“She got hit by a car. Head injury, I think.”
“Jesus, man! What a stupid way to go. When your number’s up, it’s up, right?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I said. “I feel bad for him though, you know? He’s got a son and all. . . .”
O’Malley reached down under the counter, produced a box of Johnny Walker Black Label minis and put a handful of them on a tray with a bucket of ice and two glasses.
“I’ll take it to him,” he said. “Cover me for a minute, okay?”
“Sure,” I said.
In a moment such as this, it was important not to become a dictator. Let O’Malley take the scotch in to Brad. Let him be one of the first to say that he was sorry about the accident. In fact, let everyone who wanted to say something or do something say it or do it. The most urgent detail was to get Brad packed and to Atlanta as fast as possible. And, I didn’t know how that would happen.
By the time I had served two white wines and one Budweiser, O’Malley was back.
“He’s shook,” O’Malley said, holding the lift gate up for me to pass.
“So am I! This is a terrible thing! Tragic!”
I wasn’t back in the office for more than a minute when Robert walked through the door. He must have been going a hundred miles an hour to arrive so quickly. He went straight to Brad and hugged him.
“God Almighty, Brad! Okay,” he said, “what can I do to help?”
“I gotta get there,” Brad said. “How am I gonna get a plane at this hour?”
“Let me handle it,” Robert said. “Um, maybe I’ll have a scotch too?” I poured him a drink and as I poured he was talking to Louise nonstop. “Did anybody call Delta? Somebody call Delta. They fly back and forth all the time. Call US Air and Continental too. Shoot! Call ’em all! Okay! Who do I know with a plane? What’s the difference? I’ll call the private terminal and see who’s there! Maybe you can hitch a ride with someone—a pilot, someone leaving late tonight—let’s try!”
“Where’s Susan?” Brad said, asking about Robert’s wife.
“We’re one step ahead of you,” Robert said. “I gave her the key to your house and she’s over there now packing you up for five days. Don’t worry. No one’s more organized than Susan. And if she forgets anything, I’ll bring it tomorrow. Susan and I are flying in tomorrow.”
Brad’s voice broke as he spoke. “Thanks, Robert.”
Louise put the phone down hard and her anxiety was obvious. “Nothing on Delta or US Air until tomorrow. I told them this was a life-and-death thing and you know those airlines don’t give a damn!”
Robert was on the phone with Mercury Air. “Yes. Bradford Jackson. Wife just died tonight and he’s got to . . . yes, sure. No problem.” He covered the mouth of the phone and said, “I’m on hold. I know this guy—did his divorce two years ago. Speaking of hold, how’s Theo holding up?”
“Like shit,” Brad said.
“And Alex?”
“Like shit too.”
“Yes! Okay! Okay! Thanks. Yes. We’ll be there at ten-thirty!” Robert hung up and said, “Okay. We’ve got you on a plane. Some guy from CNN is flying out on a Net Jet tonight after dinner. He said, no problem, glad to help. Let’s go to the house now and meet Susan.”
“Call us tomorrow, okay? If we can do anything . . . ,” I said.
Louise threw her arms around Brad and said, “Now you listen to Louise, son. You go do what you have to do and bring your boy back to me.”
We followed them out to the parking lot and watched them pull away in Brad’s car. Brad was in shock; that much was clear.
Louise and I turned to walk back to the restaurant and stopped for a moment on the dock to look at the night sky.
“Looks so peaceful,” she said.
“The calm before the storm,” I said.
“You know, you think you can count on certain things and sometimes you just can’t.”
“What do you mean? Like Brad counting on Loretta staying alive?”
“Yep. That and a lot of other things too. My momma used to tell me that there ain’t no quicker way to bring the devil to your door than for him to think that you are having a party without him. That’s right. That’s what she always said.”
“Suspicious, was she?”
“You can say that again. But it’s true. Just as soon as you think you got all your ducks lined up so nice . . .”
“The fox gets in your henhouse?”
Despite the gravity of the night, Louise started to laugh. “Something like that! Come on, girl, let’s call it a night.”
