Chapter 46
I managed to get Mrs. Tartt and Frances up to the attic before we opened.
Frances was in fits up there, trying to cut and set her hair before she went to the Orphan tomorrow.
She was insisting on going, since it was just about all she had left of her old life.
She’d also valiantly proclaimed she’d be doing her own hair from now on to save every cent for Rory.
I wondered how long that would last. Mrs. Tartt was in bed, listening to her new radio set.
Puffy-eyed, she looked all cried out. Along with supper, I’d brought her one of the last undiluted bottles of bourbon.
Men drifted in and out of the dusky light.
Tonight was the homecoming hop on campus, so we probably wouldn’t have too many college boys showing up.
A few men came just to gawk, curious about this place, and stood by, watching Esmeralda and a set of identical blond twins dance to “Dream a Little Dream of Me,” a song I loved.
By now, the black paint had been danced off the floor in places and faint spots of wood showed through.
Dry leaves scattered between the dancers’ feet.
It’s almost over, I thought. Thank God. I was smoking one of the cigarettes for sale when I saw the lone figure standing across the road, watching us. I went very still.
The moon tonight was bright and nearly full, and somebody’d turned on the carriage lights out front, casting light on the road.
The car had a boxy frame with a high square top and wood paneling on the sides.
I couldn’t say for sure if it was the same car that’d been coming late at night, but I felt a real distinct prickle walking up my neck.
I stood up—the person was approaching the house.
He disappeared a few seconds in the shadows before moving back into the light.
“Charlie!” I called over the music, and she came this way but stopped several feet behind me.
Dr. Welty Pittman was coming toward us, a faint limp in his step.
My mind was racing—why was he here? Had he found a card?
Had he put it together when he’d seen the letter at the post office with Charlie’s name on it?
Charlie took a step forward and stood beside me.
Standing just inside the arch, Dr. Pittman wore no hat tonight.
His clear blue eyes turned down at the corners, like Meg’s, and they didn’t just soften, his whole face kind of liquefied when he saw Charlie.
It was so obvious. I’d been watching people for years from behind that lonely store counter and I knew what longing looked like—heartbreak, first love, a magnetic thread between two neighbors who’d kissed twenty years before and never forgot it. He still aches for you, Charlie.
Charlie had her hand against her chest like her heart might fail her. I could see why she’d fallen for him. He was handsome, though he had the battered look of a man whose wife was a witch. Mr. Binny was singing, “Hold me tight and tell me you’ll miss me …”
Charlie spoke first. “Are you alone? Are you here to make trouble?”
“No,” Dr. Pittman said. “I’m here to see you.” His eyes drifted behind us to the dancers. “What is this place, Charlie?”
Charlie didn’t answer. She was breathing through her nose, sort of like a bull.
“It’s a dance club,” I said. “For the college boys. But they’re all at the homecoming hop tonight, so—they’re not here.” Meg had said her mother was a very fine liar. I did not sound like a very fine liar.
And then Charlie moved in on him. “You spineless coward,” she said in a low, terrifying voice. Her fists were clenched.
Welty looked her square in the face. “I didn’t know what else to do, Charlie. The girl was starving to death.”
Charlie’s eyes flew open wider. “So you dumped her at your wife’s filthy charity?
Your own daughter?” There was barely a foot between them now.
“That witch made me lose my job—she is why I lost my child. Your wife had me sent to state! You had to know that!” She was right up on him, cheeks red, hissing fury into his face.
“Do you know what they do to people there, Dr. Pittman?”
Welty didn’t answer. He stood there in his rumpled overcoat and took it.
“What did you do with all the letters, Welty? Did you even look at the pictures of your daughter? Did you and your wife read my letters over breakfast and have yourselves a good laugh?” Charlie was smiling; it was ominous, frightening.
Tears glistened in her eyes. “Did you know how Chairlady Garnett treated your daughter in that hellhole of hers? Like she was bad—a dirty mistake, an imbecile—” A sob broke her voice.
Welty winced. “She pulled Meg out of school, the thing Meg loved most, and to punish her, she kept her in a dirty little room, alone.”
“I didn’t know,” he said, quietly. “I didn’t know about the letters until it was too late. I thought Garnett would look after the girl—”
“STOP CALLING HER ‘THE GIRL’! SHE’S YOUR DAUGHTER AND HER NAME IS MEG!” Everything stopped in that moment. The music, the dancing. I wondered if Frances and Mrs. Tartt had heard it in the attic. There was just the sound of Charlie breathing now. The rest of us were all holding our breath.
