by Lynne Hinton
“Didn’t her mother die when she was a little girl?” Charlotte asked.
“Ten,” Jessie replied. “She died when Margaret was ten.”
Charlotte thought about what Jessie was suggesting, trying to recall if Margaret had ever spoken about her mother, about visiting Texas. She couldn’t remember any conversation. She knew that Margaret’s father raised her and that she spent a lot of time outside on the farm, but the young minister had never thought to ask her about her mother and what had happened or where she was from.
“And she wants to go there?” Charlotte asked, sounding surprised. “And now?” She shook her head. She didn’t understand what her friend needed.
“I think it’s something she’s wanted for some time but never asked anybody to take her or go with her.”
“Does she still have family there?” Charlotte wanted to know.
Jessie thought about this question. She and Louise had discussed this as well. She had even asked Margaret the very same thing. “She doesn’t think so. Distant cousins, maybe, but there’s no one she recalls or even wants to see.”
“Then what is this about?” Charlotte had lots of questions since this didn’t seem like Margaret at all. She had never known her friend to want to take a trip on such short notice. In fact, except for a cruise that Margaret mentioned taking after her husband died, she didn’t recall Margaret ever talking about taking any trip or vacation.
“She hasn’t really said,” Jessie responded. “She just wants to go.”
“It’s only a week before Christmas,” Charlotte said.
“I know,” Jessie said. “Will it be a hardship for you to take off and meet us there?” she asked. “I just think it would mean a lot for her to have you there too.”
Charlotte didn’t hesitate. “Of course I will be there. Do you know when you might arrive?”
Jessie waited before answering. She hadn’t considered all the arrangements that she was going to have to make. “Well, if we can leave over the weekend, we should be able to get to Goodlett by the twenty-third. Beatrice is getting us a van and Louise is trying to make hotel reservations. I’m calling you and supposed to talk to the doctor and make sure of everything we might need if she gets sick. At this point, he didn’t seem to think it would be a problem.”
Charlotte didn’t respond. She was thinking about everything Jessie was saying. “Did Margaret ask you about this?” she asked.
“No,” Jessie replied. “Not at first. At first it was James’s idea.”
“James?” Charlotte asked. “Why did James know what Margaret wanted?”
“He just guessed. Margaret had told me about Goodlett and wanting to visit and never getting there. She said something about her mother and Christmas and how it had been the most wonderful Christmas she had ever had but she didn’t say she wanted to go. But surprise of surprises, he was right. When I brought it up to Margaret, she cried. And she said it was exactly the thing she wanted for Christmas.”
“That’s amazing that he could figure that out,” Charlotte said.
“Yep, he has a gift.”
“So, you get to Goodlett, Texas, and then what?” Charlotte wanted to know.
“Well, that part is up to Margaret.” Jessie paused. “She wants to go to some church and she wants to go to her mother’s grave.”
Charlotte nodded. Now it was starting to make sense. “She’s going to make some peace, isn’t she?”
“Looks that way,” Jessie replied.
“Well.” Charlotte was considering what she needed to do to make the trip to meet her friends. “I will need to get some things taken care of here but I should be able to meet you by Tuesday. It probably won’t take me a couple of days to drive there.”
She pulled out the road atlas she kept on a shelf behind her desk. She opened it to Texas and starting looking for the place Jessie had mentioned. “As soon as I can find Goodlett…where is it again?” she asked.
“Go across Oklahoma on Interstate 40,” Jessie instructed. She was studying her map too.
“Okay, I got that,” Charlotte responded.
“Now, just as you cross the border, drop down, going south on Highway 83.”
“To Childress?” Charlotte asked.
“Right,” Jessie said. “Then take Highway 287 east.” She waited for a second. “Do you see it?” she asked.
“No,” Charlotte answered. “It isn’t on this map.” She shook her head. “How far does it look to be from Childress?”
“Ten or fifteen miles, maybe,” Jessie noted.
“I’ll find it, I’m sure. And there probably aren’t too many cemeteries in that little town too. We’ll find each other. Do you have my cell phone number?” Charlotte asked.
“Yes,” Jessie replied. “We’ll touch base along the way, okay?”
“Perfect,” Charlotte said as she closed the map. “Do you think we can find a place there we can stay?”
“Well, I suppose if not, we’ll get back on the interstate until we find something. Maybe we can look in Childress if there isn’t anything in her hometown.”
Charlotte thought about hotels and wondered if she could check on the computer to find a place for them to stay. She decided that she could think about that later. She closed the map. Then she needed to ask the question she had been putting off. “She’s nearing the end, isn’t she?”
Jessie waited. She knew how hard it was for Charlotte to think about losing Margaret. “I think so,” she finally responded.
There was a pause between the two friends.
“I don’t know exactly what this trip is about but I have some idea it’s something she needs to do before she can die,” Jessie remarked.
“In peace,” Charlotte added.
“In peace,” Jessie repeated.
“I remember one time that she told me that peace was the one spiritual gift she felt had eluded her all of her life. She said that she felt as if her entire life had something blocking that from her and she never quite understood what it was.”
