Читать книгу Belle Pointe - Karen Young - Страница 10

As if to challenge Anne’s decision about leaving Buck, the weather turned bad and she had to spend several hours in the airport waiting for her flight to depart. By the time she got off the plane in Memphis, she’d had too much time to think, but not enough to change her mind.

She caught the first glimpse of her father and Beatrice at Baggage Claim before they spotted her. Franklin Marsh was a tall man, lean and gangly. Anne’s nose barely came to the third button on his shirt, an Oxford button-down that appeared almost a size too large. As was the tan corduroy jacket he wore. He looked exactly what he was—an academic and an author/journalist whose thoughts were often engaged elsewhere.

With tears clogging her throat, she let herself be folded into his embrace. “Don’t ask,” she whispered, guessing that she must look ready to splinter into a thousand pieces. He held her for a long moment, sensing that she needed it, just as he’d done countless times when she was a child.

“Thanks for coming to meet me, Dad,” she managed to say with a little sniff.

He made a tsk-ing sound. “And wouldn’t I go to the moon to meet my Annie-girl. How are you, love?”

“I’m okay.” Swallowing a lump in her throat, she looked beyond her father and met the anxious blue eyes of her stepmother. “Beatrice. I’ve kept you away from your shop today, haven’t I?”

“A welcome break,” Beatrice said, holding out her arms. “Is there a hug for me, too?”

Her stepmother was about Anne’s height, an attractive woman whose once-dark hair styled in a casual pageboy was rapidly turning gray. The long sweater she wore over a gauzy tiered skirt made her look exactly what she was—an aging child of the sixties. Anne stepped naturally into a warm embrace that made her throat go tight, and her doubts about her welcome disappeared.

“I’m so happy you’re here,” Beatrice said in her ear. Pulling back, she studied Anne’s face intently.

Anne brought both hands to her cheeks. “Is my makeup a mess? I know I look like something the cat dragged in.”

Beatrice shook her head, smiling. “Was I staring? If so, it’s just to check that you’re as lovely as I remembered on my wedding day.”

Again, to her consternation, Anne felt herself on the verge of tears, but somehow managed a laugh. “I guess that means I don’t look as bedraggled as I feel.” They’d met only a year ago. And once Anne got over the shock of the idea of her father remarrying, she’d liked his new wife from the start. “And thanks for being so gracious about having me. You must think I’ve got some nerve just calling and saying I’m on my way without giving you any notice.”

“You don’t have to give notice to visit us, Anne…ever.”

“That’s nice of you to say, but it has to be an inconvenience.”

“Inconvenience?” Franklin, watching them with a smile, spoke up. “What kind of nonsense is that? I wish you’d stay a month.”

“Be careful what you wish for, Dad,” she said dryly.

An hour later, as they exited Interstate 55, the gently rolling terrain of north Mississippi abruptly changed to the stark flatness of the Delta. Now in early April the land lay fallow, but in high summer the fields turned lush and green with cotton plants and in August the bolls swelled in the scorching Mississippi sun until they finally burst. Everything that had been green turned suddenly, dramatically, to snowy white. It still seemed so different to Anne, reared in New England where winters were long and gray and cold and summers all too brief.

As they neared the city limits of the town, she read a signing proclaiming Tallulah as the proud hometown of Buck Whitaker. It was a reminder that, to the folks in Tallulah, Buck was a bigger-than-life hero. At the same time, she was reminded that his celebrity would make it hard for her to keep a low profile while she was here.

Another mile and she noticed a profusion of political signs. To her surprise, the biggest and most prominent featured Buck’s brother, Pearce. “I didn’t know Pearce was involved in a political campaign.”

“No?” Franklin frowned. “I would have thought he’d contact Buck for an endorsement. The state senate is turning out to be a horse race and Buck’s name would definitely be an asset to Pearce.”

“His opponent is giving him a run for his money,” Beatrice said, “but in the end I don’t see how anyone can beat a Whitaker.”

Franklin chuckled. “My wife is supporting the opposition.”

“And who are you supporting, Dad?”

“The Spectator remains neutral,” he said piously. “So far.”

Beatrice gave Anne a knowing smile. “I’ll win him over yet.”

