The Guests on South Battery (21 page)

“I don't play,” I said, hoping to end the conversation.

“Nola said that Jayne is a pretty good golfer,” Cooper interjected. “She apparently used to work for a golf pro and she taught Jayne how to play. Her employer said she was a natural and that if Jayne devoted herself to golf, she could be giving the other pros a run for their money.”

Cecily laughed and took a sip of her wine. “Well, now I'm intrigued. I'm not a bad golfer myself and would like to know how I measure up.” She faced me. “I'm sure the nanny gets days off. You wouldn't mind her taking your spot, would you, Melanie?”

I thought my cheeks would crack from holding my frozen smile in place. “Wow, of course not—that sounds like so much fun! I'd be happy to watch the children so she could go golfing with my husband.”

Jack sent me an odd look.

“I meant my husband and friends. I mean, what's wrong with that?” I was starting to sound like Jayne, so I took a sip from my own wineglass just so I couldn't speak anymore.

Cooper looked at his watch. “Excuse us, but I think it's time to head out.”

The girls ran upstairs to refresh their makeup and giggle, then returned to gather their evening bags and wraps. I surreptitiously checked Nola's bag to make sure her father hadn't sneaked in a small can of Mace, and handed it to her.

We ushered the young adults out onto the piazza and forced them all to stand in a group so I could get one picture that wasn't a selfie. As they headed out to the street, where the limo waited, Nola hung back. Giving her a hug, I said, “You look beautiful. Have fun tonight.”

“I will. Just please tell Dad to chill out. He kept giving those looks to Cooper all night. I'm afraid he won't even dance with me now. I mean, Dad should trust me. Especially because I have never given him a reason not to.”

I glanced back at Jack, who stood on the piazza at the railing and was nursing another Coke on the rocks. He was doing a great impression of
a vulture hovering over an unlucky roadkill victim that wasn't quite dead. “I will, and I know. Just please understand that you're his daughter, and he's being protective because he adores you. And I know Sarah appreciates you smoothing the way for her.” I squeezed her again and gave her a light peck on the cheek.

She smiled, then sent another uncertain look behind her. “You don't think he'll be waiting on the porch when we get back, do you?”

“Of course not,” I said, not completely sure how I'd keep him inside. Maybe I could slip Benadryl into his Coke and knock him out.

Cooper held out his arm to Nola and she took it, allowing him to escort her down the piazza steps into the garden. A cool breeze swept from around the fountain, gently moving her hair and dress, and bringing with it the scent of roses that were at least a month away from blooming.

“Why are you smiling?” Jack said as he put his arm around me.

I looked up at him. “Oh, I don't know. Just a feeling I have that we're being watched over.”

Nola was already tucked into the limo with the other two girls and their dates, leaving Cooper by the back door to turn around and wave good-bye. I watched in horror as Jack made a V with his two fingers, pointed at his eyes with them, and then turned them toward Cooper.

I knocked his hand down and waved back at Cooper, whose smile had vanished. “Don't mind him,” I called out. “Have fun!”

The limo pulled away and the parents left shortly afterward, leaving a tense Jack and me alone. “Nola asked me to help you chill out. We do have four empty hours to fill.” I stood on my toes and kissed him.

“Hold that thought,” he said, taking my hand and leading me to his study. “I've been dying to share this with you all day. After several postponements, I finally went into the family archives today at the Charleston Museum, and I think I might have found something interesting.”

He flipped on the banker's lamp on the corner of his desk and began to riffle through sheets of photocopied papers strewn over its surface. I closed my eyes, wishing I had a baby to sniff to help with the rising blood
pressure. “Apparently, Rosalind—Button's mother—left all her correspondence to the museum, including her son Sumter's. I don't know if there's anything significant in that collection, but I figured I'd go through it just in case, so I made copies. The donation was made after Anna's death, probably a posthumous request made by Rosalind so as not to offend the living. Anyway, I've just had a chance to thumb through it so far, but I did find this. I'm assuming Button cut this from the
Post and Courier
when Anna died, and put it with her brother's papers.”

