She opened the bottom drawer of Patrice’s chest to find a tangled mess of sweat bottoms, socks, and underwear—unfolded and rolled up together like she’d taken them straight from dryer to drawer. Her tongue made noises like a mad wet hen as she gathered what Patrice asked for and folded it neatly into a pile. The closet floor wasn’t a bit better with high heels, sneakers, boots, and house shoes all thrown in a big pile. No wonder she was late getting to work every morning.
Carlene’s organizational skills were a little bit better but not much. Her shoes were lined up neatly but her dresser drawers were jumbled up with nightshirts, sweats, and T-shirts all stirred up together. She held up a faded nightshirt and clucked a few more times. If Carlene was wearing that pitiful thing to bed with Lenny…well, it did make her wonder.
She packed it all into her suitcase and carried it out to the car. Maybe they’d have the cleaning all done when she got back. The car engine started up with a purr and she backed out of the driveway and pointed the car in the direction of the convenience store. Cadillac hadn’t had a real supermarket in years. The one where the CNC now stood had been put out of business when the big supermarkets and Walmart went in up in Sherman. It just couldn’t compete with the prices.
Then it hit her like a tornado. Who was going to make chili for the cook-off since the mamas were sick?
“But we’ve got four weeks until we have to present the winning pot of chili and they’ve all gone home so when they get well, they could work out of any one of their kitchens. They’ll be over the flu in a week and they can figure out the recipe then.” She brushed a lonesome tear away from her cheek.
Kim pushed out of the store as Alma Grace started in.
“Were you talkin’ to me?” Kim asked. She wore hot-pink sweats with rhinestones spelling out “cowgirl” down the side of one leg, a pink zipped-up hoodie that stretched across her boobs, and her brown hair was still damp from a fresh cut at Stella’s place.
“No, I was just whining to myself. My mama is sick with the flu,” Alma Grace said.
“Oh, honey, I heard that Jamie already got a private nurse to go back and forth among the three of them and that the doctor is making house calls. Have you heard anything more from Josie? Can I help in any way?”
Alma Grace shook her head. “Not a thing but I’ve had my flu shot so I’m going to visit her whether she likes it or not. We are disinfecting the whole house and the shop. You want to help clean?”
Kim’s hazel eyes glittered. “I would but I’ve promised to help Isaac straighten the Bibles and hymn books and clean out those little places on the back of the pews where they go. People put things like gum wrappers and leave toys in them and they have to be cleaned every week. But promise you’ll call me. My cousin can’t go in the room. She’s just a receptionist and we’re all just dying to know what’s going on in there. A nurse told my cousin that Josie made them pull the curtain between her and Violet and refuses to even look at her.”
“Well,” Alma Grace said slowly, “Violet sneezed on her and she says that’s what made her sick.”
“Didn’t any of those old gals get their flu shots?”
“I don’t know about Violet and Agnes but Josie said she wasn’t takin’ no flu shot, that she hadn’t been sick in forty years, not since she was ten years old and got the chicken pox,” Alma Grace said. Maybe if she talked longer, she wouldn’t have to clean as much.
Kim leaned in and whispered, “I heard that Kitty Lovelle didn’t take it and neither did Beulah Landry. But Jack is taking her to the clinic right now and making her get one. She came out of her house wearing a surgical mask a while ago and got into the car with Jack. I bet none of them bypass it next year. Don’t forget to call me on your way home from the hospital. And tell Josie hello for me. I’d send some cookies or food but I guess she wouldn’t want to eat anything.”
“I’d wait until she gets home and take her some kind of light soup,” Alma Grace suggested.
“Good idea,” Kim said. “See you tomorrow in church?”
“Sure but I’m not singing in the choir,” Alma Grace told her.
“Me, neither.” Kim giggled. “Want to do lunch afterwards?”
“Have to take a rain check on the lunch. I’m going to see about Mama soon as services are over,” Alma Grace answered.
“Give her a hug for me. We’ll miss her in church.”
