Lookaway, Lookaway (54 page)

Liddibelle blanched at the mention of Jerilyn, but her manners won out and she asked, “How is the poor thing?”

“Just a mess! She’s lost a boy like Skip which would be tragedy enough for one lifetime, but you can imagine how upset she is. Oh I suppose when this is all over we might have to see a counselor—I’d take her to see an African witch doctor if I thought it’d help but … but she’s not getting over this. And between you and me, Liddibelle, who is going to come courting now? The girl who accidentally shot her husband.”

Liddibelle nodded, maybe feeling a pang of sympathy she hadn’t counted on.

“And you know, Liddie, I have always looked out for you.”

“I know that, Jerene.”

“Whether it was my parting ways from Becks so you could date him or putting you up for Theta Kappa Theta or inviting you along to be a trustee or making that phone call for the Myers Park Country Club—”

“Of
course,
I know so well all that you’ve done for me.” Liddibelle put both hands on top of Jerene’s nearest hand. Kate wondered if maybe Jerene’s nonchalance about this lawsuit might, after all, have been justified. Liddibelle Baylor seemed quite pliable under Jerene’s barrage of talk.

Jerene went on. “And even with this business between us, I am going to look out for you as I always have, as you shall soon see.” Jerene had been holding a manila envelope which she now set before them on the table.

Liddibelle didn’t seem to notice the envelope, saying, “Well. This might be the one time, my dear dear sister—and that’s just what you are, just like a sister!—but this may be the time where we have to let the lawyers do what we pay them to do. However disagreeable.”

Jerene said this with such a level tone, it was hard to know if she meant it as an accusation or a mild question: “Like your detectives looking into our past? Apparently my bank records have been opened to you like a children’s book.”

Liddibelle reddened, but composed herself. “Oh the lawyers said that was necessary too. I hope you … I know you … Well, I know you know, Jerene, how
little
I credit of what they told me. These lies some people were telling.”

Jerene said nothing. Kate saw that Liddibelle was steelier than she thought. She was warming up to blackmail Jerene Johnston. Was she after a big settlement so the civil suit and its attendant revelations would not go forward? Liddibelle then glared meaningfully at her. “Maybe you don’t want Kate, Jerene, to hear what we both know they have turned up?”

Kate shifted to excuse herself when Jerene touched her shoulder lightly. “Why Kate and I are family, and there’s nothing that you might discuss that she is not allowed to hear.”

“Well, those audits. By the Mint. Some talk that much of the Mint by Gaslight money went into your personal account.”

“My name is on the Trust’s account, of course, so you see the confusion. All of that was looked into and dropped.”

“And big five-figure payments from people who … Well, Mecklenburg Country Day said they paid out ten thousand because you were going to press an action about that art teacher making a pass at Joshua, which later proved to be false—”

“I believe he was eventually dismissed.”

“And when your daughter Annie had a marriage annulled, you received a five-figure payout from the Costa family of Salvador, Brazil, you didn’t report on your taxes.”

“There were certain expenses…”

“And this business in Durham,” Liddibelle went on, checking her notes again, clearly uncomfortable. “That awful man who said that Jerilyn … that you were going to make a rape accusation against his son unless you received thirty thousand dollars in hush money.”

Jerene let out a puff of surprise. “Don’t these sound preposterous on their face, Liddibelle?”

“I swear I didn’t believe that or any of the things about Jerilyn. The behavior at Carolina, the reputation she came to have, of promiscuity—”

“Oh now you know today’s young women, Liddie. You didn’t have a daughter. But they’re all down there on the pill, having a Roman orgy. Now
we
were the sixties girls and we weren’t exactly prim little virgins ourselves. Or do I have to remind you.”

Liddibelle laughed, and looked happy to have an excuse to be light. “Oh goodness no, our mothers would have killed us if they knew what we did on some of those weekends.”

“So what some bitter sorority sister says about Jerilyn or Skip for that matter—Jerilyn told me that he was quite the ladies’ man. The Zeta Pis had a designated sex room in their house and Skip—well, never you mind. And marijuana and cocaine down there, and Skip … well, your detective may have filled you in on your son’s reputation in that regard, but neither of our children needs for those sorts of youthful indiscretions to be dragged out in court. I know it suits your lawyer to make my Jerilyn out as some crazed, psychologically damaged hussy, but what does it say about Skip that he would marry someone like that?”

