The Right Thing

CHAPTER 7


I park the car around the corner and hurry through the deepening dusk, trotting up the lamplit street to my house. These high-heeled boots aren’t made for anything faster than a stroll, but surely nobody sees me racing past in the dark on my tiptoes. The neighboring families should be inside by now, gathered together in their big, warm kitchens, getting ready for Thanksgiving tomorrow.

And Du’s Mercedes isn’t in the garage yet, thank God. With any luck at all, Myrtistine will have left for the day, too. Pinned to the screen door, the note addressed to me in her sprawling backhand confirms her absence.






Turky 325 oven 8 a.m. Take it out before it burn.





I rip the note off the door and toss it in the garbage. My luck is holding. I don’t need any witnesses for what I’m getting ready to do next.

In the kitchen I throw some milk, bottled lemon juice, yellow mustard, and Kraft Parmesan cheese in a mug and stir. The mixture promptly curdles and smells just like vomit, a trick I’ve used since I was nine for playing sick. Grabbing the mug, I take the back stairs two at a time and run through my bedroom to the bathroom. With a grimace at my wild-eyed reflection in the mirror, I force myself to take a bare sip of the disgusting mess in the mug, swish, spit it out in the pink marble sink, and almost vomit for real. Swallowing my gorge, I pour the rest of the malodorous concoction into the toilet.

Lord help me, Du’s Mercedes is purring up the driveway. To add a visual, I rub a light dab of blusher under my eyes to approximate a fever. In my hurry to toss the mug into the laundry hamper, I almost forget to flush the toilet.

There’s no time to lose. Leaving the light in the bathroom on, I yank my mink parka and sweater over my head, dump the clothes onto the closet floor, and grab my bathrobe. Myrtistine’s made up the bed earlier today, carefully arranging the eyelet-embroidered boudoir pillows in an artful scatter. I heave all that preciousness across the room onto the window seat and throw back the duvet. With no time to remove my jeans and boots, I belt my silk bathrobe on over them, leap into the bed, boots and all, and am pulling the covers up to my chin at the exact moment Du’s heavy tread on the back stairs reaches the landing.

He stops in the doorway. “You in bed, honey?” Du sounds confused. Why wouldn’t he be? The last time we spoke, I was all on board with the partners’ dinner, as bright as ever I am before my fourth cup of coffee.

In what I hope sounds like pure pitifulness, I moan. My husband tiptoes across the carpet, as absurdly light on his feet as one of those pink elephants from Fantasia. Did I mention that Du’s a big man? Six foot four, he weighs nearly three hundred pounds, and though a fair amount of that weight is situated over his belt like a French Quarter balcony, if I squint I can still see the defensive lineman he used to be. As he nears forty, Du’s taken to arranging his dark hair sideways to cover a growing bald spot, but when you subtract the excess poundage and the comb-over, he’s still a good looking man with a passing resemblance to Elvis Presley. Since Du’s originally from Tupelo, Elvis’s birthplace, it seems fitting.

“Hey, sugar, whassa matter?” His voice is more than a little slurred. I can smell the bourbon on his breath from here. Getting a jump on Thanksgiving with the other guys at the firm, sharing the bottle he keeps in his credenza, I gather. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s knocked back a few before coming home, and while he usually just passes out in front of the television before dinner, this time I might can use the leverage.

“Oh, Du—I feel so stinky,” I whimper. With luck, I look as flat-out ill as I manage to sound. “It got so bad at Maison-Dit, I had to leave the car in the parking lot and take a taxi home.”

The bedsprings groan as he sits beside me and pats the duvet somewhere in the vicinity of my left hip. “You sick?” He blinks owlishly in the darkened bedroom, lit only by the glow from the bathroom. “Aw, hon. I’m sorry. Want me to stay with you?”

My eyelashes flutter at the thought. “No, sweetheart,” I whisper. “Judge Shapley’s expecting you tonight. Go on ahead without me. I’ll be okay—this is just some twenty-four-hour bug.”

Du flinches at my breath, which is sure to be dreadful. His hand on my perspiring forehead is like a boxer’s glove filled with sand. “You sure?” He sounds dubious. “I could probably get ol’ Myrtistine to come over and sit up with you. What if you’re sick again?”

