Two Places at Once

By Hannah Whitehurst

...Emily had not yet put on her dress but was already on her second pair of
pantyhose, having discovered a run in the first. The dress, still protected by
the dry cleaners clear plastic bag, hung from a hook on the closet door.
As she walked toward it, she felt a squishy soft dollop beneath her foot
and lifted it to reveal a foam rubber plug like the ones she had stuffed into
her ears last night when Waylon began to snore. Or it could have been Bo
Diddley. In any case, covering her head with a pillow had brought no relief,
and without switching on the light, she had rummaged in the bedside-table
drawer. There were about eight in the little bag, and in her semidormant
state, she must have fumbled one onto the floor.
A few minutes later, she finished and then studied her reflection in the
full-length mirror. Even though this shimmering, cranberry-colored shift
was, in fact, her favorite dress and one she had had for years, she wore it only
in December. She took up coat, scarf, and small evening purse and moved
to the living room, where she turned off the overhead, leaving the room in
darkness save for the tree lights, and waited to the strains of Respighis Laud
to the Nativity....

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 18, 2009
• ISBN: 9781462805259

Hannah Whitehurst

A native of Alabama, Hannah Whitehurst is a reference librarian living in Columbia, South Carolina with her husband, three children, and three dogs. This is her first book.

Book preview

ONE

Emily had not yet put on her dress but was already on her second pair of pantyhose, having discovered a run in the first. The dress, still protected by the dry cleaner’s clear plastic bag, hung from a hook on the closet door.

As she walked toward it, she felt a squishy soft dollop beneath her foot and lifted it to reveal a foam rubber plug like the ones she had stuffed into her ears last night when Waylon began to snore. Or it could have been Bo Diddley. In any case, covering her head with a pillow had brought no relief, and without switching on the light, she had rummaged in the bedside-table drawer. There were about eight in the little bag, and in her semidormant state, she must have fumbled one onto the floor.

A few minutes later, she finished and then studied her reflection in the full-length mirror. Even though this shimmering, cranberry-colored shift was, in fact, her favorite dress and one she had had for years, she wore it only in December. She took up coat, scarf, and small evening purse and moved to the living room, where she turned off the overhead, leaving the room in darkness save for the tree lights, and waited to the strains of Respighi’s Laud to the Nativity.

Seven came and went, and no Claire. Emily moved her head slightly in time with the delicate lilting melody and considered giving Claire the Oriental bowl. Already wrapped and under the tree, it had been purchased with her stepmother in mind but was actually better suited for the décor in Claire’s house. There was time enough to find something else for Sarah. She owed Claire an enormous debt of gratitude for a veritable agenda of kindnesses, not the least of which was this neat rental house—small but eminently serviceable. Belonging as it did to friends, Claire had known it was coming available and had given Emily such an unqualified endorsement (she will leave it better than she finds it had been Claire’s precise words) that the Bettencourts had leased it to her on that alone, without even meeting her.

From her chair, she could just touch the tip of one of the Fraser fir’s branches. Eighteen hours earlier, it had still been in the ground, growing among the neat rows at the tree farm past County Line Road. To ensure enough daylight for a decent choice, Emily had left work early, sawed it herself, hauled it home on the roof, and completed its decoration all in the space of one evening. As she inhaled its heady evergreen fragrance, she recalled another fir, still thriving beside the garage where her father had planted it a quarter century before.

Immediately after her fourth Christmas, Emily was distressed to learn that the magnificent tree, which had so dazzled and delighted her throughout the season, was to be denuded and thrown out. She had begged for its salvation even as her parents explained as kindly as possible that such is the unalterable fate of all real Christmas trees once the holiday is past. Sad though it might seem, the hard reality would be redeemed by future Christmases and future trees.

Emily would allow none of it and rejected their offer of cheap grace. Why couldn’t it be planted somewhere? That way it would be theirs forever. Again they tried to explain that while perhaps live in appearance, the tree was, nonetheless, quite dead—severed from its roots, never to grow again.

But still the little maid would have her will, and finally, her father relented and began digging beside the detached garage. After all, his wife reminded him, some people did put out their discarded trees laced with offerings for wildlife, such as seed and suet. He trimmed away a few lower branches to allow greater planting depth and dropped it in. Emily, whose face was still stained by tear tracks, scrutinized his every move and helped push the piled-up soil back into the hole.

