Magnolia Wednesdays Part 3

Melanie sprinted out the door. In the parking lot, she fired up the Honda Odyssey, then aimed her trusty steed east on Upper Roswell Road toward the high school where Shelby was undoubtedly already waiting and fuming.

At a red light she texted Trip to confirm that he'd made it home on the bus. She had barely hit "send" when the driver behind her laid on the horn. Startled, Melanie accelerated, almost running into the SUV in front of her. Cautioning herself to calm down, Melanie focused on the road as she covered the last miles to the school's front entrance.

"You're late," Shelby said in greeting. "If you'd let me drive to school like everybody else, I wouldn't have to stand around like a total geek waiting for you to show up."

"h.e.l.lo to you, too." Melanie resisted responding to the taunt. Nor did she comment on the fact that Shelby's skirt was far too short and her makeup much too heavy. Or explain that she would gladly have let Shelby drive to school if she hadn't already demonstrated a tendency to simply drive right by the building without stopping.

These were just a few of the countless things Melanie didn't say to her daughter because anything she said was like a match to tinder. And because ever since J.J.'s abrupt and unexpected death two years ago, the three of them had lost their tether as if they were planets shot out of their orbits, ripped free of their gravitational pull.

"I'm adding a belly-dancing cla.s.s to the weeknight schedule," she said, looking for a non-incendiary topic of conversation.

Shelby half shrugged, the subject not even important enough to require the movement of both shoulders.

The drive to the tutor wasn't all that far; like everything in the northern suburb of east Cobb, ten to fifteen minutes would pretty much do it. But Melanie wasn't prepared to pa.s.s those minutes in silence like some hired chauffeur. She searched for another safe topic.

"Aunt Vivi called. She's going to come stay with us for a while. She said she wanted to spend some time with you and Trip."

This did, in fact, capture Shelby's attention. She turned to face Melanie. "She always acts like she can't wait to get away from here. What's the point of going somewhere that you can't wait to leave?"

This was a good question, especially since Melanie was fairly certain Vivien had shattered some land and speed records bailing out on them after J.J.'s funeral, something Melanie had been too numb to fully process at the time.

"Well, I'm sure it'll be nice to have her around." Melanie said this without any certainty whatsoever.

"Right." Shelby gave her the look she'd been perfecting for some time now. The one that said her mother was a complete and utter moron. "Like she ever cared about any of us."

As she pulled to a stop in front of the tutor's house, Melanie whipped her checkbook from her purse and began to fill it in, her efforts centered on not thinking about her sister's reappearance, her daughter's hostility, or the amount of money that flew out of their bank account on a weekly basis. "Here." She handed the check to Shelby, then watched her daughter climb out of the minivan with a big splash of thigh. "I'll be back in forty-five minutes." Which she sincerely hoped would be enough time to get to the grocery store, stock up, check out, and get back to the tutor's.

Inching down Johnson Ferry Road toward the Publix Super Market, she called home to make sure Trip was actually there.

"How was your day?" she asked after his mumbled greeting.

"Fine."

"Good."

There was a long pause. Melanie sighed and checked her rearview mirror before forcing her way into the other lane. She ignored the horns that blared in protest. She knew just how p.i.s.sed off the woman behind her probably was at losing an entire car length, but she simply didn't have the time to poke along right now. "I'm going to pick up some groceries and a frozen pizza for dinner. Will you preheat the oven to four hundred in thirty minutes?"

"Okay."

"And set the table?"

"Yeah."

"Are you sure you're all right?"

"Yeah."

This was the extent of her conversations with Trip these days. He wasn't hostile like Shelby, didn't act out; he just didn't seem to have much to say to her. Or anyone else for that matter. Even the psychologist she'd taken him to in the months after J.J.'s death had admitted he'd been largely unable to get her son to speak.

Once inside the grocery store, Melanie raced through the aisles, tossing things into her cart, nodding to acquaintances-also mostly working moms-the full-time stay-at-homes having presumably wheeled through the aisles at a more leisurely pace earlier in the day.

In the checkout line she tried to understand why after all these years of grocery shopping she could not a.s.sess the quickest line. She'd avoided the checkout people that she knew moved too slowly, sidestepped the apparently single father who'd just started unloading a cart overflowing with microwave dinners, high-sugar cereals, and a stunning a.s.sortment of junk food, and pa.s.sed by the elderly woman who was studying a debit card she apparently had no earthly idea how to use. Yet she'd ended up stuck behind an off-duty employee who'd brought in her newborn so that every other employee within a mile radius could come coo over it.

Finally she was out of there and speed-pushing the cart through the parking lot where she was almost mowed down by other women with the same grim focused looks on their faces that she knew must be on hers. She was five minutes late to the tutor's and arrived to find Shelby out on the driveway.

