Twins
The last thing Ava wanted to do was attend a party with a group of strangers, especially one that included the “right people,” but she knew Alice Barron’s barbecue was not something she could avoid. She was very nervous, knowing she would be on display: Will Fraser’s Yankee friend come south for the summer.
“I hope I don’t get drunk and make a spectacle of myself,” Ava said.
“Whatever you do, don’t drink too much,” Will cautioned. “And don’t drink any of those local cocktail creations. Stick to beer or wine.” For some reason he seemed as nervous as she was.
He picked her up around ten o’clock on Saturday morning to take her out to Longford and then brought her back to Woodburn Hall to get ready around three o’clock. She was hot and tired, and she had a rash on her arms from the hay. They had spent the morning riding around the farm on the four-wheeler and then had a picnic lunch down by the river. Afterward they had gone swimming. It was when they were putting away the four-wheeler that the trouble began.
Sleepy from the sun and the swimming, Ava sat down in a pile of hay to wait for Will while he covered the quad with its tarp. She curled on her side and closed her eyes in the heat. She opened them later at the sound of rustling hay as he lay down beside her. He had mistaken her drowsy posture as an invitation.
She sat up. “Will. Stop.”
He lay back with his arms behind his head, gazing rigidly at the ceiling.
“You’re very sweet.”
“Don’t,” he said.
“It’s not you,” she said. “It’s me.”
When she came through the back door at Woodburn Hall, irritable and tired, Josephine looked at her as if she knew very well what Ava had been up to out at Longford. She and Fanny were sitting at the breakfast room table while Maitland leaned across the kitchen counter in front of the television set, writing down Food Channel recipes on a yellow legal pad.
“There she is!” Fanny said brightly as Ava came in.
“Hey there, Sugar,” Maitland said, glancing up briefly from his legal pad and giving her a broad wink.
“We were all getting ready to go upstairs and dress for the barbecue,” Josephine said, looking her over.
Ava pushed her damp hair off her face. “What should I wear?” she asked. “What’s the dress code?”
“Oh, I don’t know, anything that’s comfortable, I guess,” Fanny said breezily. But then she went on endlessly about how pretty sundresses were on young women and Ava, taking the hint, tried to remember if she’d brought one. She had learned, in the short time she’d been here, that no one ever came right out and spoke directly. There were always hints and vague suggestions, double entendres and Freudian slips that were meant to be taken literally so that when you carried on a conversation, you had to listen not only to what was said but also to the tone and, through slight facial expressions, to what was implied.
Ava had a scratchy feeling in her throat. She put one finger to her nose, warding off a sudden sneeze.
“God bless you!” Fanny cried.
Josephine stared at Ava’s waist and, looking down, Ava saw several pieces of hay caught beneath the waistband of her shorts.
Behind them Maitland said, “We can’t be out late tonight. Bobby Flay’s making Cedar Plank Salmon.”
Ava sneezed again.
“Goodness!” Fanny said.
“Hay fever,” Josephine said mildly.
The heat of midday had begun to wane, and the sky was a violet color as they walked across the lawn to the party. Behind Alice’s large house a brick barbecue grill belched smoke, and along one end of the patio, beside the pool, a long buffet table stood covered by a white cloth. The lawn was dotted with round tables and canvas chairs like a wedding party, Ava thought curiously. There was a large crowd already gathered on the lawn, and as they approached several people stepped forward to greet Will and be introduced to Ava. They were very friendly and kind, but there were so many of them, and Ava knew she’d never remember all of their names. Maitland and Will went off to find drinks, and Ava let herself be shepherded from group to group by Josephine and Fanny. In spite of the crowd’s friendliness Ava was nervous; she felt herself the object of much sly and murmuring attention, and she was thankful when Will returned and thrust a glass of red wine into her hand.
He whispered in her ear, “All right?” and she said, “Yes.”
He introduced her to a group of his prep school buddies and their wives. A young woman in a faux tuxedo came around to get their drink orders.
“I’ll have another Donnie Miller,” a man in plaid shorts said.
“Me, too.”
“Make that three.”
“What’s a Donnie Miller?” Ava said.
Everyone laughed politely.
“It’s a homegrown cocktail,” the man in plaid replied. “Whipped up by one of Woodburn’s finest.” He put his arm around a sandy-haired man in wire-rim glasses.
“Hey,” the man said, stepping forward and putting his hand out to Ava. “I’m Donnie.”
“Donnie Miller?”
