“I don’t know why I put up with an ill-bred hussy like yourself,” she snaps, though her words lack the heat of true indignation. Sighing, she sets down her spoon. “If the rumor is true, Mama and I might have to move to the country. Perhaps it will be nice to live in anonymity. I won’t have to pretend I like anyone, and I can go about as I please. Grandpapa has many horses.” Her eyes follow as I arrange her pillows.
“Most nobodies I know don’t have horses.”
She scoops a spoonful of egg but, instead of eating it, lets the golden treasure drip back into the shell. “I think I would enjoy the simple life. I might even take up drawing. Or horticulture.”She eyes her potted violet. “I raised that one from a seedling. Almost got the bud to bloom, too.”
I crisp the corners of her bedsheets. “Most nobodies I know don’t have time for horticulture.”
“You are drear.”
I shake out a petticoat she has left on the floor. “Most nobodies I know are drear.”
Her mouth buckles, and then she aims her gaze out the window again. “Would you come with me?”
She holds herself very still, and a cloud draws a shadow on her face.
The memory of how the kittens destroyed her mother’s study scratches at me, and my laugh sounds bitter. “You despise me, don’t you remember?”
“I despise everyone.”
“Why?”
She snorts. “Who knows? I wanted her to myself.”
Mrs. Payne left when Caroline was two, too young for her to remember, but maybe the heart remembers what the mind is too young to grasp. Perhaps that is why Caroline hates Noemi so much. Her mammy’s own child took priority. But me? I was just a poor orphan to whom Mrs. Payne was occasionally kind. Maybe in her young mind, Caroline considered every nod to someone else a snub to herself.
“Old Gin believes I should take a husband.”
“Marriage? But who would marryyou?”
I bristle. “Someone with exquisite taste, obviously.”
“Imean, there are no Chinese in Atlanta.”
“There are some in Augusta.”
“Ugh, no, not those commoners.”
Plumping one of her overstuffed pillows, I toss it against the carved headboard, where it makes a satisfyingoomph!like a gut being punched. “We have a saying. The superior man thinks of virtue, the common man, comfort.”
She trills her fingers at me. “Virtue is overrated. Papa worked hard for every dime we have, and says that we...” Abruptly, she turns from me and stares out the window again. I can’t help wondering if she just remembered her father might not be the man she thinks. “He says that we deserve to live in comfort,” she finishes softly. “Take the tray. I’m no longer hungry.”
She folds her hands in her lap. With her shoulders rounding forward and her dressing gown wrinkled about her, she reminds me of one of the crumpled newspapers in Etta Rae’s basket. I curse myself for feeling pity for her and slide the tray off her table.
Even before I get to the stairs, Mr. Payne’s booming voice is making the pictures rattle against the wall. I pull in my stomach and descend. His voice suggests the kind of man who fills the doorframe, the sort with a jaw that could bite through a steel bit or a brow that juts like an overhanging brick. But the truth is, he is nothing remarkable to behold.
I peer through the leaves of a philodendron plant that manages to thrive despite the smoke on this floor. Mr. Payne carries his medium frame with a light clip, pacing as far as the telephone will allow. His head might be hard, but there’s a definite sag in his jaw, a melding together of chin and neck like a turkey gullet. A center part splits his dark blond hair into twoeven shares, slicked against his head with his signature ylang-ylang hair oil.
“Merrittisof the highest caliber, that duplicitous Bostonian wench.” He pauses as the other person speaks.
“I tell you, it’s a conspiracy and it’s only going to get worse. Mark my words, that Miss Sweetie is a Yankee sent to infiltrate our ranks. When I smoke out the witch—and Iwillsmoke her out—we’ll see how loud those Bells ring.” His eyes, brown as the butt of a rifle, are suddenly looking at me.
Thirty-One
I step out from behind the philodendron, which feels as paltry as a fig leaf. The muscles of the businessman’s face shift ever so slightly as his attention abandons the speaker.
With the breakfast tray dug into my ribs, I stumble out from behind the plant. But instead of making tracks away, someone has poured iron in my boots. Mr. Payne’s chin swings to one side, pulling the gullet with it. His gaze rummages my person, one eye squinting more than the other, as if that were the one he uses to judge the world. “Gilford, I will ring you later.” He sets the receiver back on its cradle. “Come closer, girl,” he orders in the kind of commanding voice that could part the sea. “Set that down. Jo, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir.” I rest the tray on a side table and then pick my way across a carpeted runner, stopping when I am two paces away. The cherry scent of a cigar recently smoked perfumes the air, and paintings of long-dead relatives grimace at me.
