by Alex Bailey
“No, no,” Ann shrieked, “those are dog treats. The cookies are here on the tray.” She lifted the top tray that had the gluten free cookies, so Freda could see the cookies underneath.
“You had me worried there for a minute gal,” Freda said, taking the top platter and tin from Ann. “So, you made treats for the critters, then.”
Ann set the platters of cookies on the counter and unhooked Honey’s leash so she could play with Princess. “I did. It’s Honey’s favorite recipe.”
“Is it now?” Freda barked. “Well, aint that somethin’. You sure do try to include everybody, now don’t you?”
“I do try.”
“Well, let’s get these guys downstairs. The gals are all waiting. After last week with Dona promising she’d talk to her brother for us, we hoped you’d come through.”
Ann grabbed the platters, ran to the living room, leaned over and whispered to Ralph, “Grab a couple before I take them downstairs.”
The grateful boy’s face lit up as he stooped on his knees like a dog begging for a treat. He snatched two cookies from the tray and shoved one into his mouth. He mumbled, “Thanks,” with his mouth full.
“You’re welcome.” Ann whispered again, “Take another. Looks like you might need a little extra energy to finish that game of War and Peace. By the way, is there ever any peace in that game? I only ever see the war part.”
Ralph gave her a shy smile and grabbed another, and said, “At the end. When I kill everyone off. Then it’s pretty peaceful.”
Freda smiled at her, while Ann straightened and followed Freda downstairs.
“We thought you’d skipped out on us,” Jasmine said.
Freda shot her a death stare, “Jasmine! You know better ‘n that.”
Jasmine shrunk down into her seat. “Geez, it was just a joke.” She practically whispered, “I still don’t see—”
“Hush,” Michelle said while waving her hand in Jasmine’s direction.
The women crowded around the table, anticipating the delectable treats.
“What have we here?” Gloria asked. “Another one of your delicious biscuits?”
“Funny you should mention biscuits,” Ann said, “because yes, there are biscuits. They’re for the critters. I made dog biscuits.”
Mindy looked up from her turtle bowl.
“Not sure I would feed them to Testudo.” Ann said. “Oh, and I brought a platter of gluten-free cookies just for you as well. I figured whatever you don’t eat, you can take home with you. Sorry about the kitties. I don’t think they’d like dog biscuits.”
Mindy smiled broadly, “Thanks, Ann! That’s so thoughtful of you.”
“Yes, it was. Quite thoughtful,” Dona snipped. “But my little precious darling is extremely finicky. I doubt she’d eat any…homemade biscuits.” Dona stuck her nose in the air. “I order her treats from the vet. They’re made in France and highly nutritious.” Dona picked up a biscuit in the shape of a high-heeled shoe and waved it in front of Lady AdoraBelle, who instantly snatched it from her and chomped down.
“Well! That’s the first time that’s ever happened,” Dona grimaced.
“I’m sorry, Amanda,” Ann said, “I have no idea what sugar gliders eat. I’m guessing they don’t eat dog biscuits.”
“Don’t even worry about it, Ann. Phil eats only fresh fruits. There’s diddly-squat you could bake for him.” Amanda raised her eyebrows, “But it’s totally okay, because I’ll have an extra cookie to make up for it.”
“These are adorable,” Bubbles raved as she picked up a biscuit in the shape of a fire hydrant for Tiny. “Girl, you are so talented. I’m telling you, you should start your own business.”
“Yeah, Ann, you’d make a killing,” Ele said.
Bubbles gasped, and Ann thought she really needed to see someone about that breathing problem of hers.
“Funny you should mention business. Actually, I’m going to sell some of the cookies.”
“Really?” Ele asked.
“Where?” Mindy asked.
“When can we come and get some?” Michelle asked.
“Uh, right here, right now,” Dona moaned.
“Whoa, ladies. Slow down,” Gloria put her arms up as if to stop a crowd, and said, “give Ann some room to breathe.”
Ann appreciated Gloria stepping in on her behalf. She felt that Gloria’s protection of her was a positive sign toward the development of a new friendship. Not that she needed protection from this group; she already knew they loved her cookies. She was more concerned about what the crowd at the Vinci Tavern was going to think. “I’m experimenting.”