“All it would take for Pearce to win, with or without an endorsement from the Spectator,” Franklin said, as they approached a huge billboard picturing Buck in pitcher’s stance, “is an endorsement from Buck.”

“I forget how big Buck’s name is in this town,” Anne said, now looking at his face painted on the side of the high school gym.

“It’s understandable when you consider the odds of a town this size producing a world-class athlete,” Franklin replied.

“I guess they’ve forgotten how long it took before he was recognized as world-class,” she remarked.

On her first visit to Belle Pointe just before their wedding, Buck had still been stuck in the minor leagues, frustrated and keenly ambitious, but it had not mattered to Anne whether he ever made it into the pro ranks. She was that much in love with him. What did matter was that he spent so little time with his family. His father had died before they ever met, but his mother and Pearce, his older brother, were in Tallulah. Although Buck harbored resentment and hurt over things that had happened after his father died, she wondered if he hadn’t overreacted. People said things, did things, in the wake of a family trauma that could be worked out. To Anne, it seemed a shame to simply withdraw from his family when he had such an interesting heritage.

“There’s the turn to Belle Pointe,” Franklin said now, as they approached the ornate iron gate. “Won’t be long before folks around here find out you’re back for a visit. They’ll wonder where Buck is. What’s your plan to deal with that?”

“I don’t have a plan,” she said, gazing at the house where Buck was born. Stretching on all sides were endless cotton fields, but the house itself was surrounded by shade trees, mostly oak, sycamore and the unique and stately magnolia. Brightening the grounds nearer the house were hot-pink azaleas in full bloom.

“It is a fantastic sight, isn’t it?” Beatrice said, following her gaze.

“Yes.” She knew she would never forget her first look at Belle Pointe. It was high summer when Buck took her to meet his family. They’d driven past miles of lush cotton fields and suddenly there it was, an antebellum gem of classic Greek Revival design. She’d gazed enthralled, thinking the place looked like something out of Gone with the Wind, a white pearl in a green sea.

Franklin slowed the car. “When I see it, I sometimes get a feeling that the clock at Belle Pointe stopped somewhere in the nineteenth century. Same thing with a few other landowners around here as well. How they’ve managed to hold on to such a unique lifestyle is truly remarkable.”

“Yes, remarkable,” Anne murmured, studying a tall water tower painted like a cotton boll. “I thought the same thing myself when I first saw Belle Pointe.”

“Of course, most of the original plantations were divided up as families came on hard times. Beatrice can tell you something about that.”

“My daddy lost our land when it was sold for back taxes,” she explained at Anne’s puzzled look.

“Oh, no,” Anne murmured.

“He was a very stubborn man,” Beatrice said.

“I’ll say.” With Belle Pointe behind them now, Franklin picked up speed. Anne guessed there was a story there, but neither offered more details.

“On the other hand,” Beatrice said, “the Whitakers have managed to hold on to Belle Point for five generations. They’ve even added to the original acreage. And with your mother-in-law managing things, that’s not likely to change—at least not in this lifetime.”

Anne welcomed any scrap of information about Victoria Whitaker. From the start, she’d been a bit in awe of Buck’s mother. “Buck doesn’t talk much about Belle Pointe…or his family, so while I’m here I’m going to try to get better acquainted.”

“The Spectator’s archives are a good place to start,” Beatrice said. “With your journalism background, you should feel right at home poking around down there, right, Franklin?”

He slowed as a farm vehicle pulled onto the road in front of him. “More than poking around in those dusty old shelves, I’d love to have you working right alongside me. I could use a good journalist.”

She hadn’t thought about going to work. She hadn’t thought about anything much beyond getting away. At the sound of an airplane, she turned her gaze skyward and watched a crop-duster preparing to land at a small airfield. Another mile or two and they would be at Tallulah’s town square, which was about all the downtown amounted to.

“Considering my own fascination for the Delta and its culture,” Franklin said, “it puzzles me how someone with Buck’s heritage could stay away for years, even with the exciting career he chose.”

