by Debra Dixon
I’d almost rather have written her a check. That would have put me closer to even ground. I got the feeling she liked having me in her debt, however.
“Well,” I opened the door for them. “You have this Irishman’s eternal gratitude,” I said. Mother would have been proud. Although I’m not sure if she’d understood why Miss Jasmine Beleau thought that statement was funny.
* * * *
In the next seven days I was tortured in one manner or another by what seemed like every single solitary soul in Mossy Creek. Thinking I could stay under the radar by bringing in an outsider had shifted from a better idea into a pipe dream. Dan McNeil had done his job well. Not the carpentry, the gossip. Suddenly my impending love life became the local pastime. Dan was placing odds and raking in bets on the outcome while Katie Bell took to visiting O’Day’s each afternoon for a glass of root beer and a chat about my Love Shack.
She was determined to ‘get the story,’ and I was just as determined to keep quiet. Even Amos stopped by to give me a man-to-man pep talk. Made me wonder if he’d put some money on my machismo. By Thursday I’d started to worry that Katie Bell had hired a photographer to follow me around and look in my windows. Thank the lord for Josie’s curtain expertise — at least I didn’t have to worry about peeping paparazzi.
When Friday morning finally rolled around, I was a nervous wreck. Michelle’s plane was due in Atlanta at two o’clock. I’d planned to take her to a nice early dinner in the ritzy Buckhead area before driving back to Mossy Creek. We had tickets to the Braves game on Saturday but getting through Friday night was the first priority. Freshly showered and shaved I stood in front of the closet in my socks and skivvies contemplating the new clothes Jasmine had picked out for me. I chose a pair of charcoal gray slacks and pulled them on. As I zipped them, fastened the waist and gazed into the mirror, I had to hand it to her. The pants were a perfect fit. On the other hand, I didn’t even want to know how she could gauge a man’s size without the benefit of a measuring tape.
I was pondering shirts when my newly installed door bell rang. I yanked the nearest one out of the closet and buttoned it securely on the way down the stairs.
Like a wishful mirage, when I opened door number one, Ms. Jasmine Beleau stood before me. She started to speak but stopped, her smile melting into a frown. She was staring at my shirt. “You’re not going to wear that, are you?”
I looked down and realized I’d put on my league shirt from the Bigelow Sparkle Bowl-A-Rama. Talk about a geek.
I shook my head No but Jasmine grabbed a handful of the material just above my name and propelled me toward the stairs anyway. Faster than you could say nakedidity, my prized bowling/beer drinking shirt hit the floor and I stood half dressed while a beautiful woman flipped through the hangers left in my closet. She came up with a white dress shirt shot with pale gray stripes. “Turn around,” she ordered, then held the shirt to help me into it. When her fingers brushed my bare shoulder, I felt like I had when I was six and stuck a fork in the wall socket to see what would happen. Blew four fuses and singed my hair the first time. This time I had the sense to keep my hands to myself. “There, that’s much better,” she said, not paying any attention to whatever stupid look I had on my face. She started to button the first button and I pulled away to a safe distance.
“I can do it,” I said, sounding more aggravated than terrified, thank the saints. She didn’t bat an eyelash as I buttoned then unzipped to tuck. Her clinical attitude was beginning to annoy me so I got straight to the point. “I’m not your boyfriend or your brother. So, why are you doing this?”
Her eyes sparkled with some private joke. “Let’s just call it professional courtesy.”
Something amazing happened just then. As the word ‘professional’ left her mouth a pink flush bloomed in her cheeks. If I didn’t know better I would swear she blushed. Suddenly the room felt a lot smaller and that parking lot of a bed a lot bigger.
She cleared her throat. “I’d recommend you wear the shirt open at the throat,” she said in a low voice. Her gaze followed her words. “You might also roll up the sleeves — makes a man seem more accessible.”
I spread my arms to show off my new clothes. “Lady, if I were any more accessible I’d probably be in jail.”
Her green gaze met mine and the blush deepened. “Take a jacket and a tie just in case. Good luck, Michael.” Before I could even say thanks, she was closing the front door behind her.