Shelby spent the six-minute ride home texting. Her thumbs flew over the tiny keyboard, her gaze fixed to the tiny screen that had become her lifeline to the world, or at least that part of it that mattered to her. Every few seconds there was the sound of an incoming message. This was followed by more thumb action.

"Who are you *talking' to?" Melanie asked.

"n.o.body you know."

"I don't have to know them," Melanie replied carefully, although she knew she should. Should know everyone Shelby hung out with. Meet their parents. Be on top of things. "I just need a name. Some clue as to who you're friendly with."

"Jason and Ally." Shelby's fingers never slowed nor did she offer another iota of information. She grimaced in distaste when Melanie asked her to take a few of the grocery bags into the house. Inside, Melanie pried Trip away from the PS3 and sent him out for the rest of the bags. He didn't grimace. Or speak.

Shelby was texting again before Melanie had even unwrapped the pizza. After she slid it into the oven, she made Shelby stop long enough to mix a salad and forced Trip to turn off the TV and set the table, but even she wasn't looking forward to a meal during which she would try to pry information about their days from them and they would give her the smallest possible drips and drabs. She had to be back at the studio in thirty minutes.

Melanie helped herself to a slice of pizza. "Shelby, turn your phone off now. You know we don't bring them to the table."

Her daughter pushed the phone away from her and sent an ugly glare at her mother. Melanie didn't comment; the ugly looks had become pretty much par for the course. But she did pocket the phone, then smiled and attempted, once again, to start a conversation.

"So who do you think will be going to the World Series?" she asked her son. When J.J. had been alive, this question might have prompted a dinner-long discussion with good-natured taunting and real vested interest. Trip, who had once lived and breathed sports, baseball in particular, just shrugged.

They consumed the meal and cleared the table in silence, technically together but locked in their own little worlds. Melanie would have liked to blame their lack of communication on the fact that two out of three of them were teenagers and, therefore, horribly hormonally imbalanced while she was clearly stressed to the max. But she was afraid the real reason was J.J.'s absence; the vast emptiness he'd left between them seemed impossible to fill.

"I've got two cla.s.ses tonight," she said as she prepared to leave. Without comment she returned Shelby's phone and pocketed the key to Shelby's car, which had been taken from Shelby three weeks ago when her truancy had been discovered. "I should be back by ten thirty."

She fixed her daughter with a stare. "Watch out for your brother. And please help him with his Spanish if he needs it."

Shelby didn't answer. Trip was seated at the kitchen counter and was emptying his backpack all around him in preparation for doing homework. Melanie dropped a kiss on the top of his head-she only got to be taller than him when he was seated-and strode out of the house, rushing yet again.

For the next two hours she lost herself in the music and her students' excitement as she taught the first cla.s.s the intricate steps of the merengue and then the second cla.s.s the bouncy shuffle of the Texas two-step.

She was beyond tired when she finally drove the van into the driveway; she could hardly wait to peel off the clothes she'd put on at six thirty that morning and crawl into bed. All thought of relaxing fled when the van's headlights illuminated a flash of white moving near the backyard fence and Melanie recognized her daughter's back retreating around the side of the house.

If she'd come home thirty seconds later, she wouldn't have known that Shelby had gone out. In the garage, Melanie turned off the car and sat longing for bed. But she couldn't pretend she hadn't seen Shelby tiptoeing around the house. Or ignore the fact that Shelby had, once again, flagrantly disobeyed her.

Melanie got out of the car. If there had been another choice, she would have taken it. But it was her job to protect her daughter whether she wanted to be protected or not. Even if the person she was protecting Shelby from was Shelby herself.

6.

THE APARTMENT WAS too clean. Vivien hadn't even left yet and already it felt like it belonged to someone else. Her furniture still sat on her wool rugs, which sat on her hardwood floors. Her artwork still covered the walls. But her essence was already packed away in the oversized suitcase that held the only clothes she owned that might have enough elastic in them to see her through the next months.

She knew she was lucky to have found someone to sublet the apartment. Lucky that a friend of a friend had been temporarily rea.s.signed to the New York bureau and didn't want to commit to anything permanent until he knew how long the a.s.signment might last. Lucky that she didn't need board approval to have someone there to water her plants, flush the toilets, keep the apartment from sitting empty. Especially lucky given the state of the stock market, the demolition of her 401(k), and her lack of a serious job, that she had someone to pay her rent.

Lucky.

Wheeling the suitcase behind her, Vivien rode the elevator down to the lobby and handed the envelope with a set of keys to the doorman. "You treat him right, Ralph, you hear?" she said as the cab pulled up out front. "And anything that gets delivered by mistake can be sent to that address in Atlanta I gave you."

"You got it." Ralph stepped smartly to the front door and opened it for her, then did the same with the cab. Ralph had been there every one of the ten years Vivien had owned her apartment and she had never once seen him slouch or grouse. Over her shoulder she saw him tip his hat to her and continued to watch as first Ralph and then the building dwindled and then disappeared.

At Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Vivi retrieved her suitcase from the baggage carousel and wheeled it out to the curb. At home in New York she would have cued up for a cab or maybe already lined up the limo service that serviced the network. Here people actually drove to the airport and circled like the planes above them, landing only briefly to retrieve their traveler before swooping out again to the highway of their choice.

It was early November and the sky was a perfect blue, the air just shy of crisp. The leaves that would have been every shade of red and gold imaginable just a few weeks ago were now pale and faded, their grip on their branches loosened. The smallest breeze would send them spiraling to the ground.

She spotted Melanie in the driver's seat of a silvery gray minivan. Despite the exhaustion that had become her constant companion, Vivien's lips began to lift into a smile. She was always glad to see Melanie; it was just what happened after that initial burst of pleasure that was sometimes unpredictable. But the smile died before it was fully formed when she saw who sat in the pa.s.senger seat. Vivien blinked twice, hoping that she'd been mistaken, but despite their mother's disdain for minivans and the suburbs from which they were launched, Caroline Baxter Gray was, in fact, riding shotgun.

The van slid up to the curb in front of Vivi, and Melanie hopped out and ran around to greet her. They hugged quickly-the police at Hartsfield didn't allow time for major reunions-and Vivien was shocked at how thin Melanie had become. She had the sense that if she squeezed too hard something might snap. This, of course, could not be said of Vivi. Now in her fourth month, she wasn't yet showing, but had already packed on an extra six pounds.

Nonetheless, Melanie insisted on taking the suitcase from her and hefting it into the back of the van. The backseat door rolled open unaided and Vivien did a double take.

Melanie held up the key remote. "Sorry. Should have warned you."

"And not just about your automatic doors." She tilted her head toward the car where Caroline sat somewhat like the queen of Sheba, waiting for her minions to drive on.

Melanie shot her an apologetic smile, but her eyes didn't look the least bit sorry. "She asked me if I'd heard from you. What was I supposed to do, pretend you just showed up on my doorstep without warning?"

Despite an irritated signal from a nearby policeman, neither of them moved.

"You big chicken." Vivien was amazed at how unprepared she was to see her mother. Not to mention the completely irrational fear that somehow her mother would take one look at her and know all the things that Vivien was hiding.

"Look who's talking," Melanie replied and Vivien wondered how they'd reverted back to childhood so immediately. In a moment they'd be tossing their hair and sticking their tongues out at each other. "Anyway, it's just lunch. We have to drop her off for her hair appointment right afterward."

Caroline's window glided down and she leaned out expectantly. The policeman was moving their way now, so Vivien stepped forward to kiss her mother's perfectly made-up cheek. "h.e.l.lo, Mother."

Caroline looked her up and down, and Vivien knew without a word being said that she had failed to measure up. As usual.

"It's, um, great to see you," Vivien said.

Caroline nodded and smiled as if to say, "Of course it is." She completely ignored the existence of the policeman, who blew his whistle and motioned for Melanie to drive on. Vivien, glad of the reprieve, climbed into the backseat and was grateful when her sister filled the drive with idle conversation and innocuous questions about the weather in New York and the details of Vivien's flight.

Caroline felt no such restraint. "You look a little peak-ed," her mother said when they had been sufficiently fawned over by the maitre d' at Caroline's restaurant du jour and then seated at a favored table.

"Peak-ed?" Vivien overp.r.o.nounced as her mother had. "Is that still a word?" As always when in Caroline's company, Vivien felt as if she'd been plopped down in a reenactment of Gone with the Wind. Or that it might be time to ring for one of the family retainers to fetch her fan. But at least she hadn't said, "You look a little pregnant."

Melanie smothered a smile. It was one of the things that still bound them, their reaction to their mother's regal airs. How covert they were in these reactions and how hard they tried to appease her varied depending on an ever-changing array of factors. Even at the ripe old ages of thirty-eight and forty-one, neither of them was immune.

"You haven't eaten a bite. Are you feeling all right?" Caroline ignored Vivien's word challenge.

Vivien took a moment to consider her answer. The nausea had eased up over the last week, but the memory of it was still strong enough to keep all but the most insistent hunger pains at bay. She could feel herself drooping though; despite Dr. Grable's a.s.surance that the exhaustion would ease up, she always felt in need of a nap. This had not been a problem while she was in New York and unemployed and could lie in bed for hours at a time. But if she wanted to keep her condition to herself, she could hardly admit that a two-and-a-half-hour plane ride had worn her out.

Lifting her water gla.s.s, she took a gulp, then smiled as disarmingly as she knew how. "I think I'm just a bit dehydrated from the plane. I can't seem to get enough to drink."

