Nell and Lady: A Novel Read online

  She unscrewed the cap from her vodka bottle, brought it to her lips, and took a healthy swig, feeling the burn and relishing the numbness. She was sick of being the scapegoat for Nell’s actions and tired of her mother walking all over her like a doormat. If it weren’t for Regan . . . well, no point in going down that road, because she would never leave her daughter alone in the world with a father who paid her no attention and an elderly grandmother to take care of. The sun set, and the room grew dark as she took swigs of vodka and considered a way out of her dead-end life. She was blissfully intoxicated when Regan brought her a ham-and-cheese sandwich around eight.

  Lady muttered a slurred thank-you as she took the plate from her. When she stepped sideways, away from the door, she tripped over her Dansko clogs, catching herself on the post of the mahogany rice bed. The plate tilted, and the sandwich slid to the floor. “Oopsy daisy.” She dropped to her knees, slapped the ham and cheese back on the bread, and smooshed the sandwich down on the plate. With the plate in one hand, bracing herself against the side of the bed for support, she struggled to her feet, staggered to the nightstand, and set the plate down with a clatter beside the vodka bottle. Lady eyed the bottle, the taste of vodka on her lips.

  “I think you’ve had enough,” Regan said.

  “You’re probably right.” She collapsed on the bed and fell back against the pillows.

  “Here, Mom, let me help you get ready for bed.” Regan approached the bed and tugged off her mother’s shoes.

  Lady kicked her away. “Stop fussing and go do your homework.” She rolled over on her side, placing her back to her daughter.

  “Why don’t I make you a fresh sandwich, one that doesn’t have carpet fibers stuck to it,” Regan suggested.

  “I’m not hungry, sweetheart.” Lady waved her off. “Go on now. Leave Mama alone. I’m just gonna rest for a minute before I get ready for bed.”

  Lady closed her eyes and woke to the sound of floorboards creaking under her mother’s weight as she crept downstairs to have tea with Mavis. The room was dark, and her comforter was drawn up over her fully clothed body. Regan. Her head throbbed, and her stomach churned. She hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. She blinked her eyes several times until the digital numbers of the alarm clock came into focus. Time noted—2:08. She typically waited twenty minutes before going to the kitchen to help her mother back to bed.

  Lady slid open the drawer on her nightstand and fumbled around for the familiar feel of the prescription pill bottle. She unscrewed the lid and swallowed one of the painkillers left over from when Regan had her wisdom teeth out during Christmas break. That should take care of this awful headache.

  She lay in the dark and watched the minutes click by on the clock. At 2:28 she got up and went downstairs. She followed her mother’s voice through the dining room and listened from the shadows of the kitchen doorway. Her one-sided conversation with Mavis was always the same.

  “I’ve let you down, May May. The first years after your death were hard for Nell. She never complained, mind you. But I saw the grief in her eyes. She worked hard in school and helped out around the house. We settled into a comfortable life, and the girls seemed closer than ever. Then something bad happened, and everything changed almost overnight. I know it’s unfair of me to blame Lady, but I feel like she’s responsible for that bad thing happening. I don’t understand what the rift in their friendship has to do with me. Why does Nell dislike me so? Was her life with us that unbearable? If only I could see her one more time to tell her how much I love her and how sorry I am for the way things worked out. I miss her even after all these years. I can’t go to my grave in peace until I know what I’ve done so I can say I’m sorry. I thought if I told her it was my dying wish to see her . . .”

  Her mother’s voice trailed off, and within minutes Lady heard the sound of soft snoring. She tiptoed into the kitchen, nudged her mother awake, and helped her back upstairs to bed. Returning to her own room, she opened the french doors onto the piazza and stepped out into the balmy night. Moving to the corner of the porch, she stared down the street past the seawall to the harbor where ripples of water shimmered beneath the full moon.

  She lit a cigarette and inhaled a deep drag. She had only one cigarette left in her for-times-of-crisis pack, which she’d purchased just three days ago. This business with Nell was dredging up a lot of pain and sorrow that Lady thought she’d worked through years ago.

