Up the Devil's Belly

by Rhett DeVane

  “Shoot, if you get to choose, I think next year — I’ll be thirty, again,” Wanda said.

  Elvina leaned forward, her voice dropping into a low conspiratorial tone. “She don’t think she’s gonna make it to a hundred.”

  Mrs. Lucille batted the notion away with a flip of her hand. “That’s nonsense, if I ever heard it. Only the good Lawd knows when a person’s time on this earth is done. My friend Piddie Longman’s strong as an ox. We’ll all be pushing up daisies afore she passes on to her reward.”

  Elvina sniffed. “I’m just tellin’ you what she said. Hattie and Evelyn’s already talkin’ about rentin’ the women’s club. I think it’ll need to be at the fellowship hall at the 1st Baptist Church because it’s bigger. They’re gonna have a dinner-on-the-grounds. Let everyone bring a covered dish.”

  Ginny Pridgett, who had one-eared the conversation from her perch underneath dryer number two, perked up. “I’ll make my red velvet cake! And some chicken ’n’ dumplin’s.”

  “You best make the cornbread, too, Miz Ginny.” Mandy spoke loudly to overpower the whine of the dryer motor. “If you don’t, we’ll all have to eat that gummy mess Harriet Olsen passes off as fittin’ to eat!”

  Ginny Pridgett nodded so hard, her curlers clacked against the dryer dome.

  Elvina said, “Be sure y’all tell Stephanie, now. Melody, too.”

  “I’m listenin’!” Melody called from behind her partition. She rolled her manicurist’s chair backwards and leaned over to peer into the stylist salon. “Long as I’m not running this blasted exhaust fan, I can hear okay.”

  Wanda shook her finger at Melody. “You’d better run it! It’ll keep you from bein’ higher than Georgia pine off them acrylic fumes!”

  “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,” Melody parroted. “I can bring some ambrosia fruit salad…maybe a plate of sliced home grown tomatoes outta Daddy’s garden.” Melody’s blond head bobbed like a cork caught in a trout’s mouth. “Creamed corn. I can bring some fresh creamed corn.”

  Mandy tidied her workspace in preparation for her next patron. Ladonna O’Donnell, local beauty queen and model, was due in shortly for a root touch-up. “Don’t you just love this time of year when the fresh vegetables start comin’ in? I had my first vine-ripe tomato yesterday. It was so full of acid, it almost turned my mouth inside out! Gah! It was G-double-O -D, Good!”

  Vanessa Whitehall woke with a start from underneath dryer number one. The large bag of Dove chocolates and super size potato chip bag were balanced on her wide double-knit upholstered lap. “I’m tryin’ this new diet I saw in a magazine I was readin’ the other day. You eat the same stuff for four days, then you get three days off to eat whatever you want. It’s supposed to melt away five pounds a week.” Vanessa sank back into her warm cocoon and sipped from a liter-sized Pepsi. Her pudgy hand was crammed deep into the potato chip bag.

  “Must be one of them off days,” Elvina said. A titter of laughter rippled through the room.

  Mandy’s precisely-plucked eyebrows knit together. “I wonder if Evelyn’s talked to her kids about coming to the party. Suppose she’s tried to contact Karen?”

  The room was dead silent.

  Lucille cleared her throat. “Well, I’m sure they’ll let Byron and Karen know about the party. It wouldn’t seem right if Evelyn and Joe’s kids weren’t here.”

  Elvina puffed herself up, full of privileged knowledge. “Actually, Piddie and I talked about this very issue just yesterday. Seems Byron and Linda can’t come in from Ohio because the boys are involved in some kind of summer science camp. They’re plannin’ on comin’ down for Thanksgiving. It’s not easy to come from so far away on such short notice, after all. Now…as to Karen…”

  The women leaned forward intently. The only sound came from the hum of the hair dryers.

  Elvina frowned. “Piddie is certain that Evelyn will invite Karen. We all know that gal won’t come.”

  Lucille sighed. “It’s a cryin’ shame about that girl. Imagine moving off to a big city like Atlanta, changin’ your name, and pretendin’ to be someone else entirely? I still can’t get my mind wrapped around it.”

  Wanda raised her hand like a first grade student trying to gain the teacher’s attention. “Will someone kindly fill me in? Once again, I’m totally lost.”

