The Cherry Cola Book Club

by Ashton Lee

  For Maura Beth, it had come down to this: The To Kill a Mockingbird potluck and review had been rescheduled one week after Halloween, and The Cherry Cola Book Club had two weeks after that to build toward either the ultimate sizzle or a final fizzle. But the momentum that had been rekindled in Brentwood must not be squandered, and Maura Beth was so excited about it all that she was practically hatching schemes in her sleep. One that particularly intrigued her involved meeting Mr. Parker Place and finding out what his story was. Who knew? He just might turn out to be the perfect example of someone successfully using the library for job leads, and that also might impress and sway Councilman Sparks there at the end.

  On Maura Beth’s second day back from her Nashville trip, in fact, Mr. Place was ushered into her office by a smiling Renette, who had invited him over the minute he had finished with the paper. At close range, Maura Beth found him even more attractive than she had whenever she’d spotted him from a distance. His smooth, ginger-colored skin and generous smile made it easy to linger over his strong, angular features. In addition, there was a maturity about him that was both reassuring and titillating.

  “My assistant tells me you’re looking for work, Mr. Place,” Maura Beth said, after they had exchanged greetings and other pleasantries.

  “I am,” he told her. “And I never thought I would be at this stage of my life.”

  “What do you do?”

  Discernible pride was clearly evident in his smile and tone of voice. “I’m a pastry chef. And a first-rate one, too. I worked for nearly thirty years at the Grand Shelby Hotel over in Memphis making desserts fit for royalty. Provided the king or queen can practice moderation. What I make is good for your sweet tooth, not necessarily your figure.”

  Maura Beth chuckled briefly, but then there was a sharp intake of air. “Didn’t I read in the Commercial Appeal that the Grand Shelby Hotel was torn down about a month ago?”

  “Sure was, I’m sorry to say. It went belly-up in this economy, and they couldn’t find a buyer for it. So they just tore it down and sold the land off for a parking lot. There’s too much of that going on these days. Unfortunately, the hotel was also my home. I had a very nice, spacious suite all to myself on the second floor. So here I am back in my hometown of Cherico after all these years living with my mama until I can get back on track. I check the classifieds every day to see if there’s an ad for anything up my alley. I have to say, I wish your library had a computer so I could go online and look for leads that way.”

  Maura Beth was unable to suppress her frustration at his last comment. “I wish we had one for the patrons, too. More than one, actually. But the City Council keeps turning down my requests for terminals. They’re dead set against them, and I’ve asked for funding every year I’ve been here. It’s just not a priority of theirs.”

  “That’s a shame,” Mr. Place answered, scowling momentarily. “If I was still in Memphis, I could use their computers, but down here, I guess I’ll have to plunk down for one of my own. I have a little savings to tide me over until I find something that really suits me, though. I left this little town in the first place because there were lots more jobs in Memphis, you know. I’m a native Chericoan, as I said. Born over there at Cherico Memorial in the middle of a hailstorm fifty-four years ago. My mama always said I was a ‘hail’ of a baby—nine and a half ounces and bouncing all over the place.”

  Maura Beth leaned in and laughed. “That’s cute. Your mother has a delightful sense of humor, and you do, too. I guess it runs in the Place family.”

  He slowly shook his head, smiling all the while. “Oh, we’re not Places. We’re Bedloes. I was christened Joe Sam Bedloe, but I changed it legally to Parker Place once I started working for the Grand Shelby Hotel. And yes, I had a good reason for doing that. When I was growing up, Mama gave me a Monopoly game one Christmas, and whenever my aunties would come over with my little cousins, we’d wear that game out. I liked all the names of the streets, particularly Park Place. It sounded so classy, and everybody knew it was where all the imaginary rich folks hung their hats. And if you could buy that deed and Boardwalk and put hotels up, you stood a great chance of winning the game, which I usually did. Made my cousins so mad every time. So here I am—Mis-ter Park-er Place of Cherico, Memphis, and Monopoly fame, pastry chef extraordinaire.”

  “It all has a nice ring to it, I must say.”

