Read Online Summer in the South by Cathy Holton - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Cathy Holton
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“Everyone expects Tara,” he said.
The train passed and the crossing guard went up. They drove on.
“I hope you won’t be disappointed,” he said.
In college he had spoken with an almost neutral accent but down here he lapsed into the soft accents of his youth. When they passed a car or truck on the road, he lifted his hand off the steering wheel and waved. It was a small gesture, really, a slight lifting of a couple of fingers, but everyone did it.
“Is that like some kind of secret handshake?” Ava asked him, after they had passed an old man standing at his mailbox and the two of them had exchanged the “wave.”
“Just being friendly,” Will said. “You’ll get used to it.”
She told him about the crazy old woman at the gas station who had shared the rambling tale of her father falling off the roof.
He grinned and shook his head. “Down here we don’t say ‘crazy,’ ” he said. “We say ‘eccentric.’ ”
D espite his obvious pleasure in showing her the house, he seemed in no particular hurry to reach Longford. They turned off the highway and drove aimlessly down country roads that meandered past fields, roadside vegetable stands, distant farmhouses, and every so often, a new brick ranch house set back from the road in a patch of green lawn. The sun had reached its zenith, and the light had changed to a hazy yellow-green, shimmering and rising off the asphalt in the distance like a mirage. In between the fields and clearings, tall trees lined the road, covered in some type of broad-leafed ivy. The ivy draped from power lines and mounded over the trees and greenery, and Ava was reminded again of the fantastic landscapes of fairy tales and dreams.
“What is that stuff?” she said.
“Kudzu. It covers everything in its path, growing up to a foot a day. They originally brought it in from the Orient to use as cattle feed and for erosion control, and now it covers the South.”
“How do you kill it?”
“Goats.”
“Goats?”
“They eat it. Frost also kills it. It dies back in the winter, thank God. When I was a boy we used to build forts in there. You can stand up under it and walk for miles. It’s like a big green circus tent.”
He had left the windows down, and the air was fragrant with the scent of newly mown grass. She had always loved long drives in the country. When she was in high school in Chicago, she had befriended a girl who lived in a large rambling Victorian house close to the University of Chicago. Margaret Stanley’s grandfather had started Sentry Insurance, and although they attended the same private Catholic school (Ava as a scholarship student), Margaret was head and shoulders above Ava, socially and financially. They had met in honors English, bonding over Beowulf , and Ava would spend weekends and go for long drives in the country with Margaret and her parents.
Mr. Stanley didn’t work. He spent most of his days on the golf course, and Mrs. Stanley spent most of hers shopping or playing bridge or drinking martinis in the kitchen with the maid, Frances. Margaret was an only child. (“Adopted,” she confided in Ava, “because Mother is barren.”) They giggled over this, making up tragic stories about Margaret’s “real” parents, who they called Mr. and Mrs. Ortho Slogett. Mr. Slogett was an alcoholic with a wooden leg who couldn’t find work, and Mrs. Slogett was so immensely obese she couldn’t get out of bed, and that’s why they had given Margaret up for adoption. Ava was good at this; like many children who spend a lot of time alone, she was a natural-born storyteller. And she had by this time settled on her dream of being a writer, although she didn’t tell anyone of this, not even Margaret, keeping her dream wrapped up and locked away where she could take it out in private and marvel at its cool, redeeming brilliance.
Ava loved the Stanleys. She loved the casual elegance of their lives: Mrs. Stanley wrapped in a fur coat sipping endless
The train passed and the crossing guard went up. They drove on.
“I hope you won’t be disappointed,” he said.
In college he had spoken with an almost neutral accent but down here he lapsed into the soft accents of his youth. When they passed a car or truck on the road, he lifted his hand off the steering wheel and waved. It was a small gesture, really, a slight lifting of a couple of fingers, but everyone did it.
“Is that like some kind of secret handshake?” Ava asked him, after they had passed an old man standing at his mailbox and the two of them had exchanged the “wave.”
“Just being friendly,” Will said. “You’ll get used to it.”
She told him about the crazy old woman at the gas station who had shared the rambling tale of her father falling off the roof.
He grinned and shook his head. “Down here we don’t say ‘crazy,’ ” he said. “We say ‘eccentric.’ ”
D espite his obvious pleasure in showing her the house, he seemed in no particular hurry to reach Longford. They turned off the highway and drove aimlessly down country roads that meandered past fields, roadside vegetable stands, distant farmhouses, and every so often, a new brick ranch house set back from the road in a patch of green lawn. The sun had reached its zenith, and the light had changed to a hazy yellow-green, shimmering and rising off the asphalt in the distance like a mirage. In between the fields and clearings, tall trees lined the road, covered in some type of broad-leafed ivy. The ivy draped from power lines and mounded over the trees and greenery, and Ava was reminded again of the fantastic landscapes of fairy tales and dreams.
“What is that stuff?” she said.
“Kudzu. It covers everything in its path, growing up to a foot a day. They originally brought it in from the Orient to use as cattle feed and for erosion control, and now it covers the South.”
“How do you kill it?”
“Goats.”
“Goats?”
“They eat it. Frost also kills it. It dies back in the winter, thank God. When I was a boy we used to build forts in there. You can stand up under it and walk for miles. It’s like a big green circus tent.”
He had left the windows down, and the air was fragrant with the scent of newly mown grass. She had always loved long drives in the country. When she was in high school in Chicago, she had befriended a girl who lived in a large rambling Victorian house close to the University of Chicago. Margaret Stanley’s grandfather had started Sentry Insurance, and although they attended the same private Catholic school (Ava as a scholarship student), Margaret was head and shoulders above Ava, socially and financially. They had met in honors English, bonding over Beowulf , and Ava would spend weekends and go for long drives in the country with Margaret and her parents.
Mr. Stanley didn’t work. He spent most of his days on the golf course, and Mrs. Stanley spent most of hers shopping or playing bridge or drinking martinis in the kitchen with the maid, Frances. Margaret was an only child. (“Adopted,” she confided in Ava, “because Mother is barren.”) They giggled over this, making up tragic stories about Margaret’s “real” parents, who they called Mr. and Mrs. Ortho Slogett. Mr. Slogett was an alcoholic with a wooden leg who couldn’t find work, and Mrs. Slogett was so immensely obese she couldn’t get out of bed, and that’s why they had given Margaret up for adoption. Ava was good at this; like many children who spend a lot of time alone, she was a natural-born storyteller. And she had by this time settled on her dream of being a writer, although she didn’t tell anyone of this, not even Margaret, keeping her dream wrapped up and locked away where she could take it out in private and marvel at its cool, redeeming brilliance.
Ava loved the Stanleys. She loved the casual elegance of their lives: Mrs. Stanley wrapped in a fur coat sipping endless
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