Keeping Secrets (45 page)

“Yes, there was one perfectly wonderful man from Asheville.” She waved one hand toward her front door. “Up in North Carolina, about fifty miles north. He was from one of the town’s first families, and I met him when I was summering with my Aunt Penelope in the summer of 1913. It’s cooler up there, you know. Anyway, I met Malcolm that summer, and he courted me all the next year. It was a scandal, what with all those pretty girls in Asheville waiting for Malcolm to decide to settle down, and I was already an old maid of twenty-three, from this little one-horse town no one had ever heard of. But Malcolm didn’t care. He rode over all those miles to call on me. ‘I like a woman,’ he said, ‘who has some spunk, who has a mind and knows it.’”

Miss Carrie smiled then and Emma could see the young woman inside her, her cheeks rosy with color. Some spunk, wasn’t that what Jesse had loved about her too, until he’d figured out that part of that equation meant that deep down inside she didn’t really need him? That she didn’t full-time need anyone. No one, Emma? Then why are you here in the godforsaken north-Georgia hills looking for the momma you’ve never known?

“What happened to him?”

“He died in the war, the first war. I never met another man who felt the way he did.”

They were quiet for a moment. Emma listened to the grandfather clock ticking.

“Now.” Miss Carrie sat up straight, with both her blue-veined hands flat on her lap, shell-pink nails pointing straight toward Emma. “That’s enough about me. Tell me again whom you’ve come seeking.”

Emma reached into her bag and pulled out the photocopy of her mother’s death certificate.

Miss Carrie peered at it closely through her rimless glasses.

“Yes, it does say Meadville. And it does say 1906. Let’s see.” She figured quickly in her head. “I was seventeen then. I’d just finished my second year of normal school. But I don’t remember this name.”

“Do you really think you’d remember?”

“If they were here any time at all. This is just a village, Emma. There’s not much that can slip by. Unless…” She paused and rested her head on her hand as if she were remembering.

“Yes?” Emma tried to keep the hope out of her voice.

“Unless they were just passing through. Could your grandfather have been an itinerant? A traveler? Maybe a circuit preacher?”

“Miss Carrie,” Emma laughed, “I doubt it. My grandfather was a Jew.”

“Of course! That’s it! Maybe he was the Jew!”

“
The
Jew? Miss Carrie, there are
lots
of Jews.”

“But not in the South, Emma, you know that. And hardly ever in a wide place in the road like Meadville. Maybe he was the peddler.”

“You
do
remember!”

“I do now. He came through about four times a year, selling things from his wagon, things we couldn’t get unless we went into Atlanta, which we only did maybe once a year. Toys, dolls, cigars for the men, lace, ready-made dresses.” Miss Carrie paused.

“What?” Emma urged her on. “What?”

Miss Carrie smiled, “Oh, I was just thinking, how we heard a rumor once, from somewhere, maybe Miss Lucy’s cousin wrote from Elberton, down there where they had Negroes, that he’d let them try the dresses on. So for a while no one would touch the Jew’s, Mutt’s, dresses.”

“Mutt?”

“Here, let me see that certificate again. Look—” she pointed— “‘Emmanuel Kaplan.’ Could Mutt have been his nickname?” Emma nodded. Her heart was pounding in her throat. “Go on.”

“Well, anyway, that didn’t last long. We couldn’t resist his finery just because of what someone said.” She smiled. “We decided that that rumor was wrong.”

“Did he have a wife?”

“He did at the end. The last time he came through here.”

“What was her name?”

“Child, I don’t know. I don’t remember. I don’t even know that I knew then. And I only saw her that once.”

“But you did see her?”

“Yes. And I see it now, clear as day. Mutt said that this was his last trip. He was going to be a father. And there was his wife, standing beside the wagon, her dress billowing out in front of her with the child. They were going to end this trip in Atlanta, where he was going to settle down and open a little store.”