I squinted to read the small, typed print, amazed as I usually was how newspapers could condense stories of giant proportions into a small square of text. I read it twice, just to make sure I was reading it correctly. I met Jack's gaze. “Anna killed herself. How horrible.”

“She hanged herself in her daughter's attic bedroom,” Jack added.

My eyes widened as I remembered the horrible presence in the house, the push and pull of two warring entities, and I couldn't help wondering if I'd just discovered the identity of at least one of them.

“She must have been so distraught over Hasell's death,” I said. “But if she's the very unhappy ghost we've sensed in the house, we need to find out why, and why she's still here.” I frowned. “Unfortunately, when only a dead person knows the answer, there's only one way to find out what that is.”

I
huffed next to Sophie as we walked along one of the paths at Cannon Park, its asphalt edge bordered by an outrageously colorful flower bed full of plantings my dad would lust over but I couldn't name. I pushed the jogging stroller with the twins, and Sophie carried Blue Skye in a carrier not unlike the one Rebecca used for her dog, Pucci.

Cannon Park was near Ashley Hall on Rutledge, so I'd suggested meeting Sophie after carpool drop-off to catch up. I missed seeing her as often as I had when we were both single and before children and spouses had taken up most of our lives. Not that I wanted her to read my tarot cards or tell me again why old windows were far superior to what was being made today, but I missed her company. There was something to be said for a friend who told you the truth about everything, even when you didn't want to hear it. Even if that friend dressed like a
Sesame Street
character, and had suggested underwater birthing as a viable alternative to a normal hospital birth.

“Why are you walking so fast?” I panted, struggling to keep up.

“Why are you struggling? I thought you'd been walking with your mother, and you have a jogging stroller. I assumed that you could keep up.” She began pumping her arms and walking even faster.

“No fair—I've got two and you've only got the one. And besides, Jayne uses the jogging stroller just about every day, so I pretty much consider it hers now.”

She sent me an odd look but kept up her grueling pace without comment.

We had reached the tall, stately columns and front steps of the former museum building that had burned in 1981, leaving only the columns, all in a perfect semicircle, as a reminder of what had once stood there.

“Do you smell fire?” I asked, putting my hand over my nose because of the choking fumes.

“No,” Sophie said matter-of-factly. “You say that every time we're here. You're just smelling a fire that's more than thirty years old.”

I brightened. “But I
can
smell it! That's good to know. My psychic abilities seem to be fading in and out on me these days, for no apparent reason. There are times, like right now, when they're as strong as ever, and then other times when I'm completely blocked out.”

“That is weird. I'd say it was hormones, but when you were pregnant it went away completely and didn't come and go.”

“Maybe it's postpartum hormones.”

Sophie finally slowed down so she could look at me. “Seriously? It's been almost a year. They should have settled down by now and your mind and body gone back to the way they were.”

“That's not true,” I said. “Some people take longer than others to bounce back.” I took a quick bite of my slightly squished doughnut from Ruth's Bakery that I'd smuggled into the house. I'd bought a dozen when Ruth was visiting her sister for a couple of days and I'd taken advantage of her substitute. I'd kept them hidden in the back of the freezer, constantly checking to make sure Mrs. Houlihan hadn't rearranged anything and discovered my stash, smuggling one in the waistband of my yoga pants whenever I left the house to exercise. I didn't want to pass out because I didn't have the sustaining fuel I needed.

“Yes, but I'd guess that had more to do with bad habits than hormones.”

I looked through the space between the columns, seeing the specter of a giant whale skeleton floating from an invisible ceiling. “Sophie, do you see . . . ?”

“No, I don't see the whale skeleton, either. It was moved to the new museum location before the fire. It's not here anymore.”

“But I do see it,” I said with a relieved smile. “And that's good. At least until I'm looking into a mirror and see somebody behind me. Then I might change my mind again.”

Baby Skye began kicking her legs and grunting, her feet as usual clad in tiny Birkenstocks, bouncing up and down as we passed the playground. Sophie stopped and took the baby from her carrier so she could hold her and look at the baby face-to-face. “Use your hands, Blue Skye. Use your hands to tell Mommy what you want.”

