Bed & Breakfast Read online

  “Oh, Cam’s still too young to worry about the weather,” Josie said as she gathered up the salad plates. As was usual when someone mentioned Cam she stiffened and looked away, like a kid getting ready for a shot. “You want both cake and strawberries, Edna?”

  “Mary,” Edna said, “if you knew Cam you’d know she wouldn’t give a damn about the weather. I remember back when she was no more’n ten or eleven and we had that hurricane and Cam ran out in the yard. No one could stop her. She just broke away and ran into the yard and stood there, laughing like crazy, waving her arms.”

  “Is she staying in New York for the holidays?” Mary persisted.

  “I think she’s going up to Connecticut to be with some friends,” Josie lied. The truth was that during their last phone conversation, Cam hadn’t said anything about Christmas. Or her boyfriend. Or her job at Athena Press. Josie knew better than to ask, but because she hadn’t wanted the conversation to end, she’d fallen into her usual trap of yammering about guests and recipes and Lila’s kids, knowing she sounded as small-minded as Cam thought her to be. “Edna, I’ve asked you twice. Do you want cake and strawberries?”

  Edna said, “Oh, all right. You’ve twisted my arm.”

  As she carried the salad plates into the kitchen, Josie heard the other women’s voices drop into what she thought were sympathetic whispers. I’m just being paranoid, she told herself as she set the plates on the sink and took the dessert from the refrigerator. Their voices suddenly rose enough for her to hear them: Mary said that her granddaughter’s SAT score was so high that Wellesley had offered her early admission; Edna bragged that her son, Skip, had just closed a big lumber deal with a Japanese company; Peatsy said she couldn’t wait to get up to D.C. because her son, Waring, who owned an art gallery, had just bought several paintings of backwoods baptismal ceremonies from a Georgia primitive who promised to be as hot as Grandma Moses. Josie wondered how far you’d have to go into the Georgia woods to still find preachers dunking folks into water holes. Probably a lot farther than most Northerners thought. To drown out the conversation, she turned on the faucet and began to rinse the plates, wondering what Cam was doing for Christmas.

  The last time she’d seen Cam, over a year ago, when Lila had taken her along on a trip to New York, Cam hadn’t even invited them to her apartment. They’d met for brunch at the Waldorf, where, thanks to Orrie’s generosity, she and Lila were staying. When Lila excused herself to go to the ladies’, Cam had ordered another Bloody Mary (her third) and lit another cigarette (Josie had lost count of those). She’d thought she’d made her face blank, but Cam had said, “I don’t see why you’re worrying about me, Mama. You don’t seem to worry about Lila and she’s like a glazed doughnut—all puffed up and shiny, but with a big hole in the middle. Do you think she’s on tranks or antidepressants?” And all that afternoon, while she and Lila were at the matinee of Phantom of the Opera, Josie had watched Lila and thought about Cam.

  “Forget the dessert for now, will you, Josie?” Peatsy called. “You girls can have it after I leave. I’m fifty cents down and I want to play this last rubber before I dash.” Josie had refilled the coffee cups and Edna’s iced tea and taken her place at the table. Then Peatsy had trumped Mary’s ace and said she was feeling dizzy, then . . .

  The speed with which the ambulance arrived had amazed her. They’d barely concluded their argument about whether or not to move Peatsy to the couch—Edna repeating the “never touch an injured person” theory, Mary yelling, “Bullshit! I can’t keep propping her up like a sack of potatoes,” then ordering Josie to take Peatsy’s shoulders while she took her legs. The three of them had lifted Peatsy and moved to the living room slow and crab-style because she was so light it seemed she might shatter if they dropped her. Josie tried to find Peatsy’s pulse while Mary and Edna traded guesses—had she just fainted? Was it a heart attack? A stroke? Mary said she felt she might faint and rushed back to the sun porch for a cigarette. Through clenched teeth Edna said, “You’ll be next if you don’t give up those damn cigarettes.” And then they heard the wail of the siren.

  A husky black man in his thirties and a young white woman, both in uniform, were at the front door. Josie stepped back, answering questions, admiring the efficiency with which they pulled out instruments, checked Peatsy’s vital signs, and strapped her onto a stretcher.