“And…”

“Well, I guess her time was closer on her than they thought. Because the child was born here. My mother, who did some midwiving, was one of the women who saw her through over at Mrs. Simpson’s house. I remember Mrs. Simpson talking with my mother about it later in our kitchen. I, being so young, wasn’t supposed to hear, but you know how young people are when somebody’s hiding something from them. I was all ears. Anyway, she said she’d wondered if Jews were more like everybody else. But helping Mrs. Mutt through the birthing of her baby, she saw that neither one of them had a long tail!”

Both of them laughed.

“But,” Miss Carrie continued, “she said, on the other hand, maybe it was just the men.”

“And then what happened?”

“Well, as well as I can recall, a week or so after the baby came—”

“It was a girl?”

“Oh, yes, it was a girl, a pretty little girl. Then they left. I guess they went on to Atlanta like they planned. I never heard anything of them again.”

“And you never saw them in Atlanta?”

“Oh, child, that’s such a big city. It was, to a small-town girl like me, even then. But I bet, Mutt was such a hard-working man, I bet there was a Kaplan’s Dry Goods Store.”

In Atlanta! Where she’d lived for three years. Right under her very nose.

“You could look there.”

“Yes.”

“Is that what you’re going to do?”

“Keep looking till I find her?”

“Yes, go on searching until you find out what you want to know.”

“I don’t know that I’ll ever know that, Miss Carrie.”

The old woman smiled. “I didn’t think so. But,” she said, rising, “you can think about that tonight. Right now, why don’t you come on in the kitchen and help me get supper started. You are going to stay the night?”

“Oh, I couldn’t.”

“Why on earth not? Are you just being polite, or do you think you’d be bored to tears spending the evening with an old lady?”

“Miss Carrie,” Emma laughed, “I’d be delighted.”

* * *

The next morning she waved goodbye to Miss Carrie and headed south again. Well, she had to go back through Atlanta anyway, didn’t she? That was the easiest route.

To where, Emma? she asked herself as she rolled past Gainesville. What’s your final destination? Where’s that place you told Jake you were going? Which reminded her, he’d be worried. She had to give him a call.

Final destination—well, she had to get back to California eventually, didn’t she? Of course—if for no other reason, she had to go back and pick up her things. Had to pick up her passport. Hell, she had to settle things with Jesse. Then why aren’t you driving north toward Chattanooga—back to California, that’s the shortest route. No need to go south at all. Unless you’re going to Atlanta to search for Mutt, his wife and their daughter, Helen, no need at all.

* * *

It was an absolutely beautiful morning with blue skies, just a little breeze which ruffled her hair as she stood in the phone booth by the side of the fast-food store, one hand in the back pocket of her jeans. A convertible pulled in, full of high-school girls there to grab a quick breakfast. Their laughter was like bright scarves loosed in the air.

“He said what?”

“So what did
you
say?”

Then giggles. Now,
these
were Southern girls, Emma thought. Blonde with lots of white teeth, and wearing identical sweaters. The hardest decision they’d made all year was what color swimsuit to buy to loll in by the pool at the country club.

“Did you finish
Little Foxes
?” one of them asked.

“Yes. Wasn’t it great? ’Course by the time old Miz Chapman finishes talking about it, I’ll forget how much I liked it.”

“Why do you think they always do that?” asked another, and then their voices disappeared with them inside the glass doors.

Well, Emma thought. Well, now.

She dropped a handful of change into the phone. First she called West Cypress. Rosalie answered the phone.

“Hi, howyah doing?… Fine. Just called to check in…. The weather here in California? Oh, it’s fine…Daddy’s still asleep? Well, tell him hello for me.” She hoped he’d understand.

She didn’t know for sure she was going to make the second call until she’d already dialed the number from information and it was ringing. What if his wife answered on this Sunday morning?

“Hello?”

“Will?”

“Yes?”