  Her mind drifted back to the months following Mavis’s death, when gloom had settled over the house and its inhabitants moved through their days in a daze. Lady had been grateful when Willa agreed not only to allow Nell to live with them but when she’d decided to legally adopt her. Despite her grief over her beloved nanny’s death, Lady had been ecstatic when her very best friend in all the world officially became the sister she’d always wanted. But her elation had been short-lived. Her mother had never criticized her before, but suddenly Willa began measuring Lady’s own mediocre performance in school against Nell’s academic success. Lady had always been average at everything—academics, athletics, extracurricular activities. Her appearance had been the only positive thing she had going for her back then. And she’d used her good looks to entice the most eligible bachelor in Charleston to marry her. She’d never loved him. She’d figured that out by the time they’d returned from their honeymoon in Bermuda. Why had she married him? To please her mother? Or to spite Nell? Regan was the only good thing that had come from her marriage.

  Tension in the house had been at an all-time high when Lady and Nell left for college. Lady had been secretly relieved when Nell didn’t come home that first Thanksgiving and Christmas. And she’d been even more relieved when Nell hadn’t invited them to her graduation four years later.

  Every afternoon for weeks, Willa had waited for the mailman, much like she’d waited by the window today. Her mother had never waited for Lady for anything. Willa had refused to accept that Nell had purposely opted not to send them an invitation to her graduation, especially when she’d partially funded those four years of education. Confident the invitation had gotten lost in the mail and in spite of Lady’s protest, her mother had insisted they attend the graduation anyway. Lady, ever such the dutiful daughter, had gone along with Willa. But she’d dreaded watching Nell march down the aisle in her cap and gown, dreaded even more listening to her mother sing Nell’s praises and criticize Lady for dropping out of college after her junior year.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  LADY

  1987

  The trip to Atlanta for Nell’s graduation was doomed from the start. Twenty miles outside of town, a radiator hose blew in Willa’s sky-blue wood-paneled Buick Estate wagon.

  Lady and Willa stood on the side of the highway, watching steam billow out from under the hood. “It’s god-awful hot out today,” Willa said, blotting the sweat from her brow with her linen handkerchief. “I should’ve known something like this would happen.”

  “The temperature outside has nothing to do with our blown radiator hose. You bought this land yacht the same year I was born. It has long since been ready for the car graveyard.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Lady. Bertha is a 1974 model, only thirteen years old, which is new by my standards.” Willa stroked the front side fender of the car where it wasn’t too hot to touch. “This land yacht and I have been through a lot together, and she still has plenty of good years left.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Willa. It’s a car, not a person.” Lady turned her back on her mother and started off in the direction they’d come.

  “Where’re you going, Lady? You can’t leave me standing here all alone.”

  “I’m going to use the pay phone at the convenience store we passed a half mile back.” Lady walked backward while she spoke to her mother. “I’ll call a yellow cab for us and a tow truck for your Bertha. Don’t talk to strangers, and whatever you do, don’t hitchhike.”

  “Make sure you contact a reputable company,” Willa called after h
er. “I don’t want anything to happen to her.”

  The tow truck arrived ahead of the taxi. After hooking up the wagon to his truck, with still no sign of the taxi, the driver offered them a lift home.

  Willa scrutinized the driver. “Maybe we should wait . . .”

  “Do you want to make it to graduation in time or what? Come on.” Lady took her mother by the hand and helped her climb into the front seat of the tow truck.

  The driver dropped them at home on his way to deliver Bertha to the filling station down the road for repairs. After watching them go, Willa and Lady jumped into Lady’s orange VW Bug and chugged off down the street.

  “My air conditioner’s broken,” Lady said with a sideways glance at her mother’s linen church suit. “You might want to take your jacket off. I warned you it was going to be a hot day. You should’ve worn a sundress like me.”

