The Belles of Desire, Mississippi (The Ghosts of Summerleigh Book 1) Read online

  Might as well face reality.

  I faced the mirror of the medicine cabinet and stuck my tongue out at myself. Why in the world had I let Eddie into my home, and how had he found me? Before this most recent hookup, I hadn’t seen him for six months. I opened the cabinet, and sure enough, my meds were gone.

  “Damn it, Ed!” I closed the cabinet and dug my purse out of the cedar chest. It didn’t take long to figure out that he’d discovered my hiding spot. Everything was out of place, but at least he’d left my credit cards and checkbook alone. All my cash had disappeared. “Eddie! You bastard,” I said under my breath. I couldn’t have predicted that he would stoop that low, but his pill addiction apparently had a hold on him. If you’ll rob a grieving mother, your own ex-wife, of her cash and medication, you’re pretty low-down. “That’s the last time, Eddie Poole. The last time!” I wiped a tear from my eye. I had a few groceries in the house, but I needed that cash for gas and my lunches all this week.

  No sense in crying over spilled milk. That’s something my grandmother used to say when she dealt with her son, my father. In other words, It’s too late to do anything about what’s been done. Yeah, that would have to be my motto too now. It was too late for Eddie and me. Our chances died along with Marisol.

  I began my weekday morning ritual and prepared to face my day. I drank two cups of black coffee, got dressed in my pink uniform, smoothed back my hair in a bun and dabbed on a bit of makeup. Next, I put dinner in my mini crockpot: today’s menu choice was a chicken breast, a can of chopped tomatoes and green chilies and half a can of black beans. I detested fast food but loved the salad bar at the restaurant near the nursing home. Unfortunately, I had no cash for lunch now. Unlike my ex, my crockpot never let me down. I turned the pot on low and grabbed my purse and umbrella. It was summer, so I didn’t need a jacket, but a raincoat was obviously a necessity today. Luckily for me, I would be inside all day.

  Count your blessings, as one of my therapists reminded me every week.

  My car didn’t want to start this morning, and I quickly forgot about counting my blessings when I finally coaxed the engine to turn over. Jetting down Twelfth Street, I pulled into the parking lot of the Sunrise Retirement Home. Since my shift began at 6 a.m., I had plenty of parking spots to choose from and I picked a close one. That was one of the advantages of coming in early. The night shift was basically a skeleton crew.

  As administrative nurse and coordinator, I walked into any number of emergencies every Monday. What would it be this morning? I wondered if Mr. Munroe had made it through the weekend without a trip to the hospital. He really needed to go, but he refused to thus far. At least one of my favorites, Mrs. Nancy Grimes, had a visitor last Friday. The first in months. Sweet lady. She always had a joke to share.

  But the one resident I hated leaving the most was Harper Hayes. Mrs. Hayes, who insisted I call her Harper, was a firecracker with a penchant for telling the honest truth—about everything. She and I became fast friends when I was pregnant with Marisol. In fact, my favorite resident of the Sunrise Retirement Home had given me an “All About Baby” book and showered my baby with gifts including a silver spoon, crocheted booties and a dedication gown. And when Marisol died, she’d cried alongside me. We were an odd family, the three of us. Yes, it was hard to leave her on the weekends, but she insisted on it. She reminded me that I needed to have a life outside this place. The truth was, I didn’t have much of one. As last night had proved.

  To my surprise, there had been absolutely no emergencies this weekend. None at all. I checked the boards twice for messages or notices, but there wasn’t anything that required my attention. Nothing on my computer screen either. “Well, that’s a change,” I said to Anita, my right-hand nurse and work buddy. “No emergencies at all?”

  She smiled, her dark skin glowing prettily. “Yeah, everyone was well behaved. Uh, you won’t believe this, but Eddie’s been calling this morning. He started calling a few minutes before you got here.”

  “He’s got a lot of nerve. He’s lucky I don’t call the cops.”

  Anita tossed her pen on the desk in front of her and gave me an incredulous look. “Tell me you didn’t. You went through all that to get moved, and then you let him in.”