Alma Grace had two bags in each hand when she pushed her way into the kitchen. A load of towels, still warm from the dryer, was piled on the table. The washer was running and the dryer humming with sheets, and still the floor was covered with more laundry waiting to be done.
Patrice called down from the second floor. “Is that you, Alma Grace?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Start folding and keep the laundry going. I looked up the flu bug and it can live forty-eight hours on slick surfaces and twelve on porous surfaces. We’re wiping down everything up here with those disposable wipes you brought,” she yelled down. “And you did good getting the ones that say they’ll kill flu viruses, even if they were more expensive.”
“I’ll change and get right on it,” she yelled back. “I’ll put the suitcase with y’all’s sweats in it at the bottom of the stairs.”
Forty-eight hours.
They should be in fine shape to open up for business on Monday.
Forty-eight hours. Maybe Macy would get it and be too weak to sing at the Easter program.
Chapter 13
Patrice dressed up in her best jeans and a cute little jacket with rhinestones on the pockets and across the back yoke.
Carlene had already left to spend the day with her mother. Hopefully, the flu vaccines they’d all had would keep them well through the epidemic plowing right through Grayson County with the heaviest count being right from Cadillac.
The doctors said Josie might come home on Monday. Alma Grace promised that she’d come sit with her a spell that evening and that she’d bring her a slushy from the nearest convenience store.
Patrice raised an eyebrow when Alma Grace stepped into the living room. “You going to church or are you speaking at the local hooker organization?”
She wore a bright red short dress that fit like spray paint, red high heels, and clunky silver jewelry. A perky little red hat with a fluffy illusion bow at the back sat at a jaunty angle on top of her curly hair and big silver hoops dangled from her earlobes.
“I’m not singing in the choir but I want Kitty and Lenny Lovelle to know that I’m in church. I’m sitting on the front row this morning where they can see me real good. And where are you going all dressed up?”
“To Yancy’s family reunion. I was going to cancel but Daddy says that I should go because all Mama is doing is sleeping a lot. Why are you sitting on the front row and not in the choir?”
“It’s a secret but I want them to know who did it and not be able to prove a thing. You’ll know when it happens.” Alma Grace smiled.
“You’d better get going. It takes at least five minutes to drive there, five minutes to park and get in, and it’s getting close to eleven o’clock,” Patrice said.
A sly grin tickled the corners of Alma Grace’s cute little bow mouth. “I want to walk in right in the middle of the first song.”
“A hint?”
“Not even a whisper of a hint. Now it’s time to go. See y’all tonight. Don’t wait up. You going by to see Aunt Tansy when you come home?”
“I’m going by before we go. I’m leaving Yancy in the truck. I sure don’t want him to catch anything since he did not get the flu shot.”
***
Timing was everything.
The choir was standing. With her back to the congregation and waving her hands around, the choir director didn’t even know what was going on behind her. Alma Grace did not slip in and quietly slide into a back pew.
Both wooden doors swung open and she used the center aisle like a fashion runway, singing in a beautiful soprano voice all the way to the fro
nt pew. She slowed her walk so that she sat down on the last note of the song and crossed her legs.
The choir director turned, saw Alma Grace, and suddenly spiky horns replaced her imaginary halo and her angel wings disappeared. At least, that’s the way Alma Grace saw it.
For several minutes she didn’t say a word and then she cleared her throat. “We’ll go on to sing”—she looked down at the program and coughed—“to sing, I’m sorry, this is when the choir will sing a special number and then Brother Isaac will speak to us.”
Yes, sir, timing was everything.
Alma Grace recognized the prelude to “Satan’s River.” After the first line that said Satan had a river that was deep and wide, she stood up, turned around to face the congregation, raised her arms toward the ceiling, and began singing with the choir.
Not everyone in the church had heard the gossip about her being ousted from the Easter program so they took that as a sign they were supposed to stand up and sing along. The rest of the congregation sure wasn’t going to be left sitting, so up they popped, also. When the lyrics said that big yachts were sailing on Satan’s river and never stopped to think about God’s golden rule, the congregation was clapping and singing to the top of their lungs, drowning out the choir.