“That’s right.”
“Wow,” Ava said. “I’ve never met anyone with a cocktail named after them.”
“Well, in the South, if you’re lucky, you get either a cocktail or barbecue sauce named after you.”
“Here,” one of the women said, handing her glass to Ava. “Try it.”
It was very sweet and very fruity. “It’s good,” Ava said. “What’s in it?”
“Rum,” Donnie said. “Two kinds. And lemonade. Orange juice. Peach nectar.”
“I’ll have one of these,” Ava said, holding the drink up and smiling at the waitress, already forgetting Will’s warning not to drink the local cocktails.
The sun had begun to set, and long shadows lay across the lawn. A scent of citronella drifted on the warm air. Ava found herself entranced by the scene, the smoky globes of candlelight on the tables, the softly glowing Japanese lanterns dangling from the branches of the trees like golden fruit, the gradual fall of dusk across the landscape. It was her favorite time of day, she’d discovered, that point where day met night and everything grew still. Will had told her that as a boy he’d run barefoot through the summer dusk with the neighborhood children, scooping fireflies into mason jars and playing flashlight tag when it grew too dark to see. It had sounded so idyllic, so perfect a childhood that Ava had felt a stir of envy.
She drifted over to a group of young matrons wearing sundresses and stacked-heel sandals that showed off their lean, tanned legs, and Ava realized now why Josephine had indicated, by her tacit refusal to look at Ava’s feet, disapproval of her flat, boyish sandals. The women were friendly and close to her in age, but most had been no farther than the University of Alabama, and they talked of sorority events and babies and au pair girls until Ava, growing bored, excused herself and walked off.
In the trees, the cicadas made a pleasant chorus. Ava settled herself under a crape myrtle, where she could sip her drink and watch the crowd unnoticed.
Woodburn was broken up into social classes that resembled Victorian England. At the very top were the old families, those who had been intermarrying for generations, the first settlers who came originally from Virginia or Maryland, and before that, England or Scotland. They sent their sons to boarding school and private colleges, and presented their daughters annually at debutante balls in Nashville, Atlanta, and Birmingham.
This class was presided over by a group of sharp-eyed dowagers who Will cheerfully referred to as “the dreadnoughts,” women who could recite pedigrees and family lineages down to the smallest and most trivial detail. They could look at a child and know if he was a Robinson or a Sinclair; they kept an almost-encyclopedic memory of family traits, ailments, and characteristics—the “Whaley nose,” the “Eldridge forehead,” the “Clairmont tendency toward suicide.” Josephine, Fanny, and Alice were clearly of this class.
“So you mean they could pick you out of a lineup because of your nose?” Ava had asked Will. “Even if they didn’t know you?”
“Yes.”
“That’s fascinating.”
“I used to long to live in a big city where no one knew who I was, where I could blend in like everybody else. Be one of the masses.”
“Trust me, you wouldn’t like being one of the masses.”
Ava hadn’t liked it either. In high school she had developed a careless, impertinent facade, a biting, caustic wit that made her popular with her peers but less so with their parents, who always asked the same tired questions.
“What was your last name again?”
“Dabrowski.”
“Where are you from?”
“All over.”
“What does your father do?”
“He’s dead.”
“And your mother?”
“She’s not.”
Their questions seemed sly, cunning assaults on her carefully constructed adolescent self. She felt their disapproval but couldn’t dispute it. She didn’t much like who she was either.
How much better to be a sweet, generous girl like Margaret Stanley, with her big house and carefree, loaded parents; her mother with her furs and martinis, her father with his grass-stained golfing pants. A world of safety and ease.
The Woodburn sisters would have known that same world. It was easy to picture them as girls, pretty and spoiled, going off to dances at the country club, letting well-bred young men rest their damp hands on their narrow, corseted waists.
She could see Fanny and Josephine now, standing in a group of other dreadnoughts across the lawn. Ava sighed and sipped her Donnie Miller. It was difficult to imagine herself growing up in such a world, freed from the constraints and worries of ordinary life.
Across the lawn, Will caught her eye and raised his glass. She smiled and raised hers in return, a glimmer of hopeful optimism stirring suddenly in her chest. He looked so handsome and sincere standing there in the lamplight. Perhaps she had been wrong about him. Already she could feel herself beginning to soften.
“Ava!” She turned to find Fraser Barron advancing quickly across the grass. He was wearing a maroon vest over a white shirt, rolled at the elbows, and a pair of dark pants and leather boots. Ava was struck again by the odd way he moved, like a wind-up toy or a slightly misfiring mechanical device.
