Further investigation revealed no more secret panels in the desk, walls, or bookcases.
At least, not that we could find.
Once the room was emptied, we sent the faded rugs out to be cleaned, scoured every square inch of the place, then restored the floors to their former richness with Liquid Gold. But nothing was able to do away with the lingering hints of cigar smoke.
Frankly, I didn’t mind. The den of iniquity wouldn’t be right without it.
Surveying the revived colors of the oriental rugs when the cleaners brought them back, I said, “Man. The dust on those must have been half an inch thick.”
Tommy scanned the wholesome remains of Daddy’s library on the almost empty bookcases, then collapsed on the sagging leather couch that had once been butter-colored, but was now stained brown wherever Daddy had sat or lain over the decades. “You sure you don’t want a Glock?” he asked me.
“Very.” Why did he keep asking?
I flopped down at the other end of the sofa, only to encounter a resentful coil that popped up above the others. “This divan is shot, no good to anybody,” I said as I tried to shift to a comfortable spot. “But we probably ought to check inside the cushions and under the upholstery before we toss it.”
Tommy sighed in resignation. “Prob’ly so.”
We both sat there, not moving. My muscles had already seized up.
“But first,” Tommy said, “Golden Corral. My treat.”
Since Miss Mamie had been taking food to the shut-ins all over town, she’d stopped cooking anything for us but breakfast.
I looked at my watch. Two o’clock in the afternoon, already. The senior special was on till three: seven ninety-nine, plus tax, iced tea included. “You’re on. But you’ll have to help me up. I’m so sore and stiff, I can hardly move.”
Tommy collected himself, then launched himself aright with a groan. Offering me both hands, he braced his running shoes against mine. “Upsy-daisy.”
I forced myself to stand. “Okay. Golden Corral it is.”
“We’ll talk about that road trip when we get back,” he said. “I got a current Georgia map at the Welcome Station, then marked down where the deposit boxes are so we can plan our route, assuming the banks still exist.” A very big assumption, lately. “Then I’ve got to catch up with some of my meetings.”
“Amen to that.” The last thing we needed was for him to fall off the wagon.
Ahead of us, Stone Mountain loomed afresh, times ten: the enormous task of trying to find the General’s gold, investments, and bank accounts so we could pay the Home and take care of Miss Mamie and the house. But I could wait till after a good, healthy lunch and lots of artificially sweetened tea to face it.
Tommy headed for his ratty truck, pulling the keys from his pocket. “We’ll need to check out the yard and the rest of the house with a metal detector before we start searching elsewhere.”
“I’ll research what’s available secondhand on the Internet,” I said as I followed, “and try to find a good deal on one.” Stone Mountain got bigger. And bigger.
Then the road trip. Or two. Or ten.
The thing was, what if we just found tax liabilities? Heaven only knew when the General had stopped paying his property taxes. If he did have more property, some or all of it may have been auctioned on the courthouse steps already. If so, I doubted the new owners would let us prospect for those Krugerrands, much less keep them.
Getting into the passenger seat of Tommy’s truck, I scolded myself. Stop projecting the worst. Focus on the food. Be with Tommy in the moment.
I thought about the butterbeans and baked chicken at the Corral, and was grateful.
But I still dreaded what remained for us to do.
The only good thing about it was, it took my mind off Connor.
Well. At least some.
Till we were invited to a political rally in the basement of the drugstore.
Twenty-six
While I was picking up Miss Mamie’s and my prescriptions at the drugstore the next day, Shelia leaned forward and asked me, “We’re having a rally downstairs at seven tonight. Can y’all come? Donnie’s gonna be there, and we hope to find somebody to run for his job as mayor, now that he’s leavin’ to take that church up north.”
I hesitated, remembering another meeting there ten years ago, when we’d drafted Donnie to run against our crooked mayor. Whoever succeeded Donnie would have some mighty big shoes to fill.
“I’ll talk to Tommy and Miss Mamie,” I deflected, leaving us an out, though my conscience urged me to come support Donnie in finding a candidate.
“We really need all our old-timers to come,” she whispered, “so the transplants won’t take over and put in somebody who doesn’t know a thing about us.”
Heaven forbid.
Still, I knew what she was talking about. It would serve us well if the next mayor had some sense of where we’d come from when he or she decided where we were going.
“I’ll try,” I told her.
What if Connor showed up?
I wasn’t sure I could handle it.
But when I told Mama and Tommy about the meeting, they both said without hesitation that we should go.
“Donnie’s done so much for this town,” Tommy prodded. “It’s the least we can do for him.”
Miss Mamie nodded. “You’re right. I’ll bring a flag cake.” She hurried to bake her famous U.S. flag sheet cake, with a moist white cake under a layer of sweetened, thawed strawberries, topped with Cool Whip icing and fresh sliced-strawberry stripes that complemented a fresh-blueberry square of “stars.”
I’d have gone just for the cake, but I knew it was the right thing to do, Connor or not.
So I went.
This time, the warehouse under the pharmacy was in much better shape than it had been ten years before. The funeral home had provided chairs, and a couple of long folding tables offered tea, soft drinks, ice, and various homemade desserts.