“I already threw up a bunch,” I murmur, hoping my olfactory ruse backs me up. “But I think if I just rest, it’ll pass. Go on, honey—you need to be getting ready. Sorry about the smell in the bathroom.” Du gets up with a protesting pop of knee joints, the price of all those tackles and goal-line stands.

“Guess I’m going to have to get along without you tonight,” he says, and I feel a quick rush of relief. He sounds regretful, although I can’t imagine why since I know he walks on the thinnest layer of ice around the Judge anyway and having me on his arm only adds to Du’s worries. He must be repressing all those occasions when I’ve had a glass of chardonnay too many—it’s not easy to gauge how much social lubricant I can hold, seeing as how I usually don’t eat—and that fatal glass leads to saying and doing things even the most liberal soul could only term as peculiar. Like, last year when I wandered outside the country club during the Snow Ball “for some air” and didn’t come back but went and smoked a whole pack of cigarettes with the parking valets instead, or how when I can’t recall any one of Du’s partners’ names I’ll invariably call the poor man Steve, or the time I asked old Dottie Bledsoe how Buddy was getting along in his new life. Buddy grew up to have a few peculiarities himself, although the sex-reassignment surgery was supposed to have been a success.

“We can pick up the car tomorrow,” Du says. He strips off his coat and tie, drops everything on the chintz chair in front of the fireplace, and kicks his shoes off with a one-two thump on the carpet. His big, slope-shouldered silhouette fills the brightly lit bathroom doorway. “Lord, Annie,” he says before he shuts the door. “You sure are sick.” Soon the muted thunder of the shower affords me a tiny bit of room to breathe and plot.

I can just make out my watch in the gloom of the bedroom. It’s 5:30. Du will be gone by 6:00 so he can be at the Petroleum Club in time for cocktails. I can pick Starr up for 6:15 if I hustle. It takes two and a half hours to drive the two hundred miles to New Orleans if I push the BMW to eighty-five and don’t get nailed for speeding. Figure a maximum of an hour for Starr to get her act together with her money, two and a half hours back. No matter how I do the math, it’s still going to take six hours. Du will be at the partners’ dinner until 11:00, 11:30 at the latest. I need to buy time—about an hour and a half, to be exact.

Inspiration strikes. Our house is way too big for us: five bedrooms, four and a half baths, great room, dining room, formal living room, study, and a kitchen that only Myrtistine has ever mapped completely. When we bought forty-five hundred square feet of imitation Tara on a hill, we were thinking of the children we were going to have and Du insisted that all the potential children have their own bedrooms. Growing up on a red-dirt cattle farm down the road from a gas station, he had to share a room with two brothers until he got his scholarship to Ole Miss, and after that he lived in a suite with three other football players. Du’s a big fan of privacy, and in this house that’s something we have in abundance.

He comes out of the bathroom, a billow of steam preceding him. Toweling off his hair, he says, “Sugar, anything a-tall I can do for you ’fore I go?”

“Well,” I say with a wan smile, “I think I’ll go sleep in the guest bedroom tonight. That way I won’t keep you awake, honey, and we can both get some rest.”

“Shoot, darlin’,” Du says. He’s in the closet now, getting dressed. “I’ll go down the hall. You rest up, get to feeling better. I’ll just kiss you good night now and not bother you when I come in.” He emerges backlit by the light in the closet, his suit coat on his arm, tie loose around his neck. “You seen my shoes?”


“They’re on the floor by the chair.” It’s almost as if Du’s in on this conspiracy with me: I can’t hope for more. “That would be great—you letting me sleep. I’ll be much better for Thanksgiving tomorrow.” And I can sneak into the house around 1:45 Thanksgiving morning and no one will ever know. I hate lying to him, mostly because it’s so easy, but sometimes it’s the only way.

“Your mom still coming?” he asks, knotting his tie.

“Mmm-hmm,” I murmur. “And Aunt Too-Tai’s still planning to come up from Chunky. Myrtistine’s done everything but put the turkey in the oven. I’ll do that around eight tomorrow morning, and we’ll have Thanksgiving dinner by one.”

Du leans over the bed and kisses me on the forehead. He smells of sandalwood soap, bourbon, and aftershave. “Well, you get some shut-eye and I’ll let everyone know you’re under the weather.” Am I hearing the faintest note of relief in his voice? “See you in the ay-em, sugar.” Du shuts the door gently on his way out.

