Chapter 23
It's a four-story red brick building in a fancy part of Georgetown. Three-story walk up, which Lucas counts as a plus, as his bookworm daughter can't be bothered to exercise regularly. A little five-hundred-square-feet apartment, recently renovated. Tall east-facing windows, with a view to a green area across the street. A subway station half a mile away, and a twenty minute walk from school. Expensive, but that's to be expected.
Sam is in the bathroom with Emily, their dialogue muffled by the closed door. Sam seems to like the place, and so does Lucas. He turns to the real state agent and tries to insert some doubt in his voice. "Fine. But it's a little pricey."
The man replies in an anxious tone. "It's actually a little below market for the location, Mr. Scott." Lucas lifts a single eyebrow, an expression he borrowed from Brooke and waits. The agent fidgets a bit, but finally adds in a glum tone. "We can knock off a hundred, if you'll sign the contract today..."
Lucas smiles and nods. "That's fine. Let me hear from my daughter first, but I expect we'll take it." Lucas loses himself for a moment thinking of his wife and the many things he's learned from her.
Sam comes out of the bathroom with Emily by the hand and is surprised by the smile planted on her father's face. She hasn't seen one since... "Dad."
"Sam?"
"You're thinking of her."
Lucas blinks, and frowns at the impatient tone. "I guess I was."
Sam shakes her head, disgusted by what she thinks is his poor taste in women. She then dismisses the concern and looks around the little apartment, thinking about how to decorate it. Finally she notices that Lucas and the realtor seem to be waiting for her. "What?"
"You really like it?" Lucas asks.
Sam looks at Emily, who's been trying hard to participate in the apartment hunt. "What do you think?"
Emily swells with pride at being consulted. She jumps a couple of times and smiles. She enjoys the thumping noise. "Like!"
Sam nods and looks back at Lucas "So do I."
Lucas smiles again. "All right, then." Sam squeals, letting go of the little girl and hugging him. Emily follows suit. Sam is starting Law School at Georgetown U. in a month and a bit. This little place will be all her own. And she already loves it.
=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=
Brooke wakes up suddenly. A half-forgotten nightmare, maybe. She is in a strange bed. Sits up, stretches and yawns, feeling surprisingly rested. She looks around. She's overslept. Looks and scent remind her that she didn't sleep alone, but the other side of the bed is cold. She gets up, gathers her wits and heads to the bathroom to start her day.
At Taylor's invitation and insistence, Brooke chose not to brave the dirt hilly road after dark. Dinner and conversation were surprisingly pleasant, given how prickly both women are. It was an interesting evening. Mostly they talked about their shared daughter Sam, little Emily, the coming baby and the pains, joys and pitfalls of motherhood. They avoided one blonde, blue eyed subject like the plague.
They've known, and respected each other for a long time. But they were never really friends, at least not until last night. As it turns out, they share quite a few things. For instance, a hard-hitting, uncompromising attitude and a sarcastic sense of humor. Also that they share a few defects, like an inclination to meddle and to jump into things without thinking. There are a few big differences. Taylor dislikes most people and enjoys being alone. Brooke is a social butterfly, who makes friends easily, and enjoys being around people.
The conversation ended as a friendly sleepover in Taylor's bed, complete with a little cuddling. As both women acknowledged, Taylor reluctantly and Brooke gladly, they were needing it.
Walking to the kitchen, Brooke is faced with a sweaty Taylor in exercise clothes, green juice from a blender, feta-and-tomato egg white omelets, toast and coffee. Brooke can't avoid laughing, because she's faced a similar menu, and a different sweaty company, many, many times. She sits down to eat. "Yum!", after a taste. "Who actually started who on the health-gourmet kick?"
Taylor gives her a sideways glance and a smile. "Good morning, Princess. The gourmet was Lucas, health was little-old-me."
Brooke drinks deeply of the green juice and eats a piece of omelet. "It's excellent. Thank you." Truth be told, before last night's dinner, Brooke hadn't eaten a decent meal for a long time. She can almost feel the fast-food poison leaving her system screaming. "So, what's up?"
"Sam called this morning. Lucas took her and Emily house-hunting in DC yesterday."
Brooke feels her heart constricting in her chest. She wonders what else she's been missing. "Did they find anything?"