Except for Emily, everyone promptly forgot all about it. Her hope unabated, she faithfully watched and tended it, and after months of bleak winter nothing, the tree was seen to put forth the smallest and shyest of pale-green shoots. From that day forward, her chastened family referred to it exclusively as Emily’s tree, and her justification was complete. Her physician father even brought home some books on horticulture—a topic in which he had not previously evinced much interest—and after a little study became knowledgeable about adventitious rooting.

Emily yawned. Still no ride. She leaned back and snuggled her bare hand into her pocket to discover, for the second time that evening, a misplaced item. She pulled out an Anglican rosary, missing for weeks, and remembered with a start wearing this same short coat when she and the dogs had trod the perimeter of Table Rock Park, a reserve of some 1,100 acres. It had been late October—a chilly, windy red orange gold day of autumnal perfection, and they had not returned until almost dark. After illegally letting Bo and Waylon off their leashes, she had begun praying the weeks as she walked, the four groups of seven beads separated by a larger cruciform bead. She owned other more expensive ones of jasper and goldstone and freshwater pearls, but this plain strand made of polished olive wood was her favorite—warmer, earthier, more inviting to the touch.

Claire, who was nominally Catholic but had not darkened a church door in years, saw it once and had asked, "What’s that?"

An Episcopal rosary, Emily told her. It blends the Marian devotions of Catholicism with the Jesus rope used by Orthodox Christians. Thirty-three beads, thirty-three years of Jesus’s life. Start at the invitatory, say it through three times, toss in an Our Father at the cross, and you’re up to a hundred.

She rolled the beads between her palms and wondered, as she not infrequently did, whether God actually existed. Only last week, upon having that very question put to her by a five-year-old, she had astonished herself and him by replying, I don’t have the slightest idea, Rory, but if he does, he has a lot of explaining to do. And unlike most people, who pitch their pleas directly to God, Emily had decided she was no longer that particular and would settle for anyone who happened to be floating around out there in the void and willing to listen: her grandparents, long-dead australopithecines, total strangers—anyone.

While she was in midtheology, light suffused the room, washing the walls in waves from left to right; and in an instant, Emily locked the door behind her and hurried to the car.

TWO

Art was called to the hospital, Claire apologized as she looked over her shoulder and backed out of the driveway. He’ll come later if he can.

Of Emily’s friends, Claire was one of the few who smoked, and a lighted cigarette was perched on the open ashtray. She took a puff and continued. Also, we had a minor crisis at home. When I got there, the girls were crying. They found the gerbil dead in its cage, and we went into a huddle over funeral arrangements. The Epsteins had given him to us, so we decided he was Jewish and had to be buried by sundown.

Unseen in the dark, Emily smiled at this domestic mise-en-scene and said, The bond between children and animals belongs in a category all its own. When I lived in Petersburg, and the neighborhood youngsters discovered I had two puppies, they considered it quite all right to come visit anytime. One afternoon, I had just showered and stepped out onto the mat, mother-naked and dripping, when I heard someone walking around inside the house. I was seconds away from wrapping a towel around myself and climbing out the window when I realized it was C. J. playing with the dogs. From then on, I started locking the doors in the daytime as well.

Claire asked, Have you ever seen the Ennises’ house?

No, but I’ve heard plenty. Evidently, it’s something very special.

To be sure. Got written up in several of the house pulchritudinous slicks as soon as they moved in. Genuine timber and stucco outside, exposed-beam ceilings and wide plank, satin-finish flooring inside, casement windows with the little diamond-shaped panes. They even furnished it with antiques they bought in England and shipped back. Your Anglophilic soul is going to love every limey inch of it.

Is there a mad woman in the attic? Emily asked.

She’s back-ordered, Claire replied.

Amazing how much further some people can stretch a professor’s salary than others.

His salary is the least of it. The money’s from her side. Pots of it. Old on her mother’s side, new on her father’s. He worked for an industrial diamonds firm in Brussels, and Jean was an only child, I think. She spent a lot of time in Europe while growing up. Swiss boarding school and all that.

Claire cruised from one prosperous-looking street to another in a neighborhood of large imposing houses done in a variety of architectural styles before finally slowing at the largest and most imposing of all and then pulling over behind a long line of parked cars. At the door, they were relieved of their coats by a uniformed maid and ushered in.

The Tudor-style house protected an impressive number of people from the elements that evening, and Emily’s expectation was confirmed. Upon receiving the invitation, she had surmised that it would be a large third-tier gathering, or else she would not have been included. Her acquaintance with Dr. Ennis was too recent and casual to warrant anything more intimate.

