Phantom of Riverside Park (5 page)

Having a baby out of wedlock might be the
norm in some parts of the country, but in a small Bible belt town
still divided into the
haves
and the
have nots
,
it still brought censure. Elizabeth didn’t give a fig about public
opinion; that’s not why she’d run to Papa. The terror clawing at
her gut was the prospect of raising a child alone, with no job, no
support, no higher education, and no way out. Or so it seemed.

But Papa never chastised, never pried: he
merely took up the slack, filled in all the gaps.

How much longer could he fill all the roles
he’d taken on?

Though he blustered and postured and claimed
to be tough as nails, he looked so fragile standing beside the sink
that Elizabeth swallowed a huge lump in her throat. It was her turn
to be the caretaker, her turn to be head of the house.

It would be so easy. All she had to do was
cash the check. All those lovely zeroes.

Best to put temptation out of her sight. She
started to fold the check when the creature imprinted in the corner
leaped out at her, his hideous face and misshapen body suggesting
demons, his wings reminiscent of angels. The gargoyle. The
protector.

Where had she seen that logo? The sight of it
sent shivers through her, and even after she put the check out of
sight at the bottom of the Mickey Mouse cookie jar she was still
chilled, as if an icy wind were blowing through her house.

“I’m going to look a gift horse in the mouth,
Papa.”

“You think they’re behind the million
dollars?”

They never spoke the name aloud, as if the
very sound of it could conjure up the powerful Delta family in the
midst of their shabby house in Memphis. Belliveau. Even the thought
of it brought back memories so disturbing Elizabeth had to wrap her
arms around herself to keep from shattering like a cola bottle
tossed on the sidewalk.

Papa was watching her, his thin lips pressed
together in a tight line, his brow furrowed in concern. Elizabeth
nodded.

“If I was twenty years younger I’d go down to
Tunica and beat the devil out of him. Should have five years
ago.”

“Papa ... don’t.”

“All right then.”

The screen door squeaked, and he sprayed the
rusty hinges with a can of W-D 40. He unbent slowly, a proud man
who used to lift Elizabeth onto his shoulders with no more effort
than it took to heft a glass of iced tea. Now he was stooped like
an ancient willow that had endured too much wind and rain.

“See that you don’t get bit, then,” he told
her.

Soon his deep gravelly voice blended with the
flute-like tones of her son at play.

The check whispered at her from the bottom of
the cookie jar, and hope tried to override fear. A million dollars.
Not a joke, not a hoax but real. Payable on demand. A miracle for
all of them. Especially for Nicky.

But at what price? Who was behind the
extravagant gift and what did he want? Elizabeth had to find
out.

Nicky’s laughter wrapped around her like
honeysuckle vines, drawing her to the door. Knuckles white, she
clung to the frame.

“They’re not going to get you, Nicky.
Nobody’s going to take you away from me.”

The casinos appeared suddenly, lights ablaze,
hugging the Mississippi river on land so flat they seemed to rise
right out of the cotton fields. Elizabeth rammed on the brakes of
her Ford Valiant and sat in the middle of Highway 4 staring. She
hated the Mississippi law that allows gambling along the river and
the casinos that sprang out of Tunica’s cotton patches like exotic
mushrooms. But most of all, she hated that coming to her childhood
home made her feel awkward and uncertain.

When she’d left five years ago she swore
she’d never be back, but now here she was, gawking like a tourist
at the aberration that used to be a place she called home. When she
was sixteen she would ride around with friends who had vehicles,
windows down, drinking in the smells of the rich Delta earth and
all the lush plants it spawned - honeysuckle growing so thick along
the roadside you could hardly see the fences, gardenia bushes
dripping with waxy white blossoms so sweet you could get drunk on
the smell, magnolia trees filled with giant blooms bigger than the
Bible on the altar of the First Baptist Church where they spilled
out of urns every Sunday, the fragrance so cloying you had to hold
your nose on the way to the choir loft.