  Elvina picked up the gossip game ball and ran it in for a touchdown. “It’s the weirdest thing, and nobody talks about it, on account of it hurts Evelyn so much. But…her daughter, Karen, moved off to Atlanta pretty soon after she graduated college. Changed her name to Mary Elizabeth Kensington, started talkin’ like she was from England, and no longer even lets on like she knows any of us!”

  “That is so bizarre. And, here I thought all the real kooks were in South Florida,” Wanda said.

  Mandy laughed. “I can’t believe you said that, when we’ve lived all our lives with a mental hospital on the main street.”

  Wanda shrugged. “Well…there’s that. I guess I’m tryin’ to say that it’s strange when it’s someone everyone knows.”

  “I’ve seen Miss Karen on the TV,” Lucille said. “She works for that public television station up there — does those documentaries and such. It’s the oddest thing, hearin’ her talk with that British accent. You’d never know she come from the South.”

  Mandy wiped the sweat from her brow. “I reckon whatever will be, will be. It should prove interesting. That’s for sure.”

  Elvina took a deep breath. “Anyway… Hattie and Evelyn’s plannin’ on luggin’ a heap of extra chairs from the Hill with Pearl, and they’ll need even more to accommodate ever’body. I don’t think the church has enough to hold all of Piddie Longman’s friends.”

  “We’ll all pitch in, of course. I got a whole shed full of folding yard chairs,”

  Mandy said.

  Wanda propped her hands on her hips. “I’m starting to feel like a complete idiot. Who’s this Pearl I’ve been hearin’ about? And, is it Betsy? Who’s she? Do we see them in here?”

  Elvina shook her head. “Betty, not Betsy. They’re Hattie’s two trucks. Betty’s the gold sports utility vehicle she bought before she and Holston Lewis were married. Pearl is her old red pick-up truck. She’s had Pearl for goin’ on…five, maybe six years or so.”

  Everyone stared at Wanda, watching for her reaction. She dropped the section of Mrs. Lucille’s hair she was holding ready to wrap on a curler. “The folks in the South sure have some weird ways.”

  “You just gotta understand Hattie Davis Lewis. She always names her automobiles.” Elvina tapped her forehead to shake her memory loose. “I don’t own as I remember all of ’em. Piddie could tell you.”

  Mandy stepped up to bat. “As I recall, Elvina…Pearl was the reason you and Piddie had one of your biggest fallin’s out.”

  Elvina squirmed in her seat. “Well, I’ve since rectified that bit of unfortunate misinformation.”

  Wanda’s auburn eyebrows shot upward. “What was it all about?”

  Mandy’s green eyes twinkled as she warmed up to deliver the answer. “Elvina spread it around town that Hattie was gay…on account of her drivin’ up out at the Davis farmhouse in that little red pick-up truck! It was before Miz Tillie died — that was Hattie’s mama — and before Hattie and Holston met and married. Kinda blew that fish clean outta the water, what with Hattie sleepin’ with and marrying someone of the opposite sex, huh Elvina?”

  “Suppose I was due a lesson in humility. God sends us those lessons, you know.” Elvina dug in her straw bag and resurrected a lace-trimmed hankie. She dabbed at the beads of perspiration on her liver-spotted forehead. “It was only natural to assume such at the time. I mean…Hattie was over forty, unmarried, and just so…headstrong! She comes drivin’ up in a brand spankin’ new pick-up truck, wearin’ blue jeans and a mannish flannel shirt. Why, anyone would have drawn the same conclusion.”

  Mandy stood with the water spray nozzle aimed in Elvina’s direction. It took all she could do not to aim it dead on at the
busybody’s face. “Personally, I don’t find anything wrong with the whole homosexual thing. It’s not like the whole dang planet’s not crowded enough. We should be relieved to let some folks choose their own sex — less babies that-a-way. And, just look at Jake and Jon. You’d not meet two better folks than them. Who cares what goes on in someone’s bedroom, anyhow?”

  Elvina sniffed. “Well, I reckon a lot of folks have changed their tunes around here on account of Jake Witherspoon. He’s just downright decent.”

  “Judge not lest ye be judged,” Lucille said. “It’s up to the creator to look each of us over and decide if we’ve led lives of service and compassion toward our neighbors.”

  Except for the low hum of the dryers, the room was quiet for a few moments; each woman lost in her own private thoughts.

