INTRODUCTION
Ever since colonial days, the American South has captivated the imagination of the world with its vaunted reputation for charm. Early visitors praised the gracious manners of its people; travelers were enchanted by the warm hospitality they received; outsiders envied the romance of the moonlight-and-magnolias culture. Yet there has always been a dark side to this cheerful image of the South, a deadly underbelly of violence, tales half-told, and people who vanish into the night. This is the realm of Deadly Southern Charm.
Each story in this collection features a Southern woman, past or present, who illustrates that paradoxical mixture of femininity and fortitude known as the steel magnolia. Who could imagine a gently bred Southern lady capable of solving a murder or, for that matter, wielding the dagger herself? Bless her heart.
Our short stories are, of course, set in the South. They may take place on an old plantation, in a struggling small town, or in the distant reaches of a bayou. They may involve murder, haunts, mysteries, or just plain creepy encounters. Each story contains ingredients that give the South its unique flavor—its dialect and quirky speech patterns, for example, or its emphasis on family. And what Southern tale lacks an eccentric character? From many entries, the editors selected the most unusual, the most imaginative, and the very best for your enjoyment. We would also like to give a special thanks to our published guest authors, Mollie Cox Bryan, Lynn Cahoon, Barb Goffman and Sherry Harris for contributing stories to the collection.
Take one at bedtime. It will bring—if not sweet dreams, vivid ones.
Best,
Mary Burton and Mary Miley
THE GIRL IN THE AIRPORT, by Frances Aylor
If my flight hadn’t been delayed, I would never have witnessed the murder.
The storm system had hit Atlanta around three o’clock that afternoon and was part of a wide mass of squalls that muscled in from the Atlantic and quickly smothered the entire East Coast. Powerful winds slammed against the airport terminal as churning black clouds dumped torrential rains onto the tarmac. The on time flight notices on the departure board flipped to delayed—first one, then three, then all the rest, succumbing one after another like helpless victims of a particularly contagious strain of flu.
Passengers groaned, grabbing their phones to alert friends and co-workers of the delay. Then, as people tend to do when under stress, they grabbed their belongings and headed for the nearest bar.
The last thing I needed was more alcohol. My head was still fuzzy from last night’s fraternity party. I was still wearing my favorite sundress and the boots that stuck to the beer-slicked floor as I had danced for hours celebrating the end of my sophomore year of college and the survival of the world, which hadn’t imploded months ago when we had flipped the calendar to Y2K.
But the smell of grilled meat and fried onions teased my stomach, reminding me that it had been a long time since breakfast, so I followed the crowd. The restaurant was packed, every table taken, the aisles blocked with roller bags and duffels. I threaded my way to the counter and ordered a Coke.
I felt a tap on my shoulder. “I’m Nora and my sister, Grace, and I have an extra chair at our table. Come join us.”
Nora was a big-boned, lumbering, middle-aged gal. She had frizzy hair colored an unfortunate shade of orange thanks to a botched home-dye job.
She looked harmless enough, but as a woman traveling by myself, I was wary of strangers. I tightened my feet around the backpack.
“We are going to England too,” she said as she nodded to the British Isles guidebook poking out of my backpack. “Grace and I are embarking on a two-week Jane Austen tour.”
My head pounded and my stomach grumbled. It would be nice to sit down. “Great. I’m Robbie.”
Nora held up well-worn copy of Pride and Prejudice. “Have you read this?”
“No.”
“You should give Jane a try. She’s such a shrewd judge of character. You coming?”
My beer-stained boots were starting rub against a blister I had worn last night. What harm could it do to sit with the sisters for a half hour? “Sure.”
“My sister and I have read each of Jane’s books three times,” Nora said proudly. “Isn’t that right, Grace?”
Grace was plump and petite, with dark bangs hanging low over her eyes. She looked nothing like her sister. She glanced up from a paperback sporting a bodice-ripper cover featuring a shirtless man with six-pack abs embracing a busty young woman whose chestnut curls cascaded over her shoulders.
“Yes we have,” Grace said.
“Is that an Austen book?” I asked.
“Oh, no,” Grace said, blushing. “This is a little something I picked up here at the airport. Change of pace.”
“Pure trash,” Nora said, shaking her head. “Little sisters. What are you gonna do?”
I decided right then I had made a mistake. I now risked spending the next couple of hours listening to these middle-aged women talk about Jane Austen. But a quick glance around convinced me there wasn’t anywhere else to sit. When a man from behind me reached for my chair, I sat down.
As I settled, I realized there was another woman with them. She was a thin blonde trying to dress a lot younger than her age, wearing snug royal blue pants and a sleeveless white cotton sweater that showed off tan, muscular arms.
“This is Meredith, from Charleston,” Nora said. “We met her earlier in the bookstore, and she was gracious enough to let us share her table. Meredith, this is Robbie.”