“I love your dress,” he said. He took her drink from her, set it down, and took her hands in his, motioning for her to spin around.
“Thanks,” she said. “I think I blew it on the shoes, though. I’m the only woman in flats.”
He crossed his arms in front of him, then rested his chin in the palm of one hand, regarding her thoughtfully. “Yes,” he said. “The shoes don’t do the dress justice.”
“And you look very—literary.”
“Do I?” he said, pleased, adjusting the rolled sleeves.
“But aren’t you hot in all those clothes?”
“No, that’s the amazing thing, you get used to it. When I first started dressing like this I used to sweat like a whore in church.” He giggled. “But over time I got used to it and now I hardly perspire at all.” He was wearing mascara and a slight smudge of eye shadow. “What’s that you’re drinking?”
“A Donnie Miller.”
“Oh, God, don’t drink that swill.” He took her glass and dashed the contents on the ground. “You need a real drink at your debut, honey, and not one of those fruity-fruity, sweety-sweet things.” He beckoned for a waitress and told her to bring two vodka martinis.
“My debut?” Ava said.
“Didn’t you know you were coming out?” Fraser made dramatic sweeping gestures at the crowd. “You’re Will Fraser’s friend and you’re being introduced to society. You’re having what we like to call a debut.”
“Does that make me a debutante?”
“Of course.”
“I always wondered what that felt like.”
“Well?” He raised one eyebrow rakishly. “What does it feel like?”
“I’ll let you know as soon as I finish the vodka martini.”
“See,” he said. “You’re a natural.”
Later, he tucked one arm under hers and propelled her across the lawn to an empty table. “I hear you’re a fiction writer,” he said in a low voice.
Ava smiled wryly and sipped her drink. “I’m trying.”
“Well, you’re in the right place. My God, the stories I could tell you—madness, murder, unrequited love, ghostly apparitions.”
“Ghostly apparitions?” Ava said.
He waved at someone he knew, then leaned close to her, ducking his chin like a conspirator. “They’re all haunted,” he said, “each and every house along this street. You know how it is when people have lived and died in a place for more than two centuries. Now, some of the ghosts are more pleasant than others, of course. We have, excuse me, we had, one of the nastier ones. The Captain.” He shivered dramatically and took a long pull from his drink. “He rode with Forrest during the War of Northern Aggression.”
“The War of Northern Aggression?”
“The Civil War.”
“Oh. Right.”
“He was a truly despicable character, despite the fact that he was one of my revered ancestors, rumored to have beaten the help and, of course, he was there during the Fort Pillow massacre. Anyway, I used to see him when I was a child. I’d be playing in my room and I’d feel a brush of cold air and all the hair would rise along my arms and I would know he was there. He didn’t scare me at first—children don’t question such things—but I could tell he wasn’t a pleasant thing, and after a while I didn’t want him around. Mother didn’t mind, of course; she said he was family and we mustn’t be ashamed of him, but we mustn’t talk of him in public either. No airing of the family linen and all that rot. As I got older I saw him less and less.
“And then Mother remodeled the kitchen and one of the upstairs bedrooms, the room where the Captain used to sleep—she made it into a bathroom—and when they opened the walls, they found old whiskey bottles and French postcards hidden there, the old perv. Then things really got crazy. Pictures flying off walls, the workmen’s tools being moved, faucets turning off and on by themselves. Let me tell you this: if someone was spiteful in life, you can be sure they’ll be spiteful in death!
“After a while the contractors all quit and Mother was so afraid that it would get out, that people would be talking about the family, as if every family on this street doesn’t have their own ghosts to deal with.” He sipped his drink and rolled his eyes as if expecting her to acknowledge the truth of this statement. “Anyway, after college I had this friend who lived in Atlanta. He was an architect and he’d had a lot of experience remodeling old houses and chasing off the family ghosts, so he arranged for a psychic he knew to come to the house when Mother was away and do a cleansing. And after that everything stopped. It stopped just like that.” He snapped his fingers to emphasize his point. “And do you know what Mother did? A few weeks after things got quiet she said, ‘I miss the Captain,’ all sad and depressed, as if she wasn’t grateful at all that I’d gotten rid of him. But I can tell you when her damn Wedgwood plates were flying off the shelves she didn’t miss the Captain!”
Ava was quiet for a moment, sipping her drink, and then she said, “Is Woodburn Hall haunted?”
