Chapter 16 #2
“Mr. Allison said so,” Mrs. Tartt said from the sofa. She said it like Rory had died.
“But—he was just there yesterday. He would’ve told me something like that, he would’ve told you.” She looked down at Mrs. Tartt. “Somebody would’ve told us!”
I thought about the handsome banker saying it was the saddest year of his working life. “Somebody should’ve,” I said.
“Mr. Allison’s about the only one left from Henry’s days …” Mrs. Tartt twisted her gold wedding band around her finger. “Course Mr. Cotton retired after Henry died. So did Robert Kinley and all the secretaries I was friendly with, Genevieve and Susie. I can’t recall the rest of their names …”
“This doesn’t make a lick of sense. Why in the world would they fire him?” Frances asked.
Mrs. Tartt looked up at me like I was the one who’d asked. Lipstick rubbed off, sweat beaded her forehead and her eyebrows. “Because he lost too many people’s money. That’s what Mr. Allison said. And he lost ours too.”
Frances stared at her. “What does that mean … ours?”
“I’m not sure. To be right honest.” Mrs. Tartt nodded, looking at the empty square over the fireplace. She seemed to be gaining steam. “But I’m going to find out, oh I sure am …”
“We need to find him, we need to call—”
“… because I think Rory might’ve done this to us.” Mrs. Tartt stabbed her forefinger toward the floor. “To get back at me.”
I couldn’t tell if the lost money had registered with Frances, but that last part Frances heard.
“Don’t you dare accuse my husband of this.
” Her face went from pale to a splotchy, meaty red.
“Rory would never—and I won’t stand here and let you accuse him of losing people’s money and—and”—she turned to me—“whatever you said about him being fired, well I don’t believe a word of it, not from either of you! ” She turned around and walked out.
“Frances,” Mrs. Tartt called, but Frances kept going. She was moving fast. I went up the main stairs after her to Rory’s boyhood room on the right, where she stopped in front of the door with its brass lock. She looked it up and down and gave it a hard smack. It swung right open.
“Franny …” The room and the smell of something rotten shut me up.
There were two twin beds with blue plaid bedspreads, the closest one unmade.
Over each headboard was an illustration of a happy little boy fishing.
This was the only thing that made sense.
On the other bed, the bedside tables, a blue stuffed chair, a desk, and the floor sat dirty plates smeared with crusted gravy, corners of sandwiches, moldy soups, paper bags with greasy stains.
Both windows were open, which I reckon was why we hadn’t smelled it in the hall, but the sills were lined with milk-ringed glasses and coffee cups and old juice glasses.
On the desk in the far corner was a foot-tall pile of newspapers and piles of unopened mail and drippy inkpots.
I wondered if some of those were from me or Mama.
The doors of the wardrobe stood open. A single striped tie drooped off a hanger, and in the bottom was a pair of scuffed-up brown shoes.
Frances looked back at me, her face still a splotchy red and white. I put my hand on her shoulder, wishing I could take away some of her hurt.
“Do you think he’s … coming back?” she asked. She sounded like a little girl.
“I don’t know, Franny.”
She walked in a few more steps and pulled the blue plaid cover back on the unmade twin bed. It was the only thing in the room not littered with wadded-up papers and dirty plates. She crawled in it and pulled the cover up over her and turned her back to me.
“Please, I just want to be alone, Birdie,” she said. I waited a moment to see if she changed her mind. When she didn’t, I left like she’d asked.
“I heated up some supper, Mrs. Tartt. Can I bring you a plate?” It was many hours later and the light outside was already starting to fade. She and Frances had both ended up in the dark-paneled library that looked out on the front yard.
“Heavens, I couldn’t eat if I wanted to,” Mrs. Tartt said.
It was just this morning’s biscuits with ham and some butter beans from yesterday.
The very ripe tomato from the windowsill had burst when I’d tried to slice it.
I was starving and ate it like a peach, the juice dripping down my chin, and then I felt guilty for being so ravenous at a time like this.
This afternoon Mrs. Tartt had called the lawyer in Jackson and begged his secretary to have him call her back right away.
He hadn’t yet. Now, she sat watching Frances who was laid out drunk on the leather divan.
When I’d found her in here a few hours ago, she’d been standing by the window, watching the road, hugging the bottle of Old Taylor like it was Ella Jane.
She wouldn’t answer me, she just kept sipping with a painful grimace.