Before she sat back down, she blew kisses at the congregation and looked up with an angelic smile into the preacher’s face. From the pew right behind her, Kim touched her on the shoulder and gave her a thumbs-up sign.
“Well, now I’d say that was lively singing this morning.” Isaac smiled. “Thank you, Alma Grace, for getting in the spirit. Before I begin my sermon, I’d like for us all to take sixty seconds to pray silently for the members of our congregation who have contracted this horrible flu. All of the Fannin sisters have come down with it and our prayer angels will be meeting an extra day this week to pray for the sick. So if you are interested in joining them, please contact Floy after church today.”
He bowed his head and everyone did the same.
Alma Grace shut her eyes and prayed that God would heal her mama and her aunts and that she would hear an okay to the plans she would set in motion that day. It didn’t take a whole minute so she looked up to find Macy Bardeen glaring at her from the second row in the choir.
Alma Grace graced her with a beautiful smile and a little toodle-oo wave.
Isaac raised his head, leaned forward until his lips were practically kissing the microphone, and said in a loud booming voice, “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord!”
Well, shit! Pardon me, Lord, but that just pisses me off, Alma Grace thought and then looked around to be sure she hadn’t said the words out loud.
Isaac backed away from the microphone and dropped his voice to a whisper. “It doesn’t matter how mad we are at our neighbor or our brother, even if he or she is riding down the Satan’s river on that big yacht. Not even if the yacht has pretty flashing lights, plenty of fun and liquor, and he or she is breaking a multitude of the commandments, vengeance does not belong to us. Revenge is a disease and it cannot be let run rampant or it will consume us as Christians.”
Can’t I change your mind, Lord? She’s a real turd and just this one time, won’t you look the other way, God? I already bought the bottle of wine and do you know how much trouble it was for me to get it out of the convenience store without anyone seeing? Alma Grace argued with her conscience.
Isaac grabbed the microphone and held it close to his mouth. If Grandpa Dean was snoring in the back pew, he was rudely awakened when Isaac yelled, “God said no! You are not to be a vengeful person.”
Alma Grace sighed. Okay, then, God, you can’t talk much louder than that. I won’t do it but I expect to see some results. It’s your job. I did my job and prayed about it. You said no, so get on with it. I’ll slip the wine up in the cabinet tonight and my cousins will think the other one bought it. What if I don’t actually send it to Lenny but just leave it on his porch? Then it would be up to him whether or not he actually drinks it, right?
Isaac went on. “God will never say yes to someone who wants revenge. He is a kind and loving heavenly father who cannot put his seal of peace upon a heart like that.”
Alma Grace pasted a smile on her face but there was a frown in her heart. Okay, okay! I get it. No is no and it won’t ever be yes no matter how much I pout and beg.
The sermon went on and on but Alma Grace had lost interest. The answer had been given and the promise made and God could probably rain down coals of fire much hotter than she had in mind, anyway. She just had to have a little faith.
She stared at Macy, making her so uncomfortable that she either looked at the back of the church or the ceiling. Then she turned her gaze on Floy, already glowering at her with so much fire that Alma Grace was glad there was a back door in the church. If that old witch set fire to the pew with her mean looks, then Alma Grace would lead the stampede through the back door.
When services were over, the back row folks filed out first, shook Isaac’s hand, and made a beeline for the café down on Main Street for Sunday dinner. Those on the front rows had to wait their turn and often had to wait for a parking place and a table when they finally got to the café. But Alma Grace didn’t mind a bit because the choir left by way of the back door, hung up their black and white robes, and then came back out to wait in line to have a word with the preacher.
Since she sat on the front row and since Macy and Floy were the first ones out of the choir room, they had no choice but to fall in behind her.
“What you did when we were singing was unforgivable,” Floy whispered.