“Experimenting?” Bubbles asked.
Dona stomped her foot. “I just hate when people repeat what others say. Nothing original of their own, so they feel they must regurgitate what they hear.”
“Come on, you two. Cut it out so Ann can tell us,” Freda said.
Dona waltzed over to her seat on the sofa and sat down with a napkin in one hand and her poodle in the other.
“Dona’s got the right idea, ladies. Let’s have a sit-down,” Gloria said.
The women took their usual places and listened intently.
“Yes, it’s sort of an experiment. I’m going to bake them for the chef at the Vinci Tavern.” She said turning to Gloria, “Daniel.”
Ann picked up on Gloria’s tiny eyebrow movement. “I was there. Last weekend,” Ann said, but saw Gloria’s brow furrowed a teensy bit further, so she quickly added, “with Ben.”
Dona said, “Do you mean with my brother? You went to that ratty old tavern with my brother, your superior?”
“No!” Ann swiftly rejected the idea. “I didn’t go with him. I actually ran into him there when I was having dinner by myself.” Ann turned toward Gloria, “I called you, but you must have been out.”
“I lost my mobile Saturday. Was it Saturday you phoned me?” Gloria looked relieved. At that moment, Ann realized that Gloria certainly did have feelings for Daniel no matter how much she refused to admit it.
“Yes, Saturday night. I figured you were just out, so I went to the best place in town to eat.” Ann smiled.
“Hmpf!” Dona said. “It’s a rat hole.”
“Well, anyway, I ran into Ben, and he asked me to sit with him.”
“Hmpf!” Dona turned sideways away from Ann on the sofa and stroked Lady AdoraBelle’s fur.
“While I was there, Daniel asked me if I’d like to come this weekend to make a few batches of cookies to sell at his tavern. I thought I’d give it a try.”
“It’s brilliant!” Gloria said.
“Thanks. We’ll see.”
“Okay, if we’re all ready,” Freda stood and announced, “Someone hit the lights.”
Bubbles ran to the light switch, this time swerving around Tiny, just as Freda laid the portrait on the table in the center of the group and lit the candles with her butane lighter.
After the chant, which Ann was getting more and more used to each time, the group took their seats and Freda asked the familiar question, “Who wants to go?”
Ann pulled out her knitting project, as the rest of the heads dropped.
Freda announced, “Fine. I’ll go.” She played with the mole in the center of her chin, causing her wrinkles to wiggle. She sat up straight, so that the chevron pattern of her short sleeve shift dress stood at attention. Even though she had changed out of her cafeteria lady uniform, she still had on her pink bunny slippers. She began abruptly, “Well, you see, I was very much the town flirt when I was a teenager.”
Ann’s head shot up from her knitting. That was the last sentence she ever expected to come from Freda’s lips. The town bully perhaps, even the town food poisoner, but the town flirt? Ann stifled a full out howl.
“I had all the boys chasing me. I didn’t always look like this, you know. Had a lot of years of hard living and too many cigarettes. Damn things. Glad I gave ‘em up years ago.
“Back to what I was saying. Boys loved me and I loved t
hem. I was caught making out more times ‘n I can count,” Freda had a wide grin. “It’s the other things I did that I never got caught doin’.”
Ann prayed very hard that Freda would not reveal those ‘other things’.
“But we won’t go into all that. You all got imaginations as good as mine. Pretty sure you can guess what went on. In the back of the shed. On the roof of a car. In the woods. Under a pile ‘a laundry waiting to be hung in the back yard,” Freda cackled.
Ann was thankful that Freda didn’t go into depth, but for some reason she couldn’t shake the picture of Freda having sex on a car roof out of her mind. And she’d never look at laundry the same way again.
“I was so tiny back then, I could practically fit in the palm of your hands. I could hide anywhere and get away with it. And I did. My dad had a drinkin’ problem, and I had to hide a lot. He would come after us kids with a paddle when he got to drinkin’ whether we did anything or nothin’ at all. He was just one real mean bastard.”