“Oh, yes. By the Gray Lady. Supposedly, she’s the ghost of Delphine Woodburn. She walks up and down the stairs in a long black dress. She was always mourning the death of one of her children. They used to die off like flies in those days. They say you can hear her crying at night.”
“Have you ever seen her?”
“No, but Will has. He used to see her when he was a boy. Hasn’t he told you?”
She looked across the yard to where Will stood talking to a woman in a low-cut flowered dress. She remembered that day at Longford when he’d ridiculed the idea of ghosts. “No,” she said. “He hasn’t mentioned it.”
“I’m surprised. He used to be terrified as a boy to go anywhere near the stairwell.”
The woman in the low-cut dress appeared to be an old friend of Will’s. She stood talking to him for a long time, laughing loudly and touching him from time to time on the shoulder. Drawn by her loud laughter, Fraser looked across the lawn and said, “Sweet Jesus, who invited Darlene Haney?”
“I did,” his mother said, coming up behind them. She had strolled over with Josephine, Fanny, and Clara to check on Ava. They all held rocks glasses in their well-manicured hands. “And I want you to be nice. She’s a guest.”
“What were you thinking?” Fraser said. “I don’t remember seeing her name on the list.”
“Well, I was over at the Debs and Brides Shoppe where she works and she mentioned the party. She said she so wanted to meet Ava, and really,” she looked at Fraser helplessly, “what was I to do?”
“You mean she invited herself.”
“Now, Fraser,” his mother said, wagging her finger in his face. “You be a gentleman.” Her cheeks were pink from the heat and the gin, and she seemed slightly tipsy. She slid her arm around Ava’s shoulders and said, “Having fun?”
“Yes. Thank you. Great fun.”
“Oh, look, Fraser, her glass is empty. Be sweet and run up and get Ava another martini.”
“I’m fine,” Ava said, remembering Will’s warning not to drink too much. She was trying, belatedly, to pace herself.
“Are you sure? Well, maybe some iced tea then.”
“Dear God, Mother, don’t fuss,” Fraser said.
Across the lawn, Will had excused himself from Darlene Haney and walked away, stopping to speak to a young couple Ava hadn’t met. Darlene stood for a moment, sipping her drink and looking around the yard, then, noticing the group of young matrons, she set off unsteadily to join them. She was wearing high heels that sank into the soft earth with each step so that she walked with an odd lurching motion.
“I taught Darlene in school,” Clara said, watching her navigate the lawn. “She was such an interesting character. Darlene Smollett, she was back then. Before she married Eddie Haney.”
“Oh, now, that was a match made in heaven,” Alice said, and Fraser snorted.
He leaned over and said in a stage whisper to Ava, “Eddie was bad to drink.” And when she looked at him blankly he made a motion like someone tugging on a bottle. “He was the quarterback up at UT where Darlene was a cheerleader and he was rumored to be a top NFL draft pick. No doubt Darlene thought she’d won the lottery when she landed him.”
“That’s right,” Alice said. “Chased him until he caught her.”
Fraser snorted again and looked at his mother appreciatively. They were like a couple of schoolgirls. Ava imagined them sitting around at night with their cocktails gossiping about the townspeople, each trying to outdo the other in outrageousness.
“They came back here and had one of the biggest, tackiest weddings Woodburn has ever seen,” Fraser said. “And then Eddie blew his knee out his senior year and had to come back and go to work in his daddy’s body shop and that was the end of Darlene’s dreams of grandeur. I guess being an auto mechanic’s wife was not nearly as glamorous as being an NFL quarterback’s wife. The marriage didn’t last. Eddie ran off with a cocktail waitress—imagine that—leaving Darlene with three boys under the age of six.”
“Poor thing,” Ava said. “That’s terrible.”
“You don’t know her,” Fraser said darkly.
“Yes,” Fanny said, shaking her head sadly. “I hear those boys are quite a handful.”
“You don’t know her yet but you will,” Alice said in a sweet, cautioning voice. “Because here she comes.” Darlene had seen them and was waving wildly. She launched herself and began to cross the lawn in their direction, her large bosom jutting before her like the prow of a ship.
“Quick,” Fraser said bleakly. “Run. Hide.”
“You be nice,” his mother warned in a low voice, and as Darlene got closer she smiled and called, “Come and meet Will’s friend.”
They watched her come and Ava, afraid she might stumble and fall against the table, stood up to greet her.
