A Table By the Window Page 6

  Carley thought of the uniformed men in Corner Diner. She spoke of the older one, of course.

  “He made Newsweek after that,” Loretta went on. “They said he was the youngest chief of police in the country. Only twenty-two years old at the time.”

  But then again, he could have been the one with the sack lunch.

  Or neither. It really did not matter, although Carley was glad to hear of a monster being put away. But she found herself saying, “There were two police officers in the diner.”

  “Well, we only have three on the force, and one’s a woman. Did one of the men have blonde hair and blue eyes?”

  “I think so,” Carley said, irritated at herself for being so vague when she knew full well that he did. She thought, What are you, in the sixth grade? Afraid someone will think you’re interested in a boy?

  “That would have been him.” Loretta pulled the key from the ignition. “And Stanley heard at the courthouse last week that Dale and his debutante girlfriend in Atlanta had a parting of the ways. I guess it was just too hard, long-distance courting. I’m sure the news has already spread like measles among every eligible woman in the county.”

  She gave Carley a little smile. “It’s a shame you’re going back to California. I could introduce you. I just love playing matchmaker.”

  Carley smiled back. “I wouldn’t want all those women mad at me anyway.”

  Chapter 6

  As impulsive as the act of flying to Mississippi on practically the spur of the moment was, Carley was an almost obsessive believer in making lists. Seeing her responsibilities in print gave her a measure of feeling in control of her own life. She supposed even some good habits could be gleaned from the flotsam and jetsam of a turbulent childhood.

  And so before looking for more photographs and possibly other family mementos, she brought pen and notebook from her purse to the table. As the list grew, she wondered if it could all be done in ten days. Eight, actually, minus travel. She needed to unpack, dust furniture, meet with the real estate agent, find a source for boxes and cartons to pack whatever she decided to ship home, arrange for that shipping, figure out what to do with the rest, and visit the bank to transfer her inheritance to Bank of California.

  Shop, she wrote. She could do this tomorrow. This was definitely soup weather, and a big pot of minestrone would last for days. Within her main list, she began a grocery list.

  canned tomatoes

  onions

  dried lima beans

  The doorbell interrupted. A slender woman with shoulder-length dark ash-blonde hair introduced herself as Gayle Payne, and held out a dark plastic-wrapped loaf.

  “It’s zucchini bread. I chaperoned the third grade field trip to the Mennonite bakery today.”

  “How thoughtful.” Carley took the loaf. “Won’t you come in?”

  “Thank you, but I have to cook supper.” She wore a blue denim jacket, white turtleneck, and brown skirt. High cheekbones narrowed her hazel eyes into horizontal crescents, and she had a slight overbite, but nonetheless she was very pretty.

  As gracious as her visitor was, Carley felt relieved when she declined her invitation. She did want to finish her list and look for photographs. “I appreciate your looking after the house.”

  “We were happy to. I’m so sorry about Mrs. Walker. She was a sweet lady.”

  “Thank you. I’m glad she had good neighbors.”

  “Oh, she was the best neighbor. She didn’t fuss about the children’s noise, and even let them climb her fig tree. Dean—my husband—wrapped the trunk with an old blanket when the cold snap hit, by the way. And he cut back the muscadine vines after Christmas.”

  “Muscadine?”

  Gayle smiled. “Purple grapes with thick skins. Most people make jelly from them, but they’re good for snacking too.”

  Carley assumed both fig tree and grapevines were in the backyard, which she had yet to explore. Thank you seemed suddenly inadequate. “I’d like to cook something for your family one evening and bring it over.”

  Gayle protested, but feebly, and ended up saying, “I’m sure everyone would love a change from my cooking.” She smiled again. “I would love a change from my cooking.”

  “Do you like chicken cacciatore?”

  “I’m not sure we’ve ever had it. So that will make it a double treat.”

  They agreed upon Thursday, which would give Carley time to shop and orient herself with the kitchen.