“Maybe his career is exactly the reason,” Beatrice said. “He’s bound to be thinking about what he’ll do when it’s over, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable that he’ll want to spend more time here. I know John Whitaker expected Buck would eventually wind up farming at Belle Pointe. When he was a boy, he had a real connection to the land, far more than his brother, Pearce.”

She gave Beatrice a surprised look. “You knew Buck then?”

“I knew of him,” she said, smiling. “Remember, Tallulah’s a small town and I’ve been here all my life. Actually, I went to school with Victoria.” When Franklin stopped at the only traffic light on the square, she waved at two elderly women crossing the street. “We were classmates, but we didn’t socialize much and never at all after Victoria married John. My goodness, I remember the buzz when John surprised everyone and picked a local girl to marry.”

“It sounds like a storybook romance,” Anne said, fascinated at this glimpse of Buck’s parents. She was dying to know more. From the start, she’d been curious about her mother-in-law, but in their rare visits she’d found Victoria to be a very private individual, almost severely so. And although Buck talked about Belle Pointe and his childhood, he rarely said much about his parents.

Franklin eased away from the light. “Like I said, folks always figured Buck would come back to his roots one day.”

“Well, looks like folks were wrong,” she said as Franklin negotiated the square.

“Speaking of John Whitaker,” Franklin said, as if picking up a thread of conversation, “I met him when I came down in 1971 with that PBS crew. He was a real Mississippi aristocrat. I recall us getting into a discussion of the literary influence of Faulkner and Hemingway and other great Southern writers.”

“He gets into those discussions frequently if he can find any takers,” Beatrice said, with a wink at Anne.

Franklin cleared his throat loudly. “Well, it was right up my alley, that discussion. I’ve always regretted not having a chance to know John a lot better. His death a few years later was a great loss to this town.”

“Buck was in his senior year of college when it happened,” Anne said. “He was devastated. It was so sudden.”

“Yes, indeed.” Franklin slowed for another stop sign. “At the time, your mother and I were still in Boston, of course.” He glanced over and smiled at Beatrice. “I never dreamed then that I’d wind up here.”

“That makes two of us,” Anne said dryly.

“Surprised you, didn’t I?” he said, chuckling.

“On a scale of one to ten?” she asked. “Only about ten and a half.”

“If we want to talk of surprises, how about the one where my daughter wound up married to John Whitaker’s son?” Shaking his head, he added, “Now there was a whirlwind courtship if ever there was one.”

“He warned me that I didn’t know Buck well enough,” Anne said to Beatrice.

Franklin braked as a pickup backed out of a parking space in front of the Piggly Wiggly. “Well, isn’t that what fathers do?”

Anne, fighting a smile, put a finger to her temple. “I believe you said something like, ‘Marry in haste, repent at leisure.’”

Beatrice made a face. “Not very original, was it?”

“Fathers don’t have to be original,” Franklin said sagely.

“And apparently they have one set of rules for offspring and another for themselves,” Anne said, still teasing him. “What if I’d said the same thing when you suddenly retired and moved here, then while I was still trying to catch my breath over that, you announced you were marrying again?”

Franklin reached for his wife’s hand, brought it up and kissed it. “I’d have done the same thing you did,” he said, still smiling. “I’d have ignored you.”

Watching them, Anne realized how right her father’s decision had been to marry Beatrice. They seemed so much in love. And yet, shock had been her first reaction when, shortly after the death of her mother, Franklin suddenly retired from his job at a major newspaper in New England and moved to Mississippi to edit the town’s small weekly Tallulah Spectator. Anne had worried he was having a midlife crisis. Buck, with a shrug, said she should be relieved that Franklin’s crisis prompted only a job change rather than falling for some big-breasted gold digger. But even Buck was taken by surprise when Franklin called a year later and said he intended to marry a Tallulah woman. Fortunately, on meeting Beatrice, Anne had been instantly reassured.

“Were you serious when you said you needed a journalist at the Spectator?” she asked Franklin as they cleared the town square.

“As a heart attack,” he quickly replied.

“I’m rusty,” she warned him. “I’ve worked only sporadically since marrying Buck. I don’t know if I can meet the Spectator’s high standards.”