“Oh, my God, you must be Ava,” Darlene squealed, opening her arms wide. She held Ava out in front of her, looking her over. She was smaller but with her high heels they were almost the same height. Darlene was blonde and very pretty in the way that beauty pageant contestants and TV commentators are pretty, with their perfect makeup and hair and trim figures. “How are you?” she said, pumping Ava’s hand. A cloud of perfume billowed around her like smoke.
Ava, feeling suddenly tongue-tied by this effusive welcome, stammered, “I’m well, thank you. And you?”
“Oh, aren’t you precious?” Darlene pulled her into another flowery embrace. “I just know we’re going to be good, good friends,” she said.
“Which translated means, ‘I just know we’re going to be enemies for life,’ ” Fraser said darkly.
“Now Sparky, don’t be ugly,” Darlene said, pulling away from Ava and letting her feline eyes sweep over Fraser.
He flushed a dull red. “Don’t call me that.”
Darlene ignored him. “I am just so happy to meet Will Fraser’s Chicago friend,” she said, smiling to show her perfect teeth. “I hear you’re real smart. And so pretty, too!”
Ava noted that her accent was more nasal than the slow, deep-throated accent the aunts and Clara and Alice used. The older women’s voices were like water bubbling in a brook, while Darlene’s was a discordant twang.
“Who would have thought that you and Will went to college together?” Darlene said blithely, her eyes scanning Ava. “Who would have thunk it, as we say down here.”
Fanny giggled. “That’s right,” she said. “We have our own language.”
Darlene gave Ava’s arm a little shake. “If someone down here says ‘bless her little heart,’ about someone—well, that means they’re mortal enemies.”
“Kind of like saying ‘we’re going to be good, good friends,’ ” Fraser said.
“And we don’t push a button,” Darlene said. “We mash it. We don’t take someone to the store, we carry them.” She giggled again and put one hand to the side of her mouth. “And if someone down here says your baby is sweet, well, then, you know it’s ugly.”
Ava shook her head. “Someone needs to write all this down for me. I’ll never remember it.”
“Isn’t she darling!” Darlene cried and Fraser said, “Another adversarial statement.”
“You know, you’re really starting to bug me,” Darlene said.
“Fraser, why don’t you refresh everyone’s drink?” Alice said pointedly.
“What, and leave Ava alone with the succubus?”
Josephine said, “Oh, Fraser, really.”
Darlene said, “What’s a succubus?”
“Now that you mention it,” Ava said, giving her glass to Fraser. “I think I will have another drink.”
Later, Ava asked Will, “Why do they call Fraser ‘Sparky?’ ”
“It’s just a nickname some of the town kids gave him. They liked to tease him because of his—uniqueness.”
“You mean his gayness?”
“Who called him Sparky?”
“Darlene Haney.”
“That figures. They always fight like cats.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Jealousy, I guess.”
Darlene Haney had invited Ava to lunch, so on Tuesday she walked the few blocks from the house to downtown Woodburn. It was a hot, sultry day. Cicadas hummed in the trees, and bits of yellow pollen floated on the air like duck down. The sidewalk was old and buckled where the tree roots had pushed through, upending the bricks. All along the street the few people she saw waved to her from their yards and shady porches. “Good morning,” they called, and she said, “Good morning.” Her manner was brisk. She was embarrassed by their attention, wishing she had paid more attention to the names of those she had met at the barbecue.
The Debs and Brides Shoppe faced the town square with its large fountain and ubiquitous statue of the Unknown Confederate Soldier. Large oak trees surrounded the square, with benches scattered beneath their shady branches. Everywhere there were masses of blooming shrubbery, and from the old-fashioned light posts lining the street hung baskets of ivy geraniums, petunias, and verbena. Most of the shops lining the square sported striped awnings and hand-painted signs, and the whole effect was quaint and charming and looked like something from a turn-of-the-century movie set.
The shop was crowded with debs arraying themselves for the Gardenia Ball. Darlene, looking flustered and overworked, raised her hand when Ava came in and shouted, “I’ll be right with you.”
They walked next door to the Kudzu Grille to order lunch. “Whewee,” Darlene said, lifting her hair off her neck with one hand and fanning herself with the other. “It’s hot enough to boil spit on a sidewalk.”
They sat at a small table near a window overlooking the square. “What’s good?” Ava said, looking down at the menu. “I’m really not sure what to order. I’m still getting used to Southern food. I’ll have to order the fried green tomatoes, of course, because I’ve never had them and hey, when in Rome.”