  “Oh, by the way,” Gayle said. “Sherry Kemp still has the key Mr. Malone gave us. Her husband and boys moved some stuff out of the house during Christmas break. She called last night and said you were coming in today and that she would just give it to you.”

  “Sure, that’s fine,” Carley said.

  Though the refrigerator was empty, the cabinets were fairly well stocked with cans and cartons, as well as a set of copper-bottomed thick stainless cookware. She found tea bags in a canister and took down a mug with Natchez Trace Parkway and a tree etched in green. The zucchini bread was moist and laden with raisins and pecan chips. That gave her an idea. She added cream cheese and pecan chips to her grocery list. She would make an Italian cream cake to bring over to Aunt Helen’s tomorrow evening.

  The second ring of the doorbell came from a woman who introduced herself as Byrle Templeton, from next door opposite the Paynes’ side. Bundled in a brown cloth coat, she was stoop-shouldered, with a face as wrinkled as old parchment. Her gray hair was drawn back into a bun and covered with a paisley scarf. She thrust out a plastic grocery bag containing two pint jars.

  “Mayhaw jelly,” she drawled when Carley took out one with ruby-colored contents. “And the other’s figs. I’m eighty-two years old and still do my own cannin’.”

  Carley could do no less than invite her inside. But she declined.

  “My boy, Chester Junior, and his wife, Joy Nell, is carryin’ me over to my sister’s in Lumberton in a little while. Your grandmother used to give me rides to the senior citizen center every Friday. That’s when we do quilting. I can’t hold a needle anymore, but I can sort pieces. We sell them at the Fourth of July fair.”

  “Really? Did my grandmother make the quilts on the beds here?”

  “She did.” The aged eyes watered. “Don’t seem right—her just not getting up one morning like that. I kept pushing the doorbell….”

  “I’m glad she had you for a friend,” Carley cut in, fearing her visitor would break down into tears.

  Mrs. Templeton seemed to draw something from her own reserve. She blinked, nodded, and asked where Carley lived.

  “San Francisco.”

  “My, my. You ever been through one of them earthquakes?”

  Carley smiled. “Not any that were strong enough to notice. But I’ve only lived there six months.”

  “Well, I don’t think I’ll be visiting you there. At my age, it’s hard enough to stay upright when the ground is still.” She declined Carley’s offer to escort her home but did consent to having her elbow held down the steps. On the ground, she offered the use of her telephone any time Carley wished.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Kordalewski.”

  “Who?”

  “Mrs. Templeton,” Carley corrected.

  Having had two neighbors call seemed to put a stamp of authenticity on Carley’s right to stay. She brought in her bags to the front bedroom. The double bed would not be as luxurious as the Comfort Inn’s king-size mattress, but it was more roomy than the single beds and sofas she had slept on from her earliest memories.

  She hung some clothing in the empty closet, folded the rest in a drawer, and carried her toiletry case to the bathroom. Lighting the white porcelain wall heater, she wondered if people got used to the inconvenience. But then, not heating the entire house for one person appealed to her innate sense of frugality.

  She set her toiletries about on the counter, and smiled at a half empty bottle of White Linen. Which sister had influenced the other one? In the chilly back bedroom, she tried not to imagi
ne her grandmother’s lifeless form on the bed. She pulled out a dresser drawer and caught faint aromas of sachet and Downy. Flannel and knit nightgowns were folded with precise corners. Carley ran a hand along their softness.

  Three months, she thought with a lump in her chest. Ships passing in the night. What if Mr. Wingate had found her before her grandmother died, before she knew anything about the will? Would she have been persuaded to come? She hoped she would have had the decency to do so, especially after learning her grandfather had died earlier.

  From the chifforobe she took out a yellowed pasteboard box with Women’s Slippers, Size 8 printed on the end. It had the weight and rustle of papers inside. A peek under the lid was rewarded with the sight of photographs, almost to the top.

