Crestview
Birmingham, 1935
EVERY AFTERNOON, AFTER A HARD DAY’S WORK RUNNING THE FAMILY business, Edward Crocker, like his father, Angus, before him, would sit out on the stone terrace until all the lights of downtown Birmingham started to come on one by one, sparkling like liquid jewels that twinkled and danced for as far as the eye could see. He sat and watched the cars as they snaked around the mountain like a chain of moving tiny glowing rubies, and it always pleased him. He had no art in the home, except the oil portrait over the mantel in the library, but unlike his father, Edward loved music and, when he entertained, would often hire a string quartet to play out on the terrace. On those summer nights, people said they could hear the faint sound of music playing all the way down the mountain and into the valley below.
Crestview was the only home Edward had ever known, and as a young boy, he had played among the workers and stonemasons his father had hired to build it. He was happy on the mountain. There was, of course, that one great secret of his life, but as hard as it was to bear, he did have sister, Edwina, in London, and he had Crestview. And no matter how much noise and hustle and bustle in the city below, it was always quiet that high up on the mountain. All that could be heard was the far-off train whistle and the night birds in his vast gardens.
When his father, Angus Crocker, passed away at ninety-two, his last wishes were that he be taken back home and buried in Scotland. But having been raised in Alabama, Edward wanted to be buried at Crestview. He loved his home, and when he was out of town, he left standing instructions: “The home is to be lit with electric light from sundown to sunup, and the gardens are to be maintained per my instructions.”
Twice a year, Edward opened up his home and gardens to all of his employees and always had presents for the children. A shy man, he observed the festivities from a chair in the attic. It had been very pleasant to watch all the children playing in the gardens below.
In 1928, little Ethel Louise Tatum, long before she became Ethel Clipp, had been taken up to Crestview for a Christmas party and, at one point, had looked up and waved at the man in the upstairs window, and he had waved back. But she didn’t remember it. The only thing she remembered was the present she received. All the boys got toy trains, and the girls were given dolls. She would rather have had the train; only eight years old and already a malcontent.
LATER AS MAGGIE walked around Crestview turning off lights and closing all the drapes, Babs Bingington was across town (recuperating from yet another face-lift) sitting up in her bed, with her head wrapped in bandages, and squinting at her laptop computer, reading an email from the spy she had sent to Maggie’s open house. And if she could have she would have smiled.
“No principals. Just lookie-loos and neighbors.”
Just as Babs had thought. That old dog of a house would never sell; certainly not before Christmas. She didn’t have to do a thing now. She’d wait and call the lawyer in New York after the first of the year with another proposal he’d be a fool to turn down.
THE NEXT MORNING, some eighty years after her first visit to Crestview, Ethel Clipp still had complaints. When Maggie came in the door, she started in: “I am so upset, I could just have a flying fit. You are not going to believe this.”
“What?”
“Saturday, I went to the loveliest wedding over at the Church of the Advent, and every one of the bridesmaids had tattoos and so did the bride. Can you believe it? Pretty young blond girls with tattoos. In my day, nice girls wouldn’t even date a boy who had a tattoo. What are they thinking? And to make matters worse, the groom had a head full of dreadlocks, and he isn’t even black. Can you imagine what the world is going to be like fifty years from now? A bunch of old ladies sitting around playing bridge with tattoos all over their big fat arms. I mean, Jesus Christ, who wants a grandmother with a tattoo? And I remember when boys used to be clean-cut.”
“Me too,” said Brenda.
“Now they all want to look scruffy. It was that TV show, Miami Vice, that did it. Since then, nobody shaves anymore. I swear to God, people are so stupid. Something becomes a fad, and everybody does it. What happened to the individual? I wouldn’t be surprised if a show about nudists was a hit, and the next day, everybody in America stopped wearing clothes.”
Brenda laughed. “Well, if that happened, I sure don’t want to see it. I don’t even like to look at myself naked, much less strangers.”
Ethel made a face. “I’ll tell you one damn thing. If that happens, and people start jogging in the nude with their altogethers dangling in the wind, I’m out of here.”