  “Hattie’s first car was a dark blue Mustang named Sally — Mustang Sally. Hattie and I took some wild rides down Thrill Hill in that car.” Mandy’s gaze looked dreamy as she reminisced. “Thrill Hill used to be a whole lot more fun before they planted those three stop signs at the top.”

  Wanda popped her gum. “I went over Thrill Hill once, years ago. I was here visitin’ my cousin Susan. Her brother, J.T. — he got killed in Vietnam — took us over the hill in his folks’ Pontiac. It was a load of fun! We used to go slidin’ around the Hadley Hills back home in Michigan in the ice and snow, but it still wasn’t nothin’ compared to that. We bottomed out the shocks when we landed!”

  Wanda settled Mrs. Lucille under dryer number four and adjusted the setting. “That was the summer I realized I wanted to move to the South when I got old enough to leave Michigan.”

  Elvina frowned. “I thought you was from New Jersey.”

  Wanda handed Lucille a stack of magazines. “Not originally. My folks lived in Michigan when I was growin’ up. I lived in Jersey for a few years before I met my second husband and moved to south Florida.”

  Elvina smiled. “You got a trifle sidetracked, didn’t you gal?”

  “Yep. I followed three different men to three places I didn’t want to live until I finally came to my senses and made it back to the best part of the country.”

  “And she even has a new admirer — a rich one.” Mandy winked.

  “Do tell!” Ginny Pridgett called out over the roar of her dryer.

  Wanda slashed her hand through the air. “No one I’d ever want to brag over.”

  Elvina stabbed the air with a bony finger. “Who? I’ll find out sooner or later. You might as well give.”

  Mandy had stood it as long as she could. “Seems our town attorney-at-law has been making eyes at his favorite new stylist!”

  Elvina’s eyebrows shot up. “Lawd! Hank Henderson?!”

  Wanda propped her hands on her hips. “Now look, I don’t want any of this getting out. I’m not encouraging the man. He kinda gives me the creeps. Although, he is cute in a good ole’ boy sort of way.”

  “It won’t make it out of this room,” Elvina lied. She’d break her neck sprinting to the phone. Tallahassee Memorial wasn’t a long distance call, and Piddie did need something to take her mind off her ailments.

  Wanda shrugged. “It was strange, really. He kept telling me he could get me anything I needed to make my life more pleasant…stereo…TV…that type of thing. It wasn’t like he was offering to buy it for me — more like he was a slick-Willie salesman on commission.”

  Elvina felt the tips of her fingers burn with the need to pound numbers on the keypad of her new cordless phone. “What you reckon it’s all about?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t get any great romantic feelings. More like I needed to go wash my hands and check for some kind of infestation.”

  Elvina stood and smoothed her linen skirt. “Well, I’ve got other errands to run. Be sure to tell Stephanie about the upcoming party so she can start plannin’ her covered dish or dessert. Maybe her Hummingbird cake. That’s one of Piddie’s favorites.”

  “This a private conversation? Or can any old body join in?” Ladonna O’Donnell propped against the antique door arch at the entrance to the salon. The leggy blonde’s shorts were so tight they left no crease to the imagination. Ladonna made no attempt to hide her beauty-star light under a bushel basket.

  “We’re always open for new blood, hon.” Mandy patted the operator’s chair seat. “Come take a load off those million dollar legs.”

  “Whew!” Ladonna eased into the leather chair and pealed the bandanna from her hair. A mass of bleached blonde tresses dropped and swirled around her bare tanned shoulders. “My roots are shinin’, Mandy.”

  Elvina turned to leave. “That ain’t all that’s shinin’,” she muttered under her breath.

  Hattie

  Crowded under the sink in our master bathroom are seven brands of antiperspirant/deodorant, fresh scent baking soda body powder, and two types of disposable flower-fresh disposable wipe tissues. That’s only on my side. Holston has an equal number of manly-scented products, body colognes, and aftershave lotions. Neither of us have pathological body odor. A fact of the humid, sultry, wilt-your-fifty-dollar-hairdo South: one day you’re dry and smelling like a powder fresh, mountain spring, dew drop, and the next, using the same concoction, you could ,as Aunt Piddie so colorfully put it, scare the buzzards off of day-old road kill.

  A survey I’d like to see:

  BODY ODOR VS. SOUTHERN HEAT AND HUMIDITY

  Circle the best answer.

  How many brands of deodorant/antiperspirant do you currently have?

