Palmetto Moon (25 page)

I woke up three times since the sun came up but can’t get out of bed. My body is sick, achy, cold, but it has nothing to do with the flu. It crushes me to the core to think about Frank and Lila, how she wanted his child so badly, and how he wanted to give that to her. The look on his face when he read Joe Pike’s letter was heartbreaking. I never wanted to see him hurt like that and yet, despite him telling me he was just a boy and didn’t know what love was, I’ll never be able to forget the look on his face that said he’d loved her, worshipped her.

Still, it’s selfish to lie here hurt, angry at Frank, jealous of a dead woman. I have to save Claire from making a huge mistake. But isn’t a huge mistake with Reggie better than Claire raising the boys at the boardinghouse, or, worse, marrying smelly old Mr. Stanley? No, not if it means Claire’s heart will be broken again.

I pull on my Sears dress, hoping it will give me the courage to march over to the palatial Sheridan house and say just the right words to propel Claire out of a future with Reggie, without irreparably crushing her newly mended heart. By the time the screen door slams behind me, I’m resolute to set things right.

I stride toward the long drive covered by an arched canopy of live oaks that leads to the mansion, until my body stops like a horse, dead in its tracks, remembering a place that spooked him. The memory of falling to pieces makes me tremble hard, but Frank saved me. “I owe it to Claire,” I whisper and break into a dead run.

By the time I reach the door, I am breathless, beating so hard against the burled wood, my knuckles start to bleed. “Claire. Reggie. Open the door.” The door opens, and everything stops. For a moment, I’m not sure what I’m seeing is real. Claire and Reggie are both dressed in Reggie’s monogrammed bathrobes, towels wrapped around their heads, their faces covered is some kind of green goo.

“Vada, what’s wrong? Is someone chasing you?” Reggie steps out on the porch and looks around the grounds; even in his green Kabuki mask, he looks ferocious.

“Good heavens, Vada.” Claire runs her hands down my arms, which hang limp at my sides, like she’s checking for broken bones. “Is everything all right?”

Reggie puts his arm around me. “Tell us what’s wrong, dear.”

“
You.
” I finally snap to. “You’re what’s wrong. You and your promises of marriage to Claire. What about
Lesley
? I saw the photographs of you and that man, and I refuse to let you break Claire’s heart like you broke hers.”

“Vada, come inside,” Claire says, pulling me into the house. “We need to talk.”

Reggie motions for me to sit on the settee, but I refuse. “Claire, you can’t be serious about going through with this marriage. I never thought I’d be saying this, but please reconsider Mr. Stanley’s proposal.”

She looks like I’ve slapped her hard across the face. “Why would you say that to me?”

“Because at least you know what you’re getting. I found photographs of Reggie kissing—a man. I’m sure that’s why Lesley left him. The poor woman.”

“That’s enough, Vada. The boys are upstairs playing, they’ll hear you.” Claire goes to Reggie, who wipes the mask off of his face, and then hands Claire a small, monogrammed hand towel to do the same. Reggie wraps his arms around Claire and folds over her, burying his face in her neck, not crying, but wounded.
Good.

“Reggie told me about the journals. Those photographs you saw were of him and Lesley.”

“Don’t tell her,” Reggie says softly. “Please. It was just for the two of us to know.”

“Please, Reggie, I love you both.” Claire crooks her finger under his chin. “You know her secret. It’s only right she knows yours.”

“
Claire.
You told him? How could you?”

“He already knew, Vada.”

Reggie sat down on the settee he’d just offered me. “No matter how much you deny it, you look too much like your mother,” he smiles sadly, “but in the end, it was the shoes that gave you away.”

“Who I am changes nothing. But what about you, Reggie?”

“Who we are changes everything, my dear.”

“Vada.” Claire sits down beside me, her voice soothing like when she sets the world right for one of her boys. “Reggie loved Lesley the same way I loved Bobby, but he could never marry him.”

“You’re saying Lesley
is
a man? I don’t understand.” In truth, I’m not trying to understand, because I can’t possibly see how this could work between Claire and Reggie.

“I was born this way,” Reggie begins, threading his fingers in Claire’s. “It was easier to live the life I wanted in Europe than stay here and be forced into marrying someone of equal means, someone I didn’t love.” He looks at Claire, and she nods for him to continue. “It was horrible growing up, hearing the things my parents would say about me. I think they knew I was a homosexual before I did, and they did things to try and straighten me out. But I am who I am.”

Claire threads her hand in his. “It’s all right. Tell her. She’ll understand.” Reggie nods, never looking at me.

“My grandmother died and left me a large trust fund. The moment I turned twenty-one, I transferred the money to a bank in Italy, hopped a cruise ship, and never looked back.”

“But Claire says you love her, Reggie, that you want to marry her. How can you possibly be a husband to her?”

“Vada, Reggie and I have had the loves of our lives, but they died. I don’t want to try to find that with another man, and neither does he. It is a platonic love, and our marriage might not be a conventional one, but we
do
love each other very much. We understand each other. My boys will have a father again, whom they adore, and they’ll have opportunities I would never be able to give them. Don’t you see? This is an answered prayer.”

Reggie kisses her on the forehead. She runs her thumb across his upper lip where he missed some of the green mask. Reggie does the same to her, and then licks his fingers. “Less wrinkles,” he laughs softly, “and it’s edible.”

Honestly, I don’t know what God was thinking, but I have to believe, for Claire’s sake, that He knows what’s best for her. “Reggie, I’m sorry for getting so angry. I love Claire, and I couldn’t bear to see her hurt,” I say as sincerely as I can after being full of anger, then completely shocked and utterly embarrassed. “You won’t tell anyone about me? Not Frank. I’ll tell him when I’m ready, and I believe that will be soon. I love him and want to build a life with him here.”