“Will Tucker with the white-blond hair who was waiting to meet me so long ago at State, outside my office?”

“Emma.” He didn’t say her name as if he was surprised, or excited, but more as if he’d been waiting for her call—for almost ten years.

“Where are you?”

“In a phone booth in Gainesville.”

“How long till you’ll be here?”

“About an hour.”

“I’ll be waiting for you at Minnie’s.”

“They still have great pancakes?”

“Did last week.”

* * *

Why, Emma, why? she asked herself, as she threaded her car through Atlanta’s labyrinth of similarly named streets, many of them dead ends and half of them called some variant of Peachtree. Why did you call Will? What on earth do you want from him? Don’t you have enough on your plate without digging up an old lover who told you to get lost ten years ago, who’s married, for Christ’s sakes?

But he wasn’t. He was still as beautiful as the day she had first spied him at the end of the hall, his hair, silvered blond, glowing under the light. But he wasn’t married.

“Emma!” He stood up from the booth in Minnie’s, a pink sweater, almost the same shade as the one she was wearing, draped over his shoulders, khakis, loafers. He was more handsome than ever, trim, a monster grin on his face, but no gold on his finger. She’d bumped into him a couple of times after he married, before she ran away to New York. The gold had been there then.

“What on earth are you doing back here? No, wait.” He gestured to the waitress, ordered pancakes for them both, crispy bacon on the side. “And keep the coffee coming,” he said.

“Mr. Tucker, would you like your own pot?”

“Great idea,” he laughed. “Now,” and he zeroed his attention in on Emma’s face, “tell me everything. Everything from the last time I saw you. Shoot.”

She did. She told all, from Atlanta to New York, the trips to Europe, the growing food passion, California, Jesse. When Will pushed her about why she’d left, she added Caroline and Minor. When he asked her what she was doing now in the South, she went all the way back again to Helen, Rosalie, Jake.

When she was through they had long finished the pancakes and the twice-filled coffeepot.

“Let’s walk,” Will said. It wasn’t far to Piedmont Park.

They strolled for a long time in silence, Will’s forehead furrowed, one arm thrown across her shoulder. As they passed the duck pond, she said, “I wonder if those are relatives of those same ducks I used to feed.”

“What?”

“I used to come here and feed them after we split up. I was crazy. I didn’t know what else to do.”

He grinned. “So what else is new?”

“Will?”

“What?”

“Did you think I was crazy then?” She hesitated. “Do you think so now?”

He answered her question with one of his own. “Emma, why did you call me?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes you do. You called me because I told you something a long time ago that you didn’t like but that you knew was true. And now you want to see if I have any more answers.”

“Like what?”

You know what. It hasn’t changed, Emma. You cozy up to people, but only on your terms. You don’t really need them. That’s the answer to the puzzle about you, baby. That’s the whole shot.”

“I do. I needed you.”

“Nawh.” He shrugged. “You thought you did. But look how well you’ve done without me.”

“How
well
? I’m on the verge of divorce!”

“Is that how you measure a whole life? Then I sure as hell must be a failure.”

She could ask it then. “You’re divorced?”

“Twice.” He waved away the questions he saw in her face. “You don’t want to hear it. All you need to know is that I’ve discovered that we have a lot in common, you and I, a lot.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Means I don’t need anybody, either. Been living with my dog Buster the past two years. I see my son on weekends. The happiest two years of my life.”

“I’m not you, Will.”

“But yes, you are, my darling. Very close.” He pulled her around to face him, touched her on the cheek. “You are a conundrum, Emma. You are a piece of work. A hey-diddle-diddle. A kiss-my-ass. In some ways you don’t give a flying fuck. You do what you want to do—probably because you have to. Otherwise you couldn’t breathe. You aren’t put together exactly the same as other people. That’s the beauty of you—and the puzzle, the enigma. You’re a contradiction. That same independence that draws them to you is what pushes them away, ’cause you don’t need them.”