Blessings of Mossy Creek

by Debra Dixon

  “Do you have a moment?”

  Straley. There was no escape. No one had ever told me the gas station was haunted by the mortician on the hill. I sighed and nodded, removing my feet from the other garden chair so that he could sit down.

  He was jacketless, white shirtsleeves rolled up despite the cool air. His dress pants still looked fresh from the cleaners, though. He sat down, his face creased with worry.

  “What’s wrong, Zeke?”

  He sighed. “I’ve heard things that concern me, Argie.”

  I put the pad down, wary. “Oh yeah? Like what?”

  “Stupid gossip, that’s all. But gossip can hurt. If Katie Bell ever picks up on it —”

  “What are the gossips saying?”

  “That I’m spending the night with you and paying you for it.” Sweat glazed his forehead.

  I was on my feet and didn’t remember standing. “What?” I wanted to hit him. Then the humor of the situation got to me. I sat down again, laughing.

  Zeke, who had cringed a little when I jumped up and shouted, stared at me, astonished.

  “The hooker ballerina and the lovesick mortician,” I hooted.

  He looked a little hurt, and then his expression lightened, and he began to laugh, too. “The horny undertaker and the tango call girl.”

  “Sex, ballet, and funeral parlors — film at eleven.”

  Our howls gradually subsided to occasional giggles and snorts.

  “Isn’t it weird how things that aren’t funny can make you laugh when you’re tense?” He leaned back in his chair and looked up into the canopy of oaks.

  “Scared about the dance competition at the morticians’ convention?”

  “Not anymore,” he said. “I’ll look like I know what I’m doing, at least. I hate to look foolish, and I want to participate in everything.”

  “I know what you mean. I auditioned for some big roles and won because I wasn’t afraid to try.”

  He looked over at me, slouched in the chair and comfortably rumpled. “You’re not afraid now, are you? With all the talk and all. You’re. . .treating me like a friend. Most people keep their distance from me. They think I’m creepy, I guess. I don’t know anyone who would have done what you’re doing for me.”

  Touched, I only smiled, afraid to say anything that might ruin the moment.

  He gazed into space, lost in thought. “Argie,” he said after a long moment. “Did you know the wisteria vines have lifted your roof almost off on this corner? I don’t know why you like that noxious weed. It’s like encouraging kudzu.”

  I sighed and stood up.

  “Where you headed?”

  “To get my machete. Want to help?”

  “Wish I could,” he said. “I have to get back and finish a corpse.”

  And I had touched his hand. Eeew.

  “Argie, can I ask a favor? Do you mind if I bring someone to our class tonight?”

  “A girlfriend? Just teasing.” I rooted around in the tool bin next to the house and pulled out the machete, new but already nicked from use.

  “No,” he said seriously. “Joe Murdock. He’s the funeral director in Bigelow. He wants to compete in the tango competition, too, and he needs dance help, and I told him you could give him some pointers.”

  “If I teach Joe, will you stop pestering me to close my studio?”

  “No, but I’ll help you find a lovely new location for it.”

  I held up the machete. He paled and left.

  I sagged. How had I come to this? Argie Rodriguez, tango instructor to the funeral directors of Bigelow County.

  * * * *

  Zeke and Joe appeared at nine p.m., just as my spaghetti was ready. Joe turned out to be small and balding, with a tough beer belly and thick arms and shoulders. Despite his mortician’s uniform of dark suit, white shirt and blah tie, he looked ready for a fistfight.

  He looked at me, chin raised. “Is something wrong, Ms. Rodriguez?”

  I felt myself turn red. He’d caught me staring. “You don’t look like a funeral director.”

  A spark of humor lit his eyes. “It throws people. My customers never complain, though.” He and Zeke traded grins.

  Funeral parlor humor. I made a mental note to raise the fee for midnight dance lessons.

  I taught Joe the basics, but he was no Zeke Straley. Zeke immediately grasped new steps and performed them with grace. He seemed pleased when Joe stepped on my feet or collided with me, moving forward when he was supposed to move back.

  Joe smiled through his mistakes, and when Rudy appeared, fur ruffled, to see why I was yelping in pain, Joe made such a fuss over him that he won the old kitty as a friend for life.

