Toni L.P. Kelner - Laura Fleming 06 - Death of a Damn Yankee

by Toni L. P. Kelner

  “He is, but there’s no telling how long it will take to serve lunch, and in my condition, I can’t afford to let my blood sugar get low. So I brought along a few things to tide me over.”

  A few things? The grocery bags were filled with chips, dip, cheese, cookies, and other goodies, and the cooler was big enough to carry food for half the Burnettes.

  While Richard and I finally got around to shaking Arthur’s hand and hugging his neck, respectively, Vasti reached into the cooler and came out with an ice-cream bar. “For the calcium,” she explained as she peeled off the wrapper.

  My doctor recommended Tums as a calcium supplement, but Vasti’s idea was probably tastier. She didn’t offer us anything, and I was trying to decide if it would be safe to help myself when Aunt Daphine appeared and hugged onto Richard and me.

  “I was wondering if y’all had gotten here yet,” she said.

  “Just starting to make the rounds,” I said.

  “What do you think of our little mama?” she said, leaning over to give Vasti a hug. “I never knew how much I wanted a grandbaby until now. We’re all so excited!”

  Vasti finished up her ice cream and reached for a bag of potato chips, making me wonder just which part of pregnancy excited her the most.

  “It won’t be too long before you’re doing this yourself,” Aunt Daphine said, smiling indulgently.

  “I’d save my maternity clothes for you,” Vasti put in, “but I don’t think they’d fit.” Before I could assure her that I had no interest in her hand-me-downs, she added, “You know, Laurie Anne, you’re not getting younger. I hope you two are planning on getting started soon.”

  “Not yet,” I said, the way I always do when asked, but was surprised to hear Richard say, “We’re thinking about it.”

  “We are?” I asked.

  “Aren’t we?”

  Aunt Daphine, realizing that she’d put her foot in it, hastily started describing the baby furniture Vasti had picked out and how she was planning to decorate the nursery. Hearing their plans reminded me of why I wasn’t ready for a baby. A child was more responsibility than I was ready for.

  Aunt Daphine sighed happily. “My baby with her own baby. And me a grandmama!”

  “The times they are a’ changin’,” Richard said.

  I looked at him and mouthed, “Bob Dylan?”

  He shrugged and went on. “Speaking of changes, Vasti and Arthur were just catching us up on the news about the mill. What’s your take on it, Aunt Daphine?”

  “I’m all for it. The more money the mill makes, the more money the mill workers make, and the more money they make, the more likely the ladies are to come get their hair done. Anything that helps the mill is good news to me.”

  “You’re sure the buyout will help?” I asked. Aunt Daphine was a pretty good businesswoman. “What about union busting?”

  “Oh pooh,” Aunt Daphine said. “You’ve been talking to Aunt Maggie, haven’t you? You’ve got to remember that she’s got a blind spot where the union is concerned. I don’t know if this is going to hurt the union or not, but to tell you the truth, I don’t care. I know the union has helped a lot of people in the past, but the mill is having problems right now, and if Burt Walters can’t do anything about it, we may as well get us somebody who can.”

  Her perspective made sense, but so did Aunt Maggie’s. I was starting to wish that Richard and I had been out to dinner when Burt came by our apartment.

  Richard must have picked up on how I was feeling, because he said, “We’re going to try to catch up with the rest of the family, but we’ll see you guys later.”

  “Be sure to come back over on this side to eat,” Vasti said. “You don’t want people getting the wrong idea about where you stand.”

  Chapter 6

  “Where do we stand?” I asked Richard as we made our way through the thickening crowd, looking for more Burnettes. “This is awful!”

  “How did you expect people to react? They depend on the mill for their livelihoods—threatening it threatens them.”

  “I know, but I expected the Burnettes to all be on the same side.”

  “Your whole family? Laura, that many people can’t even agree on what to have for dinner.”

  “True,” I admitted. Then I spotted a familiar face in the crowd. Or to be precise, three familiar faces. To be even more precise, three copies of the same familiar face. “Here come the triplets. At least they’re all on the same side.” I’d only known them to disagree seriously once, and that was over a man. For lesser issues, they’d always been of one mind.

