The Ladies of Garrison Gardens (24 page)

Chapter Fifty

W
HEN LAUREL GOT HOME,
the spreadsheets and papers she and Chrissie had gone through were still stacked up on her kitchen table. She dumped them in the trash and called Gloria to say she was canceling her interview.

“But the paper goes to press tomorrow night,” Gloria said.

“I'm sorry.”

“Laurel, today all the employees at the gardens and the resort got notice that their premiums will be going up. It's not a secret anymore. I'm doing an editorial on that story, and as of this moment I'm saying that approximately three thousand workers are going to be shafted. Is that accurate? Are you going to let that happen?”

“I can't stop it. I don't know anything about business. There are people who know what they're doing, and they say this is the way it has to be.”

“That's it? You don't even have an opinion about what's going on?”

“My opinion doesn't make any difference.”

There was a pause on the other end of the phone. “You're signing my father's damn power-of-attorney form, aren't you? What the hell did they do to you?”

“Gloria, you want to fight with your daddy, do it on your own time, okay? I'm doing what I have to do.”

“You really believe that?”

“Yes.” And Laurel hung up.

She took the trash out. She fed the dogs. She made herself a lunch she didn't eat.

She sat on her porch swing and told herself she was being responsible. She was going to give in to Pete Terranova and Stuart Junior and their team. Because if they walked out, she'd be up shit creek without a paddle. More important, so would all the Garrison employees. If the resort and the gardens went
gurgling down the tubes
, they'd take everything with them.

So Pete Terranova's spoiled wife would fly to California to see her friends on a private jet, and people making minimum wage like Grace's mama would get sick without having health insurance. Laurel Selene McCready was going to roll over and play dead. Because she had to. Every now and again, over the years, she had run across the word
heartsick
in a book. Now she knew what it meant.

When she saw Maggie and Li'l Bit, she was determined not to cry.

“Are you sure that's what you want to do?” Li'l Bit asked.

“Why not give yourself some time to think it over, Doodlebug?” said Maggie. “It won't hurt Stuart to wait a little longer for his power of attorney.”

“If I'm going to do it, I want to get it over with,” she told them. So, of course, they let it drop, even though Maggie looked worried for the rest of the afternoon and Li'l Bit looked thoughtful.

She was going to need a new form to replace the one she'd burned. Asking Stuart for it was going to be the ultimate defeat. He'd probably have a good idea of what had happened to the first one. But it had to be done, she told herself. First thing in the morning.

But the next morning she slept late and it was almost noon by the time she got herself dressed and ready to go. She told herself she'd wait until after lunch. After lunch, she decided she should call first to see if he was in his office. Then, finally, she faced the fact that she wasn't going to make herself do it at all. Not that day. As Maggie had said, it wouldn't hurt Stuart to wait a little longer. And she'd still have the rest of her life to feel like shit.

She got undressed, put on her bathrobe, and turned on the television. On one channel a chef with a French accent was molding the Brooklyn Bridge out of chocolate. On another, a woman was making lamp shades. She opted for a rerun of a cop show she'd watched when she was a kid.

She stayed in front of the television as the afternoon sun set and it got dark outside. She didn't go over to Li'l Bit's porch. She went to bed telling herself that tomorrow she was going to suck it up and do what had to be done.

But on Friday the first copy of the
Charles Valley Gazette
, now under new management, was delivered to its faithful customers.

Chapter Fifty-one

MRS. RAIN

2004

C
HERRY CAME IN
and paused dramatically, hands behind her back. “Mrs. Rain, guess what?” she demanded.

She couldn't have guessed what if she'd wanted to. She'd fallen asleep sitting up in her wingback chair, and now she was totally disoriented. For a second she couldn't even remember what she was doing in the sunroom.

“Mmmnnn,” she murmured, vamping for time. Was it Friday or Saturday?

“The
Charles Valley Gazette
came today. They sent it by overnight mail.”

“Give it to me!” she commanded, no longer caring what day it was. The
Gazette
was back in her life—and so was Laurel McCready. She took the paper from Cherry and began peering at the tiny print.

“Here,” Cherry said eagerly. “Let me read it to you.”

She was about to say she'd be damned if she would. But then she looked up and saw affection in the child's face. Somehow, young Cherry had become her champion. She handed over the paper and leaned back into the depths of her chair. “See if Mr. Barlow explains why he changed his mind about shutting down,” she said.