  “Yep, high-rent district all the way.”

  Maura Beth then flashed her warmest smile as she decided to tell him all about the book club. “While you’re waiting for the right job to come along, maybe you’d consider joining us and coming to our next meeting in about five weeks? And why not bring your mother along with you? I’d love to meet her.”

  He looked as if he might be seriously considering her invitation. “Yes, I’ve seen your sign-up sheet. And I have to admit I have a little history with To Kill a Mockingbird. So does my mama.” He rose from his chair and pointed to the front desk. “Maybe I’ll just make my way right over there and sign up now.”

  Maura Beth could barely contain her delight. “That’s fantastic, Mr. Place! And do you have a current library card?”

  He told her he didn’t as they headed out of her office.

  “Well, let’s go get you fixed up all around, shall we?”

  That evening Maura Beth decided to have a late dinner at The Twinkle to tell Periwinkle all about her impromptu trip to Nashville, as well as the promotional idea that had come to her during the Brentwood brainstorming session with everyone. In fact, the two of them closed the place down, sending Lalie Bevins, the waitress, home to her family, before truly engaging each other.

  “So what’s this great concept you hinted at when I served you your grilled chicken and pineapple salsa?” Periwinkle began, finally taking a seat at Maura Beth’s table after a hard night’s work. “By the way, did you like it? It’s the first time I’ve offered it. I don’t want to get into a rut, you know. Expanding the menu is something I’d like to do.”

  “It was delicious, of course. Everything you serve always is.” Then Maura Beth briefly outlined all the decisions that had been made in Brentwood before finally getting to Periwinkle’s initial question. “Here’s my concept. Why don’t we cross-promote my library and your restaurant? I’ve come up with a perfectly brilliant way.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  Maura Beth went all girlish and giggly for a few moments. “We use library cards. If one of my patrons presents his or her library card to you when they order, they can get a free drink or dessert.”

  Periwinkle looked stoic and went silent for a while. “Hmm. I have to think about my margins, you know. What about half-price drinks or desserts?”

  Maura Beth felt like negotiating. After all, it would surely be good practice for dealing with Councilman Sparks. “Two-for-one drinks or a half-price dessert?”

  “You drive a hard bargain,” Periwinkle said, extending her hand to shake on it. “But okay, it’s a deal. I have more customers who prefer sweets over liquor anyway.”

  But Maura Beth kept on pressing. “I figure it makes my library card a more valuable commodity and encourages people to drop by The Twinkle even more than they do now. I’ll have some new flyers printed up. I’m sure Connie will go along with it.”

  Periwinkle was chuckling now. “Okay, girl, you’ve sold me. You can let up. Besides, I only have two desserts on the menu—my sherry custard and my bread pudding. They’re pretty cost-effective.”

  Then it flashed into Maura Beth’s head that she had other work to accomplish at The Twinkle on this autumn evening, and Periwinkle’s mention of expanding the menu had triggered it. “You know, I think it’s ambitious of you to want to offer more dishes to your customers as time goes by. All successful restaurants do it, and The Twinkle certainly qualifies as successful.”

  “Yes, I’m doing better than I ever dreamed, and much sooner than I thought,” Periwinkle admitted. “It’s got my ex-husband, Harlan, green with envy that he le
t me get away. And what I have to say to him is, ‘Tough pork chops!’ ”

  “I love it!” Maura Beth exclaimed, enjoying a big laugh. Then she leaned in and gave Periwinkle her most studied gaze. “I know a way you can expand your menu right now and get raves in the process—no hit or miss dishes, no ifs, ands, or buts.”

  Periwinkle stopped her gum. “Now this I have to hear.”

  “No, I’m perfectly serious. Cherico is once again the home of the Memphis Grand Shelby Hotel’s former illustrious pastry chef, Mr. Parker Place. The hotel was recently torn down and he’s flat out of a job, but more importantly, he’s dying to get back to work making his fabulous desserts for some lucky restaurant and its customers.”

  “And you know this how?”

  Maura Beth recanted her morning visit with Mr. Place and went straight for the payoff. “Do you think you can take on a pastry chef? You said yourself you only had two desserts on the menu.”