  The three of them were talking to a man I didn’t know, but when they saw us, Ideile said, “Laurie Anne!”, Odelle echoed, “Richard!”, and Carlelle skipped all that and rushed over to hug us, her sisters right behind her. I think I was hugged four times instead of three, but darned if I could tell which one got me twice. As usual, they were dressed in matching outfits. This time it was dark blue, red, and green shorts with coordinating striped shirts and Keds. Their hair, usually teased and hair sprayed to imposing heights, was pulled back in simple ponytails, but they’d put on the usual amount of makeup, and even as we spoke, I could see one or the other of them scanning the crowd for eligible men.

  I was just wondering if the man with them was a recent conquest, when he said, “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Max Wilder.”

  “Laura Fleming,” I said. “This is my husband, Richard.” We exchanged handshakes.

  “Fleming?” he said thoughtfully. “Y’all must be related to the triplets, but I can’t place any Flemings.”

  “We’re cousins, but we don’t live in town,” I explained. “Ellis Burnette was my grandfather, too, but I don’t imagine you’ve been in town long enough to have known him.”

  “Only by reputation. Thaddeous and Willis Crawford must be your cousins, too.”

  “That’s right,” I said, impressed that he’d been able to make the connections so quickly when he wasn’t from Byerly. I’d never heard of any Wilders in town, and was sure that I’d have remembered Max if I’d met him. He had red hair, a curly beard, and a smile as friendly-looking as a teddy bear’s grin.

  “Isn’t this a nice party?” Ideile said.

  “It’s a wonderful way for us to get to know the new owners,” Odelle added.

  I said, “Are y’all that sure it’s going to go through?”

  “Of course it will,” Carlelle said.

  Odelle said, “The Walters want to sell and the Saunders want to buy.”

  “It probably would have been a done deal already if somebody hadn’t leaked the news to the Gazette and gotten the union all stirred up,” Ideile said with disgust. “I bet the Walters would love to know who put Hank Parker up to running that story.”

  Actually, I had a hunch one of the Walters already knew Hank’s source. Hadn’t Burt said something about stalling? I only wondered if he’d approached Hank directly or made an anonymous phone call.

  “Obviously, you three are in favor,” Richard said.

  “Of course,” they said in unison.

  Carlelle said, “It’s so bad now that we’re taking our lives in our hands every time we walk in the gate. One of the dye vats sprung a leak last week, and boiling dye spilled all over the floor. It’s just lucky nobody was standing next to it—that stuff will take the skin right off of you.”

  “What about when the tension bar on Boyd Wallace’s knitting machine broke off?” Odelle said. “Boyd could have lost a finger or worse if he hadn’t jumped back in time. It’s getting scary.”

  “What’s been done about it?” Richard asked.

  “Not a darned thing,” Ideile said indignantly. “Is it any wonder that we want somebody new in charge?”

  “Burt isn’t doing anything?” I asked.

  Carlelle made a face. “All he’s done is blame us for everything that’s gone wrong.”

  “I don’t think Mr. Walters means it that way,” Max said, “but he is concerned that maintenance sch
edules aren’t being followed as closely as they should be.”

  That sounded uncomfortably like what Burt had said to Richard and me when talking about equipment failures. I said to Max, “I take it that you’re also in favor of the buyout.”

  “I’ve only been at the mill for a few months, so I’m not sure that I’m entitled to an opinion,” he said, “but the more I speak to people whose opinions I trust, including your cousins here, the more it sounds as if it might be a good thing.”

  After hearing about the recent accidents, I didn’t blame him. “What do you think about the Saunders?”

  He said, “I just met them this afternoon, so I haven’t seen enough to judge them by, yet.”

  “They’ve only been in town since Thursday,” Ideile explained. “Big Bill’s been showing them around the mill, but we hadn’t had a chance to actually speak to them until today.”

