Betty's (Little Basement) Garden

by Laurel Dewey

  Judi self-consciously looked down at her lithe waist. “Oh, right. I bought them at the same time. Just haven’t worn them around you, I guess. Quite an eye for detail!”

  “Yes,” she picked up the menu, “I seem to be seeing a lot of things more acutely lately.”

  Judi noticed that Helen was about to take a pill from a tiny ceramic pillbox she’d brought out from her jacket pocket. “Oh, honey,” Judi quickly said to Helen, “you already took your pill. Remember?”

  “I took the pink one, right?” Helen asked, rooting through the rainbow of pills in the box. “I have to take the tan one now. Can you tell them apart? This sun is bleaching out all the colors.”

  Judi reached over, found the tan pill and handed it to Helen who downed it with water. The waiter popped over to announce the specials, none of which interested Helen, who wanted to know what dishes were not spicy, not salted and free of cheese. For someone who supposedly “adored” this place, she certainly seemed vexed. Before leaving, he laid out a warm basket of fresh bread and two side plates, one drizzled with olive oil and the other heaped with whipped butter.

  He left and Betty piped up. “I think we need to change the name of our group.” She helped herself to a center slice of bread and heaped on a large dollop of butter.

  “Why?” Judi asked.

  “P.R.W.G. could leave us open for some rather crude play on words.”

  Judi thought about it. “Like what?”

  “I’d rather not say.” Betty took a generous bite of bread and glanced at the menu.

  “Oh, Betty, you can be so prim sometimes.” Judi stole another sip of wine and leaned closer to Betty, speaking in a hushed tone. “Is that why you’re afraid of getting to know Tom Reed?”

  “I thought we were done with that conversation, dear,” Betty replied, keeping her eyes on the menu and enjoying another butter-drenched bite of bread.

  “God, honey, aren’t you afraid of all that cholesterol?”

  Betty savored the salty taste of butter against her tongue. “Not really. I’m famished. God, this tastes divine!” She lifted the basket toward Helen. “Helen darling, try some with the butter.”

  “No, thanks,” Helen said with a scowl. “I don’t want to have a stroke on my birthday.”

  Judi sat back. “How’s your neck, Betty?”

  Betty looked up and realized she hadn’t had one problem with her neck, jaw or ear in days. “It’s actually quite good,” she said.

  “So, Roger’s pills worked! Great! I told you he could fix you up! Aren’t muscle relaxants fun?”

  “Every time I take them,” Helen offered, “I can’t feel my tongue.”

  “Are you kidding?” Judi insisted. “They’re awesome! When you find something that works, it’s like a good friend you can always rely on. Hey, when I was a young mom and had to take the boys for long, road trips in the car, I’d give them each a healthy dose of cherry-flavored cough syrup. Knocked their asses right out and presto chango, peace and quiet.”

  Betty stared at Judi. “Good God, Judi. You got them drunk?”

  “It wasn’t prescription! It was just extra-strength, jacked-up, cherry cough syrup.” She took a sip of wine. “Too bad you can’t buy that brand anymore. Something about too many lawsuits. God, people are too damn litigious these days.”

  “They stopped selling it, because it was cherry flavored booze for babies,” Betty countered.

  “Hey, I had four boys. Four. And they were eighteen months apart. Little stair steps, my mother-in-law used to call them.” Judi swallowed another hearty sip of wine. “Riding in the car with those monsters was like recreating the Battle of Bunker Hill every damn time. So I gave ‘em a little cherry flavored, somethin’-somethin’. So what? It worked. I’d drive in peace, they napped and they’d arrive at the destination a little groggy, a little detached, but alive. They might not have been alive if I’d have had to put up with their crap for six, steady hours.”

  Suddenly, it made perfect sense to Betty why three of Judi’s four boys were alcoholics, and the fourth one owned a cherry orchard. “Mother’s little helper,” Betty added. “Valium for mommy and cherry-flavored cough syrup for the kids.” She looked up from the menu. “It’s all about escaping, isn’t it?”

  “What are you talking about?” Judi asked, her tone a tad terse.

  “The pain? A need to temporarily disconnect. Why do so many feel the need not to feel? It’s too bad all the things we can legally choose from don’t really offer us any insight or introspection. They just knock us out or deepen the pain when they wear off.”