  Less than 2, 3-5, 10+, or can’t count that high

  What type of delivery system do you prefer?

  Roll-on liquid, solid white, clear, gel, or IV

  How many times within a summer season do you switch products?

  Never, 1-4, 5-10, or every dang day

  Spring had faded in north Florida. Rather, summer had barreled in and sat on its fragile head. The temperatures were licking into the low 90s, with the promise of 100 degrees looming on the horizon. By midafternoon, waves of radiant heat rose in shimmering waves from the sticky asphalt on the newly-resurfaced parking lots of the uptown antique district. Any woman silly enough to wear spiked sandals found her heel tips permanently gummed into the semisoft tarry pavement. Elvina Houston told it around town that Ladonna O’Donnell had already ruined a brand new pair of hundred dollar cherry-red pumps. Not one of my issues. I had switched to low comfortable footwear in my early thirties.

  In the aftermath of Aunt Piddie’s wild ride to the emergency room and brief hospitalization, our lives settled into a comfortable routine. On the days I scheduled clients at the Madhatter’s Massage Parlor, Sarah accompanied Holston to his office at the Triple C. The baby was content to play at her father’s feet on a tufted pallet Evelyn designed. With the slew of built-in baby-sitters, she seldom spent time amusing herself.

  Piddie and Sarah often manned the front desk. The combination of jolly, beehive-haired, elderly woman and slobbering, giggling, oriental baby touched the heart of even the most stoic spa patrons. Aunt Piddie had taken to decorating Sarah’s hair with silk butterflies, ribbons, or flowers to match the adornments in her own manicotti mound of curls. Between phone call updates from Elvina, daytime soap opera dramas, talk shows, and postal deliveries, Piddie answered the business line and scheduled appointments for nail care, hair styling, massage therapy, and full body scrub/exfoliations. She delighted in reigning order over the four salon operators’ schedules, piecing the business hours together like a three-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle.

  Tameka Clark slipped between the front office, spa, and kitchen replenishing the freshly brewed coffee, tea, and finger pastries from the Madhatter’s Sweet Shop. She restored stacks of clean, bleached linens to the massage treatment rooms and tidied the stylist salon between patrons. Since Tameka’s Grandma Maizie had fallen ill, Wanda reserved time during the week to help the child clean and tame her long, thick, unruly hair.

  As a surprise reward for tidying and stocking Wanda’s work are
a without being asked, Wanda planned an elaborate braided hairdo for Tameka featuring handmade pottery beads, just in time for Piddie’s party. Tameka and Moses had been hired by Evelyn and Joe to help decorate, attend guests, and clean following the anticipated social function of the summer season.

  Evelyn stuck her head around the corner of Holston’s private office. “You busy?”

  “I can take a break.” Holston removed his reading glasses, rubbed his eyes, and pushed back from the computer desk. “My eyes start to cross after a while.”

  Evelyn settled into a white wicker rocker. “How’s the book comin’?”

  “Good. Just making a few last minute revisions. The manuscript’s due to my editor in New York next week.”

  Evelyn leaned toward the computer monitor. “You got Hattie and little Sarah in this one?”

  “That’s what I’m adding in, actually. I believe it makes the book more personal to relate our adoption story. My editor agreed. Following the case histories from the Tallahassee area adoptive families, our story will take up the final chapter.”

  Evelyn rocked back and forth and closed her eyes for a moment. “I’m sure it will be just delightful. That book you did on Jake’s beatin’ was so touching. I cried all over again when I read it, and we all lived through it.”

  The old rocker creaked in rhythm as she gently swayed to and fro. “I could near ’bout go to sleep right here. There’s just somethin’ about the sound of a rocking chair that takes the fire right out of a person.”

  Holston smiled. “Why don’t you crawl up in the back bedroom and take a nap?”

  Evelyn’s eyes snapped open. “Can’t do that! I’m putting the finishing touches on Mama’s dress for the party. Then, I got to stitch up the linen cloth for the front table where the family’ll be sitting.”

  “Do you know how many people are coming?”

  Evelyn blew out a sigh that would’ve sailed a small boat clean across Lake Seminole. “Lordy-be! At last count, around two hundred! And, that’s without mailing out any written invitations. We might as well just run an ad in the newspaper. Have you ever known Liddyanne Davis Longman? If you have, bring a covered dish and come to her party!”