  Willa deviated from her hippie attire only for church, garden club meetings, weddings, and funerals. And the occasional graduation. Lady approved of her bubblegum-pink linen suit. She looked like a real mother for a change.

  Willa smoothed out the fabric of the skirt. “I’ll be fine.” But within minutes she was tugging off her suit jacket and complaining, “Why didn’t you get the air-conditioning fixed in this dag-blasted tin can you call a car?”

  “Because you refused to pay for it, remember?” Lady said, her mouth pursed in a self-satisfied smirk.

  “You need to get a job, Lady. Or go back to school and finish your degree. At this rate, you’ll never find a man willing to marry you.”

  Lady shot her a dirty look. “What’s that supposed to mean? Am I that ugly?”

  “I’m suggesting you need to make something of your life. No man wants a woman who lies around the house all day. And I haven’t seen too many vying for your affections lately. And don’t be ridiculous. You know you’re not ugly.” Willa grazed her fingers against Lady’s cheek. “You’re quite lovely, actually, the spitting image of me when I was your age.”

  Lady shook her head at her mother’s conceit. “Let’s roll down our windows. Maybe that will help.”

  They rolled the windows down and made the five-hour trip with hot air whipping through the car. They arrived at Spelman College with only minutes to spare. With no time to run to the restroom, they freshened up as best they could in the car. Taking turns with the rearview mirror, Willa tugged her messy hair free of its braid, raked her hands through it, and fastened it at the nape of her neck into a loose bun. Lady smeared mauve-colored lipstick on her lips, brushed stray blonde locks off her forehead, and wiped road grime from her face with Willa’s handkerchief.

  “You’ve ruined my handkerchief, Lady!” Willa opened the wooden handles of her Lilly Pulitzer Bermuda bag and dropped the soiled handkerchief inside. “How will I dry my eyes when I cry?”

  “Don’t cry, and you won’t have a problem.” Lady climbed out of the car and slammed the door behind her.

  A multitude of folding metal chairs were set up on the lawn in front of the school’s chapel. An usher handed them a program and showed them to the two remaining vacant seats in the last row. For the next two hours, as they baked in the midday sun, they saw nothing and heard little until the end when the crowd roared every time a graduate’s name was called. Willa moved to the edge of her seat, clapping and cheering like a proud mama when Nell’s name was announced.

  Lady examined her sunburned shoulders during the closing remarks. She leaned close to her mother and whispered, “Can we go soon? We have a long drive home, and I’m fried to a crisp.”

  “Not until I’ve seen Nell. I have a present for her.” Willa removed a small box wrapped in silver paper from her Bermuda bag.

  When the graduates began recessing down the aisle, Lady stood and held a hand out to her mother, pulling her to her feet. “Let’s make it fast, then. What’d you buy her anyway?” she asked as they fell in line behind the last of the graduates.

  “I didn’t buy her anything. I’m giving her your grandmother’s pearl earrings.”

  Lady’s stomach hardened. “Those earrings are mine, Mother. Granna left them to me.”

  “She left you the pearl studs, sweetheart. I’m giving her the teardrops, the ones she left to me.”

  In Lady’s mind, regardless of what was written in any will, her grandmother’s jewelry rightfully belonged to her. Lady was Granna Bellemore’s namesake and the reason her parents had decided to call her Lady. According to Willa, when Lady was born, Granna had complained, “Two Adelaides is too confusing,” but secretly she’d been pleased to have her granddaughter carry on her name. Granna had died when Lady was only eight, years before Willa adopted Nell.

  Lady struggled to keep up with her mother as she squeezed through the crowd. She spotted Nell clustered with a group of her classmates. Nell’s face fell when she saw Willa and Lady from afar. She left her friends and made her way over to them. “What are you doing here?”

  Willa held her head high and her shoulders back. “We came for your graduation, of course. Our invitation never arrived. The mail delivery is so unreliable these days. I called the school, and they told me the date and time.”