It’s all I can do to stay in the bed until the sound of his car leaving the driveway fades, but after what seems like an hour, he’s finally gone. I throw back the duvet and rush into the bathroom to brush my teeth. In my closet, there’s no time to get picky about what to wear: it’s the green cashmere and the mink parka one more time. Dressed again and ready to go, I turn off the lights in the closet. Then I turn them back on because I need cash.

You should know that I have my own money, sort of. Days after my debut, Grandmother Banks finally achieved her expiration date (done in by her own meanness, in my opinion, although the coroner pronounced it complications from shingles) inside the elevator of her house on State Street. It took the Jackson Fire Department, two policemen, and the Jaws of Life nearly a whole day to remove her body and the wheelchair from that gilt birdcage: they built elevators to last back in the twenties.

When her will was read downtown at the attorney’s dark, old-fashioned office, in a quavering rumble of faintly disguised disapproval, elderly Mr. Billy Spotswood Sr. informed me that, after endowing an annuity for Pumpernickel and leaving the bulk of her estate to my father, my grandmother had also engineered an inheritance for me, her only grandchild, to be administered by Daddy. The trust fund came to a respectable amount of cash and bank stocks, plus her collection of unfashionable, exceedingly filthy diamonds. My grandmother’s housekeeper, Easter Mae, received a half-dozen sterling-silver pickle forks and Wash, her manservant, got the ancient Packard, which was at death’s door itself. Conspicuous in its absence was any bequest to my mother. Nonetheless, both my parents enjoyed the boost to their standard of living after Grandmother Banks’s demise, and they never said a word about it. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever heard my mother say anything even remotely disparaging about her vicious mother-in-law, not even after Daddy passed five years ago and nobody was left to give a damn.

Now we come to the “sort of” part of my own money. After Daddy’s death, my mother became the trustee of my inheritance by default. It was a convoluted trust instrument that Mr. Spotswood Sr. had crafted, one that illustrated what Grandmother Banks must have thought of my ability ever to manage my own money. I can have as much as I want or need from the estate—so long as I run it past my mother first and she agrees to it. Grandmother would surely disapprove of this development, but that’s too bad: if she wanted to rule her empire forever, she shouldn’t have died.

In any case, my mother’s cooperation has insured that Du and I can live like we do. If we had to get by on his salary (which is by no means a small one), we’d be up to our ears in debt, but having the old trust fund to fall back on has made all the difference. So tonight, in light of the “sort of” provision, it’s a good thing I’ve kept nearly five thousand dollars in cash inside the dreaded walk-in closet, behind our ski boots, tucked underneath my extra shoulder pads in a cedar-lined box. I call it my “running money,” and no one knows a thing about it but me. Since Du can never learn about tonight’s adventure, I can’t use my credit cards, and Starr and I may have need of cash, so I stuff a handful of hundred-dollar bills in the pocket of my parka. Then I arrange the heap of eyelet pillows under the duvet to stand in for stomach-virus-afflicted, sleeping Annie—just in case.

Then I run.





The wind has stopped and the air is crystal cold, but the night sky overhead is full of stars as I pull the car into the parking garage at the Burnside Tower. I punch the “up” button for the elevator and wait, praying there won’t be someone riding it up to their condo from the lobby downstairs at the same time. The seconds crawl by. I’m beginning to think about taking the stairs, and then the doors slide open at last.

As it happens, I’m not going to be alone on my trip up to Starr’s penthouse.

There’s a hairy little dog in the elevator, a black-and-tan creature resembling a miniature, flop-eared version of a German shepherd. It can’t weigh more than ten pounds. With a shrug, I step inside. The doors close, and the smell in the elevator assaults my nose like a slap, ripe with a warm, familiar stink. The source is a pile in the corner, surprisingly large for such a small dog. He looks up at me with an air of depression, seemingly embarrassed about the mess, and so to be polite, I avoid looking at the small mountain of shit. The dog sighs as the elevator travels in a smooth, uninterrupted climb up the seven stories to the penthouse floor.

When the door opens, the dog—it’s some obscure breed of terrier, I think—gets out with me. He follows me to Starr’s door and sits by my feet when I knock, just as if he’s at home there.

