After the Rain Page 6

  Maddie crossed her arms over her chest, a belligerent look on her face that didn’t completely obliterate the expression of a deer caught in the headlights. “It’s none of your business. Just go away and leave me alone.” She turned her back, but not before Suzanne saw the panic in her eyes.

  She studied the younger girl, recognizing the need in this child, the unspoken craving so much like her own. Softening her voice, Suzanne said, “Look, you need to be in school instead of out here polluting your lungs. If you can promise me that you’ll go back to school right now, I won’t tell anyone that I saw you here.”

  Maddie’s shoulders dropped slightly. “Why?”

  Suzanne shrugged. “Because it’s the right thing for you to do.”

  The younger girl turned. “But why are you giving me a break?”

  “Because you remind me of someone.” She looked down at the sunglasses in her hand and concentrated on folding them up. “Now go before I change my mind.”

  Maddie paused for a moment, then turned. “Thanks,” she mumbled over her shoulder before she, too, disappeared around the corner.

  Suzanne stared after her, not sure what had just happened. She stood still for a long moment, feeling the hot sun beat down on her and recalling the hungry look she had seen in Maddie’s eyes. It was a look Suzanne was way too familiar with.

  With a sigh, she pushed the sunglasses back on her nose, then tugged on the heavy door to return to the fluorescent world of the Piggly Wiggly.

  Looking both ways to make sure nobody saw him, Joe opened the door to Lucinda’s Lingerie and entered. He blinked, his eyes trying to adjust from the brightness outside to the dimness of the store, created by the red fabric walls.

  “Can I help you?”

  He swung around to a dark corner of the store and found himself facing Suzanne Paris, a black lace teddy dangling from her one hand, a padded hanger in the other. She looked as surprised to see him as he was to see her.

  “Um, uh, I’m looking for Lucinda. Is she in the back?”

  Suzanne slid the teddy onto the hanger. “No. She had a few errands to run before picking up Amanda and Harry at preschool and asked if I’d watch the store.”

  “Oh.” Joe tried to look everywhere except at her and that silly black underwear thing. “Why are you here?”

  “I’m working here. This is my first week. Lucinda said she needed some temporary part-time help.” She raised her eyebrows expectantly.

  Joe cleared his throat. “Do you know when she’ll be back?”

  “I have no idea. Is there something I can help you with?”

  As if sensing his discomfort, she quickly stuck the hanger onto a crowded clothes rack.

  “I, uh, no. I’ll just wait outside until she gets back.”

  Suzanne widened those intriguing gray eyes. “Oh—are you looking for something for yourself?”

  Joe widened his own eyes as he realized the implication. “What? No!” He shook his head, wishing he’d never stepped foot in the store. He could have waited until Lucinda came home and asked her there, but he’d been passing Lucinda’s Lingerie on his way to the hardware store and decided to step in. Unfortunately, he’d completely forgotten about Lucinda’s new employee. “It’s for my daughter Sarah Frances. She needs a, um, a . . .”

  He couldn’t say that word in front of this woman. Something about her made him tongue-tied, and the subject of their conversation only made it worse.

  “Bra? Your daughter needs a bra? What size?”

  He looked in her eyes for any hint of amusement and was surprised to see none. “I don’t know. I thought I could just buy a couple and take them home for her to try on.”

  Now she smiled. “Wouldn’t it be easier to bring her into the store? Lucinda has quite a selection of sizes and styles to fit any chest.”

  Damn. He hadn’t blushed since fifth grade when he’d been caught in the girls’ bathroom by Mrs. Crandall and she’d made him refill the tampon machine. He looked up at the ceiling, pretending to study the brass chandelier that hung from a pouf of red, silky fabric. “Sarah Frances is pretty much a tomboy and wouldn’t be caught dead in here.”

  “Kinda like her dad, huh?”

  She really was laughing at him. “Never mind. I’ll go outside and wait.”

  A warm hand touched his wrist, pulling him back. Maybe it was static electricity or maybe it wasn’t, but something definitely shocked him. She left her hand on his arm for another second before dropping it.