“There’s really only one thing to order and that’s the blue plate special,” Darlene said, closing her menu and reaching for Ava’s. “Collard greens, corn bread, black-eyed peas, and squash casserole for two,” she said to the waitress. “Oh, and a small plate of fried green tomatoes. And two sweet teas.” They watched her walk away.
“Well,” Ava said, looking around. The restaurant was beginning to fill up, and Ava was glad they’d found a table. She’d agreed to meet Darlene for lunch because it had occurred to her that Darlene might be willing to share information about the Woodburns. Specifically, Charlie Woodburn.
Darlene gave her a tight, fierce grin and slapped Ava’s arm. “I am so glad you came!”
Ava as always, disarmed by Darlene’s direct, friendly approach, said, “I’m glad I came, too.”
Darlene patted Ava’s hand. “I just know we’re going to be good, good friends. I knew it from the moment I first set eyes on you. I knew it right here,” Darlene said, thumping her chest like she was trying to dislodge something trapped in her trachea.
Ava smiled nervously. She looked around the restaurant. “Do you eat here every day?”
“Sure,” Darlene said. She crossed her arms on the table and leaned forward, examining Ava closely. “I wish my eyelashes were as long and thick as yours! Why, if I went without mascara like you do, my eyes would just disappear in my face.”
“Is it open for dinner, too?” Ava asked, smiling at the waitress who brought their iced teas.
“I could never get away with wearing my hair short. It looks good on you but if I went around not fixing my hair or my face nobody would give me the time of day!”
Ava coughed politely. The tea was good, very cold and very sweet, served in a frosty mason jar. Ava tried to think of something pleasant to say. “So do you like your job?”
“Oh, hell no,” Darlene said. “But it pays the bills and puts food on the table, two things my ex seems incapable of doing, bless his little heart.” And she launched into a long tirade about her deadbeat ex-husband and Ava listened, thankful to have Darlene’s attention off her for a while. A short time later the waitress brought their food. Darlene was still going on and on about Eddie Haney. “Listen to me,” she said finally, giving another bright fierce smile. “Going on and on about my loser ex-husband when you’re attached to just about the most perfect man in the whole wide world!”
Ava looked at her blankly. “Who?”
“Why, Will Fraser, silly.”
“Oh, right. Will’s a nice guy.”
Darlene leaned forward and lowered her voice. “So is it true you two are actually—dating?”
“Who told you that?”
Darlene chewed slowly, her eyes fixed steadily on Ava’s face. “It’s common knowledge,” she said.
“It’s true that Will and I are good friends. We went to school together.” Ava’s voice trailed off. She glanced around the restaurant, took a long drink of iced tea. “We’re just good friends.”
“Oh, really?” Darlene said, and it was clear that she wasn’t convinced.
Ava turned her attention to her plate. “The food is good,” she said and it was true, everything except the fried green tomatoes, which looked pretty and smelled good but tasted kind of bland.
“This is country-style cooking,” Darlene said, pointing at her plate with her fork. “You probably don’t get a lot of this at the Woodburn table.”
“Oh, no, they eat a lot of vegetables. And Maitland makes corn bread from time to time, although he puts jalapeño peppers in his.”
“Really?” Darlene said. “Jalapeño peppers? Huh.”
“Listen, there’s something I wanted to ask you,” Ava said.
Darlene put her fork down and leaned forward. “Go ahead. Shoot. Ask me anything.”
“Charlie Woodburn.” Ava stopped. Saying his name sent an odd tremor down her spine. A week ago she had never even heard of him and now she couldn’t stop thinking about who he was and how he had died.
Darlene stared at her curiously, a slight smile pulling down the corners of her mouth. “What about him?”
“What do you know about him? I know he was married to Fanny before Maitland. A long time before Maitland. I know he and Fanny eloped and then he died.”
Darlene pushed her plate away and crossed her arms on the table. “Well, of course that was long before my time,” she said, letting her eyes slide over the diners at the tables closest to them before shifting back to Ava. “But you know how these little towns are. Everybody’s known everybody else’s secrets for generations. And everyone loves to gossip about the high and mighty Woodburns.”
There was something secretive about Darlene, something damp and cloying that spilled out of her like an overfilled glass. Ava could sense it now. She remembered Fraser’s tale of Darlene’s glory days up at UT, how she’d dreamed of marrying a rich man and instead found herself saddled with three children, working long hours in a dress shop frequented by snotty adolescent girls. Ava supposed this was why Darlene seemed so eager to gossip about the Woodburns; it took the focus off her own dreary life.