EIGHT
LINDA AND LOUISE
LOUISE and I opened up the restaurant together, arriving at almost the same time. She followed me to the office and dropped her purse on a chair.
“I couldn’t sleep all night,” Louise said. “Worrying and fretting . . . we got to find out where the funeral is going to be and send some flowers! I’ll call Mr. Robert.”
“I’ll get us some coffee,” I said.
Louise called and as expected, he had all the information we needed. Of course, we wanted the details of Loretta’s accident too. As inconceivable as that might seem, our lowly human nature craved the lurid details. We were not disappointed. The facts surrounding Loretta’s death were pretty revolting.
It seems she was going to meet Archie, the scoundrel who had lured her away from Brad. The scoundrel and the adulteress had broken up, as previously reported, and perhaps they were meeting to reconcile. Who knew? It was raining like the end of the world and they were to meet at the Margaret Mitchell House to attend a reading and lecture by Anne Rivers Siddons. Loretta was crossing the street and wasn’t watching where she was going. A taxi ran a red light, knocked her up in the air and she landed right on her head, fracturing her cervical spine. All of this occurred on the other side of the enormous glass windows of the Margaret Mitchell House Museum, where a sold-out crowd was enjoying refreshments, eagerly anticipating the appearance of Ms. Siddons.
Loretta died instantly. It was the most dramatic moment of Loretta’s ill-spent life and no one even saw it.
The least attractive detail was that Loretta’s face had suffered severe lacerations and fractures, her left eye was enucleated (fell out) and they were going to have to keep the coffin closed. Her recent eyelift and collagen implants would go unseen and unappreciated.
Naturally, Brad was stunned, his son was bordering on hysterical and old Theo was practically catatonic. Theo had insisted on seeing her body and it had taken years off his life. At least that was what Robert told Louise.
After Louise and I arranged for a large spray of flowers to be delivered to Patterson’s Funeral Home, we began to gossip, as only women in those circumstances can do.
“That’s what happens,” Louise began, “when you live a life of sinning like that.”
“Oh! Shush! Louise! You know it’s bad luck to speak ill of the dead!”
We looked at each other and grinned, neither one of us showing the slightest sign of remorse.
“Poor old Mr. Brad. Look at him! He marries this Loretta, she’s got all this money and her daddy’s got all this money and neither one of them got a stitch of class! You should hear what Mr. Robert say about them people!”
“Tell it, sister! I’m here till five! You want a doughnut? Somebody stopped at the Piggly Wiggly and got a whole box of Krispy Kremes.” I had two glazed ones in paper towels. They were still warm.
Louise pursed her lips at the doughnuts and cut her eyes at me. “Only because this is a special occasion. Usually, I never touch this kind of thing!” She took hers and continued. “Well, first you have to know the story of Mr. Bradford Jackson. He’s this nice young man from south Georgia. His daddy was a farmer and his momma was a schoolteacher. They were good folks, you know?”
I shook my head. “Regular people.” I pressed the button to turn on my word processor and all its sounds filled the air like background music. It was a gentle reminder for both of us that at some
point we would have to get some work done.
“That’s right, just regular people. Anyway, Mr. Brad meets Loretta right after he gets out of graduate school. He’s got himself a master’s degree in business and he was the first person in his family to have one too.”
“His parents must have been awfully proud of him.”
“I imagine so. He moves himself up to Atlanta and gets hired by old Theo, because Theo’s looking for a young man to help him run his business—some kind of buy and sell thing where they help little businesses find big buyers and everybody makes a lot of money.”
“Sounds good to me!” I began opening the mail with a letter opener and stacking it to read later on.
“Well, as I understand it, Theo always wanted Loretta to marry this Archie fellow but once she saw Mr. Brad, she set her cap for him and that was all she wrote. The old man wasn’t too happy about it, but what’s he to do when his only daughter says she’s in love?”
“Was Brad in love with her? I mean, what do you think?”
“Ha! You see, this is why I can talk to you! You get the picture, don’t you, girl?”