"Are you sure you're recovered from . . ." Her mother lowered her voice as if every woman in that place hadn't watched the three of them walk in and then discussed Vivien's humiliating wound at length.

"The wound is healed, Mother." Vivien stared into Caroline Baxter Gray's a.s.sessing gaze, the one that could make you feel like a fly pinned down by its wings. "I, um, just felt a need to take some time off to recuperate and, um, regroup before I seriously look for a new opportunity." She simply couldn't bring herself to admit that she'd only quit because they'd been planning to fire her. Or that she'd already searched for a job and discovered herself virtually unemployable.

For a brief moment Vivien allowed herself to consider all the things she was unwilling to admit or discuss. The months ahead played out in her mind, full of evasion and sidestepping. Trying to fool the people who knew her the best.

Panic filled the spot where the nausea normally resided. How was she ever going to pull this off? What had she been thinking when she'd decided to come here?

"I must say I had no idea how many people down here watched you on television until after the . . . incident," Caroline said. "I got so many calls of concern I had to stop answering the phone."

Vivien had no doubt these people had taken great delight in tweaking the nose of the ever-proper Caroline Baxter Gray. She could just imagine the glee with which they'd dialed their phones.

Vivi sent Melanie a silent plea for intervention, but Melanie seemed consumed with getting the cream and sweetener levels in her coffee just right.

"And, of course, it was hard to explain why I wasn't up there taking care of you." Caroline's tone signaled a ma.s.sive hurt somehow surmounted. "Like a mother should."

Melanie added another sugar subst.i.tute and stirred, her attention riveted to her cup.

Vivien sighed. She was much too tired for confrontation. And not near enough to the top of her game to come close to winning. "I'm sorry I didn't ask you to come take care of me." She almost smiled, picturing Caroline attempting to clean and change the bandage on her wound. It would have been one for the memory books. "I was just . . . overwhelmed. I wasn't really thinking." This, at least, was true.

Melanie stopped stirring. She looked up from her cup.

Caroline smiled. It was not a big smile and it was not all-encompa.s.sing or all-inclusive. She still did not approve of Vivien's behavior or, for that matter, 90 percent of her life choices-and those were only the ones she knew about. But for the moment, Vivien's apology would suffice. They could move on.

As her mother paid the bill and flirted again with the maitre d' on the way out, Vivien didn't allow herself to think about her mother's reaction when her pregnancy became obvious. Like Scarlett O'Hara, she would simply think about that "tomorrow."

NOT TOO FAR from where the Gray women lunched, Ruth Melnick sat on a gray tweed couch in the office of Myron Guttman, PhD. Her husband, Ira, sat unhappily beside her. She knew he was unhappy because of the woe-is-me expression on his normally ruddy face and because he'd told her so. "How many c.o.c.kamamie marriage counselors are you planning to drag me to?" he'd complained when they met in front of the tall gla.s.s building on Peachtree Dunwoody Road. "The rent in this building is astronomical. And now I'm going to pay part of it to hear what a crummy husband I am. Why do we have to pay these people to hear it? You've told me plenty of times already."

"We're going to see as many counselors as it takes," Ruth replied unperturbed. "Until we find one you actually listen to. You stopped listening to me a long time ago." About twenty-five years ago to be exact, right when they'd hit the halfway mark in their marriage and the only thing he'd seemed to care about anymore was his business.

Now she and Ira sat side by side but worlds apart while Myron Guttman, PhD, tried to get to the crux of their problem. "Let's try to figure out what you each want from your relationship. Then we'll look at what it might take to satisfy you both."

Ira snorted.

"All right, Mr. Melnick," the therapist said in response. "Let's start with you. What is it you want that you're not getting from your wife?"

"Respect."

It was Ruth's turn to snort.

"And a little understanding of why I put so much of my time into the business."

The therapist opened his mouth to pursue the subject. Ruth raised a hand to stop him. This was their sixth marriage therapist in as many years-Miriam Youngblood, half Jewish, half Native American, and former goodwill amba.s.sador of both the Temple Sisterhood and the Cherokee Nation, had been her personal favorite. She knew what was coming better than the therapist did.

"Perhaps," Ruth said smoothly, striving for the professional nonjudgmental tone all six of their counselors had used, "you could tell us why you feel so compelled to work eighty-hour weeks when you no longer need to?" She smiled and cupped her chin in the palm of one hand like Miriam Youngblood, the Jewish Medicine Woman, used to do.

Ira looked down at his watch. He sighed a long-suffering sigh. "We're paying this guy a fortune," he said. "Let him talk."

"All right, Mr. Melnick," the psychologist said in the same tone as Ruth had. "Why do you feel compelled to work eighty-hour weeks now that you don't have to? Wouldn't it make sense to take it a little easier, spend a little more time with your wife? Enjoy the fruits of your labor?"