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It’s amazing how fast I adjust to this new sense of normal, even though I don’t quite know what that means, other than things are different, but in many ways, very much the same as before. Ashley says that humans are wired to move
past things, that it is understandable for us to want to fall back into a normal routine, and as much as I don’t want to believe anything she says, I do. I fall into a routine that looks a lot like my routine every summer. Life does not stop when things get crazy. It keeps moving on past and it leaves little room for catching up, so eventually, I suppose we all just sort of let go and fall into step.
Late one evening, I’m seated at the kitchen table poring over bills and bank statements and invoices when Julia comes to me with a pained expression on her face. She’s gripping her rosary beads, which is what she’s always done when she has bad news to deliver. “Jesus Christ, Julia,” I say impatiently. “What is it?”
She eyes me hesitantly.
I slap an open palm against the table. “Just spit it out, would ya?”
I don’t mean to snap at her. I haven’t been sleeping well and I’m frustrated, not the least of all reasons being that after the argument with Cole, I haven’t gone out to the cabin simply as a matter of principle. And aside from all of that, I hate accounting. Nothing is adding up, and what the numbers show is not what I was hoping to see. For a bed and breakfast that is always booked, it seems our margins are very thin. Money seems to be seeping out from many angles and much faster than we’re bringing it in.
Julia looks at me suspiciously, like I have lost my mind. “You should not use the Lord’s name in vain.”
“I’m not,” I say, punching numbers into the calculator. “I’m calling upon him to help you get the words out.”
“Ah, Ruthie.” She shakes a finger at me. “Your mama would have soap in your mouth if she were here. You remember? Like the good old days.”
“The good old days, yes. Funny, I recall them a bit differently.”
I jot the figure down on the paperwork in front of me, and then I look up. “I’m sorry,” I sigh. “Whatever it is you have to say, I doubt it could be worse than this.”
She looks worried, and I instantly wish I could take the words back. I try to think of ways to tell her that her job is safe, without making things even worse, but I can’t seem to come up with anything.
“Soap in your mouth,” she tells me. “That is worse than this, no?”
Poor Julia. I think my punishment was harder on her than it was on me. She used to feel so bad that Mama would make me sit in the bathroom sucking on a bar of soap for the better part of an hour. This was back when people did things like teach their kids’ lessons. I doubt the mother next door has ever thought about giving her daughter a bar of soap. It might save her some trouble down the line. But you can’t tell people anything these days. It’s not the parents’ fault their children are assholes.
It’s just that it’s hard to be a decent person if you’re never told the word no. Just look at the woman staying in our guest house.
“I can still taste that soap sometimes,” I say to Julia, and she laughs.
It wasn’t just the soap that was awful. It was being stuck in the bathroom for all that time, away from everyone. I hated every second of it. Julia used to feel so bad that she’d sneak in glasses of Kool-Aid. Other times she’d slip a handful of the mints we used to leave on guest’s pillows under the door.
Mama would come in and my lips and tongue would be blood red and she’d ask when I’d gotten into Kool-Aid. She’d blame the sugar for my bad behavior and act all confused, and it was only later, much later, that I learned she never really was. Mama missed nothing that went on in this house. If only I could be more like her, then I wouldn’t have to depend on Julia to deliver news she can’t seem to get out.
“It’s about Ms. Ashley,” she says. She treads cautiously, even going so far as to wince as she speaks.
“What about her?” God, why does everything have to be about her?
“I found this.”
She hands me a driver’s license. It’s from Louisiana.
“I found it in her room, in the guest house. I was cleaning.” She looks sad, and I understand why. Julia has just broken one of her sacred values. She prides herself on discretion. It’s the pinnacle of who she is and of her work. “I didn’t want to tell Davis. I know I shouldn’t pry—so I brought it to you.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “I’m glad you did.”
I glance down at the plastic in my hand. The woman in the photo staring back at me is the same woman sleeping in my guest house. But her name isn’t Ashley Parker.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ruth
I’m in the parlor refreshing the selection of magazines we keep out on the tables when Ashley enters the front door of Magnolia House. Her arms are weighed down by shopping bags, and she has a stack of packages in her hands. I watch as she dumps her haul onto the floor in the entryway, the bags slinking from her arms like a sloughing of a second skin.
“Hey,” I call out. “Can you come here?”
It feels like as good a time as any to ask for the truth. Although, I haven’t yet decided how to start the conversation. Do I begin with an icebreaker? Or should I just get straight to the point? Who the hell are you? Why are you here? And what is it that you want?