“He didn't.” Cherry skimmed the front page. “It says here the paper is under new management. The publisher is Mrs. Lindy Lee Lawrence, and the new editor in chief is Gloria Lawrence.”

She was upright again. “Lawrence? Their last name is Lawrence?”

“That's what it says.”

It could have been a coincidence, of course. Lawrence was a fairly common name. But still, to have it turn up in the same small town? Did the old man's son ever have a child? She should have found some way over the years to know these things.

“Is there anything else about Gloria Lawrence?” she asked.

“Uh-huh. She wrote an article in a part of the paper that says
IN OUR OPINION.
”

“That's the editorial page. Read it.”

“Yes, ma'am.” Cherry took a breath and began reading Gloria Lawrence's editorial aloud. “‘When I took over the
Gazette
, I found the following column in the archives. It had never been printed. It was written by Laurel Selene McCready, a seven-year employee of this newspaper. This is a quote from Ms. McCready's article:

“‘
The time has come to be honest about Garrison Gardens and the Garrison resort. Because they are the main employers in Charles Valley, they have been getting away with abusive treatment of their workers for far too long. We all know about layoffs that hit without warning and employees who have worked overtime without being compensated for it. We know about wages that are the lowest in the state and unsafe working conditions that result in serious injuries. We know about these things, but we don't say anything. We give the gardens and the resort a free pass because they have power. They've become the elephant in our living room. We need to stop ignoring it
.'”

Cherry looked up from the newspaper. “That's the end of the stuff Laurel McCready wrote,” she announced.

“Go on with Gloria Lawrence's editorial.”

Cherry nodded and began reading again. “‘According to my records, the day after she wrote this column Ms. McCready was fired from this paper. Ironically, the vehement Ms. McCready is now the owner of the resort, and she has the deciding vote on the board of trustees that makes policy for the gardens. And, according to yesterday's announcement, the gardens and the resort are now planning to raise the cost of health insurance premiums for those workers for whom Ms. McCready expressed such concern. When asked to comment, Ms. McCready replied, “I don't know anything about business. There are people who know what they're doing, and they say this is the way it has to be. My opinion doesn't matter.” In our opinion, it does matter what Ms. McCready thinks, and she got it right the first time.'” Cherry looked up again. “That's kind of wild,” she said. “I guess when you're the owner you change your mind about being the elephant in the living room.”

Mrs. Rain knew better. She knew exactly what had happened to change Laurel's mind. “Cherry, stop reading,” she said.

“But there's more in this article, Mrs. Rain—”

“I've heard enough. I need a pen and my notepaper. It's upstairs in my bedroom. In my desk, I think. Or it might be in the nightstand. I can't remember, damn it!”

“I'll find it. Don't worry.”

“Worry? Child, I'm so relieved I can't stand it!”

Her instincts hadn't been wrong. Laurel Selene McCready was being bullied, in the same way Myrtis and Peggy had been bullied. Laurel needed to know the truth so she could fight off the enemy.

Mrs. Rain picked up the pen Cherry had given her. Then she put it down again. She wanted to tell her tale from the beginning, but she didn't have time for that. She'd have to start with the hard part—the dangerous part. She'd be trusting a total stranger with secrets that had been kept for over seventy years. Her hand hesitated over the pen, then she picked it up.

“Dear Ms. McCready,” she wrote. Her handwriting was shaky, but that couldn't be helped. “You don't know me, but I want to tell you a story. It begins in the summer of 1933 when two young girls got on a train for Georgia.”

Chapter Fifty-two

IVA CLAIRE

1933

S
MALL TOWNS AND FARMS
passed by the train window, but Iva Claire didn't see them. It was the middle of the afternoon, they'd been traveling for two and a half days, and Beneville was the next stop. She hadn't been able to sleep, unlike Tassie, who was snoozing in the seat next to her.

She and Tassie hadn't talked about the future, not that there was much to talk about. The act was finished. When they went back to New York they wouldn't have work or a place to live. They didn't even know how they were going to get to New York. But all that would come later. Iva Claire couldn't look farther ahead than the train's arrival in Beneville.

After she'd snuck off to Atlanta to meet her father years ago, her mother had finally filled in some of the blanks about his illustrious background. His family had founded Beneville to support the cotton mills they owned. They'd gotten rich off the mills, sold them, and gotten even richer in cotton brokering and banking. They were like royalty in Beneville, Mama said. Her father, whose name was Randall Benedict, was treated like a prince. And now his illegitimate daughter was going to show up and make the prince say he was sorry. She'd finally realized that was what she was traveling all this way to hear. It might not seem like much to anyone else, but she'd just buried her mother in a pauper's grave in a state she was never to see again. He couldn't change that, but, by God, she was going to hear him say he was sorry.