“Well, some days are better than others,” I said and smiled back at her. “But tell me, do you think our boy Brad was a little bit of a gold digger?”
“Well, Mr. Robert prefers to put it like this—he says that Mr. Brad was blinded by the lights—all that highfalootin’ living with fancy clubs and big cars. . . .”
“All that glitters ain’t necessarily gold, right?”
“Ooh! Chile! You said it! Anyway, Mr. Robert thinks the only reason Loretta gone and married Mr. Brad is to prove to her daddy that he can’t make her marry his friend’s boy, Archie. Well, this Archie is so high and mighty that he starts flirting with Loretta.”
“Because he can’t stand it that Loretta didn’t want him?”
“That’s it! Well, Loretta’s momma’s been dead for a thousand years and the old man’s been staying in the house up in Buckhead, but as soon as she’s pregnant with Alex, her daddy says he’d rather live downtown, closer to the office. Next thing you know, Loretta’s got Brad living in that house.”
“Well, actually that sounds like Theo did a generous thing, no?”
“No! Every child gots to have his own, Linda! It’s in the Bible, for heaven’s sake!”
“So, you mean, they held it over Brad’s head that he got the plum daughter and she even came with a house?”
“Honey, if you ask me, poor Mr. Brad was just a substitute for Loretta’s daddy! Wasn’t nobody in love with nobody! Loretta wasn’t ever anything but a daddy’s girl and her daddy never remarried after her momma died.”
“That’s a little sick, Louise.”
“Humph! You telling me? Listen, Mr. Brad gets a big sale and the company makes a lot of money, okay?”
“Yeah, so?”
“Well, instead of giving Mr. Brad a big wad of money or a raise or something, that Theo goes off and buys Loretta a diamond bracelet or earrings!”
“What?”
“I’m telling you what’s for true! Next, they got Mr. Brad running the business while Theo’s off at the Piedmont Driving Club—that’s this very uppity place for white people, with too much money who like to drink bourbon with their lunch. . . .”
“Or, perhaps, all afternoon?”
“Exactly! So, Mr. Brad’s working like a dog, they got a nanny raising their boy, Alex, Loretta gets herself on all these committees that get her picture in the newspaper, and that bad Archie is still flirting up a storm with Loretta like an old tomcat.”
“Jesus, Louise! This is a regular soap opera!”
“Hang on! I ain’t finished! Get me some more coffee! This is the best part!”
“Don’t move!” I dashed to the service station, poured the coffee and dashed back. “Here!”
Louise chuckled and said, “Oh, Lord! People are so crazy!”
“Amen to that,” I said and settled myself back into my chair. “Come on! I gotta pay bills!”
“Okay, okay!” She took a long sip and stared at me, her dark eyes twinkling with mischief. “So, according to Mr. Robert, Mr. Brad’s just a working fool! Always at the office, coming home late, just not paying attention, you know what I mean?”
“Yeah.”
“So, one day Mr. Brad’s secretary, this woman, Amy—”
“Amy! Oh, yeah! I heard about her! She’s a little ho.”
“And, she gone be showing up here someday too, soon’s she find out Loretta gone to God, and that might not be where she gone.”
“Yeah, but wait, I know this part! Brad takes her out to lunch at some hot spot and runs into Theo and he pitches a fit! Right?”
“Humph! That meddling old fool goes running to Loretta and tells her that Mr. Brad is running around!”
“No way!” Of course I had already heard that part, but I wanted to hear Louise’s version.
“Yes, ma’am! He sure does! So Loretta, who ain’t got the brains God gave a garden pea, she turns around and tells Mr. Brad that she’s been shacking up with that Archie fellow and how does he like those apples?”
“But, Brad never went to bed with his secretary!”
“Yeah, I know that, but that stupid Loretta believed her father and spilled the beans on her own self!”
“What an idiot!”
“And, listen to this . . . that Archie? He’s married, see? And guess what?”
“I can only imagine!”
“His wife is going through chemotherapy for breast cancer!”
“Nice guy, this Archie, right?”