  I didn’t like hearing that. Questioning friends and family is usually the best way to find out anything in Byerly, but I was afraid it wasn’t going to work this time, not with Grace and Marshall being from so far away.

  Max said, “I better get going—I promised to help run the grills.”

  “I swear, Max, is there any dirty job you don’t get stuck with?” Carlelle asked.

  “I don’t mind,” he said with a smile. “It gives me a chance to meet people like you lovely ladies and your cousin. I can see that good looks run in your family, if you don’t mind my saying so, Richard.”

  “Not at all,” Richard said with a proprietary air. “I always enjoy meeting another man with an eye for beauty.”

  The triplets giggled as Max ambled away. “So which one of you is dating him?” I asked.

  “None of us,” Carlelle said. “In fact, we may be the only single women at the mill who aren’t dating Max.”

  “After the old Woolworth’s burned down,” Ideile said with a giggle, “folks were saying that Max’s house was going to go up next, because of all the hot action going on there.”

  “Plays the field, does he?” Richard asked.

  “And how!” Carlelle rolled her eyes. “He’s got a girl in every department, on both shifts. He substitutes for other men a lot, and I think he was telling the truth when he says he does it to meet people. Female people, anyway.”

  “But not y’all?” I said.

  “He tried,” Ideile said, “but right after he asked me out, Carlelle heard him asking somebody else out for later the same night.”

  “Did you let him have it?”

  They shook their heads, and Ideile said, “That would have been too easy. What happened is all three of us showed up for the date, and he had to buy three times as much beer. That learned him—I bet he didn’t have a dime left when he went to pick up his other date for the evening.”

  We all laughed, and Richard said, “He doesn’t seem to hold a grudge.”

  “No, Max isn’t that way,” Odelle agreed. “Everybody likes him—you just can’t trust him where women are concerned.”

  I looked in the direction he’d gone, trying to catch another glimpse. “He didn’t strike me as a lady-killer.”

  “That’s the worst kind,” Ideile said.

  With mill gossip out of the way, we moved on to family gossip. After catching up with most of the aunts, uncles, and cousins, I asked, “What are your parents up to? Are they going to be joining us?”

  The triplets hesitated for a minute before Odelle answered. “They’re over on the other side of the field. I’m afraid we don’t exactly see eye to eye on the buyout, so it’s kind of awkward.”

  “I didn’t realize that,” I said, wishing I’d kept my mouth shut. I’d just assumed that Aunt Nellie and Uncle Ruben would agree with their daughters.

  By then, we could smell hamburgers and hot dogs cooking, and Ideile said, “They’re going to start serving lunch soon, so we’re going to go stake us out a table while there’s still some empty. Y’all want to come?”

  “I think we’ll go hunt down some more folks,” I said, looking at Richard to make sure he agreed. The way things were going, I was afraid it would be our only chance to see everybody in one place.

  Chapter 7

  “Where to next?” Richard asked, once the triplets had gone.

  “Heck if I know. We’re supposed to be investigating the Saunders, but nobody in Byerly knows them. How are we going to find out anything about them in only a week?”

  He thought for a minute. “The way I understand it, Burt only cares about information that could stop the buyout. In other words, negative information.”

  “Right.”

  “Well, it stands to reason that the people in favor of the buyout don’t know anything negative, or they wouldn’t be in favor. Therefore, we might have better luck if we talk to the Burnettes who are against the buyout.”

  “Good thought,” I said. “Aunt Maggie didn’t have anything definite, so we can scratch her off, and Aunt Nora and Thaddeous are for it. Did Aunt Nora tell you about anybody else?”

  “Uncle Buddy and Willis are pro, mainly because of the way Burt has been blaming them for not keeping the equipment working. They insist they’ve been following proper procedures, and it’s not their fault that the machines are practically antiques.”

  “What about Augustus?”

  “He’s decided not to voice an opinion.”

  “Good for him,” I said, glad that we weren’t the only ones avoiding taking sides. Augustus worked with Aunt Maggie at the flea market, so it would probably cause hard feelings if he disagreed with her, but it would also cause hard feelings if he publicly disagreed with his father and brothers. “There’s still Aunt Nellie and Uncle Ruben—the triplets said they’re against it. Shall we cross the great divide and see if we can find them?”

