year, she’d surprised Sam
on her fortieth by inviting all her friends to a sixties throwback party. As the first to reach the midcentury mark, Jackie had declared a new rule–each sister reserved the right to have her own birthday party when she turned
fifty.

She watched a pelican swoop in and settle on the railing of the dock, the bird’s large throat pouch reminding Jackie of her own thickening neck. Her father, inspired by his love of seagulls, had always referred to his three daughters as his gulls, but Jackie preferred to think of herself as a blue heron, tall and elegant and lean. For her fortieth birthday, her husband had given her a four-foot bronze heron. She’d named the statue Grace, and positioned it on the terrace at the edge of the walkway to the dock, where she could see it from every room on the waterside of her house. She placed a wreath and red bow around the heron’s neck at Christmas, and hung a basket of colored eggs from its beak at Easter. Tonight, for the occasion of Jackie’s fiftieth, Grace sported a lei of white dendrobium
orchids.

Jackie heard a screen door slam at the cottage next door, then saw ten-year-old Rebecca Griffin flying across the lawn toward their dock. “Happy Birthday, Miss Jackie,” the child called, waving up at her.

Jackie waved back. “The boys are expecting you to come over later for
cake.”

Rebecca flashed a mouth full of metal before continuing on her mission. When she got to the end of the dock, she
untied a rope from one of the cleats and hoisted a crab trap out of the water. Jackie was too far away to count the crabs in the trap, but the little girl’s squeal signaled a successful catch.

Rebecca reminded Jackie of Sam at that age, long tanned legs and freckles splattered across her cheeks. When she wasn’t fishing or shrimping or mud-hole punching, Sam had followed their father around from one home improvement project to another.

How could three sisters with the same parents, the same set of genetics, be so different?

The girls were nine, seven, and one when they moved into the house next door. With three tiny bedrooms, two baths, and a sweeping view of the inlet, the rundown shack had been their parents’ dream home, the only waterfront property they’d ever be able to afford. Looking past the peeling paint and rotten floorboards, their parents combined their life savings and devoted the next five years to weekend work projects. Oscar became proficient with a hammer and a saw while Lovie developed a knack for turning flea market trash into treasures. Jackie and Sam, dressed in matching overalls, appointed themselves the painters. Naturally, Sam was better with a brush and roller while Jackie fancied herself the color consultant. The sisters had argued over which color to paint their room—Jackie’s purple against Sam’s green—until Jackie finally convinced Sam they should paint one side a subtle shade of moss green and the other a pale-lavender hue.

The most impressive of the family’s accomplishments was the large screened-in porch they built across the front of the cottage. They ate dinner together on the porch every night during the summer, gathered around the old wooden picnic table the girls had painted a high-gloss fire-engine red. After dinner, they’d camped out, reading and talking and listening to country music, rocking back and forth in the rocking chairs,
and taking turns swinging in the hammock.

Despite their best efforts at remodeling, their charming quarters paled in comparison to the elegant plantation house next door—Moss Creek Farm—which Jackie now called
home.

Built in 1850, the main house was the only structure on an old cotton plantation that survived the Civil War. In the property’s one-mile stretch along the waterfront, the remnants of an ancient concrete dock still occupied the bank about five hundred yards past the house. Prior to development of the area, families traveling from their summer cottages on the beaches had
used the landing as their point of entry to their permanent homes inland.

While the house had been renovated many times since, the integrity of the building remained intact. With stately columns and wraparound porches, the three-story Georgian had endured Yankee occupation and weathered countless hurricanes, providing five different families a safe haven for more than 150 years.

The sweet scent of ligustrum from the hedge that separated the two properties drifted toward her, bringing with it her earliest memory of the women who would one day cause her
downfall.

On a warm Saturday in late May, six months after Jackie and her family moved into the cottage, she was daydreaming the afternoon away, perched atop one of the upper branches of the sprawling live oak in their side yard. When she heard voices and soft music drifting over the ligustrum hedge from the house next door, she hopped down from her perch and climbed into the hedge, deep enough to stay hidden while she spied on the party.