Used to be, the only thing visible along the
riverbanks of Tunica was the Belliveau Mansion. Three stories high,
it reigned supreme over the small Delta town, outclassing and
outshining even the legendary antebellum homes in Natchez and Holly
Springs and Aberdeen. No other house in the state could compare to
it. No other cotton planter in the Delta even presumed to compare
his house to the Belliveau mansion. Legendary in the War Between
the States as the only home in that part of the Delta no Yankees
ever set foot in, the mansion had still retained its mystique when
Elizabeth was growing up in Tunica. Ghosts protected the home,
legend says, an entire platoon of ghosts who sent the soldiers in
blue screaming from the premises.

The Belliveau mansion and everybody in it had
an aura of mystery and power that both repelled and attracted her.
Taylor Belliveau, only child and heir to the vast Belliveau
holdings, might as well have been a god who occasionally stepped
down from Mount Olympus to mingle with the mortals. In Tunica she
counted herself lucky to catch a glimpse of him whizzing past the
Dog and Suds in his red Corvette.

After she’d won her scholarship to Ole Miss
and left the tight caste system of her hometown behind, the lines
of class blurred. On the Oxford campus she was Elizabeth Jennings,
scholar, and Taylor was merely one of many wealthy planters’ sons
whose greatest asset was his looks.

What was Taylor like now? Did he still have
the decadent good looks, the pouty lower lips that spouted false
promises, the long-lashed hooded eyes?

A car horn honked behind her, and Elizabeth
eased her car onto the shoulder of the road. The spell she’d been
under was thick as cobwebs, and she shook her head to clear it then
maneuvered back into the traffic.

Except for the addition of the casinos along
the river and a spate of hotels to accommodate the out-of-state
gamblers, the town had changed little since she left. The Belliveau
mansion still sat among the pecan groves and cotton fields, but it
appeared shrunken, as if Fate had played a trick on its owners.

Elizabeth used to think up errands so she
could drive Papa’s pickup truck past the Belliveau place, sometimes
as many as four trips a day. She even resorted to lying, saying she
forgot the milk when it was written plain as day at the top of her
grocery list. At school the other girls would gather around the
lockers between classes and whisper about who had spotted Taylor
Belliveau, and more important, which one of them he had singled out
for a wink or a smile.

Though Elizabeth was never a part of that
elite group, she always eavesdropped on their excited whisperings,
and was always secretly glad they reported only one Taylor sighting
while she had bagged two.

The girl who had gawked at the Belliveau
mansion could imagine herself sprouting wings and soaring among the
stars. That girl could cry over a baby bird fallen from his nest
and weep over the beauty of a rose covered with dew.

The woman who drove by now barely glanced in
the direction of the mansion. She hasn’t had wings in so long she
can’t even remember what feathers feel like, and the last time she
touched a star was the day Nicky was born. Her tears are locked up
safe until some major disaster comes along, and every night she
asks God to please keep the big guns aimed away from her little
family on number 23 Vine Street.

Elizabeth’s destination was not the
antebellum mansion but a more modern house of cypress and glass on
the outskirts of town. Her headlights picked up the mailbox at the
end of the driveway, l24 Cypress Grove, last known address of
Taylor Belliveau.

The letter in her purse was four years old,
the ink smudged with tears so old they’d turned yellow. She
double-checked to make sure of the address.

When she punched the bell she summoned her
courage by imagining she was a Tupperware salesman and this was
just another house call. She could even manufacture a bit of
boredom if she tried hard enough.

And then the door swung open and she saw that
Taylor Belliveau hadn’t lost one ounce of his good looks. Her only
hope was that he’d lost most of his charm.

The porch light was dim and he squinted out
into darkness not knowing what to make of the strange woman who
showed up on his doorstep unannounced in the middle of the
night.

“Hello, Taylor.”

Hands balled into tight fists at her side,
Elizabeth suddenly wished she’d called and set up an appointment
instead of rushing out as if her heart had caught fire, fervently
wished she’d changed into something besides the uniform she wore
for her night job. Her white blouse had a patch that said Quincy’s
Cleaning Service, and she turned sideways into the shadows in the
vain attempt to hide the logo from Taylor.

“I didn’t know if I’d find you at this
address. I just took off early from work and headed on down.” She
stopped talking, ashamed of the way she was babbling, furious at
herself, furious at Taylor. She stepped back into the light, chin
out, spine stiff, eyes blazing.

