Read Online The Last Girls by Lee Smith - Free Book Online

took a walk in the arboretum, Jean pushing the stroller while Courtney carried Jeremy in a Snugli. Jean loved these kids—she and Buzzy were still trying, no luck so far. Courtney had always had all the luck.
    When they got back to the house, Buzzy was sitting at the kitchen table drinking a beer.
    â€œCourtney just came by for a little visit,” Jean said.
    â€œYeah, well, that’s good, because you might have forgot but tonight’s my poker night, the guys are coming over, we gotta get ready, babe. You haven’t been to the store yet?”
    â€œI mean, Courtney needs a place to
stay
for a little while,” Jean said.
    Buzzy turned and looked at Courtney. His jaw dropped open. “Yeah?” he said. “You
sure,
little sister?”
    Courtney nodded. Scotty was running a toy car along the kitchen table, then up and over Buzzy’s hands. Buzzy picked him up and hugged him.
    â€œOkey-doke,” he said. “Why don’t you take the kids upstairs and get them settled down? Just pull out that couch in the spare room, you know, my office, and make up a pallet for the kids on the floor. You want to go with me, Jean? We can pick up some pizza along with the beer. You know anybody that likes pizza?” he asked Scotty, who bobbed his head up and down so vigorously that everybody started laughing.
    â€œBuy some milk, too,” Courtney said.
    But while they were gone, the doorbell rang, and when Courtney ran down the stairs to open it, she found Miss Evangeline there on the stoop with her new gray Cadillac (big fins; it looked like a shark) waiting at the curb behind her. Walter was driving. He waved. Courtney waved back.
    â€œGramma, Gramma, Gramma,” Scotty came bounding down the stairs.
    â€œOh my! Oh, my darling!” Miss Evangeline acted like they’d been missing for years, like they’d been kidnapped. She grabbed Scotty up though she was too frail for it, really, kissing his round little face again and again as he started playing with the pearls at her throat. Since Stephen had died in Vietnam, Hawk was her only child, these her only grandchildren.
    Miss Evangeline didn’t weigh ninety pounds dripping wet. Her yellow-gray hair was piled haphazardly up on her head; her filmy blue eyes had tears in them. “Come along now, dear,” she said to Courtney. “Come along home.” Then Miss Evangeline must have given some kind of signal to Walter because he got out of the car, tipped his hat to the curious neighbors who had gathered in their own yards to see what was going on, and came right into the house and went upstairs to get their things. Jeremy slept through it all.
    Soon afterward, Courtney got a new car, a Volvo station wagon, and Buzzy got the electric contract for Hawk’s new downtown financial center. Little Evangeline was born, then Lydia. Without ever discussing it, Hawk and Courtney worked things out. Courtney ran the house and supervised the children, though Hawk was a good father, both strict and generous. He attended ball games, graduations, and recitals. He and Courtney chaired the Greater Raleigh United Way Campaign together. They were a team.
    When Miss Evangeline finally died, they established a music scholarship in her honor at Meredith College, where she had gone toschool. Hawk bought banks in South Carolina, banks in Tennessee. Following an antiques tour of England with several friends, Courtney renovated Magnolia Court. She became a famous hostess. Here in front of the hearth, she is poised, serene, beautiful. Those are the candlesticks she brought back from England, eighteenth-century coin silver. Courtney’s hair is held back by a velvet band; she wears a close-fitting black velvet jacket and a floor-length red plaid skirt. Courtney and Hawk make a handsome couple as they stand before this glowing fire, which is not really a fire at all, though these new gas logs they make now are so realistic you just can’t tell