Maybe not for a long time.
Maybe never.
I put it out of my mind and concentrated on what I would wear to dinner, even if it was only Charley’s Diner. I was still going with my father, and I wanted him to be proud of me, proud of how I dressed, how I looked. He wouldn’t harp on it; he wouldn’t even mention it, because he assumed I would dress properly. I knew how he shook his head and muttered to himself when he saw the way some of my friends and classmates looked when they went out with their parents, even to fancy restaurants.
My father and I didn’t go out to eat all that much, but I knew that whenever we did, especially when we went to Charley’s, he enjoyed it, not so much because he and I didn’t have to be in the kitchen as because it was his chance to meet some of his old friends and toss around stories and their form of gossip. Charley’s Diner was just that sort of hangout for many other men who were involved with the construction industry. I saw all the pickup trucks and construction vehicles in the parking lot when we arrived.
One part of Charley’s was like an old ’50s diner with its faux-leather red booths with pleated white centers and chrome edges and tables. There was a long counter with swivel stools and lots of Formica and chrome, but there were also a good dozen or so retro dinette sets, again with lots of chrome and Formica. The floor was a black and white checker, and although some of them didn’t work, there were miniature jukeboxes at the booths and on the counter. Consequently, there was always music but nothing anyone my age would appreciate.
Charley Martin was the original owner. He was well into his seventies, although he looked ten years younger, with his full head of salt-and-pepper hair swept back and to the sides as if he had just run a wet washcloth over it, maybe with a little styling lotion. He was stout, with the forearms of a carpenter, both arms stained with tattoos he had gotten in the Philippines when he was in the navy. Dad called him “Popeye.” He pretended to be annoyed, but I could see he liked it. They loved exchanging navy stories.
By now, my father’s tight community of construction workers, electrical and plumbing employees, and people who worked in Deutch’s lumberyard, the one Dad favored, all knew about “The Foxworth Funeral Project,” as it rapidly had been labeled. When I thought about it, I realized, what else could it be called?
It was inevitable, I guess, that new work on the property would revive the legends and stir up the stories, some quite exaggerated over the years since it had burned down a second time. Some spoke about old man Foxworth constructing a private church in the mansion that rivaled the church his evangelist ancestor had built to house his own form of preaching the gospel. Ray Pantel, whose family-run company did a great deal of the electrical work and repairs in the first mansion, said his father had told him Olivia Foxworth had skirts put on the piano legs because she believed naked piano legs were too suggestive. That set them all trying to outdo one another with stories describing the Foxworths’ fanatical Bible thumping, which somehow always returned to Olivia and Malcolm’s sexual repression.
“I heard they only made love enough times to have their children, and always in the dark at that,” Jimmy Stark, a retired plumber, said. Everyone laughed.
“No wonder their daughter ran off,” Billy Kelly, the manager of Deutch’s lumberyard, declared. “From what I was told, she was practically forbidden to look at any boy, much less go out on dates. She might even have been forced to wear a chastity belt.”
“She ran off with a good-looking young man,” Jimmy said. He was at least fifteen years older than my father but had the genes of an immortal, as my father would say. He looked younger than men twenty years younger than he was. “My father saw a picture of him once. He had to go down into the basement to work on a water heater when Malcolm was still alive and saw this damp, rotten carton with some photos in it. The old lady found out he saw the pictures and threw the whole damn carton full into the furnace. That was the last time they called him to do any work for them.”
Everyone mumbled and complained about how the most recent inhabitant had gone outside of the Charlottesville community for all his labor when he rebuilt the mansion. Ray said his father had told him that the nutcase had located the original plans and tracked down the builder’s company outside of Richmond.
“Probably didn’t want any local people snooping around. Who knows, maybe they found that little boy’s body but were all sworn to secrecy.”
I could see my father was starting to get annoyed with the discussion. At any moment, someone was going to ask him, as so many had, if my mother had mentioned any of this, and he might just explode. He glanced at me.
“Let’s change the subject,” he said, nodding in my direction. “Not everyone here has ears full of grime and grit and doesn’t mind rusty garbage flowing into their head.”
That worked, and they were back to talking about the hopeful surge in new housing, the economy, and politics. Gradually, they all peeled off to go their separate ways while Dad and I had our slices of Charley’s famous apple pie.
“They can be a bunch of old women sometimes,” Dad muttered, sipping his coffee and looking in the direction his friends had taken. Jimmy was still at the counter having his coffee.
“I resemble that remark,” I said, imitating him whenever I said something with which he might disagree. “Why not call them a bunch of old men?”
He nodded. “You’re right. Chauvinistic. Anyway, that’s why your mother hated gossip. Something begins with a nibble of the truth, and by the time it gets to where it’s getting, it’s as far from the truth as could be. Let’s hope once I level what I have to and rebuild what Arthur Johnson wants, what I’ve always hoped happens.”
“Which is?”
“That Foxworth dies a long-needed death.”
I nodded, but I wasn’t ready to go to that funeral, and he knew it. His eyes got smaller as he squinted and leaned in toward me. Here it comes, I thought.
“I won’t stop you from reading that diary, Kristin, but I will be very unhappy if you talk about it, especially with other kids at school who might get their families talking about it all again and bring attention back to us, just when I don’t want that. Understood?”
“Another warning? You couldn’t have made it clearer if you wanted to,” I said with a half smile.
He smiled, too. “I promise. I won’t talk about it anymore,” he added, raising his right hand.
I knew I should have been happy about that, but there was something about being alone with that diary and the story that made me tremble when I least expected it.
When we got home, I returned to my homework. I had the feeling I was rushing through it to give myself time to get back to Christopher, especially after hearing all those stories and rumors at Charley’s. I tried to resist, telling myself I needed a good night’s sleep. I set my alarm and got into bed, but moments later, as if Christopher was calling me through the pillow, I turned over, pulled out the diary, and turned the page. How could I not? They were all in such pain.
It wasn’t until Momma got herself together and, all stunned, we were calm enough to listen to her that Cathy and I fully understood who we were. I hesitate to write “what we were,” for everything I knew and understood about good and evil in this world kept me from accepting that we were as our grandmother saw us, spawn of the devil, creatures inclined to be sinners.
Slowly, as if the words were coming up from her gut, regurgitated like sour milk, Momma began to tell her story. She spoke in almost a whisper, first describing how horrid her youth was, not only for her but also for her brothers who had died. Her parents wouldn’t permit her and her brothers to be normal people. They couldn’t go swimming because they would show too much of their bodies. They couldn’t go to dances because they’d be too close to the opposite sex.
Cathy’s eyes widened with every illustration Momma drew up.