Page 20 of The Guests on South Battery
“I’ll need a night-light shining in the hallway. I have one for my bedroom, but I need one for outside my door.”
“All right,” I said. “That won’t be a problem.”
“Good. And thanks again.” She said good-bye and walked onto the piazza and then out through the garden gate. I watched her leave, listening as her footsteps disappeared down the sidewalk, trying to think of all the reasons why a grown woman would still be afraid of the dark.
CHAPTER 7
As was typical in Charleston, bitingly cold winter days were often followed by much balmier weather that had us replacing our heavy coats with cotton sweaters. It was as if Mother Nature were teasing us, making us dream with an almost feverish anticipation of the upcoming season. Spring in Charleston was something out of a fairy tale, with every garden, window box, and planter spilling out with fragrant blooms in every shape, size, and color. The streets that were merely picturesque during the other three seasons became works of art in the spring—assuming one liked row upon row of old houses and couldn’t see the shadows hidden behind their windows. But even I could almost forgive the hoards of tourists who flocked here for the spring tour of homes and gardens.
As I waited for Jayne’s arrival, I sat in the back garden pushing JJ and Sarah in the little baby swings Rich Kobylt had made for them—including safety harnesses—and then strung from a low branch of the ancient oak tree that had probably been just a sapling when the house was built in 1848. Jack hadn’t found it alarming that our contractor/plumber/handyman was considered a member of our family now and that he was making swings for our children. And helping himself to coffee in our kitchen and teaching tricks to our puppies. Porgy and Bessknew how to roll over, shake a paw, and play dead. I wondered if all that time spent had been billable hours, but Jack wouldn’t let me ask.
I was remembering my fortieth birthday party that had been set in this very garden, and humming the song “Fernando,” wondering if I was just imagining the children wincing when I tried to hit the higher notes. Whoever said that small children were accepting of our failings must not have actually known any.
Meghan Black, Sophie’s grad student, had shown up each day to dig in the hole that had appeared in my garden. Sometimes she’d bring other students, but today she was by herself. She’d spread out a sheet on the grass onto which she’d place anything found in the hole, right next to a floral Lily Pulitzer insulated mug with a tea tag dangling from it. It sat next to a bag from Glazed Donuts on King, which I had to force myself from looking at because it made me salivate. She wore the pearls again, and a pear-colored Jackie O cardigan, but these were paired with jeans and Hunter boots in deference to the digging she’d be doing. Sophie had questioned the practicality of Meghan’s clothing choices, but I had to admit that I liked this girl’s style.
I stared uneasily at the hole. There was something there, something that hadn’t been unearthed yet. But it would be. I felt it. There was just nothing I could do to stop it. It was like the sky before a storm, how you knew it would be a bad one, but you just weren’t sure when you needed to seek shelter.
Barking from the three dogs came from the kitchen—the dogs being barred from the back garden until the hole had been filled in—followed by the sound of a shutting car door. I looked at my watch, seeing that it was time for my carpool partner to be dropping off Nola. I turned my head at the sound of giggling and spotted Nola, her best friend, Alston Ravenel, and a girl I hadn’t met before emerging from around the side of the house. They all wore Ashley Hall uniforms and carried book bags, and each had that fresh-scrubbed look of youth and good health, their clear-skinned smiling faces completely alien to my own gawky teenage years. The one good thing about having absent parents during that time of my life was that there was no photographic evidence of my adolescence to haunt me into adulthood.
I waved them over and watched as Sarah smiled and gurgled at her big sister while JJ squirmed and reached for Alston, his girl crush. He had a thing for blond women and had been known to reach forward in his stroller at attractive strangers, pinching his fingers open and closed, demanding that they hold him. I tried to tell him it was cute while he was a baby but probably wouldn’t be as tolerated when he got older. He didn’t seem to care.
“Hi, girls.” I stood. “Did you have a good day at school?”
Nola leaned down to place a kiss on each baby’s cheek before taking over the swing pushing. “It was great until pickup. Ashley Martin has her license now, so her parents bought her a Mercedes convertible. She made a big show of blocking our exit from the parking lot by putting the top down. Alston’s mom wassoannoyed. We told her that her SUV was bigger and should just run over Ashley and her stupid car.”
“It must be hard being fifteen,” I said with a smile. Although not as hard as it was being a fifteen-year-old girl’s father. It was about to get interesting around here when it was time for Nola to start driving. And dating. I wondered if I should go ahead and schedule family counseling to make sure there was a spot open for us.
“And this is Lindsey Farrell. She lives over on Queen Street in the yellow Victorian.”
She shook my hand and looked me in the eye. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Trenholm. My mom says you probably won’t remember her, but she went to USC with you. You were in the same art history class, I think.”
“What was her maiden name?”
“Veronica Hall. You did a project together on early American painters your senior year.”
I thought for a moment, only having a vague memory of the name and that project. “I don’t think I remember her, but I still have my yearbooks, so I’ll look her up. But tell her I said hello.”
“I will.” She smiled and I saw how striking she was. She had an almost elfin face surrounded by a cloud of black hair, and dark brown eyes that appeared black. But it was her smile that transformed her face from merely pretty to beautiful. It did nothing to disguise the aura of sadnessthat seemed to permeate the air around her. I looked away, not wanting to see more than what I was prepared to.
“Hi, Meghan!” Nola shouted. Meghan looked up and waved back. Nola was fascinated with the older girl’s passion for her chosen field of study, and hadn’t even yawned during a lengthy explanation of the history of cisterns—both their construction and usage. I’d seen her sit at the edge of the hole in perfect silence while watching Meghan work, then taking an inordinate amount of time studying each small artifact that was placed on the sheet. I didn’t understand the fascination, seeing it as the equivalent of watching grass grow, but as long as Nola’s interest didn’t slow down the excavation, I left them alone.
“Mrs. Houlihan baked brownies,” I said. “Flourless for you, and then regular ones with taste for the rest of us. They’re on the stove if you and your friends want a snack.”
“Maybe I should try a flourless one,” Alston said as she swayed with a content JJ, his chubby fingers wrapped around strands of her long blond hair.
“Unless you’re trying to punish yourself, I wouldn’t,” I suggested.
She giggled, then carefully put JJ back in his swing. He began snorting his disappointment until Nola gave him a push on the swing and he was back to his burbling self.
“We have an algebra test tomorrow, so we’ll bring our snack up to my room to help us study. Try not to disturb us, okay?”
“Okay,” I said. “The new nanny will be here soon. Will you have a few minutes to say hi?”
“Sure. Just text me and I’ll come down.”
She and the girls said good-bye and left before I could ask if I could just knock on the bedroom door. As Lindsey turned to follow the other two girls into the house, I noticed something long and rectangular, like a narrow box, sticking out of her backpack. It looked like a board game, but the bottom was facing me so I couldn’t see what it was. Nola wasn’t into board games, as I was sure she and most of her generation were more into Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter. I thought it was nice she and her friends were going a little retro.
JJ began to squeal and kick his feet while his hands opened and closed again in what Jack referred to as his crab imitation. I turned around to see Jayne coming from the side garden.
