Shelia was right.
I smiled and nodded. Tommy was the perfect candidate. Not to mention the fact that nobody else in town had even hinted at running.
It would be nice, God, if he ran unopposed. As long as it’s okay with You, of course.
Tommy, mayor of Mimosa Branch. The more I thought about it, the better it sounded.
But the first Tuesday in October was weeks and weeks away, and Tommy and I had a treasure hunt to go on first.
Twenty-seven
For the next two weeks, Tommy met with his sponsor, went to lots of AA meetings, then finally officially accepted his call to run for mayor by qualifying on August fifth.
By then, Mama and I were both convinced he should run.
He and Shelia, with Donnie’s invaluable input about the city budget, planned a great set of sensible, doable objectives for his term in office. Honesty, transparency, fairness, and fiscal responsibility were the watchwords of his campaign.
After he qualified, an out-of-the-blue transplant female CPA named Carla Simmons signed up to run against him as an independent. Then, when Shelia started booking Tommy for personal appearances that didn’t conflict with his meetings, Carla’s people promptly booked her for the same events.
Bad form!
Tommy was no debater, but when I went with him to the first booking with his opponent, he was extra courteous to her. Yet, thanks to Donnie, he had a wealth of knowledge about the bottom lines during the past ten years.
Carla proposed lots of new ideas, but Tommy politely asked how much each one would cost, then asked how she planned to pay for it. His suggestions came with explicit funding information. By the middle of September, they had appeared at Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions Club, the BPOE, and VFW. Also the men’s and women’s groups at various churches, plus the garden club and women’s club.
And every time, Tommy politely asked Carla questions she couldn’t really answer.
After the first few debates, he started coming home later and later, which worried Miss Mamie and me. We both knew alcoholism was a disease of recidivism, but neither of us mentioned it till he didn’t come home all night.
Had taking on the campaign pushed him over the edge?
We were waiting for him at the breakfast table when he finally rolled in. He looked rumpled, but sober. Still, Miss Mamie asked him point-blank, “Tommy, have you been drinking again?”
He laughed with obvious amusement. “No, Mama. I haven’t been drinking. Or drugging. But thanks for caring enough to ask.” He poured himself a big mug of coffee, then sat down, the twinkle still in his eye.
“What have you been doing then?” my mouth asked without any participation from my brain.
Tommy smiled. “I am a grown man. As long as it isn’t destructive to me or anyone else, what I do is my business.” He nodded to me. “Think, Sissie-ma-noo-noo. A grown man stays out all night. You’re smart enough to figure it out.”
Again, my voice got ahead of me. “Oh, no. Not the midget in Sheetrockers’ stilts!”
Tommy hooted, laughing till he cried, almost losing his breath before he finally settled down. “No. Definitely no.”
“A midget in Sheetrockers’ stilts?” Miss Mamie asked.
“It’s just an inside joke, Mama,” he said. “Don’t give it a thought.”
He had a point. He was a grown man, with a grown man’s needs and emotions. Maybe he’d met someone at one of the campaign functions.
I’d already stepped over the line into Tommy’s private life, so I didn’t question him further.
Tommy got up, stretched, then told us, “If y’all will excuse me, I’m going to take a nap in the front guest room so I’ll be fresh for the Knights of Columbus this evenin’.”
Miss Mamie patted his arm. “Go right ahead. We’ll try to be quiet.”
We sat in silence until we heard his footsteps climb the stairs, whereupon my mother grabbed my arm and leaned in to demand in a stage whisper, “What is this joke about a midget in Sheetrockers’ stilts?”
I thought fast, then answered, “We saw one at the diner, and she flirted with Tommy, so we’ve both joked about it. That’s all.”
Miss Mamie tucked her chin. “A midget in Sheetrockers’ stilts.” She went wary. “You’re making that up.”
“We’re supposed to call them ‘little people’ now,” I corrected, then raised the Girl Scout salute. “Hand to my heart, Miss Mamie, it’s true.”
Not the whole truth, but as much as she needed to know.
“Come on,” I told her, carrying my dishes to the sink. “Let’s get back to cleaning. But no hymns today. Tommy’s sleeping.”
The Mame joined me with the rest of the dishes. “Do you think Tommy was with a woman last night?”
I didn’t remind her that he’d practically spelled it out. “I think that’s a pretty good guess.”
I expected concern, but she turned on the water with a grin of relief. “Thanks be to the Good Lord. I was beginning to wonder if he was still … you know, normal, now that he’s sober.”
As in not homosexual.
Different times. Different times. Miss Mamie was brought up believing homosexuality was an “abomination” that people came down with, like a virus.
I smiled. “If there is such a thing as normal in this family, I think Tommy definitely qualifies.”
My mother started singing softly for joy as we did the dishes.
Can we say, double standard? If I’d stayed out all night, she’d be wailing about moral decay.
Once we were done with the dishes, we both made a trip to Jaemor Farms for a vanload of their Silver Queen corn and homegrown tomatoes and butter beans and crowder peas and bell peppers and eggplant and sweet, white Georgia Belle peaches to put up and freeze in the Mame’s giant chest-freezer. We did the peaches first. Mama scalded the skins off, then cut up half of them into plastic bags for freezing, and used the rest in her famous homemade peach ice cream.
Honestly, she kept three ice-cream makers going from sunup to sundown for days.
While she was overseeing the ice cream, I stewed and froze the corn, then parboiled and put up the rest of the vegetables.
Meanwhile, Tommy roped up with his grapples and pulleys to clean the outsides of the windows and touch up the paint.
