In the Midnight Rain (12 page)

B
lue dropped Ellie off, got Pi settled, and headed off to the greenhouses, immersing himself in numbers and patterns and notations to get around the vague, sucking depression that had welled up in him when he saw the pictures. He wouldn't go back to Rosemary's attic again.

It hadn't just been the picture of his wife Annie that gave him this sense of sorrow, but all of it—Mabel and her sad story; Marcus and James and Bobby Makepeace and all those other young boys, bright and full of a life that would be cut short for most of them; thoughts of his brother, thoughts of how fast time went and how little joy he'd ever wrung from it.

He didn't know how Ellie stood it, delving into the past all the time for her work. He'd slit his wrists in three minutes flat.

When he heard her car on the road later, he found himself standing by the door, half-hidden in the shadows, to see what posture she held after a long day of sad stories. He watched as she stepped out of the car and went immediately to let April out to run. This time, they ambled down the road toward town, April leaping up every so often to lick her mistress's fingers, Ellie stopping just as often to bend her head into the heart of a rose. The flowers pleased her. She fingered them, trailed her palms over the sprays.

He thought of bringing her here, into the greenhouse, into this world he'd created out of his sorrow, but something made him shy away from that thought. It was enough to watch her and her dog, both of them so happy in the humid late afternoon, doing something so small as walking down a road next to a bank of blooming wild roses.

He bent his head and went back inside, to the comfort of notations and the pattern of observable results, to a world of flowers that had been blooming long before man walked the earth and would be blooming long after he was gone.

* * *

The Gideon Readers' Group had been meeting every Thursday night for six years, growing from five members to nearly twenty, though it was rare for all of them to show up at any one meeting. The rules were simple: every regular had a chance to suggest a book in turn, and they read one book a week. No particular guidelines on what kind of books. Rosemary insisted that part didn't matter, so they read all over the board—mystery and bestsellers and literary and romance and even a bit of fantasy here and there. No one in the group was a big fan of science fiction novels, though they had read one or two, and none of them liked horror. Rosemary suspected men in the group might have shifted that balance a bit, but even if it was sexist, she didn't care. Women only. In her mother's day, women had come together over quilts and church suppers. Books, in her opinion, were just as good a reason.

Connie arrived at six-thirty, breathless as always. "Rosemary, you've got to try these." She nipped the covering from a tray of finger foods and plucked a huge black olive from the middle, offering it to Rosemary between the tips of her long, red-painted nails.

Agreeably, Rosemary accepted it. "Why, it's just cream cheese in the middle, girl. What's so exotic about that?"

Connie took one and put it in her mouth. "I never thought of doing it that way before. It's wonderful!" She closed her eyes as she chewed, and Rosemary thought for the millionth time that it was a pure waste that Connie Ewing would not even date. Tall and bosomy, she was still beautiful. Her eyes were long and blue, the mouth as pretty as a pear. Half the men in town had been lusting over her since she was twelve and grew those breasts and long legs to go with them, but Connie had given her whole heart at the age of sixteen, and when she lost him to Vietnam, that was that. Well, except her husband George, but that hadn't worked out all that well, considering.

"What did you do differently tonight?" Rosemary asked.

"Oh!" Connie put the tray on the table shoved over against the wall and turned around, straightening into a hammy pose. "I changed my colors. What do you think?"

"What colors?"

"Makeup, silly. Evidently, I was embarrassing my daughter." She gave Rosemary a rueful smile. "I just went a little lighter with everything, added some browns."

Privately, Rosemary thought Connie could go a little further in throwing out old styles. Her hair was tortured into an overblown nest that hadn't been fashionable for a long time, and her clothes were similarly outdated. "Looks good," she said, and meant it. "You have pretty skin." They set up the folding chairs. "Where's Shauna tonight?"

Connie waved a hand. "Off with that Kiki again. Seems like I never see her at all anymore."

"Get used to it, honey. It's only a year till graduation."

"I guess."

Rosemary's sister Florence came in, carrying a bottle of water and a plate of crudites. She'd been on Weight Watchers for more than a year and had lost nearly fifty pounds, putting her real close to her teenage weight. Right behind her came two other members of the group, Mrs. Nance, the librarian, and Lynette Cole, a middle-aged woman with brown hair and thick glasses. They put their dishes on the table and chatted, and a few minutes later, two others came in.