“Humph! Dog meat trash, that’s what! Anyway, Loretta goes crying to her daddy, Theo sells his business to Archie’s daddy, which was really run by Archie Junior, and Mr. Brad quits, because he ain’t going to work for some man who’s bedding his wife all over Atlanta. He walked out without a penny to his name! Didn’t even take a car!”
“How do you know all this?”
“I know all this because I was working at the Rosens’ house when all this talk was going on. Mr. Brad? He called Mr. Robert every single day! Finally, Mr. Robert says to him, You get your behind out of there! Come stay with us! We’re gonna figure this out! And, that’s just what they did.”
“Whew! That is some pile of mess, Louise! Man! And now, Brad’s on his way to bury his ex-wife and face Theo again and probably Archie too!”
“Nope.”
Obviously, Louise had one more bomb to drop.
“Tell it, sister.”
“Yeah, he’s gonna see Theo and you know that Archie is gonna be there, but that ain’t his ex-nothing! They ain’t divorced yet!”
“Holy hell!”
“Now, I gotta get out of here and get some work done! Gots to see what that crazy Doo-wayne is planning to cook next to ruin our reputation!”
“Probably octopus cocktails!”
“Don’t give him any ideas!” Louise got up to leave and said, “You tell a living soul what I told you and I’ll cut your neck!”
“Not me, sugar.”
“Humph!”
Long after Louise was gone, I couldn’t get Brad out of my mind. Had he really married Loretta for her money and had Loretta married him to defy her father? And, what was Brad to Loretta? A sperm bank? And to Theo? A workhorse? I would never complain about Fred again.
It was around eleven when O’Malley showed up for work and he stuck his head in my office.
“I’ve got the liquor orders done. You want ’em?”
“How do you usually handle it?”
“Brad orders it, but I can do it. No sweat.”
“Yeah, just do it. Give me a copy of the order and a copy of the invoice when it comes in. I’ll pay it and file it.”
“Man, this place is going to be so organized nobody’s gonna believe it!”
“How’s your girlfriend’s boy?”
“Oh, he’s fine. Hey, anybody hear from Brad?”
“Yeah, we sent flowers from all of us. Funeral’s tomo
rrow. Brad will probably be out for part of next week. He’s got to organize his son and all and probably Loretta’s estate and all that stuff.”
“I hadn’t even thought about his son. He’s gonna have to bring him here, huh? It’s not bad enough that Loretta drops dead, now he’s an instant full-time parent.”
The phone started ringing. First, a waitress called in sick. Then, a dishwasher called in sick. By the time everyone was supposed to be in for the start of the lunch shift, we were short three people. I called Mimi.
“Hey! I’m in an awful pinch. The help is like . . . dropping like flies around here and I need waiters and dishwashers on the double. Where are the girls?”
“Sleeping. Wait! Here’s Gracie! Gracie, come here, honey. Your momma wants to talk to you.”
Traitor! Why couldn’t Mimi just handle it? Sure! Put the Demon on the phone! Thanks a lot!
“What? I just woke up.”
It was the gravel voice of my darling daughter.
“Gracie! I need your help!”
“What?”
“I’m short dishwashers and waiters all over the place! I need you and Lindsey to come down and help me, so get dressed, wash—”
“No way! No way!”
“You want to eat?”
Silence.
“You want spending money?”
Silence.
“I have plans, Mom. You can’t just call me like this and wreck my day!”
“Yes, I can. But, I’m not wrecking your day. I’m making you a better person by giving you the chance to help your mother and I know that’s what you want to do!”
“Fine.”
Mimi took the phone at that point.
“So?” she said.
“Yank Lindsey out of bed, stuff a Pop-Tart in their mouths, clean them up, get them over here as fast as you can and I’ll be your slave.”
“No problem. Consider it done!”
“And if Gracie wears shorts, make sure her little behind isn’t hanging out, please?”
“Are you kidding? Don’t even worry about that for a second!”
When Lindsey and Gracie arrived with Mimi thirty minutes later, Gracie had left her attitude in the car and Lindsey and Mimi wanted to work too. Mimi must have given them the dickens on the way to the restaurant.