  Helen and Judi regarded Betty with confused glances.

  “Well,” Judi piped up, “that lightened the mood! Where in the hell is Renée?”

  The waiter returned and Betty ordered a sparkling water with a lemon twist. Helen opted for room temperature water, no ice. She mumbled about not wanting to risk breaking a tooth on an ice cube. Judi ordered a second glass of red wine.

  Betty closed the menu and stared at the ornate leather cover with the gold-embossed lettering. Tracing her fingertips across the words, she fell into thought.

  “What is it?” Judi asked.

  “La Bella Vita,” she said in a distant voice. “The Good Life. What makes it a good life?”

  The waiter arrived with a fresh bottle of red as Judi drained her first glass and he refilled it. “I think the owners named it after some place in Italy they loved,” Judi offered.

  Betty turned to her. “No. I don’t mean this restaurant, Judi. I’m talking about life. What makes us get up in the morning and embrace the day? How do we fill our days, so that as we lay our head on the pillow, we can drift off to sleep and know it was a good day?”

  Judi stared at Betty perplexed. She reached over and placed a gentle hand on Betty’s wrist. “Oh, shit. Have you got cancer?”

  “Who’s got cancer?” Helen asked, briefly joining the conversation before ducking back into the scrap of shade.

  “No, I don’t have cancer.”

  “Then why in the hell are you talking like this?” Judi questioned.

  “Why is asking why we choose to do what we do every day, suspect?”

  Judi took a hearty gulp of wine. “I don’t know. It just seems unnecessary. If you stop to think about this kind of stuff too much, you just get morose.”

  Betty set down her menu. “I don’t agree. I need to feel useful. I always have. What’s the point of it all if you’re not useful to yourself or anyone else? I mean really, is life just all about maintaining a prize winning garden from May to October, decorating for the various holidays, giving and going to parties and get-togethers, lunching for hours, becoming addicted to mindless TV shows, and then feeling empty on Sunday because you don’t know anything more about yourself than when you woke up last Monday?”

  “Seriously?” Judi stressed, “you really don’t have cancer?”

  Betty shook her head. “I’m starting to understand how important it is to see what you don’t want to look at. I think it’s necessary to investigate various things in one’s life and even question them. Sometimes…the very thing we fight or protest against is exactly the thing we actually need or lack.” She was slightly amazed by her discovery. “Ha! How ironic!”

  “Hey, ladies!” Renée’s booming voice rang against the pavement as she quickly approached their table. In her usual manic fashion, Renée greeted each of the women, air kissing them and then erratically taking her seat as she placed her huge purse, phone and satchel on the ground next to her chair. She slapped her hands against the table. “We are here to celebrate, ladies!”

  “Yes! Helen’s birthday,” Betty chimed in.

  Renée temporarily lost her momentum. “Oh, right.” She dug into her satchel and pulled out a small, hastily wrapped gift with no card. “Happy birthday, Helen.”

  Helen unwrapped the gift to find a bold, green and black, paisley sheer scarf. She stared at it, saying nothing. Betty recognized the scarf immediately. She’d given
it to Renée several years ago. It was one thing to re-gift, but to re-gift in front of the initial giver took it to an entirely new level.

  “Now,” Renée stated, holding rank over them, “I have some incredible news to share with all of you. I don’t just write letters to editors, I make things happen! As of nine o’clock this morning, there is one fewer marijuana dispensary in Paradox!” She clapped her hands together, in a somewhat, self-congratulatory manner.

  Betty felt a ball form in her throat. “Which one?”

  “That monstrosity over by the market,” Renée said. “Nature’s Bud? Surprise, surprise, the owner was selling weed to someone who didn’t have a medical marijuana card and offered them psychedelic mushrooms as a back door purchase. This is exactly the kind of criminal activity we always knew existed in this pseudo-medical bullshit arena. So, a toast to us!” She raised her water glass.

  Judi and Helen clinked their glasses against Renée’s glass, while Betty simply lifted her glass a few inches.

  “To criminals!” Helen barked.