I only hoped that my Michelle with the red hair was one of those uncomplicated types. Every man’s dream date for the weekend — good food, good sex, a few laughs and a plane ticket home.
* * * *
Now I know that most of you are dying to find out exactly how my imported, red-haired fantasy turned out. But, as my mother always said, A closed mouth is better than one with a size ten foot in it. So, you’ll have to wonder, just like the rest of Mossy Creek. Katie Bell settled for a short interview with the two of us over coffee at The Naked Bean. Dan McNeil paid or collected his bets based on the fact that Michelle was still smiling on Monday morning as we had breakfast at Mama’s All You Can Eat Café before heading back to the airport in Atlanta. What was that song . . . A Smile Is As Good As A Wink?
I haven’t seen hide nor beautiful hair of Jasmine Beleau. Perhaps that’s for the best. I promised Michelle I’d come see her in Chicago — just for a visit, ya know. It would take more than one red-haired angel to drag me out of Mossy Creek. After all, here I have half a redecorated home. The possibilities are endless.
Mossy Creek Gazette
Volume IV, No. 2 • Mossy Creek, Georgia
The Bell Ringer
The New Hot Couple in Town
by Katie Bell
This is your ‘quaint’ reporter with the latest gossip.
All of you know Mrs. Annie Chesterfield’s house over on Pine. Well, it’s been totally refurbished, thanks to Michael Conners, who shares the premises. Miss Annie explained when questioned by this reporter that her late husband, the Colonel, sent her word that he approved of a roommate for her, so long as there was no hanky panky. This reporter has to report that a trace of regret was present in her explanation. But there was no question of the twinkle in her eye when I asked her how she got her message from the Colonel.
At any rate, continuing with the Gazette’s policy of printing all the news that’s fit to print and some that isn’t, I have managed to obtain a picture of the decorating of Michael’s new digs. Contrary to what Miss Annie said, the bedroom is tasteful. The decorators in charge were Josie McClure and Jasmine Beleau. The bad news is that so far Michael has refused to allow us to include his bedroom on the Christmas tour of homes scheduled for later this year.
Notice from the Mossy Creek Unitarian Church Concerning this week’s Sunday Service
The minister is offering blessings ceremonies for Mossy Creek pets. Weather permitting, the ceremonies will be held on the town square on Wednesday evening at 6 o’clock. God welcomes all religions and species.
Note: All attending pets should be leashed, caged, or in a jar.
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:
What do you think about Michael and Jasmine? Hmmm, uh, me, too. I intend to keep a close eye on those two. Very close.
In the meantime, enjoy the enclosed story. What would a season in Mossy Creek be without at least one “tail” about a Creekite with four legs?
Katie Bell
Chapter 5
In Mossy Creek, people always gets a second chance, provided they learn some sense from the first one.
Sugar & Missy Belle
Chapter 5
A person’s name can be a blessing or a curse. If you’re thinking Sugar is my nicknam
e, you’re wrong. Sugar is, in fact, my God-given name. Well, actually, it’s my Mama-given name.
“I took one look at you and said, ‘That’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen. I’m callin’ her Sugar. Sugar Jean Cole.’”
So, there you go. I’m a 22-year-old woman who’s gone through life being called Sugar. And, for the most part, I’ve lived up to the name by being just the sweetest person you can imagine.
I was sweet when I got picked on at elementary school and later at Bigelow High. Being called “Sugar Cube” wasn’t all that bad when you consider what poor Mutt Bottoms, the baby brother of Sandy and Boo Bottoms, probably had to put up with. It was bad enough to have the last name Bottoms, but you can’t help what your last name is.
Hanging names like Mutt, Sandy, and Boo on those young-uns, though, was just wrong. But I doubt anybody picked on Mutt. He was a football star . . . a really handsome football star. I cut his picture out of my cousin’s yearbook and kept it in my night stand for years. ’Course, he was four years older than me and never knew I existed. I was sweet about that, too.