Liddibelle was quiet a moment. She looked at Kate, again concerned.

“Well, the lawyer thinks … wants to put forward that perhaps there was an instability in the family.”

Again Jerene, her face perfectly pleasant, said nothing.

Liddibelle, her eyes darting between Kate and Jerene, fell to a whisper: “You
know
what I’m referring to.”

“I’m not sure I do, darling.”

“Like mother, like daughter, I think is what the lawyer wants to say.”

Jerene gave a small social, insincere laugh. “That is your lawyer’s case? That the women in the Johnston family are a bit off? I’ve never shot anyone.
Yet,
I mean.” Another theatrical laugh without any mirth behind it.

“He thinks there is a certain lack of control, an impulsiveness.” Liddibelle was truly distressed. Jerene was exacting a price by making her say these things. Liddie closed her eyes and whispered, “September third, 1966.”

Kate had had just about enough of this small, vicious, cowardly woman and her shakedown attempt. “Mrs. Baylor,” she began—

“Kate.” Jerene sensed what was coming and stopped her. Then she announced: “I had a child out of wedlock. Given away for adoption back in the sixties.”

Kate was now speechless.

There was a knock at the door. Miss Maylee and the tea service.

“Your generation had abortion as an option,” Jerene followed up, “and we didn’t as a rule, though my mother had found a woman in South Carolina who did those things. I insisted instead on a private, anonymous country house in Asheboro where a young woman could finish out her pregnancy and they would take the child to the Children’s Home. Lots of white girls from Charlotte went there. I was not being heroic having the baby, or particularly moral. It’s just that I had heard of another girl in another sorority who had a private abortion from a man somewhere down east and who bled to death a few days later. I was too scared for it, so I hid out in Asheboro. Dillard was with me.”

Another knock at the door.

Kate said, “I’m so sorry, Jerene.”

“Why on earth should you be sorry? I paid a very small price for what could have been a ruinous mistake. The child was put into a proper home, we all got on with our lives. Kate, if you would be so kind to bring in the tea?”

Kate unsurely got to her feet. Fertile bunch, the Jarvis-Johnston clan, Kate found herself thinking. Jerilyn’s abortion that she announced at Christmas Dinner, Annie’s abortion (well, if she didn’t make it up for show). Aunt Dillard, who had to marry a ne’er-do-well husband and delay her college graduation when she had become pregnant from a single post-cotillion tryst.

And Kate thought about her own quickly ended pregnancy at sixteen, how she was taken to the clinic by her censorious aunt. Bo suggested this trauma had made her swear off ever having children. He knew her preference when he married her—she was not interested in childbearing—and yet he had been hinting again about them possibly having children. Another reason to get out of town for a while. Do the Lord’s work in Honduras rather than one’s wifely duty in Charlotte. But is it really the Lord’s work, that familiar voice inside asked, a voice she had never been able to get rid of or silence and she had come to think of as God, if the true purpose of your performing charity is running from your husband and the issues of your marriage? Kate pinched the bridge of her nose, before taking a breath and then opening the conference room door.

“So sorry to bother you,” said Miss Maylee, tremulously. “Here’s the tea.”

Kate remembered there having been a tea trolley that the tea things were rolled in on, but to her horror Miss Maylee was holding—had been standing there for some time holding—a silver tray with three cups, bowls of different sweeteners, a small ewer of cream, and a heavy silver teapot. “Oh my, Miss Maylee … no, let me…” Kate took over the tea tray a handle at a time. It was heavy for Kate to lift! “You are stronger than you look, ma’am.”

“Just habituated to that ol’ tray. That tray has been here long as I have.”

“Well, you’re both indestructible.”

Miss Maylee smiled and went back to wherever it was she worked. Did they give the docents an office? Kate with difficulty turned and tried to sideways push back the stiff door which was adjusted to swing shut automatically when open. She brought in the tea things and set them down on the table. But … now Liddibelle was standing, gathering her things. Jerene now stood, too.

“I cannot find the words to tell you, Jerene…”

“I know but, darling, you had no way of knowing.”

“But I should have. I don’t know why I…” Liddibelle was panting, out of breath, excited.