“If I’d known Garnett was treating her that way, I would’ve stepped in long ago.”
Charlie covered her face with her hands.
She was quivering all over, but still not crying tears.
Hell no, she was not about to cry in front of this man.
I cleared my throat, about to urge them to take this somewhere for privacy, who knew who was here tonight, but Charlie fixed me with a look that said Don’t.
“What did you expect from me, coming out here?” Charlie asked him between her gritted teeth. “What do you want from me now?”
“I came to tell you …” Welty had to stop to collect himself.
“Isabelle Heidelberg, whose son adopted Meg, called me. She told me that Tom, her son, is dead. He drowned in their lake last week. His wife is in no state to look after a child, and neither is Isabelle—she’s sick with grief.
She asked me to drive up to Byhalia and get the child—Meg—and bring her back to the orphanage. ”
Charlie stared up at him, rapt now. Carefully, gently, he set his hands on her shoulders. Good Lord, he was brave to do that. But Charlie didn’t move away.
“I told her somebody from the orphanage who Meg knows well, Birdie Calhoun, would come up there and get her.”
He looked at me, and I looked at Charlie, trying to make sense of what was happening. Her life hinged on his words.
“I informed Mrs. Heidelberg that I had the legal authority to entrust Meg into Birdie Calhoun’s custody.”
“Did you tell her—”
“No, I did not. She just wants someone to take care of Meg. I told her to expect Miss Calhoun tomorrow.”
The two stared at each other. Welty kept his hands on Charlie’s shoulders. He looked like he wanted to take her in his arms, and Charlie looked like she’d run out of fight. Welty removed his hands, reached into his coat pocket, and set an envelope on the table.
“It’s not enough,” he said.
“No, it certainly is not,” Charlie said.
Out of words, Welty took a step back. He nodded to Charlie, turned and walked away.
It wasn’t until he drove off, the car’s headlights shining up the road, that Charlie dropped to her knees and wept.
At one thirty a.m., I fell into my cot and let the cold wind blow across me, thanking God that grown men didn’t stay up as late as college boys. The minute I closed my eyes, the door to the sleeping porch opened.
“Can I sleep out here with you?” Frances asked. She had a pillow under her arm.
I was so damn tired. “Sure.” She crawled into the cot next to mine. But of course I had to ask, because I always asked, “You alright, Franny?”
“No,” she said. She sounded miserable. “I keep thinking about Rory. Thinking he’ll come home and realize he’s in love with me. Isn’t that stupid?”
“Mm. Maybe, in your case.” Too cruel. “Frances, I realize this sounds a little hypocritical, considering what I’ve done. But I think you have a problem with honesty. With yourself and others.”
It took her a while to respond to that. I prayed she’d fallen asleep. “Alright, you want honest? Here’s honest. I hate telling myself the truth, and deep down I know Rory’s never going to be in love with me.”
“Attagirl,” I said and closed my eyes again.
“Wait, before you go to sleep, I need to ask you something.”
“What?” I said. She sat up in her cot, and I could see her in the bright moonlight now. Oh Lord, her hair. She’d cut it way too short up on her forehead. She looked worse than I did after one of Meemaw’s haircuts.
“How much money have you made so far? Your part, I mean?” she asked.
“A thousand dollars. And by the way, tonight was it. We’re not opening tomorrow. We’ve decided it’s enough. We’re done. But if you’re interested in keeping the place open, you won’t have to change the password. It’s Frances.”
She cringed. “Do you think …” She pulled her knees up inside her nightgown and set her chin on them. “Maybe I could get some of the money you owe me now?”
I knew it wouldn’t last. “No, because you had one job, and you did not do it.” But I asked, “What’s it for? Please say your hair.”
“I need to get my shoes shined before I go to the Orphan tomorrow morning. Both pairs are all scuffed up from all that walking, looking for Rory.”
Good Lord. She was asking me for twenty-five cents? I reached under the cot and pulled out an envelope hidden in the springs.
She watched me count out bills. “I can’t believe you made all that. What are you going to tell Mama and Meemaw when they ask where you got all that money?”
“That Frances made it running a brothel.” I handed her the fifty dollars for the job she didn’t do. “When you get a real job after this, I hope you’re a better employee than you were for me.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Now that I’m flush, does that mean we’re on speaking terms again?”
“Unfortunately.”