  “Look, I’m sorry. I’m not making fun of you.” Her face was closed and controlled, as if trying to mend fences was something she had to work hard at. “I think it’s nice what you’re doing.” She forced a tentative smile on his face. “Come on. Let me pick a few out for you to take home. Just send back the ones she doesn’t like with Lucinda.”

  She turned away from him toward a wall full of small drawers. Over her shoulder she called, “Any idea how big . . . ?”

  Their gazes locked for a moment, and Joe felt his cheeks flame again. Damn.

  She turned back to the drawers and began pulling out bras. “Never mind. I saw her that once at the gas station. I’ll figure it out.”

  He stared at the back of her, at the plain T-shirt and long, floral skirt that skimmed her legs. He shifted his gaze to her head, where she’d pulled her hair back from her face, and saw her cheeks crease in a smile. He frowned. “I’m glad you’re finding this so funny.”

  Slowly she faced him. Her eyes were dark now, her face no longer smiling. “It’s not that. It’s . . .”

  She averted her gaze and dug beneath the counter for tissue and a bag. As she began wrapping the first bra, she said, “It’s because I was thinking of what a lucky girl Sarah Frances is to have a dad who would do this for her. I honestly didn’t think they existed until now.”

  He was speechless for a moment, an angry retort frozen on his lips. He watched her in silence as she finished wrapping, then stowed the small tissue-wrapped packages into a shopping bag.

  He was spared a response when the door swung open with a bang and Amanda rushed into the store, followed in quick pursuit by Harry and Lucinda.

  “Daddy!” she squealed, launching herself into his arms. He buried his nose in her hair, smelling the baby shampoo. Feeling a tug on his pants leg, he looked down into Harry’s upturned face and lifted him up, too.

  He stared into the wide blue eyes of his youngest child, feeling the old familiar ache again. Of all his children, Harry was the most like Harriet. It wasn’t just his coloring. It was his quiet intensity, and his bright smile that seemed to shine light into the dark corners of one’s heart. Joe’s only regret about bringing Harry into the world was that his son would never have any memories of the wonderful woman who had given birth to him.

  Joe squatted down and placed the children’s feet firmly on the floor. Harry thrust a crumpled paper at him. “For you!”

  Joe flattened out the paper on the floor and eyed the yellow and orange splotches of crayon appreciatively. “I love your use of color, Harry. I might have to frame this one in my office, if that’s okay with you.”

  Harry responded by ducking his chin and burying his face into Joe’s shoulder.

  Amanda, who had been hopping around her father on one foot and then the other, stopped and thrust a paper at him. “I made this for you.”

  Again, Joe spent his time studying the artwork, this one with blue and green stick figures and a triangle-like structure that resembled a house. When he looked up to compliment his daughter on her skills as an artist, he realized that she was no longer standing in front of him but was approaching Suzanne with another picture clutched in her hand.

  “I made this one for you.” She thrust the picture at the young woman, and from Suzanne’s wide-eyed look of surprise, he thought for a moment that she might refuse it.

  Stiffly, Suzanne held out her hand and took the paper, looking down at it with a tight expression on her face. She stared at the picture, not saying anything.


  Joe started to move toward Amanda, to take her away before her feelings were hurt, when the little girl spoke. “It’s for your ’frigerator, since you didn’t have any pictures on it.”

  For a brief second, Joe thought he could see Suzanne’s lip tremble before she said a taut thank-you and turned away to duck behind the counter.

  When she emerged, she was holding her backpack in one hand and Amanda’s picture in the other. Addressing Lucinda, she said, “I’ll be back tomorrow morning at eight to get started on the stockroom inventory.” She waited until the front door was almost closed behind her before uttering good-bye.

  Joe turned to Amanda, ready to confront the tears that were sure to follow. Instead, he spotted his youngest daughter staring at the closed door with a quizzical look on her face, her head tilted to the side in the way children seemed to do when they were thinking hard.

  “I don’t think anybody’s ever made a picture for her. She prob’ly needs to go think about it for a while.”

