Blessings of Mossy Creek

by Debra Dixon

  There wasn’t a soul I could call on for commiserations. All my friends were on the list of nominees, and I was sure they’d think my selection was an inside job. Which it was, at least partly. I’m an above average bridge player, if I do say so myself; besides that, membership is a tradition in my family.

  The club sits three tables, eight club members and four subs. According to the rules, there only has to be four members at each monthly meeting, but I had a sinking feeling all seven of the other members including Miss Mazie would be at my house on Thursday, and I didn’t want to guess who the subs might be. My induction would mark four generations of family membership; the geriatric crowd would turn out to celebrate.

  The thought of it had me flattening the paper sack to make a to-do list. I was looking for a pen when my skinny fifteen-year-old son, Jason, pushed through the swinging door from the hall.

  While he depleted the family larder, I filled him in on my news.

  “Cool.” He dumped his loot on the table, eyeing my housecoat and bare feet as he sat down. “You ditching Gram Elizabeth or what?”

  “No. I’m just not going to town today.” I sat down across from him with pen and paper sack and began my list. I wasn’t giving up four of my precious forty-eight hours to tool around town with Mother.

  “What about Great-Grandpa Peavy?” Jason asked around a bagel. “You know he’s expecting you.”

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full, sugar.” I glanced up. “Your Great-Grandpa is on his own. Is that your sister’s earring?”

  “Mine now.” He twicked his left earlobe. “What if Gram Elizabeth finds out he’s living in the gas station?”

  “She won’t,” I assured him, although I admit his comment gave me pause. I didn’t have time, though, to worry about my grandpa right then, or how Jason had acquired his sister’s earring for that matter. “The bridge club is meeting here Thursday. This Thursday.” I read aloud down my list, trying to infuse the magnitude of the situation into my voice, “I’ve got to clean, rake the leaves out of the front yard, cook —”

  “Whoa, major eats.”

  “That’s right.” I smiled agreement and watched him shovel a tablespoon full of sugarcoated cereal into his gaunt cheeks (he got his daddy’s metabolism). “And major work.” I tore off the bottom of the list and handed it to him. “You get the garage and both porches.”

  He groaned.

  “Ingrid Beechum is club secretary. She’ll probably bring at least a dozen chocolate éclairs. If you’ll put in a polite, five-minute appearance, I’ll make sure you get two.”

  “Deal.” He gave me a high five.

  “And if you take off your sister’s earring, put a belt in your pants and pull them up to your waist, I’ll buy you a new Harley Davidson.”

  “Right.” He chuckled, sounding exactly like Pruitt, and put his cereal bowl in the sink. “I still can’t believe you’re deserting Great-Grandpa Peavy,” he said, then rammed another bagel into his mouth on his way out the back door.

  “I expect you back here right after ball practice,” I yelled after him. Deserting? He made it sound like I was turning my grandpa over to the Gestapo. My mother is a lot of things— meddling, overbearing, a socialite transplanted from the snooty world of Atlanta’s most prestigious community, Buckhead — but her heart is in the right place.

  She’s been trying to elevate the mountaineer Peavys since she married Daddy and moved to Mossy Creek nearly forty years ago. Daddy died of cancer when I was in college, and I was the only child of an only child, so the Peavys available for elevation were then limited to me, Grandpa and Grandma. Grandma Hazel Peavy died last year; after that Mother concentrated on upgrading Grandpa Joe Peavy’s social sophistication, but Grandpa, whose heart was also in the right place, treated her as he would if she were his daughter instead of his daughter-in-law. He ignored her efforts.

  Hence, I was the only raw Peavy material she had left. Thus my dutiful Peavy participation in her Tuesday outings. Before doing the shops in town, we usually drove out Trailhead Road, a few miles west of Mossy Creek, to clean Grandpa’s house. I tagged along to make sure she didn’t become aware of his move into the gas station and throw a hissy fit. She went on and on about his tidy housekeeping opposed to what she called his lack of personal hygiene.

  It was true he always smelled like motor oil and kept a grease rag hanging out of the hip pocket of his overalls, and never tied his right shoe because of a WWII injury that caused his foot to swell, and he chewed tobacco, and took his hound, Mercury, with him everywhere he went. But he was clean, and the kind of grandpa every kid dreamed of having — he rarely said No.