A few curious couples, more interested for the moment in their surroundings, strolled here and there touring the front of the house; but the most concentrated activity seemed to be toward the rear from which a cheery babble of voices could be heard.

From this mass of partygoers, their host materialized, arms outstretched in an enlarged replica of his smile. He introduced his wife who, instead of the breezy sophisticate Emily could justifiably have expected from Claire’s thumbnail sketch, came across as a rather shy, diffident woman faintly ill at ease with her situation.

Without actually touching them, Dr. Ennis managed deftly to steer them by voice and gesture to the bar where he resolutely waited until their drink orders were filled by a handsome white-coated young man, whom Emily guessed to be a graduate student. Then he led them to the dining room where an enormous table, fully fourteen feet in length, was laden with an impressive array of food. Satisfied that his initial duties were fulfilled, he rejoined his wife who, even in his brief absence, stood looking as though at a loss and was now relieved to have him at her side once more.

Wine glasses in hand, the women began to circulate as a twosome; but before long, as conversational enclaves split and resplit like chromosomes in a dividing cell, they were no longer side by side. That was another thing Claire liked about Emily. Some of her single women friends, upon finding themselves at a party and dateless, would have clung to her like a poor relation. Emily, never.

Leaving her Chablis unfinished, Emily returned to the dining room and surveyed the largesse. Most things she recognized but a few she had never tasted before: pompano, duck pate, sliced and honey-cured ham, crabmeat on rusk, caviar on toast rounds, marinated cubed beef, stuffed mushrooms, spanakopita, anchovy sandwiches, marmalade sandwiches, jumbo shrimp, petit fours, almond butter slices, rum balls rolled in powdered sugar, miniature fruitcakes, exotic fresh fruit, and more vied for attention.

She was about to take up a pale-green crystal plate etched with a floral design when she became aware of being observed from across the table. A man she estimated to be at least ten years older than herself, tall and of medium build, with wide-set dark eyes, and a head of thick dark hair, was staring at her. He was smiling, but even so, Emily did not interpret this as especially friendly. Moreover, when she frankly returned his stare, he did not immediately avert his gaze but took a leisurely sip from his glass before turning back to a circle of three or four.

Before she could think further about it, Claire appeared at her elbow. Still no date, I see. I suppose this means I’ll have to drive you home as well. She flicked a dainty from the table and popped it whole into her mouth.

The night is young, Claire. Truth to tell, I was just about to beam the full heat of my charm on that gentleman right over there when you walked up. So if you’ll excuse me . . .

Where? What man? she queried, her words muffled by unswallowed food.

Emily made a quick, random choice and bobbed her head in his direction.

Him? Won’t hear of it, Claire said. Spits when he talks.

Emily affected an expression of mock despair. "What about that one?" she asked, indicating another.

"Em, he’s a Republican. Don’t let the diamond stickpin fool you. She consumed a second pecan tartlet and said, They say old maids shouldn’t drink, and they’re right. I’m telling the bartender no more for you."

As long as we’re on the subject of men, Mother Superior, there is someone I’d like to know about. Who is that one there? Again, she nodded her head, this time in a different direction.

Claire gave the group a cursory sweep with her eyes. The good-looking devil in the tweed jacket?

All right, Emily answered.

Thomas Bateman. He teaches at the university. Why do you want to know? Claire inquired.

A little earlier he seemed to be studying me. Rather closely too, Emily said.

Nothing necessarily wrong with that. He could be looking at you for the usual reason men look at women, Claire replied.

I don’t think so. He wasn’t projecting a particularly matey aura. More like he was secretly sneering at some egregious gaffe I’d just committed, like using a double negative at a grammarians’ convention, Emily said.

Claire shrugged. Forget him for now. There’s someone else I’d like you to meet. I’ve been talking you up a swell piece, so sparkle. Without further explanation, she lightly placed a hand on Emily’s unengaged arm and propelled her into the presence of a woman at least six feet tall and dressed entirely in purple.

Burma, this is Emily. Emily, Burma Chasteen. Burma is several vertebrae in the backbone of local culture and, back by popular demand, is now beginning her second term as president of the Orchestra Guild. I’ve been telling her all about your musical talents and considered it my matchmaking duty to bring the two of you together. Claire paused. Here endeth the lesson.

Claire’s enthusiasm could be a hard act to follow sometimes, but the eyes of the two newly acquainted women met in agreeable acknowledgement of