  I buried my head in my hands and refused to meet her gaze. “I know. I’m a loser. This isn’t an excuse, but I’ve been so lonely lately. I guess he just caught me at the right moment.”

  “More like the wrong moment. For someone with so much education, you sure do need your head examined.” I accepted her gentle scolding, for I knew her heart.

  “Believe me, it’s been examined, and I don’t think there’s any hope for me.”

  One of the new nurses, Jenny, came to the desk and said, “There you are. Mrs. Hayes has been waiting for you, Jerica. She sent me to come find you and asked you to come see her at your earliest convenience.”

  It was my turn to raise my eyebrows in surprise. “And that’s how she said it? That doesn’t sound like Harper Hayes.”

  Jenny blushed and confessed, “She didn’t say it exactly like that. I paraphrased for her.”

  “Oh, she’s in one of those moods. I’m on the way. Thanks.” I tucked my purse in the top drawer of my desk and headed down the hall to see my friend. I had barely stepped my foot in the door before she instructed me to come in.

  “Thank goodness. I didn’t think I would make it to Monday. Have a seat. I know you’re busy, but I really need to speak with you.” I joined Harper at the small table next to the window that overlooked the garden. I barely had the time to sit and visit with her during the day except during these early mornings.

  “What are you talking about? Are you sick?” I frowned at her suspiciously. “You can’t wait for me to be here to tell someone, Harper. What’s the matter?”

  “Hush now and listen. I have something to show you.” She slipped a picture out from under a lace doily that topped her round table. “Look at us, Jeopardy.”

  “Jerica, I’m Jerica, Harper.” My heart fell to hear her get my name wrong. Doing so once was forgetfulness, but she’d done it quite a bit recently and it worried me.

  “Yes, I know that. Now take a look.”

  The black and white photo had crumpled, brittle edges, but the faces were clear. Four girls looked back at me, three with smiles and one with a faraway look as if she were seeing past the moment—as if she could see me. I shivered at the silliness of that thought.

  “Can you guess which one is me?” She smiled like the Cheshire cat, and I stared at her and then at the photo. Picking out Harper was easy. You could tell the girls were related, but none of them looked exactly alike. Unwilling to wait for my answer, she said, “That’s me, on the end.”

  I smiled at her. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

  “Oh, you’re such a liar, Jerica Poole, but thank you.” Thank goodness she didn’t call me Jeopardy again. But I wasn’t lying. Of course, she looked much older than this photo, but it was Harper nonetheless. She had a wide forehead and neat eyebrows that had a natural arch to them. In the photo, she wore a Peter Pan blouse, and her soft blond hair was bobbed and curled.

  “And which sister is which?”

  “Now, this pouty thing with the bee-stung lips is my sister Addison. She’s the only one of us who had brown eyes. She looked a lot like my father’s family. Addison was a sickly girl but sweet.” Addison had a cleft chin to go along with those full lips. She was certainly a pretty girl. “This ball of sunshine was my youngest sister, Loxley. Momma always braided her hair into two braids. She used to see ghosts all the time, right up until the day she moved away and married that boy from Mobile. Why can’t I think of his name?”

  “What?” I laughed at that. “Loxley must have had an imaginary friend or two, I gather?”

  “No, they weren’t imaginary friends; she saw ghosts just like you and I see cats or dogs. And this girl here, the one beside me, that’s my sister Jeopardy. She disappeared in 1942.” I was mesmerized
by the girl with the wild blond hair. She looked so out of place, like a girl from another time had stepped into the frame. She wore a white sundress and had vulnerable-looking bare arms and that sad, faraway look in her eyes.

  “She looks so tiny. She was the oldest, right?”

  “Yeah, she was the oldest, but I was the tallest. I was the Ugly Duckling of the Belle family, taller than even Momma when I got older. Jeopardy was always a petite thing, with a wild streak a mile wide. Oh, how I wanted to be like Jeopardy.” Harper clutched the photo in her hand and closed her eyes as if she were remembering some half-forgotten moment. I didn’t want to interrupt her, but I was captivated by the photograph.

  “Hardly an Ugly Duckling, Harper. And I’m taller than you. Tell me about your sisters. You said Jeopardy disappeared?”