Jerene put a firm hand on her shaken friend’s shoulder. “We will pay all outstanding medical bills for Skip. Any rehab or physical therapy or any treatment of any sort that his insurance will not pay. And we’ll do more than that, if it’s reasonable, Liddie.”

“That sounds fine—
more
than fair!” And then she threw herself into Jerene’s arms. “You’ll have to forgive your silly, foolish old friend! It’s like you said, you always look out for me.”

“I do, Liddie, and I always will.”

Liddibelle turned to Kate and extended a hand. “You’ll have to forgive me, too, Kate. What a bunch of carrying on you’ve had to witness today!”

“I take it,” Kate said, “everything is now settled?”

“Yes, yes!” exulted Liddibelle, genuinely relieved. She hugged Jerene again and kissed her cheek, adding strangely, “I’ll go call Hester and Hutchens, call off the dogs. Now Darnell won’t…”

Jerene shook her head benignly. “No, why would I want any of that information anywhere but between you and me.”

Liddibelle nodded back and clutching her tissue and her purse made for the door.

Jerene sat down and began to fix herself some tea. First she poured the milk into the cup, then a spoonful of sugar. Then she opened the top of the teapot to smell, to see if it had steeped properly, then she poured herself a cup. “And you?” she asked Kate.

Kate now sat down. They were going to fucking sit here and
have tea
?

“I know you are a tea maven, Kate, just like me. Or so Bo tells me.”

“Yes, please,” she said. She took the full teacup on its saucer elegantly extended to her by Jerene. “So it’s over?”

“Just as I have been telling everyone for ages, she would drop the suit. Liddibelle and I go back a long way.”

“What made her drop the suit?”

“We said we’d cover all hospital costs, rehabilitation.”

“You said that four months ago.”

“Well, now she saw the goodwill behind the gesture.” Jerene sat back in her chair, holding her saucer and teacup. “Liddie was worried, I think. She’d suffered a bit of negative publicity engaging in a suit. You generally don’t sue your own family or family-by-marriage. The first families of Charlotte have always worked things out among themselves rather than drag one another through the mud in court, like the new money do. People were saying what a greedy old thing she was, already sitting on so much of a fortune. But that’s just it. The fortune that Becks left her has been spent down considerably.” Jerene brightened after a sip of tea. “Wasn’t there something you said on the phone, something you were going to tell me about you and Bo—some news?”

Now it was Kate’s turn to be silent.

“I had hoped it was an announcement that you were pregnant, but that’s not it. You don’t have that glow, that happiness that pregnant women have.”

Kate sipped her tea. “It’s nothing that … we can discuss it another time.” Kate was determined to know what had just played out. “So your lawyer, Mr. McKay, found something out about the Baylors that trumped what their detective found? Some equal scandal?”

“No, nothing like that.”

Kate realized that Jerene had disposed of the lawsuit and now didn’t need Kate for whatever purpose she had intended, so she didn’t have to tell her anything at all. But maybe even Jerene who played her cards so closely, so privately, needed one other person to confess to, to absolve her … or merely to observe her victory. “Come now,” Kate said, using a brand-new tone with her mother-in-law. “Had to be more to it than that. What’s in your manila envelope?”

Jerene sipped her tea.

“If it’s not dirt on the Baylors, then…”

“I merely told Liddie, when you went to the door to get the tea, that she wasn’t thinking chronologically about the baby. And the implications for both families.”

Kate gave that some thought.

Jerene topped up her cup of tea. For a minute there were no sounds but the china cup on the saucer, the silver spoon chiming the edge of the porcelain as Jerene stirred in sugar.

“The baby was yours and Becks Baylor’s?”

Jerene was impassive.

Kate continued, “That folder contains a birth certificate that shows it’s yours and Becks’s? And you told her that.”

“Not
precisely.
” Another luxuriant sip of tea. “But of course, she guessed it right away.”

“And I suppose she wanted to see the proof of it, see that birth certificate.”

Jerene, still taking her time, answered, “I told her if she saw it then she would have to, legally, be responsible for the implications of the information. And we all, you and I, would be witnesses that she saw it. That’s partly why I asked you here. So you’d be a witness. I told her it would be best if she never saw who was listed as the father.”