  Neighbors had gathered at the front of the house. Josie looked for Dozier but didn’t see him and watched as the attendants lifted the stretcher into the back of the ambulance. She started to climb in with them but they told her she should follow in her car. Mary left off giving the neighbors the lowdown, said she was going out to the country club to find her husband, Morty, and would then be over to the hospital. Edna, who had apparently gone over to her own house, returned, cursing that Dozier was never there when she needed him, and said she was going back to her shop, so would Josie please call her there.

  Josie walked back into the house, got her car keys from the hook near the back door, started out, then turned back to get Peatsy’s purse. She was halfway to the hospital before she realized that she’d left her own purse behind.

  She told the volunteer behind the admissions desk, a woman of her own age who looked vaguely familiar, who she was and why she was there. The woman told her to sit down and wait. Josie asked where the telephones were located, took a seat, and opened Peatsy’s purse. Its contents were a jumble—balled-up, lipstick-kissed tissues, an address book, a parking ticket torn in two, upholstery samples on a metal loop, a battered eelskin wallet, a roll of breath mints, a folding brush, a bottle of blood-pressure pills, a Waterman pen, discount coupons for Broad River Seafood, a cosmetics bag—and, as she dug to the bottom, a bunch of keys on a ring with a gold Palmetto charm, quarters, dimes, pennies, a single garnet earring, and a couple of safety pins. She took out several quarters and the address book. The book was butter-soft, navy leather with the initials PWG, for Peatsy Waring Gibbs, pressed into it in gold. Quintessential Peatsy, Josie thought, then she remembered that she herself had given it to Peatsy for Christmas year before last. She also remembered that she’d spent more money than she’d wanted to but, Peatsy being Peatsy, she wouldn’t have felt right giving her anything but the best. From the first time she’d met Peatsy, when she was just sixteen visiting a cousin in Charleston and the cousin had let her tag along to a moon-dance coming-out party given in Peatsy’s honor, she’d been in awe of Peatsy.

  Even then, Peatsy had seemed to come from another era. She was an F. Scott Fitzgerald golden girl (though her cornsilk hair came out of a bottle), she was a Gershwin tune (though actually it was her mama who was rich and her daddy who was good-looking), she was filmy dresses and slim hips and the keys to a convertible. She was smart and, perhaps what Josie envied most of all, confident.

  A lifetime’s friendship, or more accurately, association, had taught her that Peatsy was stylish rather than beautiful, more wily than intelligent, and probably incapable of real friendship with another woman, but against her better judgment, she still held Peatsy in awe. Perhaps, perversely, she did so because Peatsy had hurt her so many times. There had been that awful time at Josie’s engagement party when she’d gone upstairs to go to the bathroom, had passed the bedroom she shared with Edna, and had seen, through the partially open door, Edna sitting at the vanity while Peatsy sprawled on the bed, and heard Peatsy say, “Of course he’s a knockout, but I’ll bet he didn’t have a suit of clothes before Uncle Sam issued him that uniform. I mean he could put his boots under my bed anytime, but marry him? Josie’s got to be crazy.”

  And all those years during the war, when she was using leg paint and Peatsy, miraculously, had nylons. And even after the war. Bear had finally become an officer, she an officer’s wife, but by that time Peatsy had become “the general’s lady.” And that time—Lord, she hadn’t let herself think about it for years—when they were all in their late thirties and she’d known that Peatsy finally had let Bear put his boots under her bed, and
General Gibbs’s finding out about it had blocked Bear’s promotion and put him on a downward spiral from which he’d never recovered. And yet, if anyone had asked her she would have said, unequivocally, that Peatsy was her friend. Why was she thinking about all this now, when Peatsy might be dying? Her stomach flip-flopped. She turned her attention back to Peatsy’s address book.

  She couldn’t find Waring’s number under either “Gibbs” or “Waring.” On the first page of the book, under “In Case of Emergency,” she was surprised to see her own name and number printed in a spidery hand. Finally, at the top of the S’s, she saw “Son: Waring Gibbs, III,” the number of the Green Carnation Gallery, a home number, then “Waring’s companion,” a name and number crossed out, and “Alonzo?” and another number.