  “They are all gone now. I am the last Belle.” She opened her eyes and tucked the crocheted blanket around her legs. “Chilly this morning. I wanted to see you, Jerica, because I am going to die soon, and I’m afraid I have failed to bring my sister home. I made a promise a long time ago. I promised Jeopardy I would bring her home, but I couldn’t. I need your help. Please tell me you’ll help me. I can’t die knowing she’ll never make it home.”

  Alarmed at her confession, I put my hand on her wrist to comfort her. “Hey, you aren’t going to die on my watch. Let me call your doctor. If you feel off in any kind of way, we need to get him here.”

  “Don’t do that. I need you to believe me. I can’t explain how I know it, but I do—I am going to die soon, and I need your help. I can’t find Jeopardy, and she’s been gone so long. She can’t rest until we find her. Please help me.” For the first time in all the years I’d known her, Harper Hayes cried. I was so surprised that I couldn’t imagine refusing her. I couldn’t say no to her after she’d been so good to Marisol and me. She’d been there for me when I needed her most. I would have to return the favor.

  “I’ll help you, Harper, but we have to call Dr. Odom. I’ll help you if you allow me to call him.”

  She wiped her tears away and nodded in agreement. “That sounds like a fair trade. Hand me my handkerchief, please.”

  I walked to her bedside table and retrieved one of the embroidered handkerchiefs from her neat stack. Handing it to her, I couldn’t help but hug her even though I suspected she didn’t enjoy hugs too much.

  “I want you to have this picture, Jerica. I don’t want you to forget Jeopardy Belle, not like everyone else has. Even me—I forgot her for a while. I tried to find her, but then I got so busy with my own life. Find her, Jerica. Find her and bring her home.”

  “I can’t accept this picture, Harper. These are your sisters, not mine.”

  “No, I want you to have it. Just remember your promise. I’m going to hold you to it now, Jeopardy.”

  I didn’t correct her but squeezed her hand and slipped the picture into my pocket before I walked out to call Dr. Odom. The whole thing was weird, but I couldn’t refuse Harper. She’d been there for me, and how hard could it be to find her sister?

  She disappeared in 1942…

  Chapter Two—Harper Belle Hayes

  Monday’s child is full of grace…Nope. That’s not how it goes.

  “Mm-hmm,” I answered the doctor absently as he poked and prodded me with his cold metal tools. I disliked doctors immensely, but I’d made Jerica a promise, and her promise would be harder to keep than mine. I had no doubt she could do it. Jerica had a quiet strength that would take her far if she could tap into it. So much like my Aunt Dot.

  Tuesday’s child will win the race. Uh-uh. That’s not right either. How strange that Loxley had sung this in my dream last night and now I couldn’t remember any of it. I used to know this song and about a dozen others by heart.

  “Poke out your tongue, please,” the young man said as he unceremoniously shoved a wooden tongue depressor in my mouth. Good Lord! I don’t have tonsillitis. This silly doctor was messing up my concentration. It was easier to remember this poem when you sang it; we used to sing it, all us Belle girls together. Hard to sing with a Popsicle stick in your mouth. Jumping rope had been a happy pastime of ours; Jeopardy had always been the best at it, so much so that she got bored with it and went on to other things like boys and smoking, but the rest of us continued until we were all too big for the jump rope.

  Dr. Odom mumbled something about potassium levels to Jerica, further proof that he was a fool. I didn’t need a banana…I was dying. I knew this because Loxley told me; I saw my baby sister in a dream last night. And she had been as she always was, sweet-faced and wise beyond her years. Loxley had been Tuesday’s child. Full of grace…yes, I think that’s right. My eyes closed; I’d been so sleepy yesterday and today too. The next thing I knew, I was opening my eyes and back home. Back at Summerleigh, on the landing, in the full sunlight that shone through the big window. Loxley was there, her neat braids shiny and her blue checkered dress tidy for once. And in that moment, when I cleared the stairs at Summerleigh and ran to the end of the hallway to hug her, all the things that drove me crazy about her when we were young didn’t matter anymore. I didn’t care that she always lost her lunch money or that she peed the bed or had a habit of vomiting if she ate too much. I loved her beyond reckoning.