Jessie considered what Charlotte was telling her. She had always thought of Margaret as a peaceful person, but she realized then that based upon what Charlotte was saying, Margaret had apparently never completely felt that way. It saddened her a bit to think her best friend had never known that sense of contentment.
“Well, I guess she’s figured it out now,” Jessie said. “And that’s always a good thing, isn’t it?”
“And it’s in Texas,” Charlotte noted with a smile.
“Goodlett, a place that isn’t even on the maps. And we’ll find it for her on Christmas.”
Charlotte laughed a bit. “I have thought of a lot of places I would like to go for Christmas. I thought of Europe and Costa Rica, but I have to confess, I have never thought of Goodlett, Texas.”
“Who knew?” Jessie said.
The two women thought about what they were planning and chuckled a bit more.
“Okay, I’ll call you when we’re ready to leave, and maybe by then I’ll have a little more information about where we’re staying and how long it will take us to get there.”
“That’s fine,” Charlotte said. “I’ll see if I can find anywhere for us to stay while we’re there and I will plan to meet you somewhere in Goodlett, Texas, next week.” She paused. “Thank you, Jessie, for doing this for Margaret, for doing this for me.”
“That’s what friends are for,” Jessie replied. “And I figured you would want to be there.”
“You figured right,” Charlotte said.
“Then we’ll see you soon.”
“Okay, good-bye, Jessie.”
“Good-bye, Charlotte.”
When Charlotte glanced up as she was putting the receiver back on the phone base, she noticed that the shelter’s newest client, Rachel, was standing in her doorway. Charlotte could see how much better she was doing, how her bruises were healing, how much better she was walking now, without the use of crutches.
“You need some help with the par
ty?” she asked.
“Oh, sure, that would be great,” Charlotte replied. “We need some snacks and desserts. Do you cook?”
“I can bake a plain cake and I can make a real nice icing. My grandmother taught me.”
Charlotte smiled.
“It’s caramel,” Rachel noted. “Is that okay for Christmas?”
“Of course,” Charlotte replied.
The young woman stayed standing at the door. Charlotte could tell that she wanted to say something else. Charlotte waited.
Rachel glanced around the office and then asked, “You going to Texas?”
Charlotte smiled. She wondered if the young woman had been listening to her conversation with Jessie. “Yeah,” she replied. “A friend of mine wants to see her family,” she added.
“Where she from?” Rachel asked.
Charlotte could hear the Texan accent more clearly now. She realized that she liked it. She didn’t hear it too much, and the Southern drawl made her a bit homesick for her family and friends.
“Goodlett,” Charlotte replied. “You know of it?” She remembered that Rachel was from Childress, the town that Jessie had used as a reference point.
“Sure, I heard of Goodlett,” Rachel responded. She leaned against the door frame. “Not much there,” she noted.
“Yeah, I guess not. I can’t even find it on my map,” Charlotte explained.
Rachel smiled. “It’s fourteen miles south of where I grew up,” she said. “I used to go with a boy from Goodlett.”
“Oh,” Charlotte was intrigued. This was the most information that her new client had shared since arriving at the shelter more than a month earlier.
“You from Texas?” Rachel asked Charlotte.
“No, North Carolina,” she replied. “You hear my Southern flavor?” she asked.
Rachel smiled. “I knew you weren’t from here.”
“How did you know that?” Charlotte asked.
Rachel shrugged. “Just the way you talk. It’s slow.” She paused. “I like it,” she added.
Charlotte smiled. “I was thinking the same thing about the way you talked. I’m glad to hear more of it today.” She opened the map back up to find out where fourteen miles south of Childress took her. She slid her finger down the highway line and stopped. There was in fact a tiny name written just where Jessie had said. She had simply missed it.
“You spend a lot of time with this boyfriend from Goodlett?” Charlotte asked. She was thinking about how long the trip would take her from Gallup.
“Not so much really. He was nice. I was just looking for my way out of Childress. Goodlett wasn’t far enough away for me.”
Charlotte nodded.
“His daddy bought a cotton gin there,” she explained. “But I think he was going to turn it into a trailer park.”
“Hmmm. That sounds nice.” Charlotte didn’t quite know what to say. “My friend Margaret,” she said, “her mother was from there but she’s been dead a long time.”
Rachel nodded. “She wanting to visit the grave?” she asked.
“I think so,” Charlotte said. She hesitated. “She’s sick,” she added. “I think she wants to go and see her mother before she dies.”
Rachel nodded again. “I understand that,” she said. “I used to go down to my grandmother’s grave every day. I talked to her. I bought her new flowers every week but I went to see her every day. She was the only one I was ever able to talk to.”
“How old were you when she died?” Charlotte asked.
“Fourteen,” Rachel answered. “She raised me. She and my uncle Nestor.”
The young woman walked into the office.
Charlotte gestured for her to sit down in the chair across from her desk. She was glad that Rachel was opening up. “I guess you miss her,” Charlotte surmised.
“Yep,” Rachel responded.
And then Charlotte had an interesting idea. She sat up a bit in her chair. “You want to go with me?” she asked.
Rachel stared at Charlotte. “To Childress?” she asked.