"A nice little condo in Georgetown. Sam sounded very pleased."
Brooke clucks, amused. "Fucking Law School."
Taylor smiles. "A stinking, dirty lawyer."
"And we're so very, very proud of her." Brooke adds, and both women cackle.
"Right on, babe."
"What's your day looking like?"
"Just work. Classes at the gym, and bartending at a strip joint later tonight."
"Do you get to keep your clothes on?."
Taylor smirks, amused. "Mostly. Less clothes, better tips."
"A girl's gotta make a living."
"That's right." Taylor caresses her invisible baby bump. "I have to set money aside for a long break after thingy here comes out. "
"Thingy?"
"I distinctly recall you calling your baby bump 'little bitch'. And worse."
Brooke sighs. Pregnancy was both miserable and wonderful. "True."
" What about you? Where are you headed after all?"
"Montgomery, Alabama."
"And what's in Montgomery, Alabama?"
Brooke looks sharp and abruptly ends the conversation. "Dead grandmother."
=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=
Taylor walks in and hunts for Lucas. He's in the gym, doing situps, with Emily playing by herself nearby. "Hey squirt, mini-princess."
Lucas smiles, happy to see her, and Emily gets up and toddles over for a hug. "Aunt Tee!"
A few minutes later, they are standing around the kitchen, drinking water from glasses and a sipping cup. Lucas takes in the sexy biker look. "What's up, gorgeous?"
"I have news."
Lucas raises one eyebrow. Taylor looks a little uneasy, which is just plain wrong. "What news?"
She answers in a near whisper. "I'm knocked up."
Lucas blinks. "Say that again."
"I'm pregnant. Almost ten weeks."
A thousand questions go through his mind, but he already knows the answer to most of those. He looks into her eyes, reading in an instant what's there. "You're happy."
"Terrified, mostly. But yeah, I am."
He nods. "Good. The dad?" She shakes her head in dismissal. Lucas takes in her determined look and his heart goes to her. To them. "We're here for both of you, babe, you know that."
"Your wife said the exact same thing."
He first smiles then frowns. "You saw Brooke."
"She came by." Lucas eyes harden to ice and he looks straight into hers. Taylor's feels a little wobbly at the knees. Of all the men that came and went through her life, only a couple had that much effect on her. Specially noticeable when he gets intense. She breathes in slowly to clear her mind and answers. "She is handling it. Doing a good job too."
Lucas, on the other hand, has to squeeze his words past a constricted throat. "Then why isn't she back? Why didn't she call? Emily..."
"Patience, grasshopper."
Despite himself, Lucas almost laughs. Taylor used to call him that when he was being clumsy or stupid. He breathes in and out, a meditation exercise to steady himself. "All right. Thanks."
"You're welcome." She point a thumb towards the basement door. "Spar?"
"Can't beat up a pregnant woman."
"As if!"
Lucas shrugs. She's right, and he might as well blow up some steam. "All right."
=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=
The property is a postage-stamp farm a few miles southwest of Montgomery. Half a mile from the State Route blacktop, following a dirt road with a little river to one side, and a few similar properties to the other. A two story off-white house with black shingled roof and a wrap-around porch lies a hundred feet from the dirt road. The place stands out from its neighbors because it looks abandoned.
The way there was a little tricky. A safe deposit box key and a bank card in Victoria's backpack led to a branch of Wells Fargo Bank outside Montgomery, Alabama. Inside the box, some cash, jewels, documents, including the deed to the little farm, made out in Brooke's name.
Brooke doesn't really recall the house, but she remembers her Granny warmly. A kind woman, soft spoken, with few words and clever gray eyes. Last time she saw her was a two-week stay at Granny's home during the summer before her seventh grade. Granny died of a sudden stroke, a few weeks before Brooke turned twelve. She left Brooke some warm memories, a little money, which would eventually become seed capital for a fashion empire, and, apparently, her home.
The car path is blocked by a rough wooden gate, but one of the keys in Victoria's chain opens the padlock, and another fits the front door lock. Inside, there is plenty of dust, but newspapers and half-empty liquor bottles show that the house was occupied not too long ago.
Brooke is not exactly sure what she is doing here. The house where her mother grew up. One thing has become clear lately. She barely knew Victoria. Maybe, coming to this place is a way to try to understand how things ended the way they did. But, if she's going to stay even one night, some serious cleaning is needed. And Brooke is not afraid of hard work.
