Magnolia Nights Read online

  “Try not to sound so excited about it.”

  “You would understand if you saw the inside of the house. The roof leaks. The walls haven’t been painted since before the Civil War. And the same stain is still on the sofa in the living room where I spilled my grape juice thirty-five years ago.”

  He tilted his head back and laughed. “You just described three-fourths of the houses on the Battery.”

  Ellie returned her attention to the magnolia painting. “I can’t explain why, but this painting speaks to me.”

  “Then you should buy it. Her prices are reasonable. I’ve already inquired.”

  “About this piece?” She held her hand out to the painting. “By all means, if you have first dibs.”

  “Not about this particular piece.” He removed a folded sheet of paper from the inside pocket of his navy sport coat and handed it to her. “Here’s the price list for all the paintings. I picked it up on the table by the door when I came in.”

  Her eyes traveled down the price list until she reached the painting titled Sweet Southern Magnolia. Ellie was willing to pay four times what the artist was asking for it. But she would keep that information to herself.

  Voices grew loud and animated from a nearby conversation about the hurricane.

  “This hurricane is all anyone seems to want to talk about tonight. I’ve never experienced a hurricane. Should I be worried about it? My grandmother’s house is right off the harbor. The water can’t come over the seawall, can it?”

  An amused expression crossed his face. “Oh, it definitely can. I’ve seen it happen many times. But there’s no reason for you to worry just yet. These people have nothing better to talk about. Every time a storm comes along, they work themselves into a frenzy. Nine times out of ten, the storm goes out to sea or the damage ends up being minor.

  “Believe me, you’ll know when you need to worry. The governor will declare a state of emergency and issue a mandatory evacuation for all low-lying areas. People will board up their houses and place sandbags at their doors. They’ll load all their valuable possessions in their cars and join the standstill traffic on I-26. Ten hours later, when they arrive in Columbia, they’ll check into a cheap hotel and eat fast food while watching the hurricane coverage on TV. Depending on the extent of the damage from the storm, they’ll be stuck in Columbia for days. State and local authorities won’t let you back into Charleston until they deem it safe. Hence the reason I never leave town during a hurricane.”

  “Why would anyone put themselves through that?”

  “Because there are plenty of people around here who remember storms like Hurricane Hugo that hit back in 1989. Including me. With those kinds of storm surges, you’re risking your life when you choose not to evacuate. People with small children would rather be safe than sorry. If that time comes, and that’s a very big if considering we have threats like this at least once every year, you’ll have to make the decision that’s right for you. Hurricane preparedness is a skill learned through experience. You don’t want to stay in your grandmother’s big house alone if you’ve never been through a hurricane before.”

  Ellie gulped. “Thank you, Julian, for your advice. You’re quite the authority on hurricanes.”

  “Like I said, I’ve lived through a few.”

  She surveyed the room for the Calhouns. “It’s been a long day. I’m going to purchase this piece and head home. And pray I’m not driving my painting to Columbia on Monday.”

  He chuckled. “You’ll be fine. I promise.”

  Ellie paid for the magnolia painting and arranged to have it delivered to her grandmother’s house the following day. She bid goodnight to the Calhouns, who weren’t yet ready to leave, and meandered her way back to South Battery. The sun was sinking toward the horizon, but the air was still thick with humidity. She looked for a familiar face in the people she passed who were out for an evening stroll. When she recognized no one, she reminded herself that this wasn’t San Francisco. She missed the cooler weather, the familiar neighborhoods, and the small apartment where she’d lived for more than ten years. For the first time since she left California, she felt homesick for her artist friends who, after being shut up with their canvases and brushes all day, gathered most evenings for dinner or coffee.

  Despite the early hour and the grumbling in her tummy, Ellie decided to go to bed early. A thought struck her as she climbed the stairs to the second floor. That’s it! Why didn’t I think of it before?