  Periwinkle began mulling things over, but Maura Beth could discern the interest in her face. “I can certainly afford to take on a pastry chef, if that’s what you mean,” she said finally. “I guess it would just be a question of Mr. Place’s salary expectations. I probably can’t afford to pay him what the Grand Shelby Hotel was paying him.”

  “But you’ll never know what he’ll accept until you ask him.”

  “That’s true. Girl, are you his agent or something?”

  They both laughed, and Maura Beth said, “No, it just came to me a few minutes ago. I didn’t even think of it this afternoon when he was sitting in my office. So, will you interview him and see what happens? I have his phone number from his book club sign-up today. I’ll get it to you tomorrow.”

  Periwinkle nodded enthusiastically. “Sure, why not? I always like to think I’m at the top of my game.”

  “Baby, you’ll get the job. Don’t you worry,” Ardenia Bedloe had told her son right before kissing him on the cheek and sending him on his way to the job interview at The Twinkle at nine-thirty in the morning. “That Miz Lattimore is crazy if you don’t get it, good as you are. Nobody in Memphis ever fixed desserts as fine as you did!” Then she had drawn herself up as tall as her arthritis and seventy-five years of living would allow and waved good-bye to him at the door. “Hold your head up and your shoulders back!” she called out at the last minute. “You’re a proud Bedloe, no matter what!”

  And with that send-off to amuse and embolden him simultaneously, Mr. Parker Place drove from his family home on Big Hill Lane to the restaurant. He was thinking that Maura Beth Mayhew must be some sort of magician, getting back to him just a couple of days after their first meeting to tell him she had talked Periwinkle Lattimore into considering him for a position at The Twinkle. Though his world had come tumbling down around him in Memphis, thanks to the wrecking ball, it appeared he might be on the verge of constructing a new life for himself.

  “What were your specialties?” Periwinkle was asking him once they had begun the interview in her cluttered office at precisely nine-thirty. Among the many good work habits he had acquired throughout his career, unerring promptness was near the top of Mr. Parker Place’s list.

  He took a deep breath and began a tempting recitation. “Crepes of all kinds, both cheese and fruit, Mississippi mud pie, grasshopper pie, carrot cake, red velvet cake, strawberry cake, caramel cake, éclairs, cupcakes of all kinds, macadamia nut cookies, dark chocolate chip cookies—”

  Periwinkle held up her hand. “That’s more than impressive, Mr. Place. Why don’t I take a bite of the samples you brought?” She looked down at the éclair and the slice of grasshopper pie he had placed before her a few minutes earlier and settled on the éclair first. “What on earth have you put in there, Mr. Place?!” she exclaimed as she tasted his creation with ever-widening eyes. “It’s heavenly!”

  He leaned in smugly. “A little Amaretto in the filling.”

  “How did you know I love that wedding cake taste?” she continued. “Though why I have no idea. My marriage was a disaster!”

  He gently pushed the pie plate toward her with a disarming smile. “Sorry to hear that, but maybe this will make you feel better.”

  Then she tasted the cool, green grasshopper pie, and he thought she might just swoon. “Ohhh!” Finally, she gathered herself. “My biggest gripe with mint is that it can be so overwhelming that you feel like you don’t want to eat anything for another month. How did you manage to tame it like this?”

  “Now that,” he told her, “is one of my secrets I don’t care to reveal.”

  She nodded enthusiastically. “I can respect that. I keep a few of my best tips hidden away on the pantry shelf myself.”

  Then it was time to get around to the details of an actual job offer, and Periwinkle predictably led with the issue of compensation. “Can you tell me how much the Grand Shelby Hotel was paying you there at the end?”

  He said nothing, preferring to write a figure on a nearby Post-it note and hand it to her.

  She looked down at it and smiled. “I must say I think you were worth every penny, judging by what I just tasted.”

  “Thank you.”

  Then she took another Post-it note and wrote down a figure of her own. “See if this will work for you, Mr. Place,” she said, offering it to him.