I’d never seen Frances take liquor, much less straight from the bottleneck, but this wasn’t the time for fancy crystal.
Rory’d taken most of it anyway. She hadn’t stayed upright for long.
I wanted to go check on Picador and Polly, but I didn’t want to leave these two alone.
I also thought we should go look for Rory, but where would he have gone?
I couldn’t imagine he’d burgle his own house and then take up residence two miles down the road at a hotel or boardinghouse.
It was even more strange and confounding when you considered the little things he’d taken or not taken: The photograph of him as a little boy, sitting on his mama’s lap, his father smiling so proudly behind them, was missing from the hall, but the portrait of him and Frances in their wedding clothes hadn’t even been skewed.
In the kitchen, he’d taken many of the heavy electric appliances—El Tosto, El Eggo, El Et Cetera-o—but he’d left the electric carpet sweeper sitting out by the broken china.
I could practically hear the clang of the silver service being dropped into pillowcases.
The Studebaker was a broad, roomy motorcar, with a rack on the back for a trunk.
Frances’s skirt was yanked up to her knees, her white arm flopped off the side. I’d set a mixing bowl on the floor near the chaise in case she needed to throw up.
“Least somebody’ll get some sleep tonight,” Mrs. Tartt said, from a black leather wing chair.
“She didn’t exactly have a choice,” I said. “I’ll get her upstairs.”
“No, let her be.” Mrs. Tartt’s light blue shopping silk was accordioned with wrinkles, her hair was crushed on one side, but somehow she’d applied a fresh coat of red lipstick.
My daddy had died on a Tuesday, and on Wednesday morning Mama’d made their bed and then promptly unmade it and got right back in it.
The things we did to make ourselves feel like everything was fine.
I sat at Frances’s feet and saw Mrs. Tartt consider the bottle of Old Taylor on the floor.
“I thought all his talk … I thought it was him looking after us,” Mrs. Tartt said.
“Don’t run up the telephone bill, don’t buy anything new.
” Her eyes were swollen and pink, her feet bare.
I’d never seen Mrs. Tartt barefooted before.
“Mr. Allison—he said Rory’d known for months they were fixing to fire him, so I have to wonder how long had he been planning to do this?
Is that why he let poor Mr. Jake go and wouldn’t even pay Pic and Polly?
” Her voice rose, saying their names. “So he’d have more left over for himself? They were working here for nothing …”
I shook my head, I honestly didn’t know, but I had to give Rory credit: He’d been thorough.
The wooden stand that had held the Indian book stood empty, and there were gaps in the bookshelves where there’d been rare ones or a statue or bauble that might be worth something.
The books alone had to have taken some forethought.
After a minute, Mrs. Tartt leaned back, and the big leather chair swallowed her up. “I want to tell you something, Birdie, and it might be shocking to you.”
“That seems unlikely after today, but you go ahead.”
“The other night, when I told you Rory was upset about going to New Orleans …” She looked over at Frances to check she was truly asleep. “It was to go stay in a hospital down there.”
“What for?” I asked.
“For an illness. Called Homo Sexuality. Rory has it. It’s a disease where men want to be intimate with other men. Do you know what I’m referring to, Birdie?”
I nodded but was too stunned to do much more.
For what felt like a full minute, I negotiated what to say.
I mean, should I tell her about a boy I knew in high school, that people spread rumors about?
He’d been soft-spoken, worn glasses, and had thin, dark hair.
He’d loved birds and bird-watching. Joseph was his name.
He’d once told me starlings sang too high for human ears to pick up and that most birds hardly even lived for a year.
He’d had tears in his eyes when he told me this fact.
I’d liked him so much for that. The other boys had pummeled him after school so bad they broke his nose and his collarbone.
Mrs. Tartt was leaning forward, waiting, but I couldn’t tell her about Joseph and what they’d done to him.
So I said, “My granddaddy had a bull with that predilection.” It was all I could dang think of.
“What did you do about it?”
I should’ve gone to bed. “We shot him.”
She nodded. “Well, I reckon I knew one growing up, and I tell you people were terrible to that boy.” She shut her eyes and whispered, “He was such a good dancer.”
Frances kicked, lodging her foot in my stomach. I left it there; this was not the time for her to be waking up. I reached down and handed Mrs. Tartt the bourbon bottle, figuring she needed it. She held on to it with her small white hands.