Ann could feel Gloria tense up next to her. It was no wonder, since Freda’s experience with her alcoholic father resembled Gloria’s childhood. She glanced at Mindy, knowing she too had an abusive father. Mindy’s demeanor didn’t change. She stared into Testudo’s bowl.
Freda sat quietly for a moment, then took a breath and continued on, “My mom was a sweetheart. A great cook. She took first prize in the county fair for her sweet potato corn pudding pie. Mmm, mmm. Just thinkin’ about it is making me hungry. I think I’ll have to get up to get me another one of those cookies of yours, Ann. Excuse me for a minute, y’all.”
Freda made her way to the table. The women’s eyes followed her movements until she took her seat again. Ann watched the ritual with fascination. She wondered how they all behaved in unison. She stuck her nose back in her knitting while Freda chomped on her wafer.
“Now, that hit the spot,” Freda rubbed her round tummy. “So, let me see. Where was I? Oh yeah, my mom—great cook. She taught me everything I know about cooking. She’s the reason I have the cafeteria job that I have now.
“But I need to continue on, so…” Freda sat up straight in her chair. Princess nudged her leg and she reached over and gave her a rough pat on the head, then tossed her a biscuit.
“My mom tried to protect us from my dad’s drinkin’ problem, and for the most part, she did a good job. She paid the price though. She’d be the one to end up with the bruises. I swore when I grew up, I’d never let a man hit me. I was going to marry me a Baptist preacher, an Amish, or a Mormon—someone who didn’t drink.
“But you know, I come to find out there is something worse than being beat in this world. But I’m jumping ahead of myself. Let me explain from the beginning.”
Ann continued knitting, wondering how these women who had such tragedies in their lives had survived their cruel childhoods. Hers had been idyllic. Listening to the others speak of theirs, made her appreciate her own that much more. And she was also very thankful that her own children hadn’t suffered either.
Freda shifted in her seat. “Fred and I met when I was a waitress at a diner called, The Greasy Spoon, in the next town over from ours. The cook called in sick one day and I had to cook the food and serve it too. That day, Fred came in, sat on the stool, and told me what a wonderful cook I was. Stole my heart right there and then.
“He was a burly, manly-man. A trucker for a big furniture company in a nearby state. Just passing through on one of his runs. He had real pretty blue eyes. They knocked me over. And the best thing was when he told me he didn’t drink a lick. I knew then he was the man for me.
“Fred was big into stereo equipment and country music. He had his truck decked out with the stuff. Speakers everywhere. It was like surround-sound before surround-sound even was.
“Fred made it his business to find out when I was working and come by when I was there on his trips north. Sometimes he would bribe my boss for me to sit with him while he ate. Of course, he only wanted me to make his food. The boss said fine by him. So, I’d make Fred’s meal first, then sit with him.
“He started out comin’ around maybe once or twice a month, then about six months later, it was closer to once a week. He said he got his route changed so he could see me more often. I was flattered, of course. Whenever he wanted to come ‘round, I was ready for him. Even if I wasn’t working, he’d call when he was about an hour away and I’d get myself all perty’ed up and head on over to the diner.
“After, we’d sit up in his rig and talk, and listen to his music… well, we would head to the sleeping quarters…”
Ann prayed hard again not to hear what she feared was coming from Freda’s mouth.
“And get us some. Then I’d hop back in the car and head home and he’d be on his way. We went on like that for a few years. ‘Til I was about 20. Fred was quite a bit older than me. He woulda been 35 at that time. Then one day he come in while I was on duty with a big old package in his hands. All tied up with a nice big bow. And his grin was as big as that bow.
“He handed it to me and told me to unwrap it before I went to fix his supper. So I did, gladly. It was another box, wrapped up real nice with another fancy bow. I thought it was going to be a nice frying pan or something, the size of that big box. But it wasn’t. I opened the next box and it was another box, smaller inside wrapped up the same. This kept going for a while and I’ll tell you I was fit to be tied by the time I got to the tiniest box. It was the size of a shoe box. The shoe box was filled with raw food…like macaroni, and rice, and peanuts.