Alma Grace turned around and hugged her. The woman tried to fight her way out of the embrace but Alma Grace hung on like a Saturday night drunk that didn’t want to fall.
“Don’t push me,” she whispered.
“Let go of her,” Macy hissed.
Alma Grace did and hugged Macy even tighter. “I will forgive you because God says I have to, but I don’t like you for stealing my wings and halo,” she whispered. “You will never know how lucky or unlucky you are. I guess it’s all in how you look at it and how you study it after it happens.”
She didn’t need to shake Isaac’s hand or to tell him that the sermon was great that morning. It wasn’t all that wonderful, anyway. Even if God took care of the vengeance, she had wanted to teach Macy a lesson. Now, she wouldn’t be able to take a bit of the glory.
Alma Grace had barely gotten past Floy’s evil looks when the woman sneezed like an overweight elephant, blowing it right in Macy’s direction. She quickly grabbed a bottle of disinfectant wipes from her purse and cleaned her hands. “I’m so sorry. That came out of nowhere. I usually don’t sneeze like that.”
“She sure doesn’t,” Alma Grace said. “She always sounds like a mouse. Clean those hands good! You wouldn’t want to give Macy or the preacher the flu,” Alma Grace said.
“It’s allergies. I haven’t been sick in years,” Floy said tersely.
Alma Grace looked up at the ceiling. “Yes, sir, what you promise, you do deliver. Thank you for allowing me to see your glory. Amen.”
“You are thanking God for my allergies?” Floy frowned.
“Yes, ma’am, I am. Y’all have a wonderful day, now.”
She kicked off her shoes when she got into her car, fastened the seat belt, and was about to turn the key when someone tapped on her window. She looked up into the eyes of the deputy who had delivered the divorce papers.
He made a motion for her to roll down the window. “Alma Grace Magee?”
“Yes, sir. Did I park in a wrong spot or something? Please don’t tell me you think I stole all those cookers.”
He smiled. “No, ma’am. A sweet little thing like you couldn’t lift all those heavy cookers and I don’t think your conscience would let you break into businesses and homes. I’m in uniform because I just finished a shift but I’m off duty. I don’t have your number but Jack Landry had Carlene’s and she said that you’d be here right now.” It came out in
a rush as if he couldn’t get the words out fast enough.
“Okay,” she said.
“I’m a deputy sheriff but I’m also a youth director over in Luella. I’ve planned a wiener roast tonight and we’ll be making s’mores, too, out beside the farm pond at my folks’ ranch. I was wondering if you’d like to go with me,” he said.
A date after nearly a year of famine? And Floy had sneezed on Kitty and Lenny, too?
Life was good. God had not forsaken her completely.
“I’d love to,” she said.
“Good, I don’t know where you live. Directions please? I could pick you up at six thirty.”
She told him how to get to Patrice’s place.
“Wear jeans, a jacket, and boots. My truck is in the shop for repairs so we’ll have to go on my motorcycle. Is that a problem?”
Alma Grace gulped. “It isn’t a problem at all.”
Even if the gossip burned down the town, she would be sitting behind a sexy off-duty deputy on his motorcycle that very evening.
She drove straight to Gigi’s house and barely knocked before she pushed the door open. Carlene and her Uncle Hank were sitting in the living room, each with a beer in their hands. “How’s Aunt Gigi? And who gave you permission to tell people where I am? That deputy came right to the church. Everyone in the parking lot saw him tap on my window. I bet they’re already spreading tales that we really stole those cookers and Jack was covering for us.”
Carlene patted the sofa beside her. “Sit down. Have you had lunch? There’s stew on the stove. It was that last batch of chili that made so many people sick but it’ll only last a couple of days. Don’t you dare tell anyone but the doctor says they’ve got food poisoning, not the flu like Agnes and Josie have contracted. Mama would just die if anyone knew. Now tell me about the deputy. I hope he asked you out on a date. He was sexy and sweet both.”
The Red-Hot Chili Cook-Off Page 17