  Afterwards, Joe said that he’d never had so much fun.

  “Most women are kind of weird about my line of work,” he said. “Sometimes they try to treat me as if I’m clergy, but that brings on a different kind of weirdness.”

  I understand their dilemma, I thought. Who wants to think, when a man caresses her, that his hands have been in a corpse’s stomach?

  I staggered into bed at three a.m., thinking that maybe there would be some mention of me in the mortician’s association newsletter.

  The next morning Jayne told me I needed to rest, and Sandy suggested cucumber slices for the bags under my eyes. She also asked me if I could use a little extra money, and offered to give me the phone number of a friend who needed a little light housework done.

  I didn’t know what to say, except thank you, and no. I was touched that they were worried about me. It gave me the warm feeling of being part of the community. On the other hand, it made me realize that I wasn’t the only person aware of my sense of impending doom regarding Zeke Straley.

  I had more offers for part time jobs. The resthome needed helpers in the cafeteria. The elementary school could use some temporary help with a new shipment of books. O’Day’s needed a waitress. My smile felt pasted on by the end of the week.

  It didn’t help things that two mothers canceled their little girls’ ballet classes. Both had legitimate reasons, or so it seemed, but the timing seemed suspicious, and one was seen entering the studio in Bigelow.

  I called Jayne to report the rumors about me and Straley.

  “Oh, that’s nothing,” Jayne said smoothly. “People are always wondering if I’m sleeping with someone. So far, the gossip has me grinding coffee beans with at least ten different Creekite bachelors. The age spectrum ranges from young Nail Delgado to old Ed Brady. Hey, I’ve got customers. I’ll talk to you later.”

  I hung up, baffled. In New York City there are too many people for one person to get so much attention. The folks of Mossy Creek must have nothing better to do.

  Late that night Zeke showed up with Joe again.

  “What can we do to make things better?” Joe asked earnestly. He had heard the gossip all the way in Bigelow. His eyes gleamed brighter than his bare scalp.

  That was it. I started to cry. “You want to help. All of the people offering me part-time jobs want to help,” I said between sobs. I was burbling like a toddler. “If everyone quit being so damned helpful, I’d be able to get something done.”

  “What do you want done?” Zeke asked. He kept lifting and dropping his arms like a helpless scarecrow in a stiff wind. “I dropped my complaint about the noise. I’m learning how to dance. I think we’ve even become friends, right?”

  I sobbed louder, taking in big gulps of air. My nose was stopped up so I breathed through my mouth. I probably looked awful, too. I do not cry pretty.

  Zeke turned to Joe, alarm on his face. “I think she’s lost it. What do we do?”

  “Flour and plaster absorb lots of liquids,” Joe suggested. “If we dust her, her tears might dry.”

  I stopped crying, distracted by the thought of the sorts of things Joe might have to dust with plaster on any given work day.

  “We can’t dust her with plaster,” Zeke quipped. “She’s alive. The stuff will eat her skin.”

  Feel
ing queasy, I slipped over to the stereo and turned the now-familiar tango music on, carefully avoiding looking into the mirrored wall. I’d had enough stress for one day.

  “Let’s dance, guys,” I said. All I’d ever wanted to do was run my own dance studio in a quiet little town. When the music librarian for the ballet had pointed out a travel magazine story about the notoriously colorful little Southern village with the motto, Ain’t going nowhere — and don’t want to, it had piqued my interest.

  One visit and I knew Mossy Creek was where I wanted to live. So here I was, stuck, my bridges burned behind me. Ahead of me, too, it seemed. I wasn’t going nowhere.

  Straley shook my hand gently as he left. “Don’t worry, Argie. Things have a way of working out,” he said. “I wouldn’t fret about the gossip, and we’ve only got two more days until the convention. Things will get back to normal. You’ll see.”

  “Thanks, Zeke,” I said, not believing him. He hadn’t said he’d stop pressuring me to move my studio.

  Two more kids dropped out the next day. I called Zeke and left a message on his answering machine, but he didn’t call back.

  On Thursday, the day before he was supposed to leave for the morticians’ convention in Orlando, Zeke appeared in the middle of the afternoon ballet class, tapping on the big glass window. The moms all turned around, then looked from me to him, wide-eyed.