  Nell stared down at the black graduation cap in her hands. “The invitation didn’t get lost. I never sent you one. But there’s a reason for that.”

  Willa appeared stricken. “I don’t understand. We’re your family. Why wouldn’t you want us here with you to celebrate your big day?”

  “I thought you might feel uncomfortable,” Nell said.

  Willa’s eyes narrowed and then grew wide again. “Oh, you mean because we’re the only white folks here. You know that kind of thing doesn’t bother me. Here.” She thrust the gift-wrapped box at her. “These belonged to my mother. I hope you like them.”

  Nell ignored the present. “It’s awfully hot out here. Why don’t we go inside where it’s cool so we can talk in private?” She turned away from them and walked off.

  Willa and Lady followed her across the lawn to the student center, where long tables of refreshments awaited the graduates and their guests. Lady helped herself to a cup of punch.

  “You’re not supposed to drink that,” Nell said. “The reception hasn’t started yet.”

  Lady lifted the cup to her lips and downed the punch. “Sorry, but I’m thirsty. We drove for five hours with no air-conditioning and have been sitting in the sun for the last two hours.”

  Nell returned her attention to Willa. “I’m seeing someone, Miss Willa, a medical student. And . . . well, it’s serious between us.”

  “How wonderful for you. I’d like to meet him. Is he here?” Willa stood on her tiptoes as she surveyed the graduates and guests who were flowing into the building.

  Lady grabbed her mother by the elbow. “You’re embarrassing yourself, Willa. You don’t even know who you’re looking for.”

  “He’s not here. He had to work. Why don’t we move out of the way?” Nell steered them to a far corner of the room, away from the crowd. “He doesn’t know about y’all.”

  Confusion crossed Willa’s face. “What do you mean, he doesn’t know about us?”

  “He knows my mother died when I was fourteen and that I’ve been living with my adopted family, but—”

  “He doesn’t know your adopted family is white,” Lady said, finishing her sentence.

  Nell looked away, unable to meet her gaze.

  “What are you trying to tell us, Nell?” Willa asked. “Are you saying you don’t want us to be a part of your life anymore?”

  “I’m not sure what I want, honestly. It’s complicated. I’ve finally found happiness with Desmond. He’s my future. I consider him my family now.”

  In a desperate voice, Willa said, “Please, Nell, I’m begging you. Don’t shut us out. We need to have ourselves a big heart-to-heart talk. I realize things haven’t been good between you and Lady for a long time. But we can work it out, whatever it is.”

  “It’s not just that. Although that’s part of
it.” Nell turned her golden eyes on Lady for the first time all day. The hurt and anger were still present, raw as ever.

  “Can’t we at least try?” Lady said in a soft voice to the young woman who had once been her dearest friend. “I’d like to know what it is that I did to you.”

  “None of that matters now. It’s all in the past, and I want to focus on the future.” Nell opened her arms to Willa and gave her a warm hug. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, Willa. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. You’ve way more than fulfilled your obligation to Mama. I just think it’s time for all of us to move on with our separate lives.”

  During the months that followed Nell’s graduation, Willa slipped into a deep depression, akin to the one she’d suffered after Mavis’s death. She neglected her garden and refused to eat. She’d lost ten pounds by the end of that first summer. She transitioned through the phases of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. It was during the anger phase that she packed away every shred of evidence that Nell had ever lived in their house. For years, she refused to speak or hear Nell’s name. She softened around the time her insomnia started, and Lady suspected that her mother’s one-sided teatime conversations with Mavis helped her come to terms with the truth. That Nell was never coming back, but that it was not Willa’s fault. It was Lady’s.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  NELL

  Three consecutive days of twelve-hour shifts, nursing sick and dying patients, exhausted and disheartened Nell. The following Monday afternoon, she picked Booker up from the library and sped across the bridge toward Mount Pleasant. They were both tired and weary, and neither of them spoke until they arrived home. Booker entered the house ahead of her. “What the heck?” she heard him say. “Mom, I think we’ve been robbed.”