The first was Ellie Connor, the biographer. The other was Marcus Williams's wife, Alisha, with her waist-length braids and skinny thighs. Of course they'd come in together, Rosemary thought. Alisha had probably offered to drive when she found out Ellie was coming.

Still, it grated. Alisha. Always Alisha. She'd come to town one summer to take care of her grandmother, met Marcus, and set out to make him her man. Which might have been all right, except Alisha was way too young for him, and made him look a fool—laughing all over town with a girl practically young enough to be his daughter. Then she had those babies, boom, boom, like it was nothing. It had taken Rosemary seven years and more miscarriages than she wanted to remember to get Brandon.

Then Connie had hired Alisha to do the fancy braids and extensions and cuts all the young black women—though of course Alisha never said anything but 'African American,' which also annoyed Rosemary—wanted nowadays. Rosemary kept her hair herself.

Connie said Rosemary had a blind spot, and everyone else seemed to like the girl well enough, so Rosemary tolerated her. At least she hadn't brought her baby tonight. Sometimes she sat there and nursed right in front of all of them, hardly seeming to care if they saw her breasts.

Three others, young white women with children who had all joined the group in the past year, came in. Connie called them the triplets. They were all blond, young, and idealistic. One, a sweet little thing no more than twenty, was an aspiring writer who spent her spare moments typing a medieval mystery on an old typewriter Lynette had scrounged up for her.

Giving them a few minutes to fill plates and tend to their greetings, Rosemary spoke up when she found herself staring at Alisha again, laughing in the corner with Ellie like they'd been friends a thousand years.

"Why don't y'all come and sit down? I think this is about what we're going to have tonight." As they settled in the folding chairs, she gestured to Ellie. "I want you all to meet Ellie Connor. She's staying out at Blue's place, while she does some research about my aunt Mabel. She's a writer."

"Blue Reynard?" One of the triplets asked, her eyes widening.

Ellie smiled. "Don't tell me you have more than one Blue in town."

Connie said, "She means, 'Blue Reynard who should be on the cover of a romance novel, that Blue?'" She laughed when the triplet blushed. "They sent his picture to a magazine to be in a cover boy contest. He was fit to be tied when he found out."

"We didn't mean any harm," Triplet #2 said and leaned over the table. "You have to admit he looks like a movie star or something."

To Rosemary's surprise, Ellie's face went completely still. "He's very handsome," she said mildly.

"Handsome ain't the half of it," said Triplet #3. "My grandma used to say some men could set the streets afire, and that's the kind of man he is. Just looks like he'd know"—she wiggled a little—"everything."

Triplet #1 slapped her arm. "You're a married woman!"

"So? I have eyes, don't I?" She winked in Ellie's direction. "You let us know if you get to kiss him, won't you?"

"Nadine!" Alisha said. "You are a slut, girl."

Nadine laughed, unconcerned. "I'm just honest." She picked up the book of the week, a quirky women's fiction title. "And speaking of that, didn't you love this book?"

Alisha softened. "I did love it. She's very funny, too."

Rosemary leaned back as the discussion started, pleased that for once they'd found something to agree on. With so many different personalities in the group, settling on a new book every week sometimes ended up being a war.

Across the table, Ellie met her gaze, and Rosemary winked. The woman smiled.

And for the most fleeting of moments, Rosemary had a powerful sense of déjà vu. There was something about her face, about her smile, that so changed her appearance that Rosemary was reminded of someone. She tried to grab it—something about the tilt at the edge of her eyes, maybe?—but Ellie had turned back by then, and the déjà vu disappeared.

Funny little thing, Rosemary thought. She was small and strong and had that air of a survivor Rosemary always liked. Tough. Smart. But not at all pretty except the tumble of black curls she didn't do anything with. Flat-chested enough she probably didn't even bother much with a bra, and angular of face and limb.

It made Rosemary a little sad, because it was plain the girl thought Blue was better than handsome, and she was definitely not the type he'd give much more than a charming smile to. Nadine over there, with her low-cut sundress showing her slim arms and a hint of cleavage, was Blue's type. So was Jewel, even if she was a little too plump. She had the right china doll coloring and the curves and the cluelessness Blue seemed to prefer.