When Tommy walked in with Miss Mamie’s flag cake, a ripple of anticipation erupted among the people there, only a few of whom I knew. As Shelia had worried, the townies were far outnumbered by the transplants. But as the numbers grew, I spotted the last three of the coffee club members (from before the new owner closed the soda bar at the drugstore). And most of the members of Miss Mamie’s garden club, aged husbands in tow. And at least half of her prayer chains and Bible study members.
Franklin Harris, who’d given us our famous local wildflower garden, arrived with a crowd of Donnie’s African-American constituents. Franklin nodded a greeting, and I sent back a warm smile.
Such a wonderful man. He’d worked hard with Donnie to start a neighborhood improvement volunteer program and fund to help elderly homeowners all over Mimosa Branch spruce up their houses.
I was looking for Shelia when someone tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned to find Connor so close I could smell his subtle Jade East cologne. Talk about a blast from the past. Grant had worn the same cologne, but for some reason, it smelled a lot better on Connor.
Afraid I’d slip up and embarrass him and my entire family, I did my best to get rid of him. “Oh, hi, Connor. Glad you could come. If you’ll excuse me, I need to find Shelia.”
“She’s gone to get some ice,” he answered, clearly pleased that I no longer had an excuse to leave him. “She’ll be back in a while.”
Nostrils flaring in panic, I smiled as I backed away from him. “Good. Then I’ll go keep Mama company.”
“I’ll go with you,” he said evenly. “I’d like to thank her and Tommy for inviting me to the movie.”
“Of course.” Shoot! Shoot, shoot, shoot!
All those inappropriate feelings came rushing back, as if I’d never gotten a grip on myself in the first place.
On the way across the room, he commented, “Tommy tells me you won a full scholarship. Congratulations.”
Rather than go into the details, I simply smiled, aloof, and said, “Thank you.”
As we approached Mama, who was talking amid the din of her prayer chain mavens, he cocked his head at me and asked, “Lin, are you angry with me about what I did in the foyer?” When I didn’t answer, he went on. “Or have I insulted you somehow? Please tell me.”
Not now. Not in public. Way too public!
“Of course not.” Kiss! Kiss, kiss, kiss! “I was just thinking about our agreement.”
He regarded me with open desire. “So have I. Every … single … day.”
I realized I’d been holding my breath as he spoke.
Suddenly, the room seemed stuffy beyond endurance.
My reaction was so transparent, I might as well have ripped off my clothes and thrown myself into his arms. Anybody with the slightest knowledge of body language had us pegged, but when I looked around me, everyone else seemed to be engaged in private conversations.
There I went again: totally narcissistic. You are not the center of the universe, my inner critical parent scolded. Focus on the big picture, not yourself.
Was there no hope for me?
I sat down before I fell down from lack of air.
Connor frowned. “Let me get you some iced tea. Plain, with Splenda, right?”
I nodded. What I needed was a tub full of the stuff to jump into and cool off.
Fortunately, Donnie arrived with a huge group of his supporters, drawing all the attention to him.
He worked his way into the crowd, calling everyone by name. When he got as far as where I sat, he bent down and murmured, “You okay, Lin? You’re white as granny’s grits.”
At which I promptly felt scalding embarrassment rise from my chest to the top of my head, my face throbbing. “I’m fine. Fine.”
Connor arrived with the tea. “Here you go. Have a few sips of this.”
Donnie looked from Connor to me, then back again, and broke into a huge grin. “Wow. Does the Lord have a sense of humor, or what?”
I glared at him. “Somehow, I’m not finding it so funny.”
Donnie sobered. “Sorry. I’ll pray for you.”
Now, those were some prayers that would carry weight.
I turned to Connor. “Connor, have you met Donnie West, our mayor? He’s one of my favorite people in the world.”
Connor shook Donnie’s hand. “Good to see you.” Then he turned to me. “We have lunch every Wednesday together at the diner. With all the pastors in town who can make it.”
My cheeks throbbed even harder, if that was possible. “Ah. How nice.”
Donnie excused himself, leaving me with Connor, whom I did my best to ignore. Except when he brought us each a square of the flag cake. By the time we were finished, half an hour had passed.
Somebody thumped a portable mike, bringing everyone to attention, then I recognized Franklin Harris’s voice say, “Folks, I want to thank you all for comin’ out to help us find someone to succeed Donnie, here, as our mayor. And if you know somebody you can call to invite, please tell ’em there’s still plenty of time to get here. We can lend you a cell phone if you don’t have one. We need all the concerned citizens of Mimosa Branch here to help us.”
Donnie went to the microphone.
“Ah, there he is,” Franklin said. “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you our mayor, Donnie West.” He handed the microphone to Donnie.
“Hey, y’all,” Donnie said with a grin, his voice carrying out into the alley and beyond. “God bless each and every one of you for coming out tonight.” He sobered. “As most of y’all know, I have considered it a great honor to serve each and every one of you as mayor for the past ten years. But my first work, and foremost, is to preach the good news of Jesus Christ to all I can. So when the Lord called me to Philadelphia, I had to say yes, much as I hate leaving you all.”