  She carried her treasure to the kitchen table. Fortunately, names and dates were penned on the backs. Most were of Linda. Even her mother’s baby pictures were recognizable from the shining cap of blonde hair. A black-and-white strip from a photograph booth showed a much-younger version of the man in the dresser portrait, pressing cheeks with a pretty young woman with fair hair and a wide smile. Sterling and Cordelia, 1950 was written in faded blue ink. There were a few black-and-white snapshots of Helen and Cordelia as girls.

  Many photographs were of a child with wisps of fiery red hair. Carley came across one of the tot sharing a bench with an older woman who smiled self-consciously for the camera. Carley and Cordelia, Garfield Park, June 1981 read the back. And there on the seat between them, a small red carton.

  Animal crackers, Carley realized. She set that one aside, and when finished looking at the rest, placed it on top of the collection before closing the lid. She would frame it back in California.

  Evening had crept up on her, she realized, looking out at the shadowy form of the Payne house from the kitchen window. She still had to dust the furniture. But she had a problem. She had not thought to pack casual clothes for cleaning and packing, so she changed into her plaid flannel pants, the long-sleeve T-shirt she used as a pajama top, and slippers. She found a can of furniture polish beneath the sink. The doorbell rang as she was attempting to get it to spray.

  “I’m Ruby Moore, from just across the street” drawled a fortyish woman holding a quart-sized covered casserole by the handles with hot pads. She wore a thick beige fleece jacket over a pink knit sweat suit and tennis shoes. Graying brown hair, cut short in a wedge shape, emphasized her flushed cheeks.

  “Please, come in,” Carley said with a backward step.

  She did, and moved aside so that Carley could close the door. “And I’m so sorry about Miz Cordelia. She was a good neighbor.”

  “Thank you.” Carley introduced herself, though her visitor obviously knew who she was. “May I make you some coffee or tea?”

  “I just had a Dr. Pepper. And you look busy.”

  “I’m trying to be busy. The nozzle’s clogged.”

  “That’s because it hasn’t been used for a while. It happens a lot at my house for the same reason, if you get my meaning. Do you have some rubbin’ alcohol and a needle?”

  “I saw a safety pin in a dish in the bathroom,” Carley said. “I’m not sure about alcohol.”

  “All us old people have rubbin’ alcohol,” Ruby said, with a wink. “I can’t stay long. My parents are coming for supper in about an hour. I’d invite you to join us, but they’re bringing about three hours’ worth of videos of their Florida vacation, and trust me, you’d rather pass. But I have you some chicken-tortilla casserole here.”

  “Why, thank you.” Carley followed her into the kitchen. “I was going to open a can of tuna.”

  “You’re welcome.” Ruby set the casserole on the stove. “I hope it’s good. I got the recipe off the Internet. Now, go get that pin and alcohol, sweetie.”

  She was sitting at the table with an empty teacup when Carley returned after finding both items in the bathroom. While the nozzle soaked in a little alcohol, Ruby asked what Carley did in California.

  “I’m an English literature teacher,” Carley replied.

  “Well, we’re both in education, aren’t we? I work in human resources for the Lamar County School Board.”

  Partly to deflect questions about teaching, but mostly because she was interested, Carley asked how long Ruby had lived in Tallulah.

  “All my life. My daddy has a farm about five miles southwest of town.”

  “What does the town’s name mean?”

  Ruby proved herself the right person to ask. “It’s Choctaw for ‘Leaping Waters’ because of the springs about a half mile beyond the middle and high schools. Daddy has a cigar box filled with arrowheads his daddy found while plowing his fields, so you know they lived all over here. But the federal government forced out most of the Choctaw to Oklahoma in the early 1800s, and those who stayed didn’t do well. Fortunately, I don’t think that’s the case any more. The tribe owns several businesses around Philadelphia, Mississippi. An industrial park, golf course, and the like.”

  Ruby fished out the nozzle with two fingers and began working on it with a pin. The town, she explained, started out as a general store at the crossroads of what later became Highway 42 and Main Street, owned by a former Union officer, who decided he had had enough of Minnesota winters. “Addison Lockwood was his name. He married a local farmer’s daughter, a Margaret Moore.”

  “One of your ancestors?” Carley asked.