Many hours, and lots of sweat later, the place is still not really livable, but it will do for the night. Clean bed sheets in place, and a clean towel after a cold shower, all thanks to an old well pump, an old washer and drier pair and a new gasoline generator out in the back porch, certainly bought after Victoria got out of jail.
The following morning, after shopping for food and supplies, Brooke renews her clean up efforts, still unsure about her purpose. Things begin to get a little clearer when she finds a large picture album in a high shelf on the hallway closet. It starts with a couple of black-and-white pictures of a handsome young couple, modestly dressed in Great Depression churchgoing duds, a small girl in the guy's arms. First in a park, then with the little girl a little older in front of a single-story house. Brooke stares at the picture for a while, but she can't guess who the subjects are.
In the subsequent pages, a sort of wordless story gets told. Brooke can guess a rough timeline easily from the clothes. Another family, with two young boys appears. The respective fathers appear in uniform, one army and one navy. Second World War. The father of the boys never returns, but the little girl's father comes back, looking thin, tired and happy. A few pages later, the little girl becomes a very pretty teenager, which Brooke can finally identify as her Granny. One of the boys grows up and also puts on an army uniform. Korean War, probably. The first color picture shows the boy, now a grown man, and the girl together. Granny is now an older teen, eyes bright and smiling adoringly at a whipcord thin, dark haired and tanned, sinfully sexy man. A late fifties wedding, simple and touching. A baby. Victoria, probably. The story follows predictably. Toddler pictures, vacations, Christmas, friends. The girl grows up. The parents grow older, the father often in army's clothing. They seem happy. Then, suddenly, mid-seventies... nothing. Several empty pages at the end of the book suggest that somehow, something broke.
Brooke can guess what happened. Vietnam era. She cries a little for the handsome soldier. The grandfather she had never even heard about.
With renewed purpose, Brooke drops the cleaning and begins an attic-to-basement search for anything that will flesh out the story. She finds quite a few things. A box of letters, tax returns, bank statements, bills. A dozen loose photographs, including a very cute one of Brooke with pigtails and a sexy pinup of her grandmother in a fifties polka-dot bikini... later Brooke finds the bikini itself in a box of old clothes and tries it on. Body shape, boobs, shoulders, knees... a surprisingly good fit. She and young Granny could easily pass as sisters.
Army documents. A posthumous Bronze Star, for covering the retreat of wounded men during an ambush. Her grandfather died a hero, which prompts yet another bout of crying. A letter about burial at Arlington.
She finds her mother's high school yearbook. Pristine. Not a single handwritten note. A scowl in her yearbook picture. Victoria's dad died early in her sophomore year.
Victoria's college letter. Wedding invitation. A cold letter in Victoria's angular handwriting informing Granny of Brooke's birth. Brooke knows those two weren't close, and everything she finds just confirms it.
The letters are the best part of it. Almost all the letters are between Granny and her soldier boy. Both sides of the correspondence are there, carefully arranged chronologically. Seventeen years, from fifty-seven to seventy-four. One hundred and fifteen letters, going from a hastily scrawled half-page note to thick wads of detailed day-to-day happenings and breathless stream-of-consciousness. She gets to know both of them a little.
She has a round, tidy script and writes a disjointed, flighty, breathless prose that often sets Brooke to giggling. She sometimes reminds Brooke of her own silly self. He writes with a practiced chicken scratch, tight concise, well-built sentences with an earthy tone and biting dry wit.
They were very sweet at first.
"... such a long hot day! My poor little feet hurt, a silly kid tossed a jar of syrup at me, what a mess! To top it off, a fat brute pinched my ass. And where was my beautiful darling boyfriend, to rub away my aches and teach that pesky brute his place? Far, far away..."
" … a long and muddy day. My fucking squad! Eight ugly damned fools that can't tell a rifle from their mother's tit. And I'm the biggest one of the bunch, trying to teach them how to stay alive. I shouldn't vent at you. I'm sorry I'm not there, Honeypot. Just to rub your feet, kiss those pouty lips and teach any jackass that looks at you wrong a proper lesson. I miss you, more than I can say."
Soon things became a little more interesting.
