child, and that was that. They duked it out in court and she won.’ She taps the page. ‘Which is how Lucy ended up down here.’
‘So you did know my mother.’
‘We didn’t, like, hang out with her.’ She sighs. ‘I’m afraid nobody did.’
Like a good student, she waits for his next question, but he is dead beat. Flat out of questions, he sinks into the down sofa cushions. The Florida room smells of cleaning products; so does nice Mrs McCall.
Finally she offers, ‘She didn’t hang with us. When we were little, it was the car and driver. Later she had her own car.’
‘She gave my mother the car?’
‘Oh, she gave her everything she wanted. Clothes. The car, when she was old enough to drive. Lucy was the only thing she had. It’s sad,’ Nenna adds without explanation, ‘they used to be so close.’
‘Lucy and her grandmother. What happened?’
‘She was your great-grandmother, I suppose.’ Smiling, she proffers the plate.
Deflection, so ladylike. Must be a Southern thing.
‘Another cookie? I’m famous for these.’
He is both grateful and sorry that she isn’t wearing perfume. For Dan, perfume is a distinct turnoff; this lady smells of toothpaste and fresh shampoo, which makes it harder to refuse. For the first time since the hospital he is aware of his body, which is waking up after a week of grieving. Yo, Dude! ‘Thanks, but I’d better not.’
‘Do you have a girlfriend?’
He did but he doesn’t. Nenna doesn’t need to know. ‘Did she have a boyfriend?’
‘Who?’
‘Lucy.’
‘Oh, Lucy. Everybody was in love with her.’ Nenna’s face turns into a mix CD, producing music from several different albums all at once. ‘We thought she and Bobby . . .’ She waits a beat too long, considering, before she buys him off with a smile. ‘But you never know.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Hidden fires,’ she says.
Reporters know silence works better than a question. ‘Yes Ma’am.’
‘Oh please,’ she says. ‘We are way past Ma’am.’
‘About these hidden fires . . .’
‘You never know what’s going on behind people’s faces, do you?’
‘No.’
The pause that follows takes on a life of its own. He hears ice cubes dropping. Footsteps upstairs. The husband stomped out like Bigfoot yesterday. Must be Steffy. Wish she’d come down.
‘Something happened,’ Nenna says finally.
Keep your head down, Carteret. The best interviewers are invisible. ‘And . . .’
‘And . . .’
Repeat, so she’ll have to complete the sentence. ‘Something happened and . . .’
Generations of ice cubes drop before she says, ‘To be honest with you, we never really knew.’
This brings his head up fast. ‘Ma’am?’
‘Nenna.’
‘Nenna.’
She goes on, but in a new direction. ‘Lucy’s father went to Clemson, I think. Unless it was The Citadel. Either way . . .’
‘David Carteret.’ His next source. ‘Still in Charleston, right?’
‘We heard he died.’
Oh fuck.
‘Suicide.’
Oh, fuck.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I never knew him. It’s OK.’
‘Either way,’ she finishes, as if this explains it all, ‘he wasn’t from around here.’
‘I see.’ This is a lie. He will never understand this town.
‘I mean, he wasn’t one of us.’ Nenna pauses to regroup. When she goes on, it is about nothing he expected. ‘You know, Davis and I are what Fort Jude calls having trouble.’ She lets this float between them.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You don’t know what it’s been like.’ She reaches for his arm, rethinks and laces her hands like a child playing this is the church and this is the steeple. ‘He fell in love with his first cousin. How obscene is that?’
Because he has noplace to go with this, he sinks the same old hook. ‘Did she have a boyfriend?’
‘Who, Gayle? Hell no. She’s already used up one husband, and she’s getting cranked up to dump number two . . .’
‘I meant Lucy.’
‘. . . Clueless Ed. Who knows what the law is in California. For all I know, she has Davis lined up to be number three.’ Nenna raises her head, looking at him until he softens and meets her eyes. ‘It’s my mistake, really. Davis wasn’t local either.’
The silence stretches so thin that he is obliged to ask. ‘Um, about my mother . . .’
‘I’m so stupid, how was I supposed to know? I mean, it’s practically incest, but how could I not see the signs?’ Now that she has his full attention she says, ‘I may have to divorce him.’
‘I see.’
Her voice lifts in a trill of discovery. ‘In fact, I think I will.’
‘Thanks, Mrs Um.’ He’s tired. They’ve been sitting here too long. Clumsily, he weighs exit lines. ‘I’ve wasted enough of your time.’
‘Oh, not at all.’