  She went to the desk and asked a second time where the phones were located. She sat on the plastic stool near the phone, wishing they still had actual booths where you could close the door and have some privacy. Deciding against using the quarters, she found a telephone calling card and punched in the torturously long series of numbers, incorrectly. She tried again, finally reached the Green Carnation Gallery, started to talk as soon as she heard a voice, then realized it was an answering machine and hung up in panic.

  She tried, in vain, to remember if she’d given the emergency people Waring’s name and number. Then she tried again, punching in the numbers as slowly as a preschooler playing with a new educational toy, and after the beep, she said, “I don’t know if you remember me, Waring. I’m Josie Tatternall. Your mother’s been taken ill. Please call me at—” For a split-second she couldn’t remember her own phone number. What if her brain were short-circuiting? What if she were having one of those—what did they call them—pinpoint strokes? Well, I guess I’m in the right place for it, she thought, and when she laughed, her phone number rolled off her tongue.

  When she dialed Alonzo’s number she got another machine, with grinding rock music in the background and a message in a heavily accented voice: “You’re there. I’m not here. You know what to do, amigo.” The machine started to repeat the message in Spanish, so she gave up. She sat very still, then dialed Lila, reaching Lila’s answering machine at the same time she remembered that, since it was Wednesday, Lila would be at the Volunteers for Literacy. Her heart was thrumping as though she’d run up a flight of stairs. She hated answering machines as much as she hated computers. For one wild moment she thought of calling Cam, then she went back to the seating area, and lowered herself into a chair, smiling reflexively at the little boy who was wiggling around on the lap of his dozing father.

  She didn’t expect Edna to turn up—Edna was bad as a man when it came to illness. Maybe Dozier would come by. But why was she thinking that Edna was “just like a man” if she expected Dozier, who was a man, to come? Lord, her mind was turning to pluff mud—that soft squishy ooze she’d stepped into as a child when they’d gone harvesting oysters. She could see that her smile had made the wiggling child think that she might play with him, so she closed her eyes. Pluff mud, she thought, imagining its fecund, clean smell, feeling its cool mush sucking at the soles of her feet.

  “What . . . ?” She jerked up, recoiling as she looked into Mort Gebhardt’s face, not ten inches from hers.

  “It’s us,” Mary said, patting her arm.

  “I was just resting my eyes,” she said defensively, realizing that she must’ve fallen asleep.

  Mary nodded. “Some people have that reaction to shock. I was in Los Angeles once when they had an earthquake, and right afterwards I just crawled into bed and slept for hours. We’re here now, so you ought to go on home. Peatsy’s stabilized, whatever that means.”

  “She—?”

  “Uh-uh. It was a heart attack. That’s what I said, wasn’t it? The doctor came out and told us when we came in just a little bit ago. They reached Waring and he’s coming down soon’s he can get a flight. You’re done in, Josie. You ought to go on home. They won’t let you see her anyway. Mort’ll drive you.”

  Mort smiled and offered his hand. He had, Josie noted, not for the first time, a gentle gallantry you wouldn’t have expected from a man who smoked cigars, weighed two hundred pounds, and had made big money in the meat-packing business. “C’mon, Miss Josie,” he kidded her in a drawl, “let me carry you on home.”

  “No, no. I’ll go on,” she said. She noticed that the light had been turned on and, looking at the wall clock, saw that it was almost six. She must’ve been dozing for over an hour. “So Peatsy’s all right?”

  “Stabilized, that’s what they said,” Mary answered dubiously. “I’m gonna put in a call to our son, David. You know he’s an internist. He’ll give me more information than I’ll get out of them here. Let Mort take you home, Josie.”

  Driving after dark made her nervous, but she said, “No, no. I’d really rather go in my own car. I’m fine. You know my house isn’t but ten minutes away. Believe me, I’m fine. I’ll go on home. But promise to let me know how she’s doing.”

  Mort started to insist that he drive her, but Mary, in a tone that suggested she was working out some ongoing personal dispute, said, “Mort, you don’t listen! The woman said she wanted to go alone. Why can’t you respect what she says and let her go alone?”

  “I respect it. I respect it,” Mort insisted, throwing his beefy arm around Mary’s shoulder. “How come I married a shiksa and she still ends up sounding like my mother?”

