Chapter 24 #4
For hours last night I’d stared out at the moon through the screens, ruminating.
Dissecting this idea of Charlie’s—was she on to something?
Could a dime-a-dance business really make that kind of money?
I almost went down to her room to demand more details, tell her she should’ve talked to me about this first. I worried that this was just a way for her to stall for more time here to get to Meg, even if she got Mrs. Tartt’s hopes up along the way.
None of that really mattered because I couldn’t imagine Mrs. Tartt actually agreeing to this.
Mrs. Tartt would probably tell Charlie no, and I’d go home even broker.
Maybe Jack would write me a letter from time to time and then he would stop writing.
The wide barn doors stood open. Mrs. Tartt, still in her long blue nightgown, was telling Charlie, “Now I’m not saying strict as the University Club, but if we did it, you couldn’t let in every Tom, Dick, and Harry off the street.”
“I’d make sure every customer was checked thoroughly,” Charlie said. She had on a fresh apron over a crisp dark green cotton dress. I wondered if she’d even gone to bed. “Don’t worry, there’ll be no riffraff here.” She glanced at me approaching.
“But how? Would you know?”
“Believe me, I have a sixth sense when it comes to scoundrels.”
Mrs. Tartt nodded like she trusted Charlie on this.
“Course long gowns would be more elegant, but all the young people want to wear is tea-length these days and if we did this, I’d insist that the ladies’ shoulders be covered when they’re not dancing.
Morning, Birdie,” Mrs. Tartt said. Her eyes were a little swollen and pink, like she hadn’t slept much either.
“They’d teach the classic steps, wouldn’t they?
Not just all that boogie-woogie they’re doing these days. ”
“Of course. Don’t worry, they’ll be professionals, elegant young ladies who know what they’re doing,” Charlie said. She sounded a lot more confident than she had last night.
Mrs. Tartt tiptoed into the barn, minding her blue satin slippers.
Strips of orange light shone through the slatted walls.
“Everything’s packed up in those crates back there.
The old dance floor pieces are on farther back.
It’ll all need a very good scrubbing, I imagine.
” Mrs. Tartt lifted the top off a crate, a feathery dust rising, and took out a wad of yellowed newspaper.
“We’ll clean it all up and make it look just like the photographs,” Charlie said.
Mrs. Tartt unwrapped the newspaper and held up a silver star on a string. She smiled. “Heavens, if we did this, it could be like 1922 all over again, couldn’t it?”
“We could make it whatever we wanted,” Charlie said.
“Like going back in time.” I watched Charlie closely, suspecting that other, possibly more alluring things had been said before I’d come out here.
Giving Mrs. Tartt visions of a world that no longer existed—with money and presidents who were friends of the family, unwrinkled faces and sons living at home.
“Who knows, maybe you could even afford to hire Picador and Polly again,” Charlie said.
“No,” I said. She’d gone too far, bringing up Picador. “You can’t say that, Charlie—”
“Why not?” Charlie asked.
“Because it’s—too much.” I was getting warier by the minute, listening to this. “Mrs. Tartt, I think we should go talk somewhere, just the two of us.”
“It’s alright, Birdie,” Mrs. Tartt said. “We discussed it, and Charlie said you wouldn’t have to be here if you didn’t want to. She could run things herself, so you can go back home.”
That made it worse. “You’d actually let Charlie run a dance club here while you and Frances were out of town?”
“If you don’t like the idea, I don’t want you to feel put upon.”
Charlie was standing right there, but I lowered my voice. “But you’ve only known Charlie a couple of weeks, and she’s—” Desperate? A convicted criminal? A con artist? “Don’t you think this all sounds a little too good to be true?” I whispered.
“Well, of course I do, dear.”
I waited for more, but she seemed all right with just that.
All the things that could go wrong started falling out of my mouth.
“But—you could lose your house wasting time on this slipshod idea, you could get in trouble with the police, you’d be the talk of the town …
” Mrs. Tartt just nodded at all of them.
“Don’t you think you should at least lower your expectations, in case it doesn’t work? ”
Mrs. Tartt backed her chin up at me. I believe I’d offended her. “I’ve lived my whole life with high expectations. I have the highest of hopes every day and I plan on staying that way.”
“But what if it fails?” I asked.
“But what if it doesn’t fail, Birdie?” she asked.
“I want to go look for my son. I want to keep my family’s house, and I want my precious things back.
I’ll never stop hoping for the best.” She tilted her head to the side, curiously studying me.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, dear, but what do you have to lose if you did do this? ”
That stung. “I guess … not that much,” I said.
“Well there’s your answer, dear.”
“You’re sure you want to do this?”
She nodded. “I think so, yes.”
I was the one who’d brought Charlie here; I’d asked them to trust her, give her a hand. She was my responsibility. Behind the barn the cow started mooing to be milked. “Then I reckon I better stay and look after things.”
