No Way Home (2 page)

“Yessir,” said Gray. “I believe I’ll just walk right up to Mr. Grisard, introduce myself, and tell him that I am the son of the busiest little caterer in Cress County, and his bank lent my mama the money to get started with.” He winked at his mother.

“Don’t say that!” Pink exclaimed.

“He’s teasing,” Lillie said. “Come on. Michele, are your clothes for changing in the car yet?”

“I have to get them,” Michele replied.

“Well, go on then,” Lillie said. “The pageant is on first. You best be there on time.”

“Will you take this, Gray?” Michele asked, holding out the cake plate to her brother.

“Sure,” he said, tucking his mitt under his arm. “Hurry up.”

Although the site of the festivities was less than a half a mile away, they would never have thought of walking. In Cress County the sight of an adult walking down the road, unless he was carrying a gas can to or from a service station, was virtually an indication of mental illness. Pink kept his five-year-old Oldsmobile in mint condition, always washed and waxed, and it did stand out among the old pickups and battered sedans parked by most of the partygoers in the grassy field that served as a lot near the entrance to Briar Hill. They all got out of the car and stood for a moment, absorbing the festive atmosphere and sighting familiar faces. Then they started up the incline toward the Briar Hill House.

Despite its modest name, the mansion at Briar Hill was the pride of the town of Felton. The Briar Hill plantation had been one of the largest in Tennessee, but after World War I the family had been unable to keep the house, and no one who could afford to buy seemed to want to settle there. The old plantation house and grounds had gone steadily to seed until some ambitious town councilmen managed to reclaim it some years back and make a park out of it. The grounds were large and well kept by local volunteers, but the centerpiece was the house, which boasted pillars, balconies, climbing trellises, and French doors as well as a relatively new paint job. The town could not afford to restore the inside of the house, so various workmen had collaborated on rehabbing it to suit the needs of the many local groups that met there through all the months of the year in which central heating wasn’t required. Their practical improvements included covering the old wooden floors with inexpensive burnt-orange carpeting of a particularly durable fiber, installing a cafeteria complete with folding metal chairs and long tables, and furnishing the rest with donations from people’s homes and catalog pieces acquired after green stamp drives. Although the rooms of the old mansion bore little resemblance to the elegant salons of its antebellum glory days, the Briar Hill House was once again the seat of county society.

Lillie led the way through the open doors of the mansion into the cool, dark vestibule. She looked down at her watch. “What time does the pageant start?”

“Fifteen minutes,” said Michele. “I have to go and line up.”

“We’ll get a seat,” Lillie said. “Give this cake to one of the ladies in the kitchen when you pass it. And have fun.”

Greeting friends and acquaintances as they passed, Pink led the way to the grand ballroom, which had been filled with rows of metal chairs facing a wooden platform that served as the stage. Pink found three seats together at the end of a row and they all sat down.

Every year the pageant was the official kick-off of the day’s festivities. It was always the same from year to year —a short little play wherein boys dressed as Confederate soldiers and girls in antebellum gowns gave a loose reenactment of the founding of their hometown. Felton’s founding actually predated the Civil War by many years, but recorded history of the place was scant, and everyone preferred the costumes of the Civil War era. Besides, no Southern celebration was truly complete without some evocation of the Confederacy, which, despite what most Northerners might be content to believe, was still cherished as the glory of the South.

The appearance of the high-school music teacher, Gay Jones, at the upright piano signaled the beginning of the pageant. A collective sigh emanated from the crowd as the first chords of “Dixie” were struck.

Lillie, who was wedged between Pink and Grayson, sat forward in her seat, straining to see Michele as the high-school girls streamed onto the stage in their gowns to the appreciative murmurs of the audience. Lillie waved to Michele, who just rolled her eyes and looked away from her family. Out of the comer of her eye Lillie saw Gray tug at the flounce on the gown of Allene Starnes, a pretty, redheaded girl in his class, as she passed by. Allene blushed, pretended to glare at him, and nearly stumbled on the steps leading to the stage. The boys came on stage from the other side, resplendent in their Confederate uniform reproductions.