  I told the girls to continue their barre exercises, and stepped outside. “Go around to the back room,” I said to Zeke. “Put on some headphones and practice your moves. I’ll join you as soon as I can.”

  “Headphones?” He snapped his fingers. “That’s the solution! Get all the kids to wear headphones, and then you won’t have to play the music so loud.”

  “It’s not loud,” I answered, closing the door.

  A few minutes later, I sneaked into the back room. “I’m granting you five minutes while my students take a break.”

  He gave me a thumbs up, then put his arms out. Since he was wearing the headphones, I danced a couple of steps to music only he could hear. Slight pressure on my right hand signaled me that he was about to dip me, and I let him lower me almost to the floor. It was perfectly done. He would be the star of the morticians’ conference. I left him to practice and ran back to finish leading the barre exercises.

  Jayne dropped by. “Watch out, the women of Mossy Creek are on their way.”

  “What?”

  “They were at my shop, discussing your problem with Zeke and how you need money, and that your students were dropping out and you were doing extreme things to make ends meet. They’ve decided to straighten you out. I think they’re planning an intervention.”

  “Intervention?” I whispered. “Isn’t that what they do to confront alcoholics and drug users?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Oh, my God.” I looked out the window. A big blue Cadillac was nosing into a parking spot, the driver visible only as two gnarled hands and a wisp of blue hair. Adele Clearwater. A leading meddler in the Mossy Creek social scene. She and Jayne had clashed during the Ingrid-Jayne feud. “They’re here.”

  I thought of Zeke dancing in my back room. There was no way he could hear my warning with his headphones on. Joe was supposed to stop by, too.

  Jayne made herself comfortable on the sofa. Matthew chortled and smiled and promptly became the center of attention among Jayne’s fellow mothers.

  I gave Jayne a what the heck is happening here? look.

  She grinned back.

  Ingrid Beechum came in and promptly took Matthew in her arms, followed by Adele, Pearl Quinlan and her cronies and other Creekite mavens. I turned off the music and led the girls in stretches. For a couple of minutes, the silence was interrupted only by my instructions and the murmur of the women who were now crowding the walls of my studio.

  A loud voice came from the other side of my bedroom door.

  “Hey, you stepped on my toe!”

  Everyone froze. It was a man’s voice.

  “That’s Joe Murdock’s voice in there,” Pearl said loudly. “He’s from Bigelow.”

  All eyes turned to me.

  “Class over, girls,” I said brightly. “Don’t forget to stretch every day.” I was anxious to get the little girls and their mothers out before the showdown began.

  There was a gasp from behind me. I whirled. Pearl and Ingrid walked over to the other side of the studio and opened the door, catching Zeke dipping Joe, whose bald head almost scraped the floor. The two men looked up, shocked, and Zeke dropped Joe, who lay there, looking at the crowd, upside down.

  “I’m okay,” he said.

  A woman screamed. Chaos took over as the little girls and women rushed to look.

  “Hysteria in the wisteria.” Jayne laughed. “I can see Katie Bell’s headline for The Bell Ringer column next week.”

  I felt like a toy boat in a rushing stream. The situation was out of my control.

  Zeke unplugged his headphones from the back room’s CD player, and the tango music swelled to fill the room. He stepped over Joe. The crowd parted as he came to me.

  “Let’s show them, Argie,” he whispered.

  “What about your reputation?”

  “About as shot as yours,” he said. “Let’s show them what a great teacher you are.”

  “This won’t put the gossip to rest.”

  “Oh? Trust me. I’m good at putting things to rest. A professional, in fact.” His eyes twinkled.

  We danced, faces serious, putting all of our concentration on the sexy, sinuous dance. The women crowded in, watching. As we turned, I saw that Joe was dancing with Jayne, who was coaching him on where to put his feet.

  “Hey, Argie, I want to learn to do that,” Pearl said.

  “Me, too. You’ve been holding out on us.” That was Ingrid.

  Soon the entire crowd was clamoring to learn the tango, the rumba, and the merengue. I found myself promising to start a weekly Latin dance class. Jayne rolled her eyes and I grinned, knowing I could count on her for some more midnight lessons.