The baby stopped bouncing and stared solemnly into her mother's face. And then, as if she'd actually understood what Sophie had said, Blue Skye opened and closed her fists, thrusting them in the direction of the playground.

“You want to go on the swings?”

Blue Skye made the same motion with her hands.

“Do you mind if we stop?” Sophie asked. “She loves it when I push her on the swing.”

“Um, sure,” I said. “And what was that?”

“It's baby sign language. It's a way for babies to communicate without crying. I highly recommend it.”

I wanted to ask her if it would just be easier to teach the child to actually speak, but I knew I'd get a response that would further confuse me. I parked the stroller, then reached into the outside pocket of the diaper bag I'd slung over the handles and pulled out a baggie filled with antibacterial baby wipes and began approaching the swings.

“What are those for?” Sophie asked.

“To rub down the swing before you put Skye in it. She might touch it.”

“Exactly,” she said, pulling Skye out of her pouch and walking past
me before settling her into the little swing. “It's good for them to be exposed to germs. You know, children in the jungles of Africa are healthier than our kids here because they've been allowed to develop immunities. With our constant disinfecting and bleaching, we are really making ourselves and our children vulnerable.”

I inwardly shuddered as I watched Skye clasp the sides of the swing and then immediately put her fingers into her mouth. “Please don't tell me you don't believe in vaccinations, either.”

She put a hand on her hip. “That would be stupid. Of course I believe in vaccinations. Why on earth would you think that I wouldn't?”

I shrugged. “Well, you wear Birkenstocks. And you're a vegetarian.”

She stared at me for a long moment. “Do you ever listen to yourself? Seriously, Melanie. Remind me again why we're friends.”

I pretended to think. “Because you desperately need my fashion advice, and I like giving it.”

She grinned. “Right. Well, I'm not the one wearing yoga pants with a hidden compartment for doughnuts.” She shook her head as she gave the baby swing a gentle push.

I eventually got tired of watching her while I held a baby on each hip, and put the twins in two adjacent swings. When Sophie wasn't looking, I used the hem of my shirt to wipe the places on the swings where the babies might touch them and then tried not to hyperventilate each time they brought their fingers to their mouths.

We chatted about work, children, husbands, and the joys of yoga—Sophie did all the talking about the latter—until the conversation settled on the Pinckney house. “I've never been given such a carte blanche on a restoration,” Sophie admitted. “And neither has the restoration company I'm working with. It's a great feeling, knowing I'm not going to be nickel-and-dimed, or second-guessed, or yelled at when something new and unexpected comes up.”

“I've never yelled at you,” I protested.

“No, but I can tell when you want to, and that's almost as bad. Anyway, it's been really easy working with Jayne on this project.”

“Has she told you what she wants to do with the attic and its contents?” I asked, trying not to cringe as JJ leaned over and began mouthing the safety bar in front of him.

“No, not yet. And we really need to start working on the roof. A tarp only goes so far. I can't repair the ceilings on the second floor until we've got the roof issue addressed. I've been up to the attic with my restoration toys and have measured the moisture in the walls and I have to say it's not good. We'll probably have to rip everything back to the studs—and I hate doing that because you never know what you might find. I'm just hoping we won't discover black mold, because that's a whole different ball game. If you could talk to Jayne soon to get an answer, that would be great. I suppose we could just move everything to another room on the second story, but everything there was just so . . . personal. Every time I go up there, I'm left thinking that Button wanted Jayne to take care of that stuff. Otherwise why didn't she just get rid of it all after Hasell and Anna died?”

I stopped pushing, Sophie's words resonating with me. Why had Button left Hasell's room untouched all those years, almost as a shrine, and then left the disposal of it to a perfect stranger?

“Why are you letting him do that?” Sophie asked, watching JJ gnaw on the metal safety bar.

“You said we should let our children touch things so they're exposed to germs.”

She reached over and gently lifted JJ's head. “Within reason. That's metal. Why are you letting your baby chew on metal?”

I whipped out a cloth diaper from the diaper bag—Jayne kept it well stocked according to my checklist I kept next to it in the mudroom. At least that was
one
thing she did according to my instructions. While Sophie was busy hoisting Skye up in the swing to keep her from slipping out one of the leg holes, I knotted the clean and bleached diaper around the safety bar just in case JJ felt like chewing on it again.