  And that morning I was more concerned with making my bridge-hosting debut a success than with Grandpa’s secret. My future in Creekite gossip circles, not to mention my relationship with Mother, depended on it. She was long on propriety, not to mention tradition. I had an honor to uphold.

  I tore into cleaning my house and was clearing assorted sports junk from the broom closet when Mother arrived, dressed like she was going to church and gushing with congratulations. I jumped her immediately for not warning me about hosting the bridge club meeting.

  She blamed it on me. “I spent six months putting together the club history and rule book. Don’t tell me you didn’t read it.” I kept my mouth shut. I hadn’t read it; I doubt anyone had, and I bet they didn’t tell her either. She took out the apron she kept in one of my kitchen drawers, tied it around her waist and began helping Shelby, my thirteen-year-old, unload the dishwasher. “Now you go get showered. And wear something nice. I’ve planned a little celebration for lunch.” She smiled coyly at me.

  “I’m not going to town. I have too much to do.” Jason’s desertion had stuck in my mind, and I had dragged Shelby out of bed on a school holiday with the notion of sending her with Mother. Shel’s a throwback to the Buckhead side of my family; she and Mother love to shop and socialize, and she’ll do anything to get out of chores. “Take Shel with you. She’d love it. Right, Shel?”

  “Sure. Eating and shopping — my middle names. How ’bout we go to the mall down in Bigelow, Gram?”

  “Not today, honey. But you’re welcome to join your mother and me in town. Then we’ll go clean your great-grandpa’s house. Do you good. I’ll finish the breakfast dishes. You scoot upstairs with your mother and get dressed.”

  “This is a recording,” I said. “I’m not going.” I threw my hands up. “I swear, Mother. Look at this place. How in the world do you think I can go sashaying around town all day when I’m going to have at least a dozen of Mossy Creek’s most do-all, see-all, tell-all, white-glove-meticulous women in this house day after tomorrow!”

  “Why, Trisha Peavy Cecil, you make it sound like ya’ll’re living in a pig pen. Your house is virtually spotless now, and I’ve —”

  Shel cracked up, and so did I, after I got over the shock. There’s never been a house that passed Mother’s muster, especially not mine. She comes in my back door looking for messes to clean up, and usually finds them. And it’s not just my house; she’s embarrassingly dedicated to cleaning no matter whose house she’s in. I also noticed she didn’t deny that my housekeeping would be under scrutiny.

  She looked injured. “I don’t know what y’all think is so funny.”

  Shelby hugged her. “Gram, spotless? Get real. Jason lives here, remember? My brother, the Cecil slob?”

  I pointed to a corner. “Mother, I can just see Mayor Walker shooting my dust bunnies.”

  “Well, I may have overstated it,” Mother conceded, “but I’m ahead of you two. Trisha, I have your Grandmother Newcomb’s dessert china out in the car, and you can use my silver tea service.”

  “Who will be here?” I asked.

  “Everybody, of course. All eight members.” Mother beamed. “This is a special occasion. We haven’t inducted a new member in fifteen years.” She turned to Shelby. “And the last time all eight members were together was years ago, when Michael Conners opened his pu
b. Imagine — liquor by the glass, in Mossy Creek! We had so many requests to sub, we wound up playing fifteen tables.”

  “Which brings us to the subs.” I lifted an eyebrow.

  “There’ll only be four. There wasn’t the least bit of controversy over your membership, honey.”

  I wanted to scream; instead I started gathering the junk I’d pulled out of the broom closet.

  Mother said to Shelby, “Go on up and get ready, sugar. Your mother’ll be right behind you.”

  To me she said, “Put that mess down. By Thursday night we’ll have things so organized even Martha Stewart would be green with envy.” She checked her watch. “But we’ve got to hurry. I told you I had something special planned. It’s a little celebratory luncheon at the Hamilton Inn. My treat. I wanted to take you to Win Allen’s place but Katie Bell said he’s not open today.”

  “Why were you talking to Katie?” I asked sourly, as though I didn’t already know that my election to the club, my celebratory luncheon, what we wore and what we ate would be in Katie’s next column in the paper. I just wanted Mother to know I wasn’t happy about it.

