Рита Браун - Crazy Like A Fox

“You don’t want to stay in the business? You liked working.”

“I did. Most of the time. I didn’t always like the people especially, but I liked building something and I liked working with him. I loved him once. I gave him everything I had. And what you saw was my reward.”

“Mom, he wasn’t always like that.”

“No. This priapic behavior”—Yvonne was careful in her choice of words—“arrived with his fiftieth birthday. He panicked. People thought I would panic when my turn came four years later. Lots of speculation about how much plastic surgery I’d have, stuff like that. I was fine. I am fine, and sixty is getting closer, not too close yet but closer. I don’t give a damn, but I do give a damn about respect.”

Tootie sat there, wiggled her toes in her boots. “I don’t ever want to see him again.”

“He is your father. I can’t interfere in your relationship or lack of one.”

“You never fought for me when I tried to explain to him why I didn’t want to go to law school or med school. He called me a nuevo field hand!”

“Tootie, at first, I somewhat agreed with him. I did and I’m sorry. I thought your desire to hunt, to literally clean shit, was beneath us. We had risen so far in the world. Like most people of my generation I couldn’t understand why any of our people would want to work in agriculture or with animals. We don’t see it as a career. As time went by, I accepted that this is your life. When you said later you wanted to be a veterinarian, I thought, okay, she will be using her brain. But now that I have actually seen you out there, like at Old Paradise, I understand you are using your brain. In time I did stand up for you, but not when he was hot. There is no talking to your father when he’s lost his temper.”

“I hate him. I really do.” Tootie clamped her lips shut. “I will never fall in love with anyone.”

A wave of guilt, sorrow, and anger lapped at Yvonne all at once. “I have been an inadequate mother. Not bad, but not so good. I wish I could take back those years when you needed me and I wasn’t there. I am so sorry.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Tootie, don’t say you won’t love anyone. It can be the most wonderful thing in the world. Much as I loathe that son of a bitch now, when I was young, when we were working together, when you were born, I loved him. I didn’t change; he did.” She paused. “Well, I did change. I got older.”

“Mom, I’m sorry.” Tootie was able to look past her own feelings of the moment.

“Do you forgive me?”

Tootie lifted her shoulders. “You’re my mother. I love you.”

Yvonne rose from the chair, knelt before her daughter, tears streaming now, and took her hand. “I love you, too, honey. I think it has taken me a long time to grow up. In so many ways you are ahead of me.” She stood now, leaned down and kissed Tootie on the cheek. “I pray someday you will find love. You will feel all the excitement and happiness I once felt, and your love will come to a better conclusion. Men”—she thought about this for a bit—“change.”

“Don’t we?”

“We do, but it’s different. Men fear age in a different way.” Noting Tootie’s facial expression. “It’s nothing to worry about now, and not everyone fears age.”

“Do you?”

Sitting now on the flat arm of Tootie’s Adirondack chair, Yvonne, voice lower, said, “When I hit forty I determined to fight it, and then one day, when someone said to me, ‘Yvonne, still so beautiful,’ I knew I couldn’t fight time. No one ever uses the word ‘still’ when you are young. No, I don’t fear age, but I fear not being able to do the things I like to do. I fear illness, some of the things that come with age.”

—

“Still beautiful. I would know you anywhere, in any century.” Daniella, stunned, listened to Weevil as he took her elbow.

Daniella enjoyed her early morning walk, and her sunset walk, as she thought of it. She missed her late son, Mercer, who would usually walk with her, but Gray and Sam, individually or sometimes together, would parade with her at least once a week.

The first Monday in October, temperatures in the high 60s, color at the top of the deciduous trees, filled her with delight. At six o’clock she grabbed her ebony cane with the ivory hound’s head, flicked it in front of her, and started her sunset walk. West Leigh, a good neighborhood west of Charlottesville proper, pretty houses, always provided something for her to look at. If a neighbor, and the yards were large, worked in the yard, she’d swing up her cane as a hello, or stop and chat. Usually she kept walking, laughing at herself and saying if she stopped it would be hard to start the motor again. She hadn’t been out for ten minutes when she heard a footfall, felt a strong hand on her elbow.

Keeping complete composure, she replied, “Weevil, you say that to all the girls.”

He chuckled. “But you were the best one. We did have fun, didn’t we?”

Brain whirring, she smiled. “While it lasted, yes. So tell me, Weevil, how is death? I’d like to know as I draw ever closer.”

“You exist in another dimension. No hunger, thirst, work. You can see people here. You can visit them if you want to, obviously. But most of us realize it is too upsetting. I knew you wouldn’t mind.”

“You stole your horn from the museum.”

“Did. Missed it. There’s a little story on the scrimshaw. I wanted to see it again. Hold it. Blow it. Daniella, I can’t escort you for very long. I don’t think anyone around these parts knows who I am, but I can’t take the chance, you know? I have two questions.”

“Ask them.”

“Who is still alive? Tom Tipton, you. Is there anyone else?”

“Randall Farley. His mind is gone, gone. He’s in assisted living. But many of our generation’s children are still living.”

The long rays of the setting sun turned his golden hair to red as he inclined it toward her.

“Did anyone ever find Sophie Marquet’s fortune?”

“The founder of Old Paradise? It must have all been spent. The DuCharmes finally sold the place to Crawford Howard. He’s a rich, pushy white man.”

“People have secrets. Evangelista Bancroft did.” Weevil smiled, teeth straight.

Daniella, surprised, asked, “Edward’s late sister?”

“H-m-m. She was three, maybe four years older than Edward. Always liked him. Liked the woman he married. Loved Evangelista. But Evangelista had her ways. I was not her first.”

Daniella absorbed this. “I’m afraid I am of no help to you. I knew everyone, of course, but how could I run in the same social circles as Evangelista? I thought she was a dreadful snob.”

Weevil squeezed her elbow, then lifted up her hand and kissed her palm. “Just speaking with you has been a help.”

He dropped her hand, loped behind one of the houses, and disappeared.

Daniella, head up, breathing deeply, reached her house, closed the door, picked up her phone. “Gray!”

As she usually called with a request, Gray pretended he was glad to hear her voice. “Aunt Daniella, you sound chipper.”

“I have just had a walk with Wesley Carruthers.”

CHAPTER 18

“West Indian, George Trumper,” Aunt Daniella, perfectly calm, told Sister and Gray. “It’s an old men’s cologne, established in 1875. Favored by rich men, as is Creed. One of those things where if you know, you know. If you don’t, you’re farther down on the ladder. Edward Bancroft would know of it. Weevil imitated the rich when he could. Cologne is affordable.”

Sister and Gray had driven over immediately after her call.

“No one else mentioned it. Tom Tipton vaguely recalled a scent.”

Aunt Daniella thought about this. “Tom might recognize the fragrance but not know what it was. Also, from your report, it sounds as though Tom was terrified.”