The door opens and Starr steps out into the foyer. She’s changed into a pair of baggy acid-washed jeans and what looks like a man’s Arran-knit sweater, the heavy, cabled sleeves hanging past her fingertips, the hem falling halfway to her knees. In spite of wearing what must be the last of Bobby’s clothes, Starr looks beautiful: her color is high, and her pale eyes are bright as, well, stars.

“I’m ready,” she says. She reaches down to pat the dog. “Hey, Troy Smoot.” He looks up at her with recognition, tail wagging, his grin full of sharp white teeth. “You meet Troy in the elevator?” she asks.

“I met him and his shit,” I say. “What the hell’s that about? Is he yours?”

She ruffles the wild hair sprouting behind the terrier’s ears. “Jesus wept, no. Troy here lives next door with ol’ Jerome and Lollie Treeby. Remember Lisa’s parents? Lollie can’t even recall her own name anymore, and he can’t be bothered to walk a dog, so three times a day ol’ Jerome just sticks Troy in the elevator and lets him ride up and down until he’s done his business. Then he phones down and tells Mr. Jarbo, the maintenance man, to clean it up and spray some Glade around. Bobby said Mr. Treeby’s been doing it for years.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “You mean to tell me he keeps a dog up here and doesn’t even walk it?” It explains the howling earlier and the atomic cloud of air freshener on my previous trip up in the elevator this afternoon. “That’s cruel. Not to mention disgusting.”

“Honey,” Starr says patiently, “people think this place is the last word on gracious living, but let me tell you what, the Burnside is full of mean old folks who’re used to getting their own way. When they say ‘shit,’ they mean for somebody to drop their drawers. If Mr. Jarbo wants to keep his job in this crappy building, he’ll keep on cleaning up after all of them, not just the Treebys. You ready to go?” Starr slings her purse over her shoulder and locks the door behind her.


“Someone should report this to the Humane Society.” I’ve known that after Lisa grew up to become a geneticist and went to work bioengineering soybeans for ConAgra in Dubuque, Mr. and Mrs. Treeby sold their old place and moved to the Burnside. I had no idea that they’d gotten themselves a dog, but with Lisa and her allergies gone, there wasn’t any reason not to, I guess, and Mr. Treeby must have missed having someone to boss around. In her old age, Mrs. Treeby has become increasingly dim, so I’m betting he takes it out on the dog instead of her these days. And knowing Jerome Treeby, he must have been as appalled by Starr’s presence next door for the last six months as I am about him making his dog shit in the elevator.

The doors to the elevator slide open again, and the little terrier trots inside. “Does he just ride up and down until they let him out?” I ask as we walk in after him.

“That’s right,” Starr says. The elevator descends. “That’s how come Troy and me got to know each other. I call him Troy Smoot after a boy I knew what got ten years at Parchman prison for a crime he didn’t even do. Poor thing. It isn’t his fault.” Troy looks stoically away from the mound in the corner.

The door opens onto the parking garage and the clean, cold November night smells like freedom. Starr and I get out of the elevator. The dog stays behind, intelligent brown eyes mournful, head cocked in wistful farewell as the doors begin to close.

“Wait!” I shove my arm between the closing doors to hold them open. “C’mon, Troy.”

Troy trots out of the elevator, his stub tail wagging. “What’re you doing?” Starr asks. Her voice echoes in the cavernous garage. “We’re going to New Orleans, right?”

“That’s the plan,” I say. “And Troy’s coming with us.” Not content with being a liar and a coward, I’m a dog thief now. I open the door to the BMW, and he jumps into the front seat.

“What’re we going to do with a dog?” Starr sounds confused. “Annie, I thought we were going to travel light.” She gets in the passenger’s side and pats Troy’s head. The dog leans into her hand and exhales a gusty sigh. “Don’t get me wrong—me and Troy are good to go, if that’s what you want.”

It’s like this morning’s black silk dress, still hanging in the back seat of the car; it’s like this furtive trip to New Orleans in the dark. Taking this poor bastard away from his miserable life with the Treebys is something I’m going to do because I just know it’s the right thing to do, even if I can’t explain why.

“Get in the back, Troy,” I say, pointing behind me. The dog hops across the console and sits up on the back seat, ears pricked and ready for a ride in the car.

“Time to get this show on the road, then,” Starr says. “And no smoking ’round the baby.”

My grandmother would just die if she weren’t already dead.