Franklin met her eyes in the rearview mirror. “You must be joking. Your career was on the upswing when you were able to pursue it. Even if you weren’t my daughter, I’d consider a journalist with your talent and credentials an asset to the Spectator.”

Anne flushed at the warmth of her father’s approval and, again, found herself on the verge of tears. Oddly, at the same time, underneath her emotional reaction was a sense of the rightness of what she was doing…and a stir of anticipation at the prospect of working again. She’d been too long without any true purpose in her life other than fulfilling her role as wife of the Jacks’ star pitcher. She realized that her stepmother was watching her with a gentle smile on her face.

“Don’t look now, Franklin,” Beatrice said, “but I think you’ve just hired a reporter.”

The Marshes’ house was a classic Victorian built at the turn of the century. Franklin had bought it upon arriving in Tallulah and, although it was in good shape, he’d set about restoring many of its original features with as much attention to detail as he put in his books and articles. Anne had seen it only once—when she came for the wedding. She wondered about its history now. Who’d built it? Who’d had children and raised them here? Who had lived and loved and died here?

“I love your house,” Anne told them as she climbed out of the car.

“So do I.” Beatrice stood gazing at it fondly.

Franklin looked up after retrieving her luggage from the trunk of the car. “Ask her if she has any special reason for loving it.”

“It once belonged to my family,” Beatrice said, linking her arm with Anne’s to walk with her to the front door. “Four generations of Joneses, for what it’s worth,” she added.

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” Anne cried, genuinely thrilled. “I was just thinking about the people who’d lived here, imagining births and deaths and marriages. Now I can find out from my very own stepmother.” She gave Beatrice a little hug. “How neat is that?”

“Bea is full of Tallulah history,” Franklin said, pulling up the rear with Anne’s luggage. “And she’s probably dying to share it with you. But I have first dibs. For this reason. I can’t see Buck letting you stay away all that long. With his injury and enforced downtime and the season just opening, he’ll be in a very unsettled frame of mind. He’ll want his wife nearby.”

What Buck wanted did not concern her at the moment, but Anne didn’t comment. She knew people often regretted saying things to others while in the throes of a personal crisis. Somehow, it didn’t seem fair to Buck when he wasn’t around to defend himself.

Beatrice seemed to sense her struggle to come up with a vague reply. “We’ll both have lots of time for talking,” she said, sweeping her over the threshold. Once inside, she turned and spoke softly. “Welcome to our home, Anne.”

The woman was really a sweetheart, Anne thought. No wonder Franklin had fallen head over heels for her.

“And now,” Beatrice said brightly, “what we need is tea. Franklin, if you’ll take Anne’s luggage to her room, I’ll brew some of that nice Darjeeling.” She turned to Anne. “I think I recall from your last visit that you’re partial to Darjeeling.”

“I am and thank you. I’d love it.” As her father disappeared up the stairs, Anne followed Beatrice to the kitchen and found it stamped with her stepmother’s warm personality. The walls were painted a buttery cream and the cabinets were a soft off-white. In the middle of the room was a polished oak pedestal table with four chairs set for tea. It was difficult to decide which was older, the table and chairs or the delicate china.

“You’ve made lots of changes in the house since Dad bought it,” she said, admiring the room. “It was nice before, but now it’s wonderful.”

“We make a nice team,” Beatrice said, her gaze following Anne’s. “I’m not quite such a stickler for detail as your father, but I think I do have an eye for style. Franklin had furnished the house with antiques, but they were arranged without much style.” She touched Anne’s shoulder, gently urging her to sit. “Here, let me pour the tea. There’s sugar and lemon…and if you like it, cream.”

“No, it’s fine just like this.” Holding the cup with both hands, she closed her eyes and inhaled the bracing aroma before sipping cautiously. When she looked up, she found Beatrice watching her with a faint smile.

“There’s just something about tea, don’t you think?”

Anne nodded. “Yes, I do. It’s so…comforting.” She set her cup down with hands that weren’t quite steady. “I don’t know why I keep tearing up like this,” she said, her voice rising with emotion. “Ordinarily, I never cry. Just do me a favor and ignore it, please.”