“Lovely to meet you, Robbie,” Meredith said.
Meredith reminded me of several of my mother’s overachiever friends. She had that confident monied look of a woman who organized charity fundraisers, served as president of her garden club, played a mean game of tennis, and in her spare time, tutored underprivileged children at the local elementary school.
“Grace and I are going to fight our way to the counter to order some food,” Nora said. “Can we bring you two something?”
“Nothing for me, thanks,” Meredith said, gesturing toward her empty salad bowl. “I’ve already eaten.”
I pulled a crumpled twenty from my pocket. “I’m starving. I’d love a barbecue and onion rings.”
Nora raised a hand in protest. “We’ll cover this, honey. You save your money for your trip.”
“Thanks, but you don’t need to do that.”
“Our tre
at,” Nora insisted. “We’ll be right back.”
I pushed my backpack under the table. “Thanks.”
Picking up her wine, Meredith smiled. “Tell me, Robbie, where are you headed?” She very deliberately wrapped her tongue around each word of her Southern drawl, the way I’d done at parties when I knew I’d had too much to drink but was hoping no one else would notice.
“I’m meeting my cousin, Sarah, in England. We are backpacking through England, Wales and Ireland.” Sarah, a history professor and genealogy buff, had offered to foot the bill if I would join her to help research our family tree. While weeks spent digging into dusty church records and rambling through ancient cemeteries wasn’t exactly my top choice for a summer vacation, it seemed the only way I could afford a European trip, making it an irresistible offer.
“Sounds like fun,” she said.
“Yep.”
“You don’t seem too excited. I remember my first summer in Europe. I couldn’t wait to get on the plane.”
“I am excited. It’s just that…” I paused.
“Let me guess. There’s a boyfriend involved. And he doesn’t want you to go. Am I close?”
“Not exactly.” If only Nate had demanded that I stay. But after spending almost every day with me for months, he had suddenly lost interest and transferred all his attention to my roommate, Fontaine. I pretended I was fine with the two of them hanging out night after night in a dark corner of the library. But inside I was in agony, losing sleep, skipping class, and barely squeaking through my econ finals. How could I think about the Laffer curve or the Keynesian cross or maximizing expected utility when my heart was breaking? It was a relief to finally blurt out the truth. “My boyfriend, Nate, dumped me for my best friend. It seemed like a good time to leave town.”
Meredith nodded sympathetically. “That’s a tough one. What happened?”
I had spent a lot of sleepless pre-dawn hours trying to figure it out. It wasn’t that she was prettier than me. We looked a lot alike, both of us were tall with long dark hair. Freshman year, people even thought we were sisters. We were both athletic—I had a killer serve in volleyball; she was a star on the lacrosse team. And we both liked to joke around. I would tell funny stories about what happened in class, and she would laugh so hard that she’d snort milk out of her nose.
The real reason had to be money. Fontaine’s dad had a big job at a Fortune 500 company. Her family had vacation houses and trust funds. My dad died when I was fifteen, leaving behind a small insurance policy and a long list of debts. Nate was as poor as I was. Fontaine’s wealth drew him like ants to a picnic. “She’s rich. I’m not.”
“Men can be so stupid,” Meredith said. “Always chasing sex or money or both. Believe me, better to find out the truth about Nate now than after you’ve spent your whole life trying to please him. And then he dumps you anyway for some young floozy.”
It sounded like she was talking from personal experience. “Your husband did that?” I asked.
“Yes. She’s half his age. Younger than our children. And he’s making a complete fool of himself over her.” She shrugged. “Ours was a typical story. I worked to put him through pharmacy school, and then stayed home with the children while he built his empire. I used to think, ‘Poor dear works so hard.’ He was never at home, always traveling to visit his string of drug stores that he finally sold to one of those mega-chains for big bucks. And then I found out he had been doing more than working during his travels. He’d been having an affair with one of his pharmaceutical sales reps. Divorced me and now plans to marry her.”
She was giving me a lot more details than I really wanted to hear, but I was stuck until Nora and Grace came back with our food. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m better off without him. And the good thing is, he doesn’t have anywhere near the money she thinks he does.” She leaned forward, glancing around to see if anyone else was listening. “It’s amazing how many assets you can get your hands on when you have a clever lawyer and a determined forensic accountant,” she whispered. “I got the Mercedes, the river place, his antique car collection, his race horses and half his stock portfolio. Plus our house and everything in it, including his own special stash of exotic pharmaceuticals.” Her laugh was bitter. “She gets him. I got the better deal.”
It made me feel a little better about losing Nate. As much as I loved him, I knew he was the restless type who would always struggle to be faithful. Maybe it was better to split up now than have my heart broken again and again.
“To lost loves,” Meredith said, raising her glass.