“High and mighty?” she said.
“Oh, sure,” Darlene said, rolling her eyes mockingly. “The Woodburns have been gentry for generations, ever since old Randal Woodburn crossed the Cumberland Bluff back in 1799. On his way to Nashville, they say, to study law with his old friend Andrew Jackson. The Woodburns were an old Virginia family, gentry even back that far, before the Revolutionary War, and Randal was the younger son who had to seek his fortune on the frontier. They say he stopped at Piney Creek and saw the rich bottomland churned up each year by the floods and figured if he could find a way to divert the creek he’d have the makings of a fine plantation. Of course, there was nothing there in the way of civilization at the time, just the occasional fur trader making his way up from Natchez, and a Chickasaw town decimated by smallpox.
“Anyway, he drove off the few Chickasaws who still had the gumption to fight, enslaved the rest, and set about clearing the land and diverting the creek. His father sent a gaggle of black slaves to help, and when they were done he had a well-built stockade to keep the slaves and animals in, a cabin to sleep in, and two thousand acres of rich bottomland to grow cotton. He called the plantation Longford after their homeplace in Ireland or Scotland or wherever it is the Woodburns came from.”
“But how does Charlie Woodburn fit into all this?”
“Hang on, I’m getting to that. It seems Old Randal got lonely back there in the wilderness and took up with a Chickasaw woman who bore him a number of little brown-skinned, black-eyed children. That’s where the Black Woodburns come from.”
“The Black Woodburns?”
“That’s right. They all descend from Randal and this Indian woman, and they’re called that because of their dark eyes and black hair. To distinguish them from the True Woodburns, whose eyes are always blue-gray, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“And Charlie was a Black Woodburn?”
“Black as the devil. Now don’t look at me like that, I know it sounds crazy, but you can always tell a Woodburn just by looking at them. They all look like they were stamped out of a cookie cutter, kind of like the royal family of England, only half of them are dark-eyed and dark-haired and the other half are light-eyed and fair. And the ones who are dark are poor as a sawmill rat.”
“Will’s hair is dark.”
“Yes, but he’s a Fraser, too. His grandmother, Celia, was a Woodburn, but the male line of True Woodburns died out with Will’s great-grandfather, Miss Celia and Miss Josephine and Miss Fanny’s father. Maybe that’s why the Colonel took such an interest in Charlie Woodburn, offering to pay his way through Vanderbilt. Charlie looked just like Old Randal—you’ve seen that oil painting of him in the dining room of the house—only with the dark eyes and hair of the Black Woodburns.”
“So Miss Fanny’s father took Charlie in and raised him? He approved of Fanny marrying him even though they were distant cousins and Charlie had no money?”
“Oh, hell no,” Darlene said, shaking her head and looking at Ava like she couldn’t believe how naive she was. “Charlie was a Woodburn but he wasn’t highborn. He wasn’t a True Woodburn. He was born here but raised in New Orleans. The rumor is, his father was a gambler and Charlie took after him. Came riding into town in a big car and fancy clothes, making all the girls’ hearts flutter like that actor from the silent movies, the one who always dressed up in veils and turbans.”
“Rudolph Valentino?”
“Yeah, him. Fanny’s father was happy to send him to Vanderbilt, but he never intended for Charlie to marry one of his daughters.”
“So what happened?”
“The old man dropped dead and suddenly Celia and Josephine and Fanny were orphans. Rich orphans. Celia was still a child, but Josephine and Fanny were up at Vanderbilt with Charlie, and that’s where he got his hooks into her. He eloped with Fanny right under the Woodburn cousins’ noses, not to mention Maitland Sinclair’s, who was Miss Fanny’s childhood sweetheart. They say Charlie did it for the money.”
“So Charlie Woodburn eloped with Fanny, and the rest of the family got angry because they felt he was taking advantage of an orphaned girl?”
“That’s right, and that’s why they killed him.”
Ava stared blankly at Darlene.
Darlene’s eyes grew round. She clamped a small, plump hand to her face. “Oh, dear,” she said through her fingers. “I’ve said too much.”
“Don’t even think about stopping there,” Ava said, leaning to peel Darlene’s fingers off her mouth. “Continue.”
Darlene looked around the restaurant and dipped her head, dropping her voice. “That’s just a story,” she said. “No one knows if it’s really true. There are probably a half dozen stories about how Charlie Woodburn died. And who killed him.”
