Part 7 (2/2)

I made a mental note of the latest occupant's name and looked around for Augusta, thinking she might have returned to our family plot to pay her respects to Lucy and her parents, whom she claimed to have known, but I didn't find her there. Farther down the hill through a hedge of c.r.a.pe myrtle, now bare, I caught a glimpse of her seaweed gown, her upswept hair that rivaled the autumn leaves spiraling past. She stood looking up at a trim, willowy marble angel that towered above her. The angel's wings were folded, as were her hands, as if in prayer, and she seemed to be standing on tiptoe as she looked out over the graveyard with a stony, benevolent gaze and a Madonna-like smile. As I watched from behind the Potts family mausoleum (or the Potts Apartments, as Vesta calls it), Augusta rose up on her toes, brought her rounded arms into a reverent gesture, and sucked in her stomach, keeping an eye on the statue the whole time. I managed to stay quiet until she smiled, mimicking, I suppose the marble angel's expression. She looked like her lips were glued together. Then she threw out an arm for balance, tottered, and grabbed an overhanging dogwood limb to keep from falling over altogether.

”Very well, let's see you do it, Arminda Grace Hobbs!” she said when she saw me laughing. ”No one can stand on their toes like that. It isn't natural.” She stood back to examine the stone angel. ”And no one looks like that, either; her waist is too small, and her wings are crooked.”

Augusta laughed as I hopped on a pillar at the end of a wall and attempted to duplicate her stance.

”This reminds me of a game children used to play,” she said, pulling me out of a bed of ivy.

”Follow the Leader? They still play it.”

”Then, shall we?” With that she skimmed over a low wall, hopped on one foot around a cedar tree, and spun around three times singing her favorite song, which I had learned was ”Coming In on a Wing and a Prayer.”

Feeling ten years old, I followed, giggling. ”That's not fair! I don't know the words,” I told her.

”Then sing one you do know!” Augusta swung into an oak tree, sat on a limb, and balanced an acorn on her nose.

Bellowing out a rendition of ”Jingle Bells”-(it was all I could think of)-I did the same. By the time we skipped, ran, and sang our way back to the cemetery gates I was dizzy and exhausted. I had also forgotten for a few happy minutes the somber reasons for our visit.

The phone was ringing when we reached home. ”Where in the world have you been? I've been trying to reach you,” my grandmother demanded to know.

”I was up on cemetery hill checking out that lot where the Dennises are buried. (I decided not to tell her about Sylvie Smith.) There's n.o.body else in the plot except for some people named Carstairs. Do you know if any of them still live here?”

”There's Jewel Carstairs-no, wait a minute-she married the Knox boy and moved to Alabama, but I think her brother still lives here.... Why are you so out of breath? You been running?”

”Just trying to keep in shape. Her brother-is he related to the Dennises?”

”Gordon Carstairs? Remotely, I think. What's all this hullabaloo about the Dennises, Arminda? My goodness, they've been dead since before I was born.”

”She made nondescripts. I think their daughter might have been a member of the Mystic Six.”

Silence. ”And what if she was? She's dead, too-unless she's found the fountain of youth. If you're thinking of tracing down that old quilt, you've got your work cut out for you. Give it up, Minda. That thing's long gone.”

”It's not the quilt. It's the women who made it. I need to know who they were, what happened to them.”

She didn't ask why. I was glad I didn't have to explain that my angel and I thought they had something to do with Cousin Otto's death.

”I called to tell you they're reading Otto's will tomorrow, and I can't get in touch with Mildred.”My grandmother sounded put out. I don't know what she expected me to do about it.

”Are you sure you have the right number?” I said.

”It's Lydia's voice on the answering machine, all right. I've left two messages.”

”Maybe they went on a leaf tour or something-you know, one of those all day trips. She'll probably call you back tonight. What time are they reading the will?”

”That's just it. It's at ten in the morning, and if I don't get in touch with her soon, she won't get back in time.”

”Frankly, I'm surprised Otto left a will,” I said. ”I didn't think he was that organized.”

”I think Butler Pike shamed him into it,” Vesta said. ”Had his law office where the bookshop is before he built that place downtown. He was the one who sold us the building.”

I knew my grandmother and I were thinking the same thing, but she was the one who finally spoke it. ”I do hope he remembered Mildred,” she said. ”I honestly dread for tomorrow to come.”

But it did come, and fortunately for us-and for her- Mildred never showed. Otto had left his share of Papa's Armchair to Gatlin.

”It took only ten minutes,” Vesta said when she and Gatlin stopped by the Nut House afterward. Otto's share of the shop was all he had to leave.”

Gatlin was still flabbergasted. She looked from Vesta to me and tried to speak, but nothing came out-a first for my cousin.

”I-well, I guess-”Gatlin shrugged. ”Don't you think Otto left it to me because he didn't think you or Mildred would outlive him?” she asked Vesta. She was wide-eyed and pale, and her voice actually trembled when she spoke.

”That's exactly what I think,” Vesta said, putting an arm around her, ”and I can't think of anyone I'd rather it go to. I just don't know how to explain it to Mildred.”

”Do we have to?” My cousin regained a flush of color. ”I mean I know we'll have to tell her he left me his share of the shop, but can't we say he made provisions for her to live there? She seems to want to stay, and I can't see any harm in it.”

”What about money?” I said. ”She has to live on something.”

My grandmother spoke in her ”don't question me” voice. ”That's taken care of. You don't have to worry about that.”

Gatlin and I exchanged glances. I knew Mildred had a modest income along with her Social Security, but I never knew until now who supplied it.

My cousin followed me to the kitchen to help make sandwiches for lunch. ”All this time Mildred's thought Otto was putting money into her account! Do you think she ever suspected it was Vesta?”

”I don't think she really wanted to know,” I said, slathering bread with pimento cheese. ”I just wish she'd call and let us know where she is. It's not like her, and I can tell Vesta's worried.”

”If we don't hear from her by tomorrow, let's drive over and see what's up,” Gatlin said. ”It's Sunday, so Dave can look after the kids.” She lifted the cover from a bowl of fruit salad I'd put on the table and sniffed. ”Where on earth did you get these heavenly strawberries?...And what's this? Fresh peaches in November?”

Where on earth, indeed? I glanced at Augusta and smiled.

Chapter Ten.

Hope you don't mind if Faye comes along,” Gatlin whispered the next morning as we started for Columbia. ”I usually end up dragging her everywhere with Lizzie, but we seldom have a chance to do things together.” She grinned. ”And I think she likes you even better than Tigger!”

I smiled at the five-year-old cuddling a stuffed tiger in the backseat. ”That's because I'm a pushover at the candy store.” My young cousin and I had much in common besides our blond hair. We both loved chocolate, silly jokes, and story-books.

Faye started with the jokes right away. ”What did the hat say to the hat rack, Minda?”

I pretended I didn't know.

She giggled. ”You stay here. I'm going on ahead!

”When is a door not a door? When it's a jar!” she answered before I could reply.

<script>