  She entered her mother’s bedroom for the first time since the day she’d arrived. She stomped on the random-width pine floorboards on both sides of the bed until she felt one give the tiniest bit beneath her foot. Getting down on all fours, she pounded the board loose and peeped inside. In the dark hole where her mother had once stashed her jar of cash, Ellie discovered another one of her journals. As she was replacing the board, she got a whiff of the same rotten stench she’d experienced on her first day in Charleston. Journal in hand, she hurried out of the room, careful to close the door tight behind her.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Ashton

  My modeling career took off like a racehorse out of the starting gate. And I owe my instant success to Abbott. He took a special interest in me. Olga Porter admitted to me once that she would never have agreed to represent me if not for him. Abbott is one of the most sought-after photographers in New York. He’s offered the best gigs, and he requests that I be his model for those gigs.

  Three years have passed since I left home, since I last spoke with my mother. I don’t expect to hear from her. In fact, I pray I won’t hear from her. Regardless, I send her boxes of lavish gifts every Christmas—silk Hermès scarves and an Ultrasuede coat designed by Halston, items I know she’ll never wear. They are symbols of my success, representations of my life of high fashion. I hope she gets my message—I’m living my dream, the dream I’ve made come true all on my own.

  I won’t stay on top of my game forever. Girls ten years younger than I, with bodies not yet fully developed, are making their way onto the scene. I’m considering moving out to Hollywood and auditioning for the movies. I know nothing about acting, about as much as I knew about modeling when I first came to New York. Transitioning from modeling to acting seems like a logical career move. I can see myself starring in serious roles for mature leading ladies like Faye Dunaway.

  For the past month, Abbott has been working in Hollywood on a series for Vogue. He speaks of warm, fragrant nights and palm trees rustling in the breeze. He wants to have a serious conversation about our future next week when he gets home. I’ve pressed him, but he refuses to say more until we talk in person. Neither of us is ready to make a lifetime commitment. We’ve talked about marriage a time or two, but we’ve agreed to wait. We are in our prime. We need to get as much out of our careers as we can, while we can. I’m certainly not interested in starting a family anytime soon. Pregnancy and childbirth will ruin my figure and bring my career to an abrupt halt.

  A year ago, Louisa and I moved to a larger two-bedroom apartment on a safer, more prominent street in the Village. Louisa has given up on becoming a model and is focusing on her career at the ad agency. Turns out she has a talent for copywriting. She’s been put up for a promotion. I hope she gets it. It would take some of the pressure off me. Louisa tries hard not to let it show, but I know she resents my success. Abbott thinks it’s creepy the way she tries to emulate me, but I’m flattered by the attention. What harm is there in Louisa wearing the same shade of lipstick as me, even if the color is all wrong for her skin tone? What bothers me more is the way she constantly flirts with Abbott. He makes dreams come true for girls like us. He turns them into superstars. And I get the impression she would choose him over me in a heartbeat if given the chance.

  The stomach flu or whatever it is that has been making me feel puny for a week finally caught up with me yesterday, and I had to call in sick from an important gig. I hope I feel better tomorrow.

  Louisa pounded on the door this m
orning a few minutes before eight. “Nettie, are you alive in there?” She entered the room without waiting for a response. She gasped when she saw me curled into a fetal position on my queen-size bed. “Your face is as green as split pea soup.”

  “Please!” My hand shot out from beneath the blanket. “Don’t talk about food. Especially food as gross as split pea soup. Whatever this is, I can’t seem to shake it.”

  Louisa pressed the back of her hand against my forehead. “You don’t have any fever. If I didn’t know any better, I might think you’re pregnant.”

  “But you do know better,” I said without lifting my head off the pillow. “You’re the one who insisted I see your gynecologist.”

  Louisa reminded me that diaphragms aren’t foolproof and left the room. She returned a minute later with a plastic sleeve of saltines, a can of ginger ale, and the New York Times. “Are you going to call in sick again?”

  I drew my legs even closer to my body. “I hope not. We’ll see how the day goes. I don’t have to be at work until this afternoon. We’re doing an evening shoot in Central Park.”

