Рита Браун - Crazy Like A Fox

Yvonne stared into Tootie’s light hazel eyes, so light they glowed almost amber green. Her eyes. She’d been a shitty mother. She’d been a shit to a lot of people. Haughty, demanding, ignoring anyone she didn’t think was on her level or could help her. Here across from her sat her daughter, in many ways a stranger, and the child seemed more settled, composed than she had ever been. Her eyes misted. She caught herself. Finished her tea.

“I don’t think I’ll walk hounds with you tomorrow. I need to get my ducks in a row. But I will do it next day. I’d like the exercise.”

“Okay.”

Yvonne got up, leaving her cup on the table, kissed her daughter on the cheek, and retired to her room. No sooner had she pulled off her clothes than she fell into bed, exhausted.

Tootie washed the two cups, then threw on her Carhartt jacket—the Detroit model, four years old and holding up to hard chores. She walked out to the farm road, turned right, walked past the kennels on her right, the stables on her left, to the big house, a herringbone brick path leading the way.

The light in the den shone out. She stepped inside the mudroom, knocked on the door to the kitchen, stuck her head in as she opened it.

“Sister? Gray? It’s Tootie.”

Sister’s voice carried down the long hall, “Come in, Sugar.”

Golly, on the table forbidden to her, of course, opened one eye. “Got any treats?”

Tootie ignored her.

“Selfish.” She closed her eye.

Tootie walked into the den, bookcases filled with books, a bar in one corner, and Sister’s beautiful desk tucked under the paned-glass window, original blown glass.

“What’s up?” Gray put down his Wall Street Journal.

“Mother’s here. She’s getting a divorce.”

“I see.” Sister told her to sit down. “We know. It was on the six o’clock news.”

“What?” Tootie’s eyes widened.

Gray folded the paper into quarters, placing it on his lap. “Celebrity report. Of course, the reporter cited your mother’s career, your father’s career, and a brief interview with your father who had obviously decided to strike the first blow.”

“He accused your mother of desertion,” Sister quietly said.

Tootie snorted. “Asshole. Well, it won’t do him any good, financially anyway. Mom’s name is on everything.”

“Your mother is an astute woman. It really will all work out, but it will be public and ugly for a while. The media wallows in scandal,” Sister remarked with some bitterness.

“Yes, it does.” Then Gray added, “But so did Procopius,” referring to the sixth-century A.D. writer.

Sister smiled. “You’re right. Bet we can go farther back than that. However, this isn’t helping Tootie. Can you handle your mother?”

“I think so. She wants to find a place to rent. She doesn’t want to go back to Chicago.”

“Smart.” Sister dropped her hand on Raleigh’s head as he nudged her knee. “This will put some pressure on you.”

“Well—maybe,” Tootie agreed.

“How about if I alert Betty Franklin? She’ll know the best real estate agent to help your mother.”

“Okay.” Tootie paused a moment. “She said she’d like to go on hound walks after tomorrow. I promise she won’t be a pain.”

“Even if she is, we’ll deal with it,” Sister reassuringly said.

After Tootie left, consoled, Gray slapped the paper on his knee. “What I’d like to do is slap that bitch in the face. Damn, she’s treated us like dirt.”

“Not as badly as he did,” Sister rejoined. “We’ll do what we can for Tootie, really.” She leaned down to kiss Raleigh. “Gray, there’s a sweet girl inside Yvonne. A girl sidetracked and abused because she was and still is so very beautiful. She trusts no one. Maybe Tootie a bit, and she hasn’t been much of a mother. Perhaps the carapace will crack, fall away, and Yvonne can truly be Yvonne.”

“Bullshit.” He shook his head.

Sister didn’t take offense. “Maybe only a woman can understand, honey.”

CHAPTER 8

“A list? Well…” A long pause followed this as Marion thought. “You make one for central Virginia, I’ll make one for Northern Virginia. Actually, I’ll start with Joyce Fendley. She knows everything.”

It was late morning the next day.

“Good idea,” Sister agreed. “No one is taking any of this seriously but you and I, and I would have placed it by the wayside if it hadn’t been for hearing ‘Gone to Ground’ yesterday. I would have called you last night, but Tootie’s mother showed up and pushed it all right out of my mind.”

“I finally notified the museum board that the horn was missing. Reported to the Sheriff’s Department. The board, while discomfited, just thinks it’s odd.”

“That hardly explains the selfie.”

“No. Shrugged that off, too. As for the sheriff’s office, polite, but a stolen cowhorn of some historical value doesn’t merit investigation. Given the flood of new people, new money into Loudoun County, I do expect they face more pressing problems.”

“So do we.” Sister laughed. “Traffic, housing developments, and Yankees.”

“I’m a Yankee and so are you,” Marion teased her. “And don’t forget, I came here as a child with my family. You came here for a job at Mary Baldwin College. You’re getting above your raisins.” She laughed as she used the old Southern expression.

Sister laughed, too. “You’re right. Slap my face. But back to yesterday. Marion, I swear what I heard was not an echo. It was an almost exact copy of Shaker’s length of notes. I might have accepted the echo because we were at the base of the Blue Ridge and we were on Old Paradise, which is filled with history, murders, fire, the severing of family ties, and never-ending stories of ghosts. Okay, I’ll not argue the point. Old Paradise even in decay can haunt anyone, but Marion, it was the finish to ‘Gone to Ground.’ It lingered, a long, long statement, of what I don’t know.”

A sigh followed this. “Our cowhorn and yesterday’s music may not be related. It’s a far putt as they say.”

“Not so far. He was the huntsman at The Jefferson Hunt when he disappeared. And he had been run out of Northern Virginia hunts for fornicating like a rock star. Well, he was a rock star. Huntsmen still are.” She breathed in. “If we could find the cowhorn, that would be a start.”

“I would hope Weevil’s disappearance might occasionally occur to huntsmen as they bed the Master’s wife or whomever.”

“It’s the combination of hero worship and alcohol. Gets them every time. Not all of them, of course. There really are some sensible men out there. I am attached to one.”

“How is he?”

“Gray? Wonderful as always.”

“His brother?”

“Sam’s doing well. They live in the old Lorillard place, as you know. Gray stays there maybe three days out of seven. There’s still a lot of fixing to do. They work together. I think Gray finally believes that Sam’s drinking is conquered, but Sam still says he is an alcoholic.”

“They all say that. The clean ones, I mean. I guess you can never forget. Did you ever drink too much?”

“No. I don’t much like the taste, although after a hard hunt and a hot shower, I might enjoy a Scotch or one of these new bourbons, you know, like Woodford Reserve.”

“That’s not a new bourbon.”

“The old ones, the ones I remember from my youth, were all so sweet. Couldn’t stand the sweetness.”

“Some people can’t let it go. I asked around after our adventure, for lack of a better word. Was Weevil a drunk? Hardly anyone left alive who knew him, but those in their seventies, eighties might have known him, young though some were at the time. No one recalled him drinking more than anyone else.”