Charlotte shrugged.
“I never thought about going back,” Rachel responded. “I just thought I never could go back once I left.”
“Why would you think that?” Charlotte asked, surprised at Rachel’s comment. “Why would you think you could never go back?”
“I just thought I had made such a mess of things that nobody would want me back.”
“Your uncle still there?” Charlotte asked.
Rachel nodded. “And my sister.” She hesitated. “She’s older than me, just a couple of years, but we haven’t spoken to each other in a long time.”
“Why?” Charlotte asked. She was glad to have her newest client talking so much, and since she didn’t know if Rachel would ever open up again like this, she thought she would keep asking her questions.
Rachel shrugged. “I’m not sure now,” she replied honestly. “Rainey was sixteen and she wanted to get out of town more than me, so she left. After that, when she called I wouldn’t talk to her because it made me so mad that she left me.” The young woman folded her arms across her chest.
“You ever see her again?” Charlotte asked.
Rachel nodded her head. “Once,” she answered.
Charlotte waited for the explanation.
“She came back to town before I left with Roy, tried to get me not to go.” She fidgeted a bit in her seat.
“Is Roy the boy who beat you up?” Charlotte asked.
Rachel nodded. “Rainey knew about him. She knew he would kill me, so when she heard that I had took up with him, she came back to try and get me not to leave with him.”
Charlotte slid her elbows on the desk and leaned her face into her hands. She was glad to hear Rachel talking so much. It surprised her because the young woman had been silent for so long.
“But you went anyway?” Charlotte asked.
Rachel grinned. Her front tooth was still broken where Roy had hit her in the face with a baseball bat. “I’m kind of hardheaded,” she confessed.
Charlotte smiled.
“So, your sister is the one back in Texas and you’re the one who left?” she asked.
Rachel shrugged. “I guess,” she replied.
“Don’t you want to see her?”
She gave another shrug. “I don’t know,” she replied. “I guess I never thought about it.”
“Well, I’m leaving next week for a town fourteen miles south of Childress to see a friend of mine who is dying. You are welcome to ride along with me and I will drop you off in your grandmother’s town and pick you up on my way back, or you can go with me to Goodlett and see your old boyfriend.”
Rachel smiled. “I might just think about it,” she replied.
“Good enough.” And the phone rang, pulling Charlotte back into the job and the multiple tasks at hand. “Tell Tempest what you need for the cake and she can pick the stuff up at the grocery store when she goes.”
“Okay,” Rachel responded. And for the first time, she actually seemed at ease with herself and the place where she had landed.
Lemon Lavender Pound Cake
3 cups flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ pound butter
½ cup vegetable shortening
3 cups sugar
5 large eggs
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon lavender
1 teaspoon lemon extract
Sift flour, salt, and baking powder together. Cream butter and vegetable shortening thoroughly. Add sugar a little at a time, creaming well after each addition. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each egg. Add sifted flour mixture and milk alternately, beginning and ending with flour. Add lavender and lemon flavorings. Bake in a tube pan at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 20 minutes or until done.
Chapter Thirteen
Tell her it’s Beatrice Witherspoon from Hope Springs, North Carolina,” Beatrice was trying again to reach the famous Cake Lady by
phone. Since the first phone call when she talked to some assistant, she hadn’t been able to get past this person she assumed was the receptionist at the studio.
“Do you know if she’s gotten my letters?” Beatrice asked, sounding a bit helpless. “Well, do you know if she’s made a decision about the contest?”
The woman on the other end was of no help at all to Beatrice.
“No, I don’t want to leave a message. I’ve left a hundred messages and no one will call me back.” She blew out a breath and hung up the phone.
She didn’t know how she was going to follow through on her promise to have the Cake Lady serve as the judge for the contest. Here it was only a few days before Christmas, the cake cookbooks had been printed and were “out on the market,” as Louise said; and her phone, when she wasn’t trying to reach the woman in New York, was ringing off the hook with people wanting to know which cake was the winning recipe.
She had even gotten a call from the prison. That hadn’t happened in a long time, not since she stopped writing a few of the inmates. It seemed that one of the men had heard about the contest and sent Louise a recipe. Beatrice had found it in the cookbook. It was for Lemon Lavender Pound Cake and it actually sounded pretty tasty. But now he was calling Beatrice as well. He wanted to know, if he won, whether he would need to arrange a work release permit to bake his cake on the television show.
This whole thing was turning out to be a huge mess and Beatrice knew it. She sat by the phone as it rang and chose not to answer it. She couldn’t take being asked the same question one more time.
She knew she should have listened to her husband and even Louise. She should have simply admitted that she made a mistake and that the Cake Lady wasn’t going to judge the contest, and made arrangements for some other kind of prize, a kind of prize that she could manage.
Beatrice could have managed a small cash prize; even the pastor of the church had said there was a little money left over in the miscellaneous budget. She knew she could have gotten an article in the Greensboro paper. She could have managed getting the cake featured in the local bakery or served at the church Christmas pageant. At the very least, she could have put the recipe and the winner in the church newsletter. She could have found some suitable prize that would have been acceptable to all those who entered a recipe in the contest.
