“Just to remind you about us singing at the prayer meeting tonight,” Duff says.
“You think I’ve gone senile?” I ask him. “We’ve been singing at every prayer meeting for a year now. Though all your churchgoing ain’t done you a bit of good, far as I can tell. Every night you’re not in church, you’re at the juke joint.” Then, hearing him sucking on a cigarette, I sigh again. “And you’re smoking, ain’t you?”
He tries to deny it but starts coughing, bad. “Naw. I quit, like I told you,” the liar says.
“I’m going now,” I tell him meanly. “I’m not listening to no more of your lies. After that doctor said you might lose your voice, I thought you might straighten yourself out.”
I slam the little phone shut, cussing. But before I can get it tucked back into my jeans, it’s ringing again. This time it’s Helen.
“Willa?” she says, and I reply, “Yep, it’s me.” Then I worry that they’re on their way home, and I haven’t even made it to Moonrise yet. But they’re still touring the Biltmore Estate, she tells me. “Listen,” she says, “I called to see if you’d do me a favor when you get to the house.” No surprise, she wants me to make sure the oven’s off. They’d only been here a day or so when Helen smelled gas and had the gas company come out in a hurry. She’d turned the oven on, the guy told her, without making sure the pilot light was lit. Helen had a fit, swearing she did no such thing—she hadn’t even been in the kitchen. It was pretty obvious that no one believed her.
I tell Helen not to worry, I’ll check it out. “I didn’t touch the oven this morning,” she says with a nervous laugh, “but still. And Willa? I’d appreciate you not saying anything about my call, okay? Can’t have everyone thinking I’m scatterbrained.”
Another little laugh, and she’s gone. We hang up, and I start back downstairs, shaking my head. Lord, that poor woman! Bless her heart. Last month, when she called to say she and Emmet had decided to spend the summer in Highlands, she asked if I could get the house comfortable for them. I wanted to tell her that I was the property manager, not a miracle worker. If there’s anything comfortable about that old-timey place, I’ve yet to find it. Turns out she meant having it wired for the Internet and stuff, which was at least doable. She and Emmet couldn’t stay, she said, unless an office could be fixed up for both of them, since they had a lot of work to do this summer. A working holiday, she’d called it, which tickled me.
Helen seems so earnest and is trying so hard to be liked, but I have my doubts. I like her fine myself, but she’s gonna have a hard time fitting in here. I’ve been knowing these folks all my life, and they’re not an easy bunch. I love ’em to death, and they’re good to me, but they’re strange. Linc’s the best of them, but he’s a college professor, and half the time he uses big words I don’t understand. That Yankee wife of his thinks she’s better than everybody else, especially me. I pure-tee cannot stand her. Noel and Tansy couldn’t be nicer to me, but they talk crazy and act the fool. Kit Rutherford is a snot, though she tries to act like she’s sweet as pie. Then there’s Emmet. Momma used to say that Rosalyn Harmon was the only woman who could be married to Emmet Justice because she knew how to handle him. I find him pretty scary myself. Not mean scary, but scary the other way. He stares at you with those clear-colored eyes of his, then fires questions your way like he’s interviewing you on his TV show. It makes me nervous, and I avoid him as much as I can. All I can say is, poor Helen’s got her work cut out for her.
I got another worry besides Helen, though. Driving down the road to the Varners’, I wonder what I’ve got myself into by promising to help out with Linc. I start next week, after that wife of his gets on her broomstick and flies back to Alabama. I love Linc to pieces but have problems with Myna. I can’t figure out what Linc ever saw in her, even if she is a big-shot writer. All those years he’d been a bachelor, then Myna comes from New York City to speak at Bama, and next thing you know, she’s got her hooks into him. And her not even pretty! Everything about her is sharp—elbows, collarbone, chin, eyes, and tongue.
Only good thing is, Myna don’t like Highlands, so she won’t be around much. Never is. She goes someplace—Maine, seems like—where her people have a summer home. She’s always telling Linc how his house don’t measure up to her family’s “compound.” If I was him, I’d tell her to keep her skinny ass up there, then. Although the Varner house is an authentic, old-timey log cabin, and sits right on the edge of the lake, Myna complains that it’s dark, cramped, and smells like a fireplace. Shoot, that’s what I like about it! Actually, Linc’s cabin is a lot like the old homeplace I was raised in, which belongs to me now. Both of them have the same pointy tin roof, blackened chimneys on the sides, and laurel rail porches. And each has chinked log walls and fireplaces made of rocks from the Cullasaja River. Only difference is, mine is the one without the brass plaque.
Linc hadn’t been to Highlands since his stroke, but the cabin has handicapped rails and stuff now. Myna sent me a list of how she wanted things done, but not many of her orders were carried out. One weekend Noel met me there and changed everything on her list. Just between us, he told me with a wink, and brought in his own workmen. He was damned determined Linc’d be comfortable here, he told me. Noel won’t say nothing bad about Myna—not to me, anyway—but it’s obvious how him and the others feel about her. It tickles me the way they all pretend to like one another, regardless. Summer folks are bad about that, I’ve noticed.
I brought some of Tansy’s dahlias to Linc’s house, so I go outside to get fillers, maybe a little buddleia and oxeye daisies. Summer people love their flower gardens, and all over Highlands are the prettiest, showiest ones you’ve ever seen, with statues and waterfalls and goldfish ponds. Odd thing is, men and women alike work in their flower beds. Duff can’t believe that the men belong to garden clubs just like ladies do, but he thinks all summer people are weird. And most of the locals feel the same way.
I gather a handful of buddleia from Linc’s butterfly garden, but gotta get the sprinklers going next—Linc’s not happy with his garden, and neither is Tansy with hers; least they know I’ve done the best I can. Western North Carolina is in such a bad drought that the lakes are all down, and some of the waterfalls nothing but trickles. The governor’s been asking everybody to pray for rain. The Lord’s liable to tell us we can’t keep on using up everything He gave us, then holding out our hands for more.
Linc’s yards are different from everybody else’s. He’s one of those professors who studies butterflies and teaches his students about them, so his garden’s like a science lab. Used to, if you needed to find Linc, look in the yard. Day and night, he’d be squatting out there taking notes and pictures of caterpillars and cocoons. Wonder how much he’ll be able to get around it now, with him in that walker. Part of my job will be taking him for walks to build up his legs, then he can start using a cane instead. Most of our strolls will be through the butterfly garden. I ’spect it’s going to be tough, seeing him wanting to squat down and study things, and not being able to. Maybe taking notes is something else I can do for him.
Driving down the dirt road that circles Looking Glass Lake, I catch myself humming a little song. I can’t help myself, being excited about the arrival of summer. Winters here are so gray and dreary. Seems like spring will never get here, then it’s gone as quickly as a cheating boyfriend. Only excitement we have in these parts is when the summer folks roll in. Everything, and everybody, picks up then. Highlands is a small town, just a few blocks of downtown storefronts, but you’d never know it come summer. The newspaper wrote that the town swells with tourists, and that’s what it feels like. Swollen, like a big ripe persimmon about to burst open. Excitement fills the air the first week of June, and it don’t leave till the cold winds of winter blow back in.
The road leading up to Moonrise isn’t much wider than a pathway, and I pray I won’t meet another vehicle. If so, nothing to do but back out. The road winds through a laurel and rhododendron forest where pink-and-white blooms hang so thick and heavy overhead that you can’t see the sky. Not seeing is good at certain spots, where the road hugs the side of the mountain. Looking