She knew the minute he recognized her: his
face turned the color of putty and his jaw got slack.

“Elizabeth?”

“We have to talk.”

“Look, if it’s about the money ...”

“Honey?” The sleepy voice calling to him from
inside the house was female. Taylor looked like a rabbit cornered
by beagles. “Who is it, honey?”

“Nobody, sweetheart. I’m just going out for
cigarettes. Go back to bed.”

Nobody.
The word exploded between
them, a hand grenade that shattered Elizabeth’s composure.

“You think I’m nobody. Well, let me tell you
about being nobody, Taylor Belliveau. I’ve spent the last five
years on my hands and knees scrubbing toilets to support your
son.”

She wasn’t Thomas Jennings’ granddaughter for
nothing.

“For Pete’s sake...” He grabbed her arm and
propelled her down the steps toward her car. “Get in.”

“If you think I’m leaving after coming all
this way, you’re sadly mistaken. I’m not that same scared little
idiot you shoved under the rug five years ago.”

“Just get in the car.”

“I’ll scream my head off.”

“Look, I don’t want my fiancée to hear.
That’s all.” He raked his hand through his hair, and it waved like
wheat in the wind. So like Nicky. Her heart squeezed and she gulped
air so hot and sultry it felt smothering.

“Will you just please get in the car,
Elizabeth?”

“I’m not leaving till we talk.”

“We’ll talk, Elizabeth. I’ll meet you in the
parking lot of the school’s gymnasium. Please?”

Charms oozed from his pores. Fatal charm.

“Okay, Taylor.” She got in and started her
engine. “We’ll do it your way.”

A moon as big as Texas rode the sky, a moon
that became a huge spotlight on Elizabeth’s past. There was the
railroad track that divided the town, not merely east from west but
haves
from
have nots.
She heard the mournful
whistle of the train, remembered the vibration of the wheels in the
thin walls in her bedroom, recalled the dreams of her youth.

“You’re smart, Elizabeth,” Papa would tell
her. “That’s your ticket out of here.”

The scholarship proved him right. Four years,
all expenses paid to the University of Mississippi in Oxford. The
only caveat: she had to make the grades and she had to stay in
school.

She’d walked around the campus as if she
owned the place, free at last, free of the class labels she’d
endured in Tunica, free to be anything she chose.

And then she happened upon Taylor Belliveau,
idling the engine of his red Corvette outside the library.

“Going my way?” His smile melted her right
down to the tips of her Adidas.

She took that ride with him, first to her
dormitory and then to paradise and then straight to hell.

“I’m pregnant, Taylor.”

They were wrapped around each other, naked on
a quilt under the stars. A romantic setting appropriate for the
start of a brand new life. Mrs. Taylor Belliveau. Well married,
well cared for and well loved. She would paint the nursery yellow,
suitable for either a boy or a girl. Taylor would prance around
handing out cigars.

They could both stay in school, scheduling
classes so they wouldn’t even need to hire someone to help look
after the baby.

Elizabeth brushed his pale hair off his
forehead, smiling down at him.

“Did you hear what I said? I’m pregnant.”

“Yeah.” He extricated himself and stood up,
the moon dissecting him into two halves, his upper body in shadow,
his hips and legs glowing like something carved in alabaster. “I
heard you.”

“I don’t care about a big wedding. We’ll do
something small, maybe with your parents and mine.” The wind tore
the dying leaves loose from the oak tree and they drifted onto the
quilt, red as blood. “Or we could just go to the JP. That’s all
right with me.”

“Do you think I’m going to marry you?” He
didn’t move, didn’t even bend over so she could see his face. “Did
you actually think that, Elizabeth?”

She couldn’t talk around the lump in her
throat. She pressed her hands, suddenly icy, into the soft mound of
her belly.

“You’re nobody, Elizabeth. Poor white
trash.”

“Taylor, don’t. Don’t say things you’ll later
regret.”

“The only thing I regret is that you didn’t
take precautions.” He bent over and began gathering his clothes.
She hovered under the quilt watching. “I’ll make all the
arrangements.”