  Recognizing his own words coming out of his daughter’s mouth, Joe paused, wondering if he had ever had the wisdom his children seemed to come by so easily.

  Suzanne walked blindly down the sidewalk, not paying any attention to the people openly staring as she passed. She needed to reach the privacy of her own room before she began to cry. She had not shed a tear since she was fourteen, and if she were to start again now, it would not be as a public spectacle.

  The six-block walk to the house she was renting took her less than ten minutes, but when she approached the front gate, she paused, staring at the beautiful wraparound porch and at the welcoming windows upstairs, where a reflection from the sun seemed like a wink.

  There was something about this house that slowed her pulse and warmed her blood, much as what she imagined would happen in a mother’s embrace. Maybe it was that this house had been a home to the Ladue family for almost one hundred years that made it emanate welcoming vibes. Or maybe it was the ghosts of long-dead Ladues whose Southern hospitality lasted beyond the grave.

  She opened the gate and shut it behind her, no longer feeling the press of tears. She smelled the roses and the boxwoods, and above those scents, the smell of fresh sawdust telling her that Sam had already come and gone.

  Slowly she walked up the front path, eyeing one of the rocking chairs. She had yet to sit in one, but today, in the late afternoon sun, the pull was strong. She imagined she saw the rocker move slightly forward, leaning down to make it easier for her to sit. Sitting in one place long enough to watch time march by wasn’t something she’d ever tried before—or even wanted to do. But the soft summer scents, her tired feet, and the beautiful picture in her hand all pushed her toward the wicker-bottomed rocker on the porch.

  With a deep sigh, she let herself fall into it, noticing how the wide arms of the chair wrapped around her like an embrace. She dropped her backpack with a small thud on the wooden slats of the porch and allowed herself to examine her gift more closely.

  In vibrant hues of blue and green stood a stick house, with flowers in the front yard as tall as the chimney, and a mother and father stick couple surrounded by an entire brood of stick children. A horizontal block of blue crossed the top of the page—a finite sky. The endless horizon had always bothered Suzanne, as if it alone compelled her to keep moving forward. She looked at the block of blue hanging over Amanda’s depiction of Walton, a heavy line of crayon marking off the boundaries of sky, and she closed her eyes. It made her feel dizzy, like the feeling of stepping onto an escalator only to find that it had stopped. For a moment she found herself envying a determinable existence, a life where leave-taking was involuntary instead of inevitable. And for one brief moment, she thought of Harriet Warner and of all the reluctant good-byes made by a wife and mother.

  Abruptly, Suzanne stood, the chair rocking in her wake. She’d tape Amanda’s picture to the refrigerator, next to the one of Paris. She’d be careful to only use one strip of tape, so that when she took it off when she left, it wouldn’t tear the paper. She was an expert at that; she’d done it for years.

  She opened the door but paused, listening to a chorus of cicadas in the large mimosa tree that bordered her yard and the neighbor’s. Their sound rose and fell on a wave of late-summer air, as if heralding in the approaching change of season. She touched the charm around her neck, the cicadas bringing out a wistfulness that she seemed to harbor in her heart and couldn’t shake. She wished the sound would bring her happy memories of summer evenings sitting on a porch, or chasing fireflies in the yard. But her memories were empty, like blank negatives of pictures never taken. The void was huge and could never be filled, even if she pretended it could for a few weeks in this beautiful white house with the large front porch.

  Walking inside to the foyer, she shut the door with a thud, silencing the wistfulness in her heart and the soft sounds of the approaching evening.

  CHAPTER 5

  Suzanne shouldered her backpack, then pulled the door of the shop tightly closed before sliding the dead bolt with her key. Slipping the key ring in her pocket, she picked up the foam box holding the remains of her lunch from the Dixie Diner and began the short walk home.

  The two weeks she’d been in Walton seemed more like two years. She grudgingly admitted to herself that parking her flip-flops here and lying low for a while wasn’t such a bad thing. She could certainly have done worse.

  At least now there were fewer open stares as she went about her business, and more waves and greetings. Perfect strangers had been bringing her food for over a week to welcome her into town, and she had learned every avenue and cul-de-sac on her journeys to return empty dishes.