With a twinge of worry, Rosemary hoped Ellie Connor wasn't building up some fantasy about Blue Reynard. Because the man would break her heart if she gave him a half a chance.

* * *

Ellie bided her time during the book discussion, and then waited while they decided on another book for the following week. The three young blonde women, plus the librarian and another woman, took their leave fairly early, and Ellie thought maybe it was over.

Instead, it seemed to be a signal to the others. They stood up, filled their plates, and settled comfortably in the best chairs. To gossip, she discovered quickly. They hashed over the week's events with the kind of old-fashioned relish Ellie had forgotten. It wasn't malicious, but she'd lay money few events went undissected by this group.

When the talk turned to the city council's final approval of a Fourth of July date for the unveiling of the Vietnam memorial, Alisha groaned. "I'll be so glad when that's over and done with!"

Rosemary lifted her chin. "It's important to us, Alisha."

"I know." She raised her hands defensively. "I'm sorry." She shot Ellie a sideways look, rolling her eyes.

Ellie smiled, but the chance was too great to pass up. "I saw some photos this morning of the boys who went to war with Marcus. There were six or seven of them. Both of you were in the pictures, too."

Rosemary sent Connie a worried glance, and Ellie looked at the hairdresser curiously, but aside from lowered eyes, could see nothing amiss. "That must have been the picnic we had for them before they left for basic," Rosemary said.

"That's what Blue thought, too." She leaned forward. "Is this a delicate subject? Should I leave it alone?"

"Not at all." It was Connie who answered. "That was a great day. I'll never forget it as long as I live." Her eyes lit with the memory. "All of us happy. Remember those girls? I thought the guys were gonna die over them not wearing bras." She gave a hoot of laughter. "Bobby kept wanting me to leave mine off—can you imagine? I'd've smacked myself right in the chin every time."

Ellie laughed.

"Yeah, Marcus tried so hard to pretend—" Rosemary glanced at Alisha and broke off. "I'm sorry," she said, and seemed sincere. "That's rude of me."

Alisha shook her head, unable to speak around the popcorn in her mouth. Finally she said, "I don't care about all that, Rosemary. I love hearing it." She lifted a shoulder a little shyly. "If you don't mind telling it."

"I'm confused," Ellie said. "Did I miss something?"

Connie answered. "Rosemary and Marcus Williams went together all through high school until he got back from the war. My boyfriend Bobby was in those pictures, too. A good-looking boy with a goatee? D'you see him?"

Ellie nodded and gave her a gentle smile. "I did. Very nice-looking."

"Well . . ."She shrugged. "He didn't come home."

"I'm sorry."

"I want to hear about Marcus," Alisha said.

Rosemary chuckled. "There was a couple of hippie girls in town that summer. Marcus was goggle-eyed over a little blond, though he acted real cool, I could tell." She frowned at Connie. "What was her name? Teeny little thing, never wore any shoes. Had about twenty yards of hair?" She poked Connie's arm. "You remember?"

"They called her Rapunzel. They were all crazy for her."

Ellie listened, half-frustrated, half-fascinated. A blond wouldn't be her mother. But somewhere on that day lay the secret of her father, she was sure. "How many boys were there that day?"

Connie frowned. "Let's see." She ticked off the names with her long, red-painted nails. "Bobby and Marcus, of course. And Rosemary's cousin James—"

"He didn't come back either," Rosemary said, and there was still a true grief in the statement.

"And then. . . must have been six or seven of them. Binkle and the boy with the 4-H ribbons—what was his name, Rosemary?"

"I can't remember. Oh—David. No, Dennis."

"Right. Dennis." She repeated the names, counting, and said, "That's it, I think."

Ellie did a name association to remember them all. Bobby Makepeace was easy in its irony. Binkle—tinkle. And a boy with 4-H prizes named Dennis. Blue had said something about him and a bull. It would probably be in the papers from the time.

A taut sense of anticipation moved in her, but mindful of Connie's connection to one of the possibilities, she wanted to take care in how much she revealed. "It seems so odd," she said. "So many boys going off to a very unpopular war suggests a patriotic town. Didn't the town hate those hippie kids?"