We resumed pushing, enjoying the quiet morning in the park and watching off-leash dogs running in circles as if they couldn't believe their luck at being set free. I'd brought General Lee, Porgy, and Bess here
once, but the puppies had been insistent on running in opposite directions, and General Lee was torn among trying to supervise them, and barking them into submission, and chasing something—or someone—that only he could see. I'd been more exhausted than they had when we returned home, and I'd sworn to never do that again.

“So, how's Jayne working out as a nanny?” Sophie asked. She had opted to share parenting duties with her husband, Chad, an art history professor at the college, instead of hiring a nanny, and the two of them took turns wearing baby Skye while they taught classes. I had no idea what they planned to do once the baby was big enough to walk, but I was sure it would be as unappealing to me as wearing my baby to work.

“All in all, pretty great,” I said, remembering the broken night-light, the rearranged nursery, and the incomplete spreadsheets. “The children really respond to her and seem to love her, so that's all good.” I could see her preparing to ask a more pointed question, so—always one to avoid conflict—I said, “And Jack says she has the patience of Job dealing with the twins.” He'd added “and you,” but I refrained from mentioning that part to Sophie.

“It doesn't bother you that she's so attractive?” Sophie managed to squeeze in.

There
. She'd said it. The way Sophie could read my mind was pretty close to psychic. It was why she was my best friend. Because she and I both knew that I could never avoid the ugly truth when she was around. But that didn't mean that I wasn't going to try.

“Is she?” I said. “I guess she's pretty, in an all-American athletic kind of way. I don't think blond is her natural hair color, so she's probably closer to average when she wears her hair naturally.”

Sophie responded with raised eyebrows.

“Come on, Sophie. She's the nanny. So what if she's attractive?”

She sighed. “I think I should read your tarot cards again.”

“Why?”

“Because I think there are certain . . . undertones . . . in your life that you should be aware of. I just get these weird vibes from Jayne. It doesn't mean anything, probably, and most likely it's just because she
looks so darn familiar, but I can't place it. That's probably what's so unsettling to me, not that I think there's something going on.”

I stopped pushing. “Going on?”

She waved her hand in the air. “That didn't come out right, either. What I meant is that Jayne's uncertain background and the way she looks so familiar just give me pause. I think I'll be happier than even she will be if and when Jack figures out why Button Pinckney left her the house. And I'm sure that what I saw was exactly what they said it was.”

“Excuse me?”

“That didn't come out the right way. I swear I'm morphing into Rebecca here. What I meant to say is that a couple of days ago I dropped by to say hello to you and to ask Jayne a question about the new kitchen we're putting in—if she wanted to keep the servants' bells as a piece of artwork. She and Jack were, oh, there's really no better way to put this, but they had their arms around each other standing right there in the middle of the foyer—I let myself in because the doorbell wasn't working again. They were each holding a golf club, and there were plastic cups and golf balls all over the place. Jack said she was teaching him a trick shot.”

“A trick?”

“Look, Melanie, I'm sure it's exactly as they said. Jack loves you, and would never do anything to compromise that. But she
is
attractive and she's living under your roof. Don't get me wrong—I like her, too. There's just something . . . uncanny about her.” She shrugged. “I just wanted to let you know.”

I felt ill all of a sudden. “I think I should go home. I need to take a shower before work, and it takes forever these days to find something in my closet that fits.” I turned away, embarrassed to find myself so close to tears.

Sophie lifted out Blue Skye and tucked her into her front carrier. “I'm here anytime for a tarot reading. Just let me know.”

“Yeah, thanks,” I said, strapping the babies back into the stroller. “I'll call you.”

After transferring the babies and stroller into the Volvo, I drove home slowly, my thoughts warring between anger and tears before eventually settling somewhere between rational thought and incredulity. I was a big girl now. The new, mature Melanie. I could discuss anything with Jack because I trusted him. We were married. Life partners. I wasn't the same insecure Melanie Middleton he'd first met, the woman who'd fake a foreign accent just so she could pretend to be somebody else on the other end of the phone.