“She actually said yes to this?” Frances said. I was standing over her, still in her bed, which just meant a mattress on bare floorboards. She sat up. “Does that mean we can go look for Rory?”
“Evidently.”
Frances got up and flung open her curtains.
Full sunlight filled the pink room, which was littered with clothes and shoes and potions with no drawers or a wardrobe to live in.
“Good. And I hope we find him too,” she said.
There was a hard edge in her voice that surprised me.
Certainly more productive than thinking Rory was coming home to save us.
There was already enough pipe dreaming going on in this house.
An hour later, I brought a plate of biscuits to the parlor, where Mrs. Tartt and Frances were conspiring on the old red settee. “My sister Lulu will be plumb delighted to have us stay,” Mrs. Tartt said, but then she murmured, “I just wish she wasn’t so poor.”
They had a map open on the wooden crates that acted as a coffee table.
Jackson was a big city, probably twenty times the size of Oxford.
I’d been only once for the doctor’s visit and didn’t think Frances ever had been.
Along with the Robert E. Lee, they said they’d be checking the King Edward Hotel and several of the nicer boardinghouses for any sign of Rory.
“And check the filling stations too—ask if they saw the Studebaker,” I said.
Mrs. Tartt frowned up at the mantel where the painting had hung a thousand years ago. “We better go by the silver and jewelry shops too, to see did he try to sell anything.”
“And I plan on visiting a cer-tain friend of his down there too,” Frances said, tapping her finger on the map.
“Who?” Mrs. Tartt asked.
“Esther Royal. They used to go together, and last fall she was here for the jubilee, and I bet I saw her looking at him ten times. And some of those times he looked back.”
Mrs. Tartt pushed herself up from the sofa, giving me a sharp look. “I reckon we better go get ready. The train table said it leaves at 12:20.”
“You’re going today?” I asked.
“Charlie thought it’d be best if we go on and go. She wants to concentrate on getting everything ready for these boarders.” Behind them, through the windows, I could see that Charlie had already hauled half a dozen wooden crates onto the back porch.
“Can you let Garnett know we’ve gone out of town without telling her why?” Frances asked me. I nodded I would.
“Heavens, I keep forgetting about the telephone. Birdie, would you mind running to town and asking Mr. Binny will he come pick us up at half past eleven?”
I told her yes, I’d go tell him, but this was all happening too durn fast. What did they think, they’d find Rory and wrestle him for all the things he’d taken?
Talk him into giving them back? That was as delusional as when they thought Rory’d magically come home and pay the mortgage.
I grabbed Frances by the sleeve. “I think you’re going on a wild goose chase, Franny, I just—I need you to know that. ”
“Well what if I’m not? What if we take a chance and find him?”
“In a town of fifty thousand people? With nothing to go on but some telephone calls?”
She stood up straighter. “It just so happens some things are worth taking a chance for, Birdie. Not that you’d know that, the way you live your life.”
Ah, there it was again. What could Birdie know of taking chances? She’s too content living an unchancy life at home with Mama and Meemaw. “There’s a real good chance we could lose our house too, in case you’ve forgotten,” I reminded her.
“Can’t you for once hope for the best? I swear, you are just like Mama.” She stomped up the stairs, leaving me with the lonely fear that, sweet Jesus, maybe I was.
I turned to Mrs. Tartt and set my hand on her shoulder, hoping she could feel the weight of what I was about to say. “Don’t forget to go by Florsheim Shoes in Jackson. The owner’s name is Jimmy Watts. Rory telephoned the store six times the week he was fired.”
Mrs. Tartt nodded and whispered, “I see.”
After I ran to town to tell Mr. Binny, I packed them a basket for the train—butter sandwiches, two milk jugs of water, hard-boiled eggs, and okra pickles was the best I could do.
I gave them thirty dollars from the Luzianne Tea can, which left us with about twenty-nine now.
At 11:35, Frances and Mrs. Tartt were at the front door with matching blue suitcases.
Mrs. Tartt, the experienced traveler, wore a soft pale cotton dress with a short-brimmed hat and flat shoes, while Frances had chosen a heavy cream ensemble with stiff black piping.
She looked papier-maché’d inside it. Her huge pinwheel black hat was tilted so ridiculously to the side she had to stand back from us so she wouldn’t knock us with it.
Charlie came up the hall, her apron already filthy from unloading the barn. I’d be riding to town with them to send a tenner to Mrs. Tartt’s sister to let her know they were coming.
“If you don’t mind,” Charlie said, handing me a folded piece of paper, “could you send a telegram for me too? It’s to a friend who might be interested in boarding with us.”
As Mr. Binny motored up out front, Frances studied herself in the mirror of a compact and snapped it closed, suddenly looking miserable. “What if I find him at Esther Royal’s? What do I say?”
“I really, really doubt he’s there, Franny,” I said.
Mrs. Tartt picked up handbag and said, “I believe we might need to have a talk on the train, dear.”