  Josie smiled as she got up. “You’ll call me?” She handed over Peatsy’s purse, which she’d been holding tight to her chest. Mary took it and promised she’d call.

  As she passed the reception desk Josie looked back. Mort’s arm was around Mary’s waist, her head was on his shoulder, she was talking a mile a minute and Mort was nodding with a “yeah, yeah, I hear you” acceptance. Then he pulled her close and she stopped talking and nestled into him. Josie felt so lonesome she thought she might cry. “Oh, miss,” she said to the receptionist, wondering how she’d been so addle-brained that she hadn’t asked before, “I believe I have another friend here. A Mrs. Grace Koch.” The woman, who’d been fixing the curling M from the “MERRY CHRISTMAS” tacked to the wall behind the desk, turned to her. “A Mrs. Grace Koch,” Josie repeated. “Oh,” the woman said, glancing around. She checked a roster, smiled as she punched a number into the phone, then turned away. Her brief conversation concluded, she turned back and said, “I’m sorry to tell you, ma’am, but Mrs. Koch died yesterday morning. Her family has been notified, so I guess you might get in touch with them.”

  Pulling into her driveway, Josie saw that lights were on in the kitchen, the living room, and the lavender room upstairs. She let herself in through the back door, moving as quietly as a burglar, inhaling the pine scent of the Christmas tree. The sun porch and the kitchen had been restored to order. There was a note from Cuba in the middle of the kitchen table. She’d gotten no further than reading “Dear Miz Tatternall ...” when she heard movement on the stairs and Mrs. Beasley’s whining voice. “Is that you, Mrs. Tatternall?”

  Oh, dear, not now. “Yes, Mrs. Beasley,” she called out, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice. “No need to be alarmed. It’s just me. No need to come down.”

  “I’ve just been frantic, Mrs. Tatternall. Your housekeeper said you’d had an emergency and you’d be right back but . . .”

  “Everything’s all right, Mrs. Beasley. I’ll be with you shortly.” “I was just frantic. Whatever happened? Your housekeeper said—”

  “Mrs. Beasley,” she called again, not bothering to hide her irritation, “you’ll have to excuse me for a few minutes. I have to make some phone calls, and then I’ll knock on your door and we’ll have our sherry, all right?”

  Mrs. Beasley responded with a miffed, “Then I’ll just go take my shower. I suppose we can talk afterward.” Josie listened to Mrs. B. make a grudging retreat to her room, then read the note: “Dear Miz Tatternall, Mr. Dozier tolt me what happen. I clent up and got Miz Beastly in her ro
om.” Josie smiled. Despite Cuba’s chronic misspelling, she suspected that “Beastly” instead of “Beasley” was deliberate. “I strung the lites on the Xmas tree,” the note continued. “I pray Miz Peatsy will be O.K. I pray for her and for you. See you in the morning, Cuba.”

  Still holding the note, she walked through the semidark dining room into the bright living room, flicking off the wall switch, then the lamps, so that only the twinkling lights on the tree remained. Sinking onto the couch, she stared at the boxes of ornaments she’d left at the base of the tree. Grace Koch dead. She had never been close to Grace Koch, but she’d known her for, oh goodness, perhaps fifty years. That a life could be snuffed out, gone from the world so suddenly.... And perhaps Peatsy, who’d sat in this very house a few short hours ago, getting peevish because she’d lost fifty cents at bridge, Peatsy might be dying at this very moment. And Peatsy was only a few years older than Josie.

  She smoothed the note on her lap. Cuba was going to pray for her. How comforting it must be to believe in an all-powerful and protective God who was always on call. She’d been raised Methodist and, at Bear’s request, had taken religious instruction and “converted” when they’d married. She still went to Mass because she liked Father Lazeret, but when she got right down to it, she had to admit that she’d stopped believing in a Daddy god who took a personal interest in your life even before she’d met Bear—when she’d been a high-school senior and stopped praying for victory in basketball games. Probably there was a God—or at least an intelligent force in the universe—but such a force was beyond her understanding, and she couldn’t expect that He, She, or It cared about whether your team won, or if you paid your bills on time, or even if you had cancer. You had to rely on family and friends for that sort of concern. Nevertheless, she felt a powerful urge to pray. “Please,” she began. But then she just stared up at the tree, thinking of Christmases past.