  “Call me at work if you need anything,” she said, and sashayed her ample hips out of the room. My roommate stopped caring about her weight when she abandoned her dream of becoming a model. A pity, too. She has such a pretty face.

  I rolled over on my back and reached for the sleeve of crackers. When was the last time I had my period? Three months ago, maybe four. I stopped keeping track of my cycle a long time ago. An extra pound on the body is like ten on the camera. I starve myself to the point of malnourishment, which in turn affects my menstruation. At least I don’t make myself vomit like so many of the other girls.

  The more I lay there thinking about vomiting, the more it seemed like a good idea. I yanked back the covers, sending the New York Times scattering across the floor, and bolted to the bathroom. I threw up again and again until my stomach was empty. The tile felt cool against my face as I curled up on the bathroom floor beside the toilet. Was it possible that my diaphragm failed me? There was that one time, the night after the pre-release party for the movie Rocky, when Abbott and I went back to his apartment and had drunken sex. I didn’t use my diaphragm that night, but Abbott . . . well, he implemented the old-fashioned method of birth control. That was months ago, back before Thanksgiving. And it’s already March.

  I knew if I was really pregnant, I would have to take care of it soon. I shuddered to think what taking care of it would involve. I staggered back to my bedroom and dropped to the floor beside the New York Times. As I was sweeping the sections into a pile, I spotted a photograph of Abbott on the front page of the arts section, his arm draped over the shoulders of an attractive woman I didn’t recognize. The headline beneath the photograph read: New York Fashion Photographer Accepts Job with Warner Brothers Studio. I studied the grainy photograph and saw the woman’s name in the caption. Lindsay Lynch. I said the name out loud to my empty room, but it didn’t sound familiar. I skimmed the article but saw no mention of the woman’s identity. According to the news source, Abbott would start working for Warner Brothers at the beginning of May. I let go of the paper and watched it fall to the floor. This is what Abbott wants to talks to me about. A baby will inconvenience his new career. I can’t, I won’t, go to California as his pregnant wife.

  I got to my feet and walked unsteadily to my closet. I changed from my nightgown into a pair of baggy corduroys and one of Abbott’s old Northwestern sweatshirts. I stuffed my hair beneath a black felt hat, pulling it low to hide my face. Despite the cloudy day, I slipped on my oversize Polaroid sunglasses and grabbed my purse. I race-walked to the corner and hailed a cab to my doctor’s office, where I demanded the receptionist arrange for a pregnancy test. When I left the doctor’s office three hours later, I walked to the nearest subway station and hopped on the first train that came along. Stunned by the results of the test—I’m more than three months pregnant—I rode on that train for hours, with no destination in mind, ignoring the blank stares of the homeless people who inhabit the undergrounds of New York. By the time I arrived back at my apartment, I’d made my decision. I would leave New York. My suitcases were packed and waiting by the door at six o’clock when Louisa arrived home from work.

  Louisa didn’t seem surprised when I showed her the news clip about Abbott and the mysterious woman. “I was hoping it wasn’t true. I didn’t want to tell you, but I heard some of Abbott’s friends talking at a party the other night. They said he’s been seeing someone else.”

  I blew the air out of my lungs. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I didn’t think it was true.”

  I reached for my suitcases, but Louisa blocked the door. “Where will you go?”

  “It’s better for you not to know, in case Abbott comes looking for me.”

  “He’s going to come looking for you, silly. He loves you. You know that. Look, Abbott told you he wants to talk to you about the future. That means he’s going to ask you to marry him. I’m sure the woman in the photograph doesn’t mean anything to him.” She pointed at the newspaper on the kitchen counter. “Maybe this isn’t what you planned for yourself, but you’ll make a great mother, and you’ll get to live the life of a movie producer’s wife in Hollywood.”

  “That’s just it, Louisa. I don’t want to be the filmmaker’s wife. I want to be the movie star. This is my one and only chance in life. I’ll have the baby, put it up for adoption, and be back in front of the camera by the end of September.” I gripped the handles of my suitcases. “I left an envelope for you in your bedroom. There’s enough money there to cover my portion of the rent until I come back. Promise me you won’t rent out my room until you hear from me.”