“I musta’ gave him the strangest look, cuz he told me to dig, like I was digging for gold. I followed his orders just like he said, and I dug, and found cereal, the puffed wheat kind.
“I told him I was going to take all that food and cook it up and serve it to him. That was not a nice thing he done to me, getting me to think he got me some real nice present, and here he’d filled a shoe box with some damn old food.”
Ann couldn’t help but be amused. Though, if it had been her, she’d have been just as irritated.
“Fred just laughed at me and told me to keep digging. Well, it seemed like an hour, but I’m sure it was only forty-five minutes later; I found it—my engagement ring. I slipped it on my finger and howled around the diner, waving it over my head. The customers thought I’d lost my mind. My boss thought so too.
“Fred just stood there and watched me. He said he would take that as a yes, since I hadn’t really given him an answer. Of course, he hadn’t really asked me anything either.
“After we got married, I moved into his apartment in his hometown. It was a nice little place. Fred wasn’t home much, and I got a job in the diner around the corner. We were happy for the next few years.
“Fred had been saving for twenty-five years to buy his own trailer. He complained about how he couldn’t really use his nice stereo equipment in the apartment because the neighbors would send their kid over to complain. Didn’t have the balls to come tell him their own self. He wanted to move out of that apartment to a place he could hook that stuff up and blast out the walls. Didn’t matter to me none. I just cared to be wherever Fred was.
“We moved outside of town, out in the country into a double-wide and we were happy for a real long time. But when Fred started on his mighty long hauls, I felt lonely out there. Especially at night. When he was gone, I adopted a kitten, Fluffy. Fluffy and I hit it off real good. He was gray and white and playful as Hell. I fell in love with that little furball right away.
“Fluffy loved to play with things he saw lying around on the floor. And when Fred came home from his long haul, he was kind of shocked to see him, but he picked him up and loved on him. Then Fred set about taking one of his stereos apart to fix a burned-out battery or tube or something on the inside.
“I called him to supper and he left the parts scattered around. When we came back into the room and Fred saw Fluffy batting some of the pieces around with his paws…”
Freda got choked up an
d had a hard time continuing. She stood and snatched a napkin from the table as all attention was on her. She rubbed her eyes with the napkin, sniffed deeply, and continued, “His temper took over. He tore into a rage. I watched as Fred picked Fluffy up and threw him against the wall real hard.”
Tears streamed down Freda’s chubby cheeks onto her mole at the end of her chin, where they lingered before falling onto her lap. She dabbed at her dripping nostrils. Her eyes swelled as she dragged the napkin across them again. “It’s blurry what happened next, but I think I learned some moves from my dad that were buried deep inside me, because I jumped on Fred and was punching and kicking with all my might.
“Didn’t matter he was three times my size. I was furious with him, and I wanted him to know. He threw me off him and I scrambled over to Fluffy to make sure he was okay. Fluffy was dazed and scared as all. Fred laughed, as if what he’d done was perfectly okay. I scooped Fluffy up and loved on him for the rest of the night. I slept on the sofa with that poor little baby in my arms.”
Freda’s hand shook on top of Princess’s head. Ann could tell the memories were painful. She wondered if that’s when Freda left him. She knew Freda loved her pet and with her past, probably wondered if Fred would someday do to her what he’d done to their kitten.
“I was fixing to leave that bastard. I swore the pain he inflicted on that helpless creature was worse than if he’d done it to me. Didn’t speak to him again. The very next day, the sheriff come knocking on our door. Said he was responding to a call about a bear or something in our parts. Then he informed me Fred had been out chopping wood. I already knew that. I’d heard him early that morning. The sheriff said that somehow Fred must’a got the ax swinging real high, because it swung around to the back of his head and killed him. Instantly.”
Ann was stunned, but no one else seemed to flinch.
“Can’t say I was sorry neither. I was still steaming mad about what he’d done to Fluffy. I just held that little guy tight and told him everything would be alright from now on. No one would ever hurt him again.”
Freda reached over and vigorously rubbed Princess’s head. “That was a long long time ago. I sold the trailer and moved here and started working at the school and moved up to cafeteria manager. Fluffy lived a good long life.”