  A small, plump, dark-haired lady in a suit plowed through the group, closely followed by a short man who looked Hispanic. He was dressed like a laborer in his Sunday best: hair slicked back, crisp, glaring white collared shirt and stiff new blue jeans with a big silver buckle on the belt.

  “Hi, Maria,” I called as Zeke and I executed a neat figure eight formation with intertwined steps.

  Maria watched us, eyebrows raised. “I found you a tango teacher, but I see it’s too late. This is Flaviberto Cespedes.”

  I shook hands with him. “Muchisimo gusto,” I said.

  Senor Cespedes seemed a little frightened by the sudden surge of women who surrounded him, demanding classes.

  I slipped outside, evading the congratulatory hugs and slaps on the back. I left Zeke to face the gossip alone, but I could see he was grinning, enjoying the praise. The tango CD segued into a wild Dominican merengue beat. I watched through the front window as little Flaviberto showed the women how to boogie, Latin style. He and Ingrid were face-to-bosom, hips gyrating. Her grin was incandescent. The rest of the women waited their turn. The little girls from my ballet class were dancing with each other. It looked like a crazy party.

  Zeke stepped outside, grinning at me. “Quite a guy, that Flaviberto,” Zeke said, We sat down on the bench.

  “I’ll have to put him on the payroll,” I said. “His chicken plucking days are over.”

  The sun was setting, and the cool autumn air smelled wonderful. I leaned back against a trellis and smiled, enjoying the peaceful moment.

  “We certainly gave this town something to talk about,” Zeke said.

  “You bet. I hope this doesn’t mean the end of our friendship?” I’d kind of gotten used to him.

  “Heck no, we’re neighbors. Besides, who else will drink tea with me at three in the morning?”

  I shuddered. “I was hoping I’d get some sleep now.”

  He laughed.

&n
bsp; “Hey, as long as we’re buddies, you won’t complain about my music or try to make me move?”

  He sighed dramatically. “Just keep the music down. It’s loud on the hill.”

  “I doubt that. It’s a good hundred yards from my front door to yours.” This was old ground.

  “I think I figured out why the sound carries so well. Want to hear my theory?”

  I glared at him. “Is it the ridge and natural-acoustics nonsense again?”

  He held up his hands in mock surrender, then lifted one finger higher to point. “I think the noise is coming from your roof.” He pointed at the corner nearest us, where the wisteria vines were twining in and out of the soffit. “I can go in your attic and lay down lots of insulation to soundproof it.”

  I considered his idea. “It makes sense. Okay, let’s try it. I’ll get rid of the wisteria, too.”

  “You’ll never get rid of the wisteria,” he said. “Don’t you know it’s like kudzu? Once you plant it, that’s it. If you stay still long enough, it’ll wrap around you.”

  I glared at the gnarled green invader working on my roof, then a thought hit me. “It’s like me, isn’t it?”

  “The wisteria?”

  “Yeah,” I said, warming to my idea. “Once planted it won’t give up — just like me. Watch out, Zeke Straley.”

  He laughed. “Truce?”

  “Truce.” We linked our pinkie fingers to seal our friendship. Behind us, inside my studio, the music changed back to a tango. He got up, bowed, and offered his hand. I stood and accepted it.

  As the sun dropped, turning us into silhouettes, Zeke and I danced under the bare, promising vines of the wisteria, sweet symbol of my tenacity.

  The Mossy Creek Gazette

  215 Main Street • Mossy Creek, Georgia

  From the Desk of Katie Bell, Business Manager

  Lady Victoria Salter Stanhope

  The Cliffs, Seaward Road

  St. Ives, Cornwall TR37PJ

  United Kingdom

  Dear Vick:

  I hated being out of town during the Zeke/Argie fracas. I just got home from New York. With humility I can say that little old me won in the quaint columnist category. Not bad for a writer from a town of only 1,700 people. I could barely believe it last spring when Sue Ora sent in my nomination. I mean, yes, as publisher of the Gazette, she’s expected to be proud of her staff. And since she’s married to a Bigelow, she’s used to taking risks. But still, I was shocked and thrilled that she thought I had a chance at a national award.