  “No, darling,” Renée gently reprimanded, “we’re not toasting to criminals. We’re toasting to the abolishment of these dope dens that increase crime in our neighborhoods and give kids the perfect gateway drug to the hard stuff like China White, Horse, Hillbilly Crack, Roofies, Ludes, Dexies, Blotters and Disco Biscuits.”

  Well, Betty figured, that pretty much covered the hard drugs on the other side of the professed gate. “Who tipped off the cops?” Betty asked.

  “You’re lookin’ at her, sweetheart!” Renée proudly exclaimed. “And we’re not talking secondhand information here, ladies. I heard it straight from the lips of the dim-witted bitch who did the illegal deed.”

  “When?” Judi asked, taking another sip of wine.

  “Yesterday, at my A.A. meeting. When they opened up the topic to the room, a certain woman confessed to us how she went in and scored some weed without a card and was offered magic mushrooms.” Renée rolled her eyes. “What an idiot! I thought she was smarter than that! Needless to say, she had to turn in her six-month sobriety chip!” There was a deviousness to that last statement; a kind of “gotcha” mentality.

  “Wait a second,” Betty interjected. “Isn’t the whole anonymous part of this group supposed to protect what people say in there? Isn’t that rather sacrosanct?”

  Renée guzzled her water again, spitting an ice cube back into the glass. “Hey, if someone mentioned they were diddling their kid, I’d report it too!” she replied in a case-closed tone. “Illegal activity is reported. Good God, this isn’t a confession between a priest and one of his flock! This is a bunch of drunks and drug addicts sitting around spilling their guts about their private nightmares. I mean, the woman who committed this felony at the dispensary should have known better! She’s constantly telling us in the meetings how street savvy she used to be. Good lord, her uncle was her pimp when she was twelve and her brother used to drive her to meet the johns!”

  “Renée!” Betty admonished. “It’s Alcoholics Anonymous. Not Alcoholics Revealed!”

  “Oh, Alana could give a shit –”

  “Alana?” Judi asked, wide-eyed. “Alana O’Donnell from Rotary?”

  Renée nodded with a tap to her nose to stress the unspoken affirmative answer.

  “Ladies! This is not acceptable!” Betty demanded, her Texas lilt issuing forth. “You can’t be exposing people like this. Especially people who obviously have some deep-seated issues –”

  “Yeah,” Renée cattily chuckled, “like giving lap dances to returning Iraq War Veterans as a ‘Welcome Home’ gift?”

  “Alana O’Donnell,” Judi mused out loud. “Shit. She still has two folding chairs I loaned her for a mixer. God only knows what depravity took place on them.”

  Betty sat back, disgusted by the direction of the conversation. Renée continued to chirp about the dispensary and poor Alana O’Donnell, as a line of traffic backed up on the street. A convertible came to a stop in traffic with its radio blaring loudly. The sound of Reverend Bobby Lynch’s voice could easily be heard. “A strong nation is not built on the shoulders of slackers and addicts who lack moral fiber!” he said. “I’m telling you that we’re heading down a slippery slope when we identify marijuana as medicine!” Betty felt as if she were sandwiched between two strident, agenda-seeking lecturers who lacked both harmony and compassion.

  “Who in the hell – ?” Renée barked, sternly turning to the sound of Lynch’s voice.

  “Reverend Lynch,” Betty replied.

  “I hate him!” Renée declared. “What a creepy pig! He’s so…ugly! Everything is ‘for Jesus’ or ‘the children.’ Just add either of those onto any sentence of his. ‘Collecting money, for the children.’ ‘Car wash, for Jesus.’ ‘Protecting the children, for Jesus’”

  “Shutting down the dispensaries,” Betty added, “for Jesus and the children.”

  “I know I’ve seen this scarf before,” Helen suddenly said, staring at Renée’s gift. “Or maybe I’ve just got sunstroke.”

  “Hey, Betty!” a voice rang out from the line of traffic.

  Renée turned and frowned. “Oh, Christ.”

  Betty turned. There was Peyton stopped behind a car, his head and upper body poking out of the sunroof in his Prius. There was no way not to see his bold “G.Y.O.” t-shirt, fluttering in the May breeze or his much shorter haircut.

  He waved and smiled. “Check out the crown, Betty! Got a trim on my lunch hour! See ya tonight!” The traffic opened up and he slid back into the driver’s seat.