  He glanced at it quickly and caught her gaze. “Miz Lattimore, I’d love to come work for you whenever you say.” Then he leaned forward, maintaining the intense eye contact. “My mama said you’d give me this job before I left the house. She’s a great judge of character, you know.”

  “Tell you what,” Periwinkle added, reaching across her desk to shake his hand. “I want you to bring your mother here for dinner real soon. It’ll be on the house. Just think of it as a sort of signing bonus.”

  Miss Voncille glanced at the wall clock in her bright yellow kitchen and made a sour face. It was ten after two in the afternoon, one week exactly before the November Mockingbird meeting. “They’re running late,” she said to Locke, who was leaning against the counter nursing a small gin and tonic. “That’s not like them.”

  He shrugged and began rummaging through the nearby dish of nuts she intended to set out for their upcoming bridge game with the Crumpton sisters.

  “Why do men always do that?” she wanted to know, watching him poking his index finger around and feigning disapproval.

  “Do what?”

  “Pick out all the cashews and leave all the Brazil nuts.”

  Locke washed down the nuts with another sip of his drink and smirked. “For the same reason we date the prettiest girls in town if we can get them to go out with us. They’re yummier.”

  “I’m not sure I like the sound of that too much,” she added. “But at least it’s consistent.”

  “Yes,” he continued. “Also, cashews are compact, and Brazil nuts are . . . well, always the size of Brazil.” He decided to take a seat in the breakfast nook, and she joined him, bringing the nuts with her. “Playing bridge with the Crumpton sisters still seems like an extraordinary sacrifice on your part—or on ours, I should say, since I’ll have to be in the room except when I’m lucky enough to be dummy. Please see if you can arrange for me to be dummy every deal. Those Crumpton sisters are the world’s most acquired taste.”

  Miss Voncille looked exasperated and went after the last of the cashews herself. “I expect them to be testy if we cut off one of their legs, or even defeat one of their contracts, but if I can maneuver them into coming to the Mockingbird meeting in another week, it will help Maura Beth out immeasurably. We’re all just trying our best to increase those numbers—day by day, week by week—right up until the last second. Maura Beth and Periwinkle really have that cross-promotional angle going, Connie’s doing her thing out at the lake this Sunday with her seafood extravaganza, and Becca’s been doing hers on the radio now with Stout Fella as her sidekick. I’m not about to be the only one who doesn’t contribute something. And you have to be in on it for the simple reason that it takes four to
play bridge.”

  Locke lifted his glass in tribute and took another swallow. “I must admit I never thought Mamie and Marydell would accept your apology about that crazy armadillo story of yours. Looks like they’re back in the genealogy fold. Mind telling me how you managed it?”

  “A strange form of flattery, if you must know. I told Mamie that I thought I must be showing the first signs of dementia with all that nonsense I made up. ‘Clearly, you’re the healthiest, sanest person in our class,’ I went on. ‘You’ll outlive us all!’ I laid it on pretty thick because it appeals to that unique morbid streak of hers. That’s what we used to call her in high school, you know—Morbid Mamie. I think it started when our journalism teacher, Mrs. Lander, let her write an article for the school paper on poor Preston Durant’s tragic death in a wreck. Oh, it was awful! His car stalled on the railroad tracks! After that, it got around that she had asked Mrs. Lander if she could write ‘practice’ obits for some of us. Apparently, something about it got her juices flowing. I only hope she doesn’t drag our senior yearbook out of mothballs again.”

  Locke furrowed his brow. “Why? Would that be a bad thing?”

  But the doorbell prevented Miss Voncille from answering his question. “Ah, there they are at last! Shall we go greet them and get the afternoon started?”

  Unfortunately, Mamie Crumpton bounded through the front door out of the brisk weather with the yearbook of the Cherico High School Class of 1960 and her sister in tow. “This is why we’re late,” she explained, foregoing so much as a hello while brandishing the worn-looking annual over her head like some sort of sports trophy. “We got halfway over here and I realized I had forgotten to bring it. So I said,‘Marydell, we’ll just have to turn around and go back.’ ”