AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Once you reach the ridges you're in terraced suburbia; and on the east/southeast end of town, you're practically in Georgia. In the suburb of East Ridge, Tennessee, cheaper gas is just a mile or so away in Rossville. Before I went looking for the mysterious Mr. or Ms. Finley, I took advantage of that fact and saved a couple of bucks on a fill-up.
I found my way back to my home side of the state line and drove around for a while, exploring the ridge neighborhoods and checking the street names. Mostly I was still killing time in case Finley was at church. This was a reasonable and very likely prospect, and despite the buffet arms race that prompts area services to conclude earlier and earlier, I shouldn't expect to find anyone home until after noon, at soonest. Even this was assuming Finley hadn't joined the rest of the faithful in the mad rush to the Golden Corral.
The street number inked onto my hand read 6769. I let go of the steering wheel and glanced down to make sure, then I slowed the Death Nugget to a crawling near-stop outside a green house with peeling paint and a yard full of trees.
On the mailbox I spied a tattered 6 and a possible 9, but the remaining numbers had long since worked their way free of the black iron. But on the mailbox at the next drive I could see 6771, so it looked like I'd found it. I parked on the street, pulling over into the gutter rather than subjecting my car to the badly graveled driveway.
I was just working out my approach, trying to decide on my opening lines, when an old but well-cared-for Lincoln dragged its mighty bulk onto the rocky set of wheel ruts I'd opted to avoid. While the dull silver automobile worked its way into a docking position on the left side of the house, I climbed out of my car and shut the door, standing beside it and waiting for the other driver to emerge.
She was slender and dressed in a sharp pantsuit and high heels. Her hair was more perfectly silver than the car, and it was cropped short in the flattering, stylish way that most southern women of a certain age forgo in favor of something more easily fluffed with hairspray. She closed her own car door and cracked open a clasp on her purse, dropping her sunglasses into the bag and then finally looking up at me.
"Can I help you with something, sweetheart?" she asked, which was a fair question since I was standing just outside the grassy ditch a few yards from her front door.
"Maybe," I admitted. "I'm looking for a woman named Marion Finley. "
"Huh. " She looked down to her purse again and unsnapped the clasp once more, pushing past the sunglasses to extract a pack of cigarettes. "Then I guess I'll need these," she said, and though she said it with three-quarters of a grin, I didn't hear any humor in the words.
"Why's that?"
"Because it's Rhonda now. And no one who knows me by Marion has come calling in twenty years—at least no one I wanted to talk to. " She looked me up and down, tapping the soft pack against her wrist. A tiny lighter popped out of the pack. She used it to gesture at the porch.
I felt like I ought to say some
thing, so as I walked around my car to approach her I said, "I wanted to talk to you about—"
"Oh, I can guess," she interrupted. "Hell. " She put the cigarette in her mouth and lit it up, never blinking or taking her eyes off me. "Now that I see you better, I can make a couple of real good guesses, in fact. "
I paused, one foot in the grass and one in the air, but she waved me on. "Come on," she urged. "I'm not that kind of old lady, come on in. I'll get you a drink, if you like. Sweet tea?"
"Sure," I agreed as I followed her up onto the porch. "Tea's good. "
Inside, the home was lined with hardwood floors and nicely kept furniture that would qualify for antique status in another twenty years. Two big ceiling fans spun lazily above us, and two big cats stayed just as lazily immobile on the end of the couch. One of the felines opened a sleepy yellow eye to appraise me when I came in, but the other only shuddered and yawned.
"Don't mind them," Marion said, "unless you're allergic. You're not, are you?"
"No. "
"Then have a seat. Take the end of the couch if you don't mind the boys. "
I did take the couch, at which point both of the "boys" raised their fluffy, wedge-shaped heads and leaned a pair of whiskered noses toward me. I held out a hand and let them get a sniff; they decided I was neither food nor foe, and returned to their apathetic repose.
In the kitchen, I heard the clatterings of cupboards and appliances, and before long Marion returned with a tall, tea-filled glass. She took the chair across the coffee table from me, and sipped at her own drink between drags on her not-quite-finished cigarette.
"You're Leslie's baby, aren't you?" She put a question mark on the end for form's sake, but I didn't have to nod to tell her she was right. "You look like her a little, more like her mother, though. She's the one who named you, I think. Your grandmother. She's the one who started calling you Eden. "
I swigged gently at the tea, and the big boxy ice cubes shifted together. "How'd you know it was me?"
"Because I'm not an idiot. You're back in the news, kid. They were running a picture of you on Channel Three, talking about that crazy boy shooting the girl and thinking it was you. "
"Oh. Crap. "
"Naw, it was a good picture. So what brings you looking for me, anyway? I mean, more than the obvious. You want to know about Pine Breeze, that's a given. They done tearing it down yet? I'll be . . . relieved when they do. Yes, relieved. "
"Is that what you really mean? You say it like it's not. "
She spent a second or two too long with the cigarette at her mouth. When she moved it aside to speak, there was a faint smudge of coral lipstick on the white filter. "It's what I mean. It's a closed chapter—it's been one for me, for years. I'll feel better when it's gone to the rest of the world, too. "
"It isn't gone, not all the way, not yet. It will be before long, though. They've got all the equipment up there, and a couple of the buildings are torn down. The rest aren't far behind. "