  And Summerleigh…I had forgotten how magical the place had been when I was a child. I had loved it since the day I first clapped eyes on it. It had all seemed so rotten and broken, like a forsaken sand castle those first few days, but there was beauty there, beneath the rotten boards and peeling paint. Daddy never doubted the house’s potential.

  “Summerleigh is a prize worth having, and we’ll work night and day if that’s what it takes to restore her,” he told us proudly. “I won this house fair and square—you should have seen my hand, Ann—and now we will keep it.” Knowing Daddy, he totally believed this declaration. Momma didn’t speak against the place after that, not in Daddy’s hearing, anyway, but she sure didn’t lift a finger to do any of the work required. Momma’s hobbies were picking peaches, smoking her skinny cigarettes and talking on the phone. When Daddy was home, she did all the cooking. But if he was gone to take a load somewhere—he was an over-the-road truck driver after he left the military—I did it all. It was like she was Momma when Daddy was home, but when he was gone, I was the Momma. Funny how at the time it didn’t seem strange to me. It was just life.

  I remember her burning up the phone lines once the phone company managed to put one in the kitchen at Summerleigh. More than once I heard her whispering about Summerleigh and Daddy, but she didn’t speak ill of either in front of me. Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only one talking.

  Everyone in town had talked when we left the West Desire Mobile Home Park for Summerleigh. People thought we were fools before, and they knew for sure we were now, Momma complained to Aunt Dot and me. But the thick-tongued gossips didn’t deter Daddy. He didn’t care when folks said that we were living above our means or that having Belles living at Summerleigh was like putting lipstick on a pig. We’d come from a long line of sharecroppers, and everyone in Desire knew it. But Daddy had brought us all up now, with his medals and many awards for bravery, so perhaps they would talk a bit less. That’s what Aunt Dot told me even though her very own sister did not hold to that viewpoint.

  I loved my Aunt Dot. People said I looked just like her, and when I was a child, I liked to fantasize that she—rather than the elegant but cold Ann Marie Belle—was my mother. If Momma had her choice, we’d all be back in the cramped trailer park where she could once again be the queen of her own social kingdom, of which Augustine Hogue was her chief ally.

  Summerleigh had been a fine two-story mansion with five columns across the front porch and two smaller one-story wings on each side. Once upon a time, Summerleigh must have seemed a magical place, but by the time we carried our boxes and suitcases inside, it had stood empty for at least forty years. It felt less like a palace and more like a graveyard.

  As with any small town, there was plent
y of talk in Desire about the McIntyre family, the original owners of the house. Daddy quickly became obsessed with the McIntyre family history too. When he wasn’t tinkering with something around the house, replacing wood here and there or scraping off old wallpaper, he was reading about them.

  Yes, I remembered my first trip to Summerleigh. There had been a rickety gate and a broken walkway that led to the front door. The unkempt yard was full of untamed bushes and overgrown saw grass that hid things like field rats and a family of feral cats who dined on the rodents regularly. Oh, I hated finding those carcasses all over the place. One cat in particular liked to leave half-eaten rats on the front porch, as a kind of peace offering, I supposed.

  Harper, are you coming?

  Loxley’s voice called to me now from somewhere beyond the noisy Dr. Odom’s droning. Obviously, no one else heard her, and I was okay with that. I didn’t want to share her. As he scribbled on his notepad, I announced, “I’m ready for a nap. Everyone out.” Jerica frowned at me for my rudeness, but I was tired and Loxley was waiting.

  They finally left me alone, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I had done what I needed to do; Jerica had promised to bring my sister home, to find Jeopardy Belle. I could rest now. Old age had finally caught up with the unstoppable Harper Belle Hayes, and I had done all I could do. I lay down on my bed and closed my eyes. Oh, I was so tired, much too tired to do one more thing.

  But the peaches need washing and the quilts need beating, Harper. Momma needs you…

  “Alright, Momma,” I said to my memory. Now I remembered the poem. I recalled it perfectly!

  Monday’s child is fair of face

  Tuesday’s child is full of grace