I nodded as Nora and Grace came back to our table. “They’re really backed up, but the waitress promised she’d bring our food over as soon as possible,” Nora said.
“We can squeeze in one more, can’t we?” Grace asked. “This is Shelby. We met her also in the bookstore earlier today. She’s another Jane Austen fan.”
Shelby’s long blond curls reminded me of the woman on the cover of Grace’s bodice ripper. She was maybe thirty-five, dressed in a shimmering peach tank top and white stretch pants.
“Shelby’s heading to the Caribbean, Meredith,” Grace said. “To visit her fiancé.”
Shelby settled into a chair, setting her glass of red wine on the table. “I was supposed to go down there yesterday, but I had this project I had to finish for work first. And now with this stupid weather, my flight’s delayed. Just my luck.”
“But once you get there, it will be wonderful,” Grace said, her eyes bright as she glanced at the rest of us. “Shelby’s story is so romantic. She fell in love with an older man who is funny and kind and best of all, rich. It’s like what Jane Austen said. You remember, Nora, that first line from Pride and Prejudice?”
“Of course,” Nora said. “‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.’” She smiled. “Shelby, tell us all about him.”
“There’s not a lot to tell. As Grace said, he’s quite a bit older than I, which made me shy away from him for a long time. But he was so persistent. Sent me flowers. Took me out to dinner. We spent a long weekend in the Bahamas. And now we’re meeting in St. Lucia.”
“He’s a widower?” Nora asked.
“No. He’s recently divorced from a real tyrant of a wife. I’ve never met her, of course, but from what Carl says, she’s quite a cold fish. After all, men don’t wander when their wives keep them satisfied, right?”
Meredith coughed, her face turning bright red.
“Are you okay?” I asked, patting her on the back.
She nodded as she cleared her throat. “Yes. My wine went down the wrong way.”
The waitress finally brought our food and drinks. “I already know I’ll need another Coke,” I said. “Parched.”
“And I’ll have another ginger beer,” Nora said.
“Refills all around?” the waitress asked.
“Yes. A coffee for me,” Grace said. “And Shelby, what are you having? A cabernet?”
“No. Merlot.”
Nora and Grace entertained us with stories of Jane Austen characters while we ate. After a while the waitress returned, carefully balancing a large tray. She had just set my second soda in front of me when someone at the table behind her stood up, his chair smacking hard against her hips. The tray tipped, splashing coffee, red wine and ginger beer all over Grace, Shelby, and Nora.
“You idiot,” Shelby snapped. She mopped at her peach top with a handful of napkins. “You’ll lose your job over this. I want to see the manager, right now.”
“Shelby, honey, surely you don’t mean that?” Meredith said. “It was an accident. You ladies go freshen up, and I’ll order a fresh round of drinks, on me.”
The waitress gave Meredith a grateful smile as she wiped up the spreading liquid. She came back quickly with a new round of drinks. “No charge for these, ma’am,” she said. “I’m so sorry. But it’s really tight in here, what with everyone squee
zed in. And grumpy because they’ve missed their connections.”
“You don’t need to explain, my dear,” Meredith said. “It was obviously an accident. And those ladies have plenty of other outfits they can change into.”
“You have such a calming influence on everyone,” I said as the waitress walked away. “I’m not sure I would have handled that nearly as well.”
“Things happen,” she said simply.
I kept working on my onion rings as we waited for the others to come back. Finally Meredith said, “Robbie, dear, can you let them know our drinks are here? I can’t imagine what’s taking so long. Grace’s coffee is getting cold.”
“Of course.” I headed down the hall to the ladies’ room. About six women were outside the door, waiting to get in. They glared at me as I made my way around them. “Looking for my friends,” I said apologetically. “Nora? Grace?” I called out. “You guys in here?”
Nora and Grace, now changed into new outfits, were standing in front of the sink drying their hands. “Meredith was getting worried about you.” I looked around. “Where’s Shelby?”
“Here I am,” Shelby said, pushing open the door of the end stall. She tugged at her blouse as she approached the mirror. “I’m not happy about this. My top is ruined. That wine stain is never coming out.” She was still grumbling as we returned to the table. “I can’t believe that waitress was so stupid. I still think she should get fired.”
Nora and Grace looked uncomfortable as they settled in beside her. “It could have happened to anyone,” Nora said. “It is really crowded in here. I mean, I know it’s terribly annoying, but I don’t think it was her fault.”
“We should at least get compensated for our ruined clothes,” Shelby insisted. She quickly knocked back her Merlot.
“Why don’t we focus on our vacations?” Grace said. “Think of the good times we’re all going to have.”
Nora picked up her ginger beer. “I’m really excited about our trip. We’ll be staying at this quaint little hotel in Salisbury. The Red Lion. It dates back to the thirteenth century.”