  “I invited Katie and Jayne Reynolds and Maggie Hart, to join us. I thought we could go over all the arrangements with Jayne and Maggie and get that out of the way. Now don’t give me that look. Jayne can provide the tea, and Maggie can make you some lovely herbal centerpieces for your tables. I know Katie will want to put a little something about you in her column, and I thought this way I could make sure she gets all the details right.”

  I dropped everything where I stood. A soccer ball bounced off the toe of Mother’s leather pumps. And I didn’t apologize. “For crying out loud, I can’t ask Jayne to do the tea. She was on the nominee list.”

  “Well, of course she was on the list. Just goes to show how much we all think of Jayne. We think a lot of Maggie, too, but she didn’t want to join fifteen years ago and she declined a nomination this time, too. Now Katie is another matter. She’s never on the list. Her newspaper column doesn’t make her a good candidate for standing membership. We can’t have her reporting gossip that might be traced back to our games. How gauche.”

  I nodded and continued nodding as I stole upstairs to get dressed and make a few arrangements of my own. If Katie Bell was going to be printing every little detail, I didn’t intend to come up short. I called the Goldilocks Salon and made an appointment to get the works that afternoon, and when I told Rainey why, she offered to come by late Thursday afternoon and do any touch ups I might need.

  “Oh, Rainey, thank you!”

  “Hon, I can’t have my cousin’s wife look anything less than spectacular. I got a styling reputation to uphold.”

  Next I called Pruitt. He says I’m too non-confrontational and that when somebody steps on me I just lay real still. There’s a lot of truth in that, especially when it comes to Mother. It’s a Peavy trait. My daddy was that way, and Grandpa’s that way, too. We don’t lack courage; we’re just not aggressive. But every once in a while, when the foot’s lifted, we do take a plug out of the heel. And Pruitt owed me. He’d dipped into our savings to buy a new bass boat and spent the last two weekends fishing with Rainey and his other Cecil cousins. And I hadn’t said a word.

  I told him about me hosting bridge on Thursday night. “I want you to rake the yards, front and back. Plus plant fall pansies in the backyard flower beds. You’ll have to go by Tom Anglin’s nursery and pick up a couple of flats. And please try to get home in time to get them in the ground and watered-in tonight,” I beseeched him. I didn’t want it to look like we’d stuck things out for show.

  “You’re taking this way too seriously, honey,” he said. “We’re not going to turn that backyard into a botanical garden overnight. Lighten up. They’ll all come in the front anyway, and probably go on half the night about your yellow mums along the porch.”

  “Never mind. Forget I asked.” I meant to take a real plug out of him. “I’ll rake the yard and plant pansies myself. Hmmm. . .better yet, I’ll put the leaf bag on the John Deere and just mulch the leaves while I mow the yard. Don’t worry about me running into anything. I’ll get Jason to back your new boat into the garage before I start,” I said. “If I have time.”

  Pruitt instantly became apologetic, pleading really.

  I respond well to humility and he responds to anything sexual. So after a little forgiveness and encouragement from me, he even volunteered to take Thursday off to paint the porch furniture. I won’t say what I used to bribe him, but you can bet it wasn’t a Harley.

  Procrastination is its own reward. I took so long upstairs that Mother decided we’d have to forgo cleaning Grandpa’s house. Mother, Shel and I headed straight to town. I love the buildings around the square. Most of them have been there forever, but modern owners have transformed quite a few into tourist shops. Mossy Creek has as many of what Pruitt calls artsy-fartsy little boutiques as any ritzy Atlanta neighborhood.

  We parked outside Hamilton’s Department Store and Mother set off, intent on shopping our way around the square, but people kept stopping us on the sidewalk to congratulate me. And if we met someone we knew who didn’t congratulate me, Mother assumed they hadn’t heard about the elevation in my social status and spent fifteen minutes making them wish they had.

  Bear in mind, this was a chilly day in autumn. We were shivering by time we got around the square to the inn. Jayne and Maggie were already seated. Maggie’s ancient mother, Millicent, was with them, and I wasn’t a bit surprised, considering the kind of day I was having.