A murmur of acceptance arose, then faded.
Donnie waited for silence, then went on. “But I know the Lord will bless Mimosa Branch for supporting my obedience to His call.”
Amens erupted all over the room.
Again, he waited for silence, then said, “What you, the good citizens of Mimosa Branch, need to decide is who should be my successor.” Silence stretched long this time, and expressions revealed a mix of anticipation, unwillingness, and confusion.
“Tell us who he is,” Ottis Wilburn insisted, his voice thready with age.
Typically, he’d assumed it would be a male.
Donnie shook his head. “I’ve prayed about that long and hard, and the Lord’s answer was that y’all should be the ones to call your new mayor, not me, because y’all will be the ones he serves. So I ask us all to bow our heads and pray for an answer. And if God gives you a name, be bold to speak it out.” He dropped his head and closed his eyes. “May we pray silently, asking only God’s will in this matter, and the courage to carry that out?”
We all bowed our heads.
Not a peep.
Shuffling of feet, squirming in seats.
The weight of the silence grew with every passing second, but no one spoke.
Sniffs. Soft clearing of throats. Toes tapping. Occasional coughs.
Lord, it would be really nice if You’d come up with a name. Everybody here wants what’s best for our town. Please direct us.
Nothing.
I peeked at my watch. Only two minutes.
“We’re counting on You, Lord,” Donnie prayed with confidence. “Show us Your will, not because we are worthy, but because we belong to Christ, and when You look at us, You see His righteousness, not our sin.”
More silence followed.
The Holy Ghost, He don’t say nothin’.
The room got hotter, and you could sense the discomfort of the people as they breathed, but still, no word came.
Now granted, we have become an instant people in this country, but the Bible says that where two or more are gathered in His name, the Lord Jehovah, Creator of the Universe, is present, so I figured it only made sense to take Him at His word. Please, God, show us the answer.
At that very moment, Walter Lott and “Uncle” Delton Pirkle stood at the same time and said in unison, “Tommy Breedlove.”
Talk about a lightning bolt!
The hairs stood on the back of my neck as everybody else, including Tommy, looked up in astonishment.
I thought Miss Mamie was going to fall out on the spot, but her prayer partners propped her up, murmuring soothing reassurance.
Donnie grinned. “I have a witness in my soul for that!” he said, pointing to Tommy. “A good man, Tommy, who appreciates the transforming power of God’s grace the same way I do.”
Donnie, too, had come from a background of drugs and alcohol. And worse. Compared to him, Tommy was squeaky clean. But Tommy had always kept his faith—and his recovery—to himself and his fellow AA members. And his AA fishing club, the Bassholes.
Tommy lifted his hands in a staying gesture. “I’m truly honored, y’all. Really I am. But it seems to me there are far better men than I who should take this job. And if God wanted me to do it, wouldn’t He have told me about it?”
Donnie shook his head with a chuckle. “Brother, I told you I’ve been praying about this for weeks. And fasting. And the answer I got was that the people should choose my successor, and that’s what just happened.”
For a split second, my skeptical self wondered if Donnie had set this up. But he wasn’t that kind of man. And Walter and Delton had seemed as shocked as everybody else.
I talked to God all the time and asked Him for things. Why was I always so amazed when He did as I’d asked?
But, I mean, really! Tommy?
Not that I didn’t think he’d make a good mayor. He knew this town top to bottom, and back up again. And most of the people in it.
But Tommy?
The last thing he needed now was to be in the spotlight.
Tommy peered at me, his face communicating the same thought. And the spotlight would extend to me.
And Connor. And us, if there was ever to be an us.
Oh, Lord, are You sure?
As if someone had flipped a switch, everyone rose from their chairs, clapping, then crowded around my brother, shaking his hand and telling him he’d make a great mayor.
Only Miss Mamie and I remained seated, both of us stunned.
Shelia approached Tommy with a broad grin. “Don’t you worry, Tommy. I’m your campaign manager, and we already have plenty collected to get you elected. Donnie’s been encouraging people to give for months. Just rely on me and be where I tell you, when I tell you.”
Tommy frowned. “But I have to take care of some legal matters for my parents. I could be gone for weeks.” His voice dropped to a murmur. “And I can’t miss my meetings.”
Oh, man. The road trip.
Shelia was undaunted. “We can work around all that. Why don’t you come by tomorrow morning to do a game plan.” She hugged his shoulders. “With Donnie’s endorsement, not to mention his knowledge of city finances, you’re a shoo-in.”
And his past, an open book.
Tommy grabbed her upper arm and leaned close to speak to her. I read his lips. “I’m gonna have to talk to my sponsor about this.”
She looked up at him with absolute confidence. “After what just happened, I have no doubt he’ll approve.”
Tommy scanned the crowd around him, then shot me a befuddled look.
If this really was God’s will, everything would work out, no matter what we did or didn’t find on our road trip. No matter what happened between Connor and me. No matter how crazy Daddy was.
Queen Bee Goes Home Again Page 14