  Betty turned back to the table, expressionless.

  “What’s ‘G.Y.O.?” Helen asked, squinting.

  “I believe it stands for God’s Youth Organization,” Betty said, thinking quickly.

  Renée let out a hard sigh. “Oh, Christ, Betty! Try ‘Grow Your Own.’ As in grass? And I’m not talking about lawn care.”

  So that’s what it stood for, Betty reckoned. “Really?”

  “What in the hell was that all about?” Renée asked with a stinging edge.

  “I told you outside of Peggy’s service. I’m mentoring the boy. He’s obviously a lost soul and I want to help him. As I said before you arrived, I want to be useful.”

  Judi took another sip of wine. It was clear to Betty she was already a little loose. “He looks terribly familiar, Betty. Almost a twin. Like a ghost from your past? Are you sure you want to drive down that road again?”

  Betty regarded Judi’s loaded statement with offense. Strange how none of her friends ever mentioned Frankie’s name or referenced him in any way. And now, right then, it was done in a manner that suggested something shameful or pointless. She took a tense sip of her fizzy water with a lemon twist. “I don’t want to just drive down that road, darling. I want to park on that road and put up a big tent with a sign that says, ‘Come in Peyton. Lunch is waiting. Have a seat and stay awhile.’” Her piercing comment brought any hopes of a jovial follow up to a screeching halt. She could have taken it back, but Betty never considered that option. She could have also stayed and suffered through lunch, feeling sick to her stomach the entire time. Instead, she gently tapped her lips with the napkin and slid her chair from the table. “I think I need to go now,” she said softly.

  The women stared at her in stunned unison. Well, Judi was a little less stunned due to her gradual descent into tipsiness.

  “What?” Judi questioned. “What did I say? Betty? Come on, stay!”

  Betty turned to Helen. “Happy birthday, darling. And enjoy your scarf. Even though the color and bold design is infinitely more suited for Renée’s skin tone than yours.” She glanced knowingly at Renée who slunk slightly in her chair.

  Betty didn’t feel one bit remorseful for her comment. Not for one damn second. In fact, while people may not actually laugh all the way to the bank, Betty Craven actually smiled all the way home. She was able to unload the metal sign with the Monroe quote, the T5 light and everything else from the grow store without a
ny suspicious eyes watching her. Once inside, she carried the metal sign and the light with the stand up to her bedroom. Betty determined that Marilyn’s sign looked best propped up on the bureau that faced her bed. She then temporarily set up the light in her bedroom closet and placed the three Centennial Blueberry clones underneath it. The blazing radiance and heat that emanated was profound in that small area. Betty checked the plants thoroughly for any sign of the dreaded “PM” Peyton warned her about earlier. Seeing nothing to worry about, she watered her new beauties and told them how gorgeous they were. She wasn’t sure, but it looked like of one them moved her leaf in appreciation.

  Walking out of her closet, she glanced up to the top shelf. The plain brown box was a little dusty and the label from the mortuary was curling a bit. Reaching up, she smoothed the label until it lay flat against the box. Betty stared at the container and then gently brought it down. Pointing the box toward the three plants, she smiled. “Look what your mother’s doing, sweetheart. Would you have ever guessed it?” She patted the box twice and reverently set it back up on the top shelf.

  Wandering down to the kitchen, she passed the credenza in the living room. She stared at the center drawer and decisively opened it, removing Frankie’s photo and resting it proudly on the table. “I would drive down that road for you again,” she whispered. “Screw them all!” She strode down the hallway, removing the white violet print from the wall. Walking back into the living room, she searched for the perfect place to hang it. She glanced at Frankie’s photo and set the framed print next to it, using several books to keep it propped up. “Much better,” she quietly said with a smile.

  She could have spent the next few hours in her garden weeding, but she had too much to learn. So the time was spent reading the “grow bible” Jeff gave her and watching more tutorials on the Internet. Later, she grabbed a quick bite and fed Ronald before heading off to Peyton’s house. A giddy excitement filled her in anticipation of what his grow operation would look like, as well as meeting the next three plants that would soon join the ones in her closet. She decided they were her “girls.” Yes, that’s what she’d call them from now on. Her girls. Her little divas that only two people knew about.