  “My ex-husband Don’s. A great-great-great-great aunt or something like that. Our telephone directory—such as it is—has more Lockwoods and Moores than any other name. Even Smith, my maiden name.”

  She said a town gradually grew around the store, helped along by lumber mills cropping up in the region, and especially when Lovely Lady Lingerie opened up a garment factory in the early 1950s. But Tallulah hit a recession in the late sixties when the factory closed. In the mid-seventies, the remaining residents began meeting in the fellowship hall of First Methodist to figure out a way to revive the economy and stop the exodus of families.

  Bart Lockwood, owner of Lockwood Funeral Home, had a vested interest in the matter. He pointed out how a fair number of people still came to shop for antiques at Red Barn Emporium, owned and run by retired Tallulah High School principal, Harold Moore, and his wife, Nadine. Hattiesburg was booming, with its university, hospitals, and industries, as was the gulf coast. There was no lacking for customers in Mississippi. What if more such shops were to open?

  Rather than feel threatened, Harold and Nadine understood that more shops would draw more customers, thereby increasing their own business. They gave classes on what to look for during buying trips up north and to Dallas and Atlanta. Landlords realized it was in their best interest to entice budding entrepreneurs into empty buildings by offering extremely favorable terms. Most shops were founded by women whose husbands were already employed, or retirees of both sexes who already had sources of income.

  The experiment went dismally slow for three years but then took off after Bill Moyers aired a segment about the Mennonite community and bakery in nearby Columbia, Mississippi, and devoted three minutes to Tallulah and its antique shops.

  “There’s a plaque in the lobby of Town Hall dedicated to Bart Lockwood,” Ruby said, replacing the nozzle onto the can. “But the poor fellow passed away of a stroke before he got to see the results of all his hard work.”

  She aimed the nozzle at the inside of the cup, gave it a quick spurt, and smiled. “And there you have it.”

  “I’ll remember that trick,” Carley said, taking the can from her.

  “It also works to switch out a nozzle from a can of hair spray or air freshener,” Ruby said, and winked. “But then you don’t have an excuse to visit.”

  By ten o’clock, Carley had finished dusting the furniture and dry mopping the hardwood floors. At ten-thirty she lay curled on her side on the soft mattress of the front bedroom. Loretta had warned against leaving any space heater burning overnight, and so the dark air was growing chill. An owl, perhaps two, hoo
ted from somewhere not far from the east window. But Carley drifted into sleep easily, her stomach filled with offerings from thoughtful neighbors, her body warm beneath a sheet, two blankets, and two quilts stitched by her grandmother’s own hands.

  ****

  Wednesday morning after breakfasting on zucchini bread and tea, Carley showered, applied makeup, and dressed in her V-neck coral sweater and favorite slacks of soft black twill. The clock read 8:30, a half hour before Kay Chapman was to arrive, so Carley pulled on her coat and went through the room off the kitchen, and out the back door.

  Slate-colored clouds canopied the sky. The air was colder than yesterday’s and smelled of rain. Steps led from a small porch to a patio of old brick, upon which sat two iron and wood-slat benches and a medium-sized round wooden table. Frozen dew glistened on the lawn, where an empty bird feeder hung from a pole, and a concrete birdbath had collected twigs and leaves in a ring of brownish water and ice. Four weathered landscape posts rose up to hold a square of lattice strips. Dry brown vines clung to the posts and were woven through the lattice. The muscadines, Carley assumed.

  Grass crackled as she went around to the side yard between her grandmother’s house and the Paynes’. In a patch of sunlight stood a tree about ten feet high with leafless, spreading branches. The grayish trunk was indeed wrapped with a blanket and some rope. The tree did not look much like anything worth protecting, but she supposed if it gave pleasure to the neighbors’ children, it was worth the precaution.

  She rather regretted that this was not all happening in warm weather. Not because of the space heaters, for she was becoming used to them. But for just a little while, it would have been nice to enjoy the sensation of relaxing out in her own backyard with a book and cup of tea.