  Jayne was on her feet the minute she saw us. If she harbored any hard feelings about losing out to me in the selection process, it didn’t show in the hug she gave me.

  I squeezed a chair in between hers and Miss Millicent’s, and amid a flurry of white napkins, Mother and Shel took their seats.

  I said, glancing at Maggie and Jayne, “Bet y’all can’t guess who’s hosting bridge this Thursday.”

  Mother said, “I don’t know why she’s fussing. I told her we’d help.”

  “You can count on me, Trisha,” Miss Millicent assured me. “I never miss important meetings. Y’all remember Christmas?” She smiled reminiscently. Maggie turned as white as her napkin, and I felt another anxiety attack coming on. Millicent, our resident kleptomaniac, attended the December meeting of the bridge club dressed as Santa and passed out a bag full of gifts, which poor Maggie spent two months returning to the rightful owners.

  Jayne, bless her, launched into a discussion of English teas. Looking relieved, Maggie took up the conversation, and not to be deterred, Mother took out her to-do list. I settled back, ordered a bottle of celebratory wine (beats a paper sack every time), and let Mother have at it.

  While she planned away, I sipped wine and watched Shel rescue various cutlery items from Miss Millicent’s tote bag. Pruitt would have said I surrendered, but I hadn’t, not really. I knew I could call Jayne and Maggie the next day and change any plans I didn’t like.

  When we finally stood up to leave I had a buzz, not enough to stagger, but enough to keep me glancing guiltily at Shelby. Thirteen-year-olds can be sensitive about their moms’ behavior, so I was concentrating on not behaving like a drunk when Rosie Montgomery rushed up to us on the sidewalk outside the inn.

  Rosie owns Mama’s All You Can Eat Café across the square, so I launched into an apology for not having my celebratory lunch at Mama’s.

  She cut me off. “Congratulations and all that, Trisha, but I’ve only got a minute; the café’s full. I just came over here to give you Joe’s lunch and to see if he’s sick or some thing.” She held out a Styrofoam box.

  “He’s probably having tomato sandwiches drenched in mayonnaise,” Mother deadpanned. Grandpa’s eating habits (he had high cholesterol) and gardening practices were both sore spots with her. He raised vegetables in his front yard and sold them from plywood and sawhorse tables at the gas station. Vegetables, minnows, and Cokes (the only kind of soft drink he sells) were his moneymak
ers.

  “Why would you think Grandpa’s sick?” I asked Rosie.

  “I just thought I’d check. I know y’all go over to his house on Tuesdays, and it’s not like Joe to miss out on my short rib lunch special on Tuesdays. I worry about the way he’s being living since your granny —”

  “We’ll stop by the gas station on our way out of town,” I said, and took Mother by the elbow. “You take the plate, Shelby.” I was already moving along the sidewalk. “Thanks,” I added over my shoulder and tried to hustle Mother along before Rosie decided to elaborate on Grandpa’s living arrangements.

  “Slow down, Trisha.” Mother freed her elbow but kept walking. “You’re not hiding a thing I don’t already know. Short ribs. Your grandfather might as well take his cholesterol intravenously, to save his money and his dentures.” We’d reached Mother’s little sedan. Shelby climbed into her cramped spot in back, between boxes of tablecloths and napkins and serving pieces — all the things Mother was sure I’d need for bridge. I tried to make myself comfortable for a short ride and long diatribe.

  “Trisha, your grandfather’s working himself into the poorhouse,” Mother said as she drove. “Spends more keeping that station open than he brings in, and he’s eating himself to death.” Mother’s one of those people in whom fear manifests itself as anger proportionally; the greater the fear, the madder she gets. I suspected there was a little guilt thrown in that day because we hadn’t gone by Grandpa’s first. Grandpa is set in his ways, but he does what he takes a notion to do, so I wasn’t too worried about him. I was feeling too sorry for myself. My buzz had morphed into a rhythmic headache.

  Besides, it wouldn’t be unheard of for Grandpa to skip a meal; he looked like he’d skipped plenty, despite his high cholesterol. If you’ve ever seen those pictures of gaunt-faced farmers during the Depression, you’ve got an idea of what he looks like, except Grandpa wears an ancient Texaco cap with his overalls. His image perfectly suits his gas station. A trip back in time.