"I dreamed of you, my darling, sexy husband, and I woke up all sweaty and with my hand right between my legs. What a surprise, right? (giggles.) I stuck two fingers at the 'honeypot' and rubbed a wonderful little one, thinking of you..."
"... a week to go. Jungle survival training. Crawling through mud, eating bugs, dragging around a clueless little prince from West Point. Thank the Pentagon Gods, there's a couple of solid career man in the platoon. End of the day, I usually crawl into my bunk and just pass out. Last night I decided to read your letter first. Damn! The thought of you playing with yourself... you must promise me, you'll do it for me. Let me just watch as you rub your sweet little pussy and moan until you come. I had to polish it twice before I could settle down. You'll be the death of me, Honeypot, I swear!"
"... good, great, and excellent news, sexy soldier boy. I have a new job! Receptionist at a dentist's office. Boring, I know, and it's a little less money than at the restaurant, but it's sitting down! The boss is an old southern gentleman, white goatee, you know the type. So far, he seems kind. The great news is that I felt baby move! It's weird, and wonderful and I so wish you were here... The new boss knows about baby, and he said I can bring it to the office while I'm nursing. It's going to be peachy fine. Come home soon. Baby, me and my wet little 'honeypot' really need a little attention..."
After that, Victoria was often mentioned. Brooke got the impression that her grandfather spent most of his time living at home, with a couple of longer trips every year. The little family also moved around. Two years in Germany in the sixties, and some time in California too.
"... How's Vicky, Honeypot? Last you wrote, she had the spots and was cranky as hell... I talked to the Doc here, and she thought it was probably chicken pox. Nothing to worry about, she said. I worry, though..."
"... the flames were halfway to the ceiling! Your idiot daughter fought with one of her friends and decided to burn everything that said friend ever gave her. In her wastebasket. In the middle of her bedroom. Thank goodness for that fire extinguisher you insist we keep around the kitchen. I was so scared, I started screaming at her, and the little bitch decided to scream right back. In the end, I took one of your old belts to her buttocks. Twenty stiff ones... It's been a week and she hasn't spoken to me since..."
"... she's a spirited little filly, our Victoria. She needs a firm hand and you were quite right to do it as you did. Don't fret, Honeypot. I'll be home soon, and we'll have a right long talk the three of us. Maybe with some ice cream..."
"... she brought in a straight 'A' report card yesterday! Best student in class. Wow! I don't know where she gets it. It certainly isn't from me, and, from what your mother tells, not from you either. I took her out shopping as a reward. A pretty yellow dress, lacy undies and her first shoes with heels. She was so, so happy..."
"... tell Vicky I'm very proud of her about that report card. I'll also forgive you the big splurge, if you bought something nice for yourself to wear as well..."
Brooke kept reading the letters all through the night. There quite a few surprises, specially how open they are with one another. In one letter, her grandfather candidly describes getting a blowjob from another man. 'I was bored, a little drunk and he was a very cute West Pointer', he said. Granny brings home someone named 'Freckles', to show her how two girls can have fun together and she promises a two-girl welcome home party for her sexy hero, on his next leave. References to Victoria also keep popping up, showing casually loving parents and a temperamental girl with a slightly strained relationship with her mother and a stern father utterly wrapped around the fingers of both his girls.
=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=o=
He talks in a near-whisper, and his tone is angry. "What are you doing here?"
Brooke is afraid. "I just came to see you. Maybe..."
He turns his head sharply towards his wife. "I have nothing to say to you."
Her Granny is sitting next to him, her hands twisting nervously. "You shouldn't have come. You, you killed her!"
"Murderer!" He growls.
"I was just defending my family..."
"You should have found a way, sweetie. She was your mother..."
He raises his voice. "She killed Vicky, Honeypot! Why are you doing this?"
"She is ours too..."
"She was going to hurt Emily!" Brooke is nearly crying. She wants to run, but her feet seem planted in place.
"You should have left her alone!"
"Who's Emily?"
"My daughter. Your great granddaughter."
"We don't know her."
"I don't know you. Who are you?"
"I'm Brooke."
"You killed our Vicky, sweetie. Our baby girl."
He shakes his head violently. "We hate you!"
Brooke sits on the bed startled. Crying. There's letters scattered all around her.