Mimi Motte and her daughter, Julia, were hosting a garden tea party for several women and little girls. Dressed in matching floral sundresses, with blonde manes and backs ramrod straight, Jackie watched in envy as mother and daughter moved from table to table socializing with their friends.

A bee swarmed Jackie’s head, then another and another. She swatted at them, but
that only made them mad. When the bees attacked her full on, she lost her balance and tumbled from the hedge. She landed on her fanny only feet away from where Julia sat visiting with her
friends.

“Oh, no!” Julia set her lemonade down and rushed to Jackie’s side. “Are you okay?” she asked, helping Jackie to her
feet.

“I’m fine.” Jackie brushed the grass off the back of her shorts. “A swarm of bees attacked
me.”

“Did they sting you?”

Jackie searched her arms and legs for stings. “I don’t think so. My name is
Jackie.”

“And I’m Julia. Why don’t you come sit down a minute. You need some refreshments.” Julia took Jackie by the hand and led her over to the table, gently pushing her down to the one empty chair. She summoned one of the maids in gray uniform who rushed over with a tray of sweets. The maid set an empty plate in front of Jackie, and used small silver tongs to
load the plate with three small iced
squares.

Jackie appeared skeptical.

“You’ll like them, I promise. Mama calls them petit fours, but I call them tea
cakes.”

Jackie took a tentative bite. “It’s
delicious.”

“These are my friends.” Julia pointed to each of the six girls, quickly introducing them. Jackie caught only two of their names, both of them Donna.

Julia’s mom appeared at her daughter’s side. “Who’s your new friend, sweetheart?”

“Mimi, this is Jackie. Jackie, this is my mom,” Julia said with a flick of her hand back and forth. “But you can call her Mimi. Everyone else does.”

“Is Jackie short for Jacqueline?” Mrs. Motte
asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And what is your last name, dear?”

“Sweeney. I live next door.”

“Oh. I see.” Julia’s mother turned to her daughter. “I didn’t realize you’d invited the neighbors to the
party.”

“She didn’t invite me, Mrs. Motte. A swarm of bees chased me into your yard. Julia was nice enough to give me some cake and
lemonade.”

Another
mother approached the table and cupped Jackie’s chin in her hand, turning her head first one way then another. “And who is this stunning creature?” she
asked.

Jackie sensed evil lurking behind this woman’s attempt at kindness. While her smile was wide, her pointy canine teeth showed like vampire fangs when she parted her bloodred
lips.

“Ethel, this is Jacqueline Sweeney. From next door. Jacqueline, this is Ethel Bennett, Donna Bennett’s
mother.”

Mrs. Bennett’s hand fell from Jackie’s chin as though she’d been scalded. “Sweeney?” she asked, her perfectly plucked eyebrow raised in an arc. “You mean the family who runs the seafood market?”

Jackie hung her head. “Yes, ma’am.”

The woman moved to the Donnas’ side of the table, placing a hand on the shoulder of the Donna with the smug look on her face. “One of our reporters—our family owns the
Prospect Weekly
, you see—did an article on your parents awhile back. We named your mom and dad the most hard-working couple in town.”

Jackie’s face reddened. She did see—and perfectly clearly. In Mrs. Bennett’s book, being named the hardest working people in town was anything but an
honor.

Jackie stood to go. “I should get home now. My parents are expecting me for dinner,” she said, even though it was only three o’clock.

Julia walked Jackie to the end of the hedge where a narrow passageway allowed her room to slip through. “Would you like to come over tomorrow afternoon?” Julia asked.

“Sure … but shouldn’t you ask your
mom?”

“She won’t care. She pretty much gives me anything I want. We have to go to church first, and then brunch at the club. I’ll come over and get you around
two.”

Jackie half-expected her new friend not to show up, but to her great delight, Julia appeared at two o’clock sharp. Together, the girls crawled back through the hedge, leaving a hole that would eventually become a permanent passageway between their two houses.

“Jackie, dear, how lovely to see you,” Mimi said, when the girls sought her out in her rose garden to ask permission to go
swimming.