Each of the girls was partnered with a soldier. Lillie beamed as she watched Michele cross the stage and take the arm of a tall, gangly boy whose brief, shy smile revealed braces on his teeth. Michele was perfectly at ease on the stage, speaking out clearly and deftly fielding the blundered cues of her mumbling partner, smiling all the while. She gets it from her father, Lillie thought. She looks like she was born on that stage.

From the audience, the rose-pink gown seemed to glow, giving Michele’s young complexion the radiance of a magnolia blossom. Lillie could recall exactly how it felt to wear that gown. The weight of the skirts, the tickle of the lacy bodice, the narrow waist, the sense that you were transformed, a feast for the eyes, a rose.

Pink leaned over and whispered to Lillie, “Takes me back to the year you were in the pageant. You looked so pretty I couldn’t take my eyes off of you.”

Lillie flashed her husband a guilty smile, for she had just been remembering the admiring gaze in the eyes of her partner that long-ago day. Jordan Hill’s deep-brown playful eyes had fastened on her with a yearning warmed by his sleepy dimpled smile.

“Everybody and his brother is here today,” Pink said. “I think I may be able to drum up a little business.”

Lillie nudged him in the side to be quiet and applauded wildly with the rest of the audience as the self-conscious belles and their make-believe swains hurried through their lines and sang with rousing enthusiasm a Stephen Foster tune before clambering off the stage with considerably less dignity than they had claimed it. As the applause died away, Lillie felt a rush of foolish, sentimental tears filling her eyes. During all those years of doctors and hospitals, and Michele’s tiny hand gripping hers, she had scarcely dared to think ahead to the next day, much less to dream that one day her daughter would be up there on that stage, a lovely young woman in her mother’s rose-pink gown.

Pink got up and stretched. “Well, I’ve got to get out there and get to visiting,” he said. To Pink, every gathering, no matter how social it might be, was a business opportunity. A real-estate salesman in a county where people spent generations on the same land, his oft-repeated motto was “I have to hustle.”

Lillie wiped her eyes and stood up. She was used to him by now. He would grab a person’s hand extended in greeting and cling to it, asking in a familiar voice about mortgage refinancing and whether they might not be better off letting just a corner of the farm go, especially when he could get them the best price for it.

They strolled together out the French doors and into the brightness of the afternoon. “You go ahead,” said Lillie. “I want to find Brenda.” Brenda Daniels, her oldest friend and her partner in the catering business, was a three-time divorcee who had used the settlement from her last, brief marriage to get the business going and lure Lillie into it. She had caught Lillie at a good time. Michele was finally healthy, and both children were past the age where they needed her constant attention. The business had been a perfect channel for her restless energy. Lillie could hardly remember a day going by in their lives when she and Brenda had not talked together at least once. She turned to Grayson. “What time does the game start?”

“In a few minutes. I’ve got to get over to the field and warm up.”

“I’ll be right over,” said Lillie. “Good luck.”

Pink cocked his hand as if it were a revolver and squinted down his forefinger at Grayson. “Knock ‘em dead, shooter. I’m counting on you.” Pink kneaded his son’s shoulder with one large hand and then smacked him gently on the back to send him on his way, as he turned around to scout for a potential customer.

Lillie watched her son lope off in the direction of the baseball diamond. Allene Starnes materialized out of the crowd, still wearing her ballgown, and Gray stopped short to speak to her, one knee bent, his hat pulled down so that only his lazy, summery smile was visible under the shadow of the brim.

Lillie gazed at him a little wistfully. He seemed to have none of the insecurities and doubts so common to other boys his age. At least he never spoke of them to her. Perhaps he confided in Pink. From the day he was born and Pink scooped him up from her arms in the hospital and gazed hungrily down into his soft, innocent face, he had belonged to Pink somehow. Grayson had been the kind of child whose life seemed to unfold in a smooth arc of perfection. His was an easy birth, and he spoke his first words early and could point with clarity to what he wanted. He took his first steps, into Pink’s waiting arms, when he was only eight months old. School was easy for him, and he was always one of those surprisingly coordinated children who got things right on the first try. What disappointments, what frustrations, he may have had, he brought them instinctively to Pink, who always was waiting. Their bond was a blessing to Lillie, who spent most of her time just trying to keep Michele from succumbing to one deadly episode after another in those days. But now, looking at her son, already so grown-up, she felt a sense of loss. Already he was taking up with girls, and soon he’d be a grown man and gone, and she felt as if she had never really possessed him.