I was sweet when I was sittin’ home on Saturday nights because nobody wanted any of Sugar’s sugar. Yeah, that’s another little saying the creative high school crowd came up with.
I was extra sweet after graduation when I blossomed into a fairly pretty young woman that the boys finally took notice of. And I thought I had the world by the tail when that notice came from Bart Milford. He was all that, a bag of barbecue potato chips, and a Coke. Make that a Coke with peanuts in it. I’m saying he was it.
I forgave every snotty thing he’d ever said about me as well as to my face when he asked me to go riding around town with him in his big black pickup truck with the tractor tires on it. That truck was so high up off the ground that Bart had to haul around a stepladder so I could get up into it. He could’ve used the stepladder himself, but his pride convinced him that it was a lot more manly to climb up the tires, grab hold of the steering wheel and swing inside like Tarzan.
Only once did I ever see Bart use the stepladder. That was the night he sampled Junior Higgins’ daddy’s homemade sour mash. His first attempt at the Tarzan leap had landed him flat on his back in the field near Junior’s house. I had Junior get down the stepladder and haul Bart’s butt into the passenger side of that truck so I could drive him home. That’s when all of Bigelow County realized I was Bart Milford’s girl. Bart hadn’t ever let anybody drive his truck before. Now, I knew good and well there wasn’t a lot of let involved, but I kept my mouth shut.
I liked being Bart Milford’s girl, and I knew him well enough to realize how to keep on being Bart’s girl. I’ll have to hand it to Mama on that one — she was right about that buying the cow thing. With my milk locked tightly in my refrigerator every evening, Bart just kept coming back to see if he could pick the lock.
Bart had had his fill of the rest of the Bigelow girls and their milk — Oh, you thought I was from Mossy Creek? No, that came after . . . Well, you know how they say pride goeth before a fall; well, stupidity is oftentimes the trip wire.
I was so tickled to beat out my competition — the girls who’d given me hell my whole life — that I finally got Bart so anxious about that milk that he married me. Now here’s where pride and stupidity go to a picnic. Pride told me that Bart was tee-totally in love with me, and stupidity told me he’d changed his roving ways. I should never have listened to those two, but I did. Nary a thought of challenging either one came to mind. At least, not then.
Me and Bart got married and bought a little house just outside Mossy Creek. Bart went to work at the candle factory, and I stayed home. I’d made an A in Home Economics, and I was busting at the seams to put my skills to use. We were happy. We drank a lot of milk. I thought everything was fine.
And then one evening, two years into the marriage, Bart brought Lu Ann Woods home with him from the candle factory. He packed him up a duffel bag, put the stepladder and Goofy, his redbone hound, into the back of the truck, and then he took off down the road with Lu Ann occupying my once-coveted passenger seat of Bart Milford’s jacked up truck.
I’ll tell you the truth. I didn’t feel sweet at all standing there in the dust watching those two laugh as they sped off down our gravel driveway. But the real end of the sweet little Sugar Doormat story came about when Missy Belle came along.
That said, you’re probably figuring Missy Belle to be another rival for Bart’s attention. Well, you’re wrong. Missy Belle was a gift from my cousin Rochelle.
Rochelle, God love her, has always reminded me of the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. She’s skinny, she can’t do a thing with her hair, and you can’t help wondering what she’d do if she had a brain. (If, by the way, you hear a Southern woman preface a comment with God love him or Bless her heart, lean in a little closer. You’re fixing to hear somebody get slammed.)
Rochelle, being the kind-hearted genius that she is, could not bear for me to be “down there in that big ol’ house all by yourself.” Not wanting to be snotty, I didn’t point out that four rooms did not really constitute a big ol’ house; but I reckon everything is relative. Rochelle lived in a trailer with her husband, her mother, her two kids, a rabbit and a bird-dog.
I told Rochelle not to worry, that I’d be fine until Bart came back.
“Honey, he ain’t comin’ back. And, even if he does, he ain’t worth havin’. Now Trudy just dropped a litter about four months ago, and we’ve not found a home for Missy Belle yet. Why don’t you let me bring her over tomorrow?”