  She had begun to bring her camera along on her forays into Walton for the old frame houses, and their owners were willing subjects. When she realized that many of Walton’s citizens were wearing their Sunday-best clothes to sit outside on their porches in the anticipation she might come by, she made an effort not to be so obvious. Still, she became known as the “picture lady” and happily obliged anyone who posed in front of her and smiled.

  As Suzanne stepped off the curb, she heard her name called. Turning, she spotted Brunelle Thompkins running after her, another white foam box in her hands.

  “Hey, Suzanne, wait up!” She was breathing heavily and wore a thin sheen of perspiration on her upper lip when she stopped in front of Suzanne. She held out the white box.

  “It’s my last piece of pecan pie, and I don’t want it to go to Stinky Harden. I figured you could use the calories more than him.”

  Realizing that this was probably a compliment, Suzanne smiled. “Thanks, Brunelle. Would you put it on my tab?”

  Brunelle shook her head. “Nuh-uh. My payment will be the look of disappointment on Stinky’s face.”

  They both laughed for a moment; then Brunelle helped Suzanne stack the little box on top of the bigger one before heading back to the diner.

  Suzanne cut through the backyard of a large house on the corner, past the bobbing heads of bright purple pansies that littered the side of the house, and emerged in the side yard of a neat and trim clapboard house that had recently been painted a pale shade of pink. The old woman who always sat on her front porch reading a thick novel and wearing a pink sweater, regardless of the temperature, glanced up. Suzanne lifted the foam boxes in greeting, and the woman waved a paperback as Suzanne passed onto the sidewalk.

  When she reached her front gate, she stopped in surprise. Maddie Warner sat on the front step of the porch, leaning against a pillar, her long arms wrapped around drawn-up knees. “Hi, Miz Paris. In case you’re wondering, school’s out, so I’m not skipping.”

  Suzanne latched the gate behind her. “Since it’s after five o’clock, I would hope so. Unless you had extracurricular activities.”

  Maddie scooted over on the step, inviting Suzanne to sit next to her. Storing her boxes and backpack on the lowest step, Suzanne sat down, placing her hands on her knees.

  Maddie sniffed
deeply. “Something smells good.”

  “Chili-cheese omelet and pecan pie. My dinner.”

  “Ew. An omelet for dinner?” She wrinkled a freckled nose.

  “Well, it was my lunch, but I couldn’t finish it, so now it’s my dinner.”

  “Aunt Lucinda always makes sure we get greens at dinner. You’re so lucky you get to live by yourself and eat what you want.”

  Suzanne contemplated the young girl, who most likely had sat down to dinner surrounded by family every night of her life. “It can be nice.” She looked up as an old man and woman, their hands clasped together, strolled by on the sidewalk and waved. She waved back, the movement not as awkward as it had felt at first.

  Turning back to Maddie, she said, “Speaking of dinner, shouldn’t you be heading home?”

  “Technically, it’s not dinner—it’s supper. And I’m on my way home now. I have something to show you and I just . . . well . . .” She looked down at her feet and fidgeted with the strap on her sandal. “I also wanted to thank you for not blabbing about me skipping school the other day. My dad would have grounded me for a year.”

  Suzanne stared at the fine bones in the girl’s face, and the long, slender fingers of her hands. They were beautiful hands, the trimmed nails painted a glossy black. There was so much about this girl that was typical teenager. But there was something more, too; it was there in her beautiful hands and haunting eyes. It was this that kept Suzanne on the steps for a few minutes longer. The call for solitude was strong, but something in Maddie’s eyes kept her lingering. Maybe it was because she saw the same shadows every time she looked in a mirror.

  “Then why did you do it? Seems to me your dad would have found out pretty quickly since he teaches at the school.”

  Maddie looked down at her sandal-clad feet again, and Suzanne noticed that her black toenails matched her fingernails. “I just needed to check out for a day. That’s all.” She looked up at Suzanne, a frown puckering her brows. “Don’t you ever get that way?”