I'm as crazy as Mama after all. If Tassie's smart she'll get away from me and go off on her own
.

If he hadn't known Mama was sick, it wouldn't have been so bad. But he'd read the two letters she'd sent from the Normandy Hotel, begging for his help. He'd read them and sent them back to her instead of the money she'd humiliated herself to ask for. He'd sent them back because he wanted to hurt her.

He'll say he's sorry for that. I'll make him say he's sorry.

The train was slowing down. Soon she'd see her father again, and this time it would be different. This time she wasn't a little girl he could throw out of his hotel room. This time she was going to make him admit what he'd done.

She leaned over to wake Tassie up.

The afternoon sun was starting to fade when they got off the train and stood on the Beneville platform. On either side of them, a pretty little town spread out in a neat grid of intersecting streets, with the train tracks running through the middle of it. A sign on the station house said the town had been founded in 1874 by the Benedict family. Her father's family. Not her family.

Beneville was a classic mill town. At its edge ran the river where the mills were located. Closer to the railroad on the right were the cotton warehouses, a hotel, and two long low buildings that looked like some kind of dormitory housing, probably for mill workers. All these structures were made of red brick.

The streets that ran perpendicular to the railroad tracks were narrow and tree lined. On her left, Iva Claire could see a small town square. In the distance, overlooking the center of the town, was a gently sloping hill. Iva Claire could make out a large white house perched on top of it, almost completely hidden by trees. She didn't have to check the address. That had to be her father's home.

“Iva Claire? What do you want to do?” Tassie asked quietly.

“I'm going up there.”

“Do you want me to come?”

“I've got to do this alone.”

Tassie seemed to understand—or was she a little relieved? “There's no train back to Atlanta until tomorrow morning,” she said. “I'll get us a room in that hotel. Give me your suitcase.”

Iva Claire handed it to her. “I'm not taking a bus or a taxi. I'll walk,” she said. “It'll be easier to hide that way.”

“Why do you have to hide?”

She had a brief memory of opening the door to the hotel room in Atlanta and seeing a face that was unmistakably like hers. She didn't want word getting out in this small town that a girl who looked like the prince was walking around.

“I don't want anyone to see me until I've seen him,” she said. “I want to surprise him.”

“If you don't want anyone to see you, I'll wait for you out on the porch of the hotel. That way you won't have to ask what room I'm in.”

Iva Claire nodded, and Tassie started to pick up the suitcases. Then she stopped. “Iva Claire, you know your father's a son of a bitch, don't you? I mean, you're not expecting him to be nice to you.”

“Don't worry, I'm not expecting a thing.”
Except an apology
.

She began walking toward the big white house on the hill.

Because of all the trees, she hadn't realized how isolated the house was. By the time she finally reached 51 Mill Street, the address she'd memorized so many years before, she hadn't seen another building for at least half a mile. The winding drive leading from the street to the house was shaded by a canopy of oaks. The sun was setting by the time she reached it, and the trees made it even darker and harder to see her surroundings. She could make out flower beds laid out in formal patterns on either side of the canopy and, on her right, ahead of her, a garage with a car parked in front of it. To her left, almost behind the house, she could see some headstones and three mausoleums surrounded by an iron fence. Two statues of angels faced each other at the gates. Her father's family had a private cemetery. Her father would never end up in a pauper's field in a town where no one knew him.

The canopy of trees ended abruptly, and the house was in front of her. It was two stories high, built on a raised brick foundation with a square porch that wrapped around three sides. Two wide steps led to the porch and the front door. At first she thought the house was dark, but then she saw a light in one of the windows upstairs. He was home.

He'll be angry
, warned a voice inside her head.

So am I.
She walked up the steps and knocked on the front door. Nothing happened. She knocked louder. She banged with her fists. He was not going to get away from her. Not now. She banged even louder. The door swung open.

And in the half-light of the porch, Iva Claire found herself staring at her own face for the second time in her life. Her father was a masculine version of her, but the young woman in front of her was almost her mirror image.

“Who . . . are . . . ?” she managed to get out.

“I'm Myrtis Benedict.”