“I would hardly call your present circumstances ordinary,” Beatrice said gently. “You’re dealing with two emotional crises, trouble in your marriage and a miscarriage. You’re entitled to tear up. In fact, you’re entitled to cry your heart out. In your shoes I know I would.”

Anne studied the tea swirling in her cup. “I’m still having trouble believing all that’s happened. If you’d asked me last week where I’d be and what I would be thinking, it wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t be contemplating a divorce.”

“Is it that serious, Anne? I know absolutely nothing about your personal life and I won’t presume to make any judgments. I will only say that you’ve gone through an emotional upheaval with your miscarriage. Are you sure you want to end your marriage as well?”

“I’m not sure at all,” Anne said with a sigh as her cell phone rang. Although there was nothing intrusive about her stepmother’s remarks, Anne wasn’t ready to confide in anyone that Buck hadn’t wanted their baby and now that she’d miscarried, was probably relieved that their lifestyle was unchanged. It made him seem insensitive and selfish. She found she didn’t want Beatrice—or her father—thinking of Buck that way.

Checking the caller ID, she saw that it was Buck calling. Feeling Beatrice watching, she let it ring and ring without answering, then turned it off. “It’s Buck. I don’t want to talk to him.”

“Oh, Anne…”

“He’ll keep trying. He’s as tenacious as a bulldog.” She crammed the phone in a deep pocket of her purse. “I told him I needed time to think, time away from him. So when I don’t answer my cell, he’ll try calling your number. I’m not taking his calls, Beatrice. I’d appreciate it if you would simply tell him that.”

“If you’re sure…”

Seeking to change the subject, Anne said, “I’m looking forward to a tour of your shop. I never got a chance to drop in when we came for your wedding, but a lot of people had nice things to say about it at the reception.”

It took a moment, but Beatrice rallied. “I love my shop,” she said, offering Anne cookies on a small platter. “I was critical of Frank furnishing this house in a hodgepodge way, but when you visit my shop, you’ll see what real hodgepodge means.”

Anne managed a smile. She was still a little shaky after refusing to talk to Buck. “Is that how you describe it?”

“It’s not only how folks around here see it because I have such a wide array of things, but I named it Bea’s Hodge-Podge.”

“What does a wide array include?”

“Well, let’s see…” Nibbling at a cookie, Beatrice brushed at a few crumbs on the table. “I’m partial to local artists, so there’s a good selection of handcrafted pottery and quite a bit of jewelry—all signed pieces. A couple of local artisans make hand-dipped candles and soap for me. Oh, and linens. I have some really lovely linens, napkins, tablecloths, pillowcases.”

“I thought your place was a bookstore.”

“Oh, did I forget to mention books?” Beatrice poured herself more tea. “Yes, in fact, fully half my space is devoted to books.” She touched her lips with a napkin. “See what I mean by a hodgepodge?”

“I can’t wait to see it.”

“Well, fortunately for you, it’s too late today.” Beatrice stood and began collecting their empty cups. “Because you must be tired. I know air travel just wipes me out. And after all you’ve been through, you’ll want to rest for a while before we have dinner, which will be something light. Does that sound about right?”

“It sounds just perfect. Thank you.” If it meant going out, she would have skipped eating altogether. As it was, she didn’t know if she could manage to swallow food.

Beatrice looked up as Franklin appeared. “Did you put Anne’s luggage in her room?”

“I did.” He helped himself to cookies. “Yummy. Just what I need to hold me over until dinner.”

Beatrice gave him a playful tap on his wrist. “Just what you don’t need, you mean.” She looked at Anne. “Do you have as wicked a sweet tooth as this guy? In spite of the fact that he never gains an ounce, I can’t keep sweets in the house because as soon as they appear, he gobbles them up.”

“It’s not natural to go without a cookie now and then,” Franklin said. “Isn’t that right, Annie-girl?”

“You and Buck should get together,” Anne said. “He can’t pass up anything loaded with sugar.”

“Well, then,” Franklin said, munching happily, “since it looks like I’m outnumbered here, the sooner he shows up, the better.”

Anne turned, heading for the stairs. If her dad was counting on Buck to show up to balance the numbers, he was in for a disappointment. Buck might be determined to talk to her on the phone, but the last place he wanted to be was in Tallulah.