Ava was quiet for a moment, remembering Will’s hesitation in the cemetery. “Tell me,” she said finally.
“Well, some think it was Maitland Sinclair. He had the most to gain because he and Fanny had been sweethearts since childhood and they married after Charlie died.”
“Oh, hell no. Not until after Miss Fanny’s boy, Sumner, was grown. And then some. Sumner was born the same year Charlie died, and he must have been about forty when they finally married.”
“Fanny and Maitland waited forty years to marry?”
Darlene shrugged. “Yeah, but still, they married.”
Ava sat back with her hands in her lap, thinking about all this. She thought of the framed photographs of a youthful Fanny and Maitland hanging on the walls at Woodburn Hall. They may not have married right away but they had certainly traveled the world together, they had certainly acted like husband and wife. Or had they? Perhaps they had only been friends, not lovers. Fanny must have been crazy in love with Charlie Woodburn to mourn him for nearly forty years.
She thought of big jolly Maitland with his homemade mayonnaise and apron that read Kitchen Bitch. Poor man.
“Maitland is a sweetheart,” she said. “I can’t imagine him murdering anyone.”
Darlene gave her a dismal look. “You never know what people will do,” she said darkly, “if they’re pushed to it.” They were quiet for a moment, each lost in her own thoughts, and then Darlene roused herself and added, “Personally, I always thought it was the McGann woman.”
“Clara? What about her?”
“Who killed him. From what I’ve heard anyway.”
“Wait a minute,” Ava said, holding up one hand. “Start at the beginning. How exactly does Clara fit into the Woodburns?”
Darlene frowned and tapped one finger against the edge of her iced-tea jar. “I don’t know. Her people were slaves at one time, I guess, but no one around here ever talks about stuff like that.”
“Will says Clara’s people were freed before the Civil War.”
“Oh, well, he should know, then.” Darlene yawned, then hesitated as if something else had occurred to her. “One story I always heard is that Clara is related to the Woodburns somehow.”
“How?”
Darlene shrugged. She gave Ava a sly smile. “Maybe you should ask your good friend Will.”
Ava imagined that a question like that would go over about as well as her questions about the fiancée and Charlie Woodburn. “Why do you think Clara had something to do with Charlie Woodburn’s death?”
“Her mother was a healer. People used to come from far and wide to have their fortunes told, and she knew how to use herbs and wildflowers. I’m sure she taught her daughter. I’m sure Miss McGann knows how to use plants, which ones are poisonous and stuff like that. She could’ve poisoned him and no one would have known the difference.”
“But why would Clara McGann have poisoned Charlie Woodburn?”
Darlene shrugged and stifled another yawn. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe she didn’t like him.”
Coming out of the Kudzu Grille, Ava’s attention was drawn by a man loading lumber into the back of a pickup truck. He was standing across the narrow brick street with his back to her, and for a moment Ava thought it was Will. But then he turned and she stood staring at him in amazement. He bore a striking resemblance to Will, tall and dark-haired, although he was sturdier, more heavily built. He stood staring intently at her, the sunlight glinting on his hair. Beside her, Darlene stiffened.
“Good morning,” he called and his voice was not like Will’s. “Who’ve you got there?” he said, talking to Darlene but still staring at Ava.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Darlene said. She took Ava’s arm. “Come on,” she said. “We’re risking our reputations just talking to him.”
He laughed as they walked off. Ava turned and glanced at him over her shoulder. He was leaning against the truck watching her, and she suddenly remembered that night outside the movie theater when she and Will had been silently observed by a dark-haired man. He was that man. She was sure of it.
“My God,” Ava said, letting Darlene pull her along the sidewalk.
“No. Jake Woodburn,” Darlene said.
“One of the Black Woodburns?”
“Black sheep more likely,” Darlene said. “He makes Charlie Woodburn look like a saint.”
“He and Will could be twins! Well, maybe not twins, but certainly brothers.” Ava could feel the heat beating down on the top of her head, seeping through her, settling in her bones.
Darlene stopped, letting her hand drop. “I wouldn’t mention to Will that you saw Jake if I was you.”
“Why?”
“They don’t speak. They’re estranged.”
“But why?”
Darlene let her face go blank. “Something about a girl,” she said.
“A girl?” Ava said stupidly.
Darlene clamped her hand over her mouth, her eyes blue and sharp as ice picks.
“Oh, dear,” she said. “I’ve said too much.”