  “ ‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,’ “ Richard said. “King Henry V, Act III, Scene 1.”

  It did feel as if we were going into a breach. The last thing we wanted was to appear to be switching sides, but clearly, that’s what people thought. Though nobody said anything as we left the pro-buyout side, there were plenty of unfriendly looks, while the anti-buyout side looked delighted to have fresh recruits, and several people greeted us by name.

  It didn’t take us long to find Aunt Nellie and Uncle Ruben, mostly because of Aunt Nellie. She was the tallest woman around, and if that didn’t make her stand out enough, she was wearing a royal-purple-and-gold blouse with darker purple slacks, colors that dramatically set off her dark hair and fair skin. When I called her name, the crowd seemed to part before her as she came our way. Uncle Ruben, who tended to fade into the background, came along in her wake, looking as proud as ever of his flamboyant wife.

  The four of us traded hugs and handshakes, and Aunt Nellie said, “I’m glad to see you two over here.“ Her emphasis on here made me uncomfortable.

  “We were talking to the triplets, and they said we could find you in this direction,” I said.

  “Still on the other side?” Uncle Ruben said sadly. “I never would have thought those three would be so naive about the Saunders.”

  “I’ve always thought they were real good judges of people,” I said.

  “Usually they are,” Aunt Nellie said, “but not this time. The Saunders have got the wool pulled over their eyes.”

  “Or socks, as the case may be,” Richard put in.

  “That’s a good one,” Uncle Ruben said, reaching up to pat my husband on the back. “That’s just what they’ve done, pulled the socks over the girls’ eyes and over an awful lot of other people’s, too.”

  “So you don’t approve of their plans for making changes to the mill?” I asked.

  Aunt Nellie said, “I don’t care about their plans—it’s the Saunders themselves that are the problem. At least, he is.”

  “Really?” I said, hoping that we’d found pay dirt.

  “I don’t trust him as far as I could throw him,” she declared.

  “What have you heard?” I a
sked.

  Aunt Nellie said, “Nothing definite, but we know darned well that Marshall Saunders doesn’t know the first thing about management. Tell them what happened, Ruben.”

  “We ran into him at the post office Friday,” Uncle Ruben said, “and since I’d read the article about them in the Gazette, I knew who he was, but I didn’t let on. I just started talking to him. At first, he seemed nice enough, but then I asked what his line was, and he said he was a management consultant. I told him a friend of mine is a manager at the Winn Dixie, and that I should introduce them sometime because they’d have a lot to talk about. Well, that Saunders did his best to backpedal. He said he didn’t think he’d have much free time, but it was pretty obvious that he wanted to stay as far away from a real manager as he could, so as not to get caught.” He nodded sagely. “That man doesn’t know any more about managing than the man in the moon.”

  I tried to keep a straight face, but I was afraid to look at Richard for fear I’d burst out laughing. All I could do was nod, and after promising to catch up with them again later, Richard and I moved on before we lost control.

  Richard just barely waited until they were out of earshot before saying, “That settles it. We’ve got the proof Burt Walters wants. I’m only surprised that Uncle Ruben hasn’t gone to Hank Parker with this exposé.”

  Finally, I let myself laugh. “Can you imagine what Burt would say if we told him that? He’d be calling the boys from Dorothea Dix to come take us away.”

  “Come to think of it,” Richard said with a snicker, “if Aunt Nellie and Uncle Ruben don’t trust the Saunders, then they must be trustworthy.”

  “Given their track record, you’re probably right,” I agreed. They were the ones who’d invested in bogus water filters, and signed up to sell floor wax that changed the color of the floors being waxed. Another time, they’d lent a complete stranger a thousand dollars, and almost got stuck with his collateral, which might have been worth it if they’d known where to sell an elephant. “Seriously, though, this does show that Marshall might not be the right person to run Walters Mill.”