Snap out of it, she chided herself. You’re going to ruin the day with your moping. And it’s just the oppressiveness of the air getting to you, the low sky weighing you down. Lillie began to walk slowly in the direction of the baseball diamond. She kept an eye out for Brenda, but there was no sign of her. Lillie thought she knew what that meant. Brenda had gone up to Nashville the day before to do some shopping, and like as not had looked up that married studio musician whom she had vowed never to spend another night with. Lillie secretly suspected that Brenda enjoyed the drama of these doomed affairs. Although she never came right out and said it, Brenda clearly regarded Lillie’s life as far too humdrum for her tastes.

Lillie wiped her damp forehead and fanned herself with the program from the pageant. Everyone she greeted on her way to the ball field had the same thing on their minds. “Can’t recall a Founders Day hot as this one,” said Bessie Hill, brushing Lillie’s cheek with her papery old lips.

“Twister weather if I ever seen it,” intoned Bomar Flood, the local pharmacist, as Lillie squeezed his damp hand and moved on. As she came up on the diamond, she saw Pink buttonholing an old farmer who was wearing overalls and the ubiquitous “Cat” cap pushed up on his forehead. They were standing just off the first-base line, and Pink had one eye cast on the game, which was just beginning.

Lillie felt a protective surge of warmth for her husband. It was true that he was not the kind of man who inspired poetry and fireworks. But he had come into her life at a time when she was desperate and frightened. He had promised to take care of her, and he had. He worked hard, he doted on the children, and he lived with her moods without complaint. She was grateful to have him for her husband. She knew plenty of women who wished they could say as much, she thought.

Pink spotted Lillie and waved to her. “Come on, our boy’s about to get up to bat.” Lillie walked up beside him and took a seat on the bleachers next to where Pink stood. The old farmer took the opportunity to excuse himself from Pink’s importuning pitch. Lillie perched on the edge of the seat and shaded her eyes with her hand as Grayson stepped up to the plate.

Royce Ansley, the county sheriff, dressed in short sleeves and an olive-drab tie, walked up just then and stood beside Pink. In his fifties, Royce had the physique of a man half his age and the bearing of the soldier he had once been. He wore his graying hair in a crew cut, as he had ever since Lillie could remember. His black shoes shone like patent leather. ‘That’s Gray, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Number eighteen,” Pink said proudly.

“Hi, Sheriff,” Lillie said. Royce nodded and smiled at her. She could not remember a time when Royce had not been a law officer in Felton. When she was a young girl she had thought him sort of a romantic figure, gruff and silent. He had been an eligible bachelor until he was nearly forty, invited to many a home-cooked meal by mothers hopeful for their daughters. When he finally did marry, it was to a girl from Memphis, and for some years he was as happy as a boy. Lillie turned her attention back to the game. Gray was assuming his stance, squinting purposefully into the distance. Lillie noticed several girls, including Allene, lined up behind the cage, giggling and preening, their eyes on her son. As the pitch came toward him, Gray drew the bat back and swung it fluidly, his body moving with the grace of a natural athlete. The bat connected solidly with the ball, and it sailed out far into the field, sending the outfielders scrambling after it in a ditch below the railroad tracks that bordered the diamond. Cheers erupted as Grayson made his turn around the bases.

“He’s a fine hitter,” Royce observed as Pink pounded his fist into his hand in glee and restrained a war whoop.

“Yay, Grayson,” Lillie called out as she applauded. As the cheers quieted and the pitcher from the Welbyville team tried to regain his composure, Lillie turned to the sheriff. “How ya doing?” she asked.

“Fine, thanks.”

“Tyler playing today?”

The sheriff frowned. “He was supposed to play. I don’t see him on the bench though.” There was a tightness in his voice when he mentioned his son. The strife between Royce and his seventeen-year-old son was well known around town, having erupted in public on several occasions. Ever since Tyler’s mother had died, when the boy was twelve, he had run a little wild.