“Then we agree to keep each other’s secrets?” Reggie asks. “Friends?”

I extend my hand to him. “Friends,” I say, and he pulls me in and envelops me in a hug.

Reggie excuses himself, goes upstairs to his bathroom, and turns the water on in the tub. As openly as he lived with Lesley in Italy, it’s odd to be able to talk to Claire about
his affliction
, as his mother used to call it. He wonders if Claire would be so understanding if she hadn’t lost her husband. Would she be able to accept him the way he is? He wants to believe she would. He’s watched her with the boys and can’t ever imagine her trying to change them to suit her notions.

When he’d asked Claire to marry him, she was taken aback, especially after she learned about Lesley. He’d tried to make her understand that more than anything, Lesley had wanted a family, but even in Europe, two men raising a child together was frowned upon. Lesley had said he didn’t care, that they’d be wonderful parents and their children would be wonderful, too, but Reggie said the children would suffer and he couldn’t abide that.

But now, he can have a ready-made family with Claire and her boys. She didn’t understand his proposal at first, but she came around. It seemed too good to be true, and, for Reggie, it is. He can finally be a father. He has someone who loves and understands him, sometimes better than Lesley did. And in this place where he was never loved or accepted, he can live out the rest of his days openly and honestly.

He turns off the water. The robe falls to the floor, and he sprawls out in the claw-foot tub, his long legs hanging over the sides. The warm water is soothing, but part of him always remembers the first time his mother caught him in her things. He had her favorite diamond earrings clipped to his lobes, the dangly ones he loved so much, and was in full makeup, or as fully made up as an eight-year-old can be. He grinned at her when she walked into the room, knowing she would think he was beautiful.

She’d jerked him up, locked his mammy out of the bathroom, and ran this very tub so hot, his skin burned for days. Flossie had pounded on the door, begging his mother to let her clean him up, but she never answered. She scrubbed him until he was nearly raw, trying to wash the gay away, before she left him crying on the floor, begging her forgiveness.

This time when the memory comes, he doesn’t feel his skin burning. Although the remembrance is still there, it’s less potent. Whether it’s diluted by time or by Claire’s love, he isn’t sure, but he knows that he loves her, that he only wants the best for her and the boys, and he can give her that. It was hard telling Vada who he is and what he is, but with Claire beside him, loving him, healing him, he feels like he can do anything. He’ll be the best husband he can be, just like he was with Lesley, maybe even better, and if God and Lesley and Claire’s husband are looking down on him from heaven, he hopes they are pleased.

It’s close to ten thirty when the breakfast crowd clears out and the diner is nearly empty. Vada opens the screen door and takes her place at the booth she first sat in the day she walked into Frank’s life. She smiles apologetically at him, and he’s about to tell Tiny to take a hike when Tiny waves him off.

“I know the drill.” Grabbing her purse, she flips the
CLOSED
sign around on the door, heads back to the postboxes, and asks Hank if he’d like to take a little ride. “I’ll lock up, Frank, see you before lunch.”

He slides into the booth across from Vada, and she reaches for his hand. “I’m sorry.” They say the words at the same time. It’s good to hear her laugh, even if it was just a little.

“I’m sorry,” Frank says. “I should have told you everything about Lila, but honest to God, Vada, I didn’t know how sick she was. I thought Smudge was the one making her like that, and I believed that her getting away from him was a good thing. It was hard watching her so unhappy here, and feeling responsible for her.”

“I’m sorry, too, Frank, sorry that you had to take that on as a child.”

“It wasn’t like I was a little boy, Vada. I was fifteen. I should have known better.”

“Wait, Frank, let me finish. What I’m most sorry for is not being there for you when you needed me.” He can’t look at her. Her hands are on his cheeks, turning him to face her. “I saw you when you read the letter. I know you were deeply affected by it. I love you, Frank, and I want to be there for you. Always.”

“I love you.” He reaches for her and she crawls over the table. He pulls her into him, cradling her. She rewards him with a long, wet kiss.

I’m breathless, and the familiar feeling between my legs doesn’t frighten me anymore. Frank cups my bottom with one hand, holding me in place. His other hand is at the nape of my neck, urging me on, the kiss deepening and rhythmic. He lowers his head and skims the tops of my breasts, searing them with hot, wet kisses, making me moan. His lips travel up my neck, and I feel him bone hard against the small of back. My thighs fall open. Inviting.

“That night by the creek—I wanted to give myself to you, Frank. I’ve never wanted that with anyone before, but I want that with you. Now.”

The kissing stops. “Vada, God knows I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life, but I’m not going to mess this up.” He presses his forehead against mine, breathing hard.

I kiss him hungrily. “You won’t mess things up.”

“We have to stop.”

My heart is beating so fast, I can barely breathe. “Why?”

“I want you more than anything, but I want to do this right.”

“This
is
right, Frank. I know it is.”

“You have to get back on the other side of the table, so I can think straight.” I wrap my arms around his middle, refusing to move. “Tonight. I’ll pick you up at seven. We’ll go someplace special, and I’ll make love to you all night if you want, but not here. Not now.”

I pull away from him just enough to see his face, flushed and beautiful. I know he loves me, that he wants me, and I want him to feel good about what we have together. “Tonight?” I plant a tiny kiss on his temple and follow the line of his cheek until my lips are pressed against his. He nods slowly. “Tonight.”