  “I promise,” Louisa said.

  “Can I trust you to keep my pregnancy a secret? No one can know. Not Abbott, the folks at the agency, or any of our friends.”

  Louisa drew an X across her chest with her fingertip. “I’ll take it to my grave.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Ellie

  Ashton’s journal left Ellie desperate to know more. What happened to her mother’s plans to put her up for adoption? Had she fallen in love with her baby and decided that raising her was more important than her modeling career? Or had the agency found out about her pregnancy and fired her? And who was the woman in the photograph with Abbott? Not Jenny. He didn’t meet her until several years later. The father she knew didn’t seem the type to cheat on his girlfriend. Maybe he hadn’t loved her after all. Maybe that’s why he refused to talk about her. How had her grandmother received Ashton upon her return to Charleston? Surely she hadn’t welcomed her with open arms and congratulated her on her pregnancy.

  Unable to sleep, Ellie returned to her mother’s bedroom and searched the floor on all fours for more loose boards. When she found none, she turned the room upside down looking for more journals. Someone, probably Maddie, had removed most of her mother’s belongings. Gone were the taffeta and silk party dresses she remembered hanging in the closet and the shoes lined up in rows beneath them on the floor. Gone were the assortment of perfume bottles, cosmetics, and creams from the top of the dresser.

  Ellie finally grew frustrated and gave up. She went back to her room and fell into a fitful sleep plagued with dreams about a distraught young woman on a train staring out of the window into the dark night as she traveled south to a place she didn’t want to be, with a child in her belly she didn’t want to keep.

  The magnolia painting arrived before ten on Saturday morning. With her grandmother’s depressing art decorating the walls in the other rooms, she propped the canvas against the bookshelves in her studio for lack of a better place to hang it. When she redecorated the house, she would replace the gilded mirror in the center hallway with the painting. She had an image in her mind of the piece of furniture she hoped to find to place under it—either an oriental console or a huntboard made of mahogany or walnut with lots of inlay. She studied the brushstrokes and composition of the
painting for more than an hour and then went into the back garden to look at her own magnolia tree.

  She crawled beneath the thick branches and lay down on top of the dead leaves on the ground. Staring up through the branches at the peeks of blue sky beyond the top of the tree made her feel dizzy. She closed her eyes and realized with absolute certainty that this tree had played a major role in the first six years of her life. She’d felt safe with the tree’s massive, curvy branches wrapped around her like the arms of the mother who lay inside the house dying, like the father she’d never met but so often dreamed of. She remembered Bella, the doll she’d found in the back of her mother’s closet that had belonged to her mother as a child. She’d loved that doll, with her naked cloth body and bald plastic head, her bright blue eyes and upturned rosy lips. Bella had been her only toy, her only friend. And her grandmother had refused to let her play with it.

  One morning when she was around four years old, her grandmother had caught Ellie pretending to feed Bella cereal for breakfast at the dining room table. “What on earth is that?” She’d snatched the doll away from her. “This doll is filthy dirty, not fit for a proper young lady.”

  Her grandmother had stuffed the doll in the kitchen trash, but Maddie had rescued her for Ellie. After that, she’d kept Bella hidden in a plastic grocery bag tied from one of the branches of the magnolia tree. She wondered what had happened to her doll. To the best of her recollection, she hadn’t taken it with her to California.

  Ellie stayed beneath the tree until her back began to ache. She went in the house and gathered the art supplies she needed from her studio. She preferred to work with oils, but for this project she chose watercolors. To avoid drip lines, instead of working at her easel, she sat cross-legged in the grass with her pad of watercolor paper in her lap. She created puddles of the colors she wanted to use in the pan beside her. She dipped her flat wide brush in the jar of water and wet the paper first before reaching for the brush she used the most with these types of paints—the big fat round one with the sable bristles her father had given her one Christmas when she was in high school. She worked tentatively at first and then with carefree abandon.