“Those men there,” Richard said, using his fork to point across the room to where Guyon and the fat stranger had finally found seats at a table, “those men who came in behind me are going to pay for the car that was damaged today, Mr. Lytle. So there’s no need to worry about it.”
“I wasn’t worried about it,” Lytle had said. “I didn’t damage it. And I know Percy Epps. I would’ve had it taken care of myself.”
Richard set his silverware down on either side of his plate. His mustache was shiny with the steak’s blood, and Katherine saw that his face was flush with color. He turned and stared at Mr. Lytle.
“That’s not my point,” Richard said. “I was just telling you that it’s being taken care of.” He turned back to his plate and cut into his steak. “Hugo Guyon’s the superintendent at Loray. A big man in this community.”
“Never heard of him,” Mr. Lytle said. “But I believe that if this superintendent were better at his job, his people wouldn’t be rioting. The car wouldn’t have been damaged in the first place.”
“It’s an outside element,” Richard said. He smiled, popped another piece of steak into his mouth. “It’ll soon be gone.”
Katherine looked across the table at Mrs. Lytle.
“I love your dress,” she said. “You always look so lovely.”
“Thank you,” Mrs. Lytle said. “You look exquisite in that gown.” She looked to her right, over her son’s plate, and spoke to Claire. “You both do. Do you ladies shop together?”
Claire smiled. It was the first real smile Katherine had seen her give since Richard had disappeared earlier in the evening.
“We have been, recently,” Claire said. “Since I’ve been home.”
“And we’ll go more,” Katherine said, smiling at Claire. “Now that you’re home, we’ll go more. Perhaps more than we should, I promise.” Claire smiled back at her.
“Yes, quite often,” Richard chimed in, attempting to join in on the joke.
“There are so many wonderful stores in Charlotte,” Katherine said. “Perhaps on your drive home—”
“There are quite a few nice stores here in Gastonia, as well,” Richard said.
“Of course,” Katherine said. She leaned back in her seat and settled her eyes on her pheasant.
“Of course,” she’d heard Mrs. Lytle say.
Katherine now sat alone in the Essex where Richard had left it parked in the roundabout after retrieving it. He’d gone back inside the club to speak with Ingle about his daughter Grace and to tip him and the waitstaff. After the dinner was over and the cakes had been served, the burned tops cut away and discreetly covered with icing, she and Richard had watched the Lytles climb into the limousine, the dent in its hood catching the light like a black crater on a dark moon. Once Richard stepped inside the club, Claire had asked Katherine if it would be okay if she went to a party with friends. Paul would see her home afterward. Claire had promised that she would not be home too late. Although it was already past 11 p.m., Katherine knew how exciting it must be for Claire to have her friends and her fiancé all in town, and she saw no reason that Claire shouldn’t go off and do as she pleased. In a few months she would be a wife. She would have to make much greater decisions than these without Katherine’s blessing. Besides, she thought, I wouldn’t come home either. Not until Richard was asleep and this night and the things of this night were behind them all.
Katherine found herself envying her daughter, not for her youth or her upcoming wedding or for all the life that awaited her, but for her freedom to return or not to return home as she so desired. The old house atop the hill that overlooked the McAdam Mill village would always be there if Claire were ever to want it or need it. And, unless one of them died, Katherine and Richard would always be there too. Unlike them, Claire didn’t have to return at all.
Katherine had left her car door open. She sat with her foot on the running board and looked out onto the damp night, where frogs called to one another from the darkness. The air smelled of wet pine needles. She listened as a few distant automobiles rumbled down Franklin Avenue toward town. She and Richard had now been married for almost twenty-four years, and in those almost twenty-four years she had seen changes she’d never imagined. Even the land around her now had morphed into something brand-new in just the past decade. When Richard first brought her to Gaston County, the very piece of land on which she sat had been part of the Woltz family’s dairy farm. A nine-hole golf course now covered the area that had once been a cow field. She thought of all the new things she’d seen in her lifetime: the record player and the radio she and Richard kept in their sitting room at home, the automobile she waited in now, the airplanes they’d seen fly over the city and touch down at the little municipal landing strip south of town. It made her tired to think of what was to come, to think of what Claire and Claire’s children—her grandchildren, for God’s sake—would see in the years ahead, the years she might not spend on this earth.
The car creaked on its axles and she heard Richard open the door and climb in, then close the door behind him. She kept her eyes on the darkness outside.
“Are you okay to drive?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
She pulled her foot inside the car and closed the door.
“You’re not too tight?” she asked. The engine roared to life when she spoke, and she knew that Richard could act as if he hadn’t heard her.
Richard drove the Essex through the roundabout and took the dark lane out to the boulevard. The guests had all left. The parking areas were empty. The wet asphalt shined beneath the Essex’s headlights. He turned east and headed toward McAdamville.
They rode in silence for a few moments. Through her window, Katherine watched the shuttered businesses as they passed them, their lights off and the windows drawn against the night.
“I just spoke to Ingle about Grace,” Richard said. “He’s upset of course, embarrassed really. Especially after the members took up the collection last year. He wants to pay everyone back since he says she won’t be returning to school.”
“That’s unnecessary,” Katherine said.
“That’s just what I told him,” Richard said. Katherine heard a lilt in his voice, as if a smile had come into it somehow, as if this small agreement boded well for the rest of the evening, perhaps for the rest of their lives together. “That’s just what I told him. I told him it was unnecessary.”