“Okay.” Bird-dogs grow up to be big and loud, but they’re some of the cutest puppies you’ll ever see. Maybe by the time Missy Belle was grown, Bart would be home.
First thing the next morning, Rochelle showed up in her little red Toyota pickup. Grinning like the kid who’d got the first cookie at Bible school, she went to the back of the truck, lowered the tailgate and got my puppy out of a crate. At first glance it looked like a good-sized puppy, almost a foot high. ’Course, at four months a bird-dog puppy is tall enough to lick your knee without raising its head.
I squinted. “Is that a runt, Rochelle?”
“This here’s Missy Belle. Do you wanna go say ‘Hi’ to your new mama, Missy Belle?”
Missy Belle didn’t answer. Not that I really expected her to, but she might’ve whimpered or barked or something.
Rochelle sat her down on the grass and turned her to face me. “There she is, Missy Belle.”
Missy Belle took one look at me and said, “Bleh.”
My sentiments exactly. “Rochelle,” I said, “either that’s an awfully odd breed of dog, or it’s a goat.”
“That’s right. Missy Belle’s a pygmy goat.”
Missy Belle had done dismissed my grass and was munching on my pansies.
“Hey!”
Missy Belle looked up at me . . . chewing . . . with pansy petals hanging out the corners of her mouth.
“What am I supposed to do with a goat?”
Rochelle shrugged. “Same as any other pet. Just love her.” She smiled. “I’m glad you like her!”
With that, she got into her little truck and sped off down the driveway, leaving me saddled with a goat. And I called her the Scarecrow.
Taking my cue from Rochelle, I decided to talk the situation over with Missy Belle. “Hey,” I said, taking her by her dainty pink collar and leading her away from the few bedraggled pansies I had left. “Let’s sit down here on the porch and figure this out.”
Missy Belle said, “Bleh.”
I picked her up and sat her on my lap.
“Bleh, bleh, bleeeeehhhhh!”
“Tell me about it.”
She was right pretty. She was light gray with some white on top of her head and encircling her nose. The hair around her eyes was a charcoal color — almost black — and it made her look like she was wearing a Lone Ranger mask.
“I really don’t have any place to keep a goat,” I explained.
I waited for h
er to say Bleh, but she didn’t. I looked down and saw that she’d settled her head in the crook of my arm. She was almost asleep. I stroked her head and neck. Maybe I could make room for Missy Belle. I mean, just how much trouble could one little goat get into?
* * * *
I awoke the next morning to the clack, clack of the little nanny goat clippety clacking back and forth across the front porch.
“Bleh! Bleh!” she called, protesting her confinement. I’d tied her to the oak tree in the front yard the night before. I’d used plenty of rope so she could still get onto the porch should she need shelter.
I got up, had a cup of coffee and half a stale doughnut — Missy Belle gladly ate the other half — and started walking the mile or so into Mossy Creek to get the things I needed for Missy Belle. She’d had Cheerios for dinner the night before, but I didn’t want to make that a habit. Besides feed, I needed to go to Mossy Creek Hardware to get some chicken wire and metal fence posts. Plus I had to get some lumber and nails somewhere so I could make her some type of lean-to.
I hoped that the hardware store would deliver, as Bart had taken off in the only transportation we had. And I was hoping they’d let me get what I needed on credit. Bart didn’t leave me with much money to begin with, but I wouldn’t have put it past him to clean out our bank account on his way out of town with Lu Ann.
I could hear Missy Belle bleating until I was plumb near to Mossy Creek. I reckoned she wanted to go, too. But when you’re trying to get credit somewhere, you don’t just walk in with a goat on a leash. A little French poodle, maybe, but a goat? Never.
Before I got to the hardware store, I smelled coffee brewing at The Naked Bean. It smelled so good. I had a few dollars in my pocketbook and was still trying to get my mind around what I was going to say to the people at the hardware store, so I decided to think about it over one of those fancy lattes I’d seen ’em drink on Friends.