By the middle of September, we’d finished cleaning everything except the attic, the basement, and the garage.
I’d hoped the hot weather would cool down, but September was still blazing away, and we were worn slap out. One can only grub around in grime and heat for so long without needing a break.
So after we’d finally finished everything but the attic, then showered and cleaned up, Tommy escorted Miss Mamie and me—still wearing cool summer dresses—into the dusky front yard to survey the results.
Miss Mamie let out a satisfied sigh, not even seeing the bathtub anymore. “Looks just like it used to when I had a cook, two maids, and a yard man. And the General’s whole crew to fix whatever needed fixing.”
Another world, seen through rose-colored glasses.
As Albert Schweitzer said, happiness is nothing but good health and a bad memory.
Miss Mamie turned to me and Tommy. “Y’all are doing the work of all those people. Bless your hearts. And you, Tommy, runnin’ for mayor. I don’t see how you do it.”
“It’s the new economics,” Tommy said. “Two people doing the work of ten. But none of us shows up on the unemployment statistics.”
That was too depressing to address, so I turned my attention back to the house. “The place looks gorgeous,” I complimented my brother. Then my evil twin said, “I wonder how long it will stay this way.”
Tommy glared at me. “Could we just sit back and enjoy it, first? Be present, instead of projecting the negative?”
“You’re right,” I apologized.
Why did I do that? It didn’t help anybody, least of all me.
“Hey, to celebrate,” I offered, “why don’t I treat us all to supper at Red Lo
bster?” It was Tuesday, a slow night, so we might not even have to stand in line. And thanks to my commission, I had enough money to pay for both of them, plus order the Ultimate Feast for me—lobster, shrimp, and Alaskan crab legs. Yum.
Mama nodded her assent, still gazing at the house in pride. “Good idea.”
I dragged my stubborn self into the present. And into gratitude. We were there together, sober, clean, and in decent health, in this blessed moment of accomplishment. And Daddy was still alive. I sensed the spirit of the man he used to be there with us.
My mouth quivered with a mix of pride, grief, and resignation, and then the moment passed.
People with low blood pressure shouldn’t stand stiff and look up for very long.
The heat pounced on me like a tiger, and my sugar took a nose-dive, along with my blood pressure. Suddenly swimmy-headed and feeling ten feet from my body, I promptly went boneless.
“Oh, Lord,” Tommy sputtered as he grabbed my waist from behind to keep me from falling, which hiked my dress above my panties as I slid down. I felt the air when they were exposed, but was too dizzy to do anything about it.
Oh, no! I could see the headlines: MAYORAL CANDIDATE’S SISTER EXPOSES SELF ON FRONT LAWN.
Just when I thought things couldn’t be any worse, Connor Allen drove by, a look of alarm on his face.
Oh, no! No, no, no!
Still reeling, I grabbed Miss Mamie’s arm and struggled to regain my feet, jerking the hem of my dress back down. “Quick, let’s go to dinner. Tommy can drive my car. I just need to eat.”
Adrenaline came to the rescue as I rushed them to my car. “Wait here while I get my purse. And whatever you do, do not speak to Connor Allen. I’d die of mortification.”
I snatched my bag from the apartment, then half tumbled down the stairs, tossing my keys to Tommy. “Go, go.” I opened the driver’s side slider, then hurled myself into the seat. “Go.”
No sooner had Tommy backed out, then put my car into drive, than I looked through the rear window to see a bewildered Connor Allen push through the bushes and watch us go.
That panty thing was not nice, God, I scolded, but I could feel Him smiling.
I’d appreciate some help, here.
The smile was all I got.
Twenty-eight
By the time we reached the Red Lobster, my blood sugar had leveled out, but I was so upset about Connor Allen’s seeing my underpants—and my thighs—that I scarfed down every scrap of my salad, cheese biscuits, and Ultimate Feast, then added insult to injury by having a triple-chocolate dessert. We are talking at least seven thousand calories.
Bloated, but still embarrassed, I got out when we reached home, then scrambled up the stairs to the garage apartment, praying Connor Allen wouldn’t call or come over to see what had happened.
Like the gentleman he was, he didn’t.
In the South, when anyone with good manners sees anyone else in an embarrassing but non-life-threatening situation, aid may be rendered when asked for or needed, but the subject is never brought up afterward. The embarrassee, likewise, doesn’t make the situation worse by bringing it up, either. This is common courtesy, the opposite of the Jerry Springer and YouTube degradations of our culture.
While Tommy went to meetings and stomped the campaign trail all over town, I spent the next few days finishing up the details in the house, and the nights online, finally finding us a “like new” metal detector you could push around on wheels, with a readout screen that worked on six AA batteries, for only $100 plus shipping. When I e-mailed the seller to find out if something was wrong with it, she told me it had belonged to her late husband, who had become so obsessive about it that he took the thing everywhere, embarrassing her. She was so eager to get rid of it that she said I could send her a check after I made sure it worked.
Sure enough, it arrived three days later by UPS.
I read the instruction booklet, loaded it with fresh batteries, then started scanning the yard in six-foot squares. Within minutes, I could understand why the guy was addicted. The possibility of a great find kept me going till Tommy came out and called me in for dinner.
He stopped on the verandah to shelter his eyes from the lowering sun so he could see me. “What’s that?”
“Our metal detector, with a screen.”
“Where’d you get it?” he asked.
“On the Internet. A widow sold it to me for only a hundred dollars, because it had a lot of bad memories from her recently deceased husband.”
Tommy laughed. “So, you bought us a haunted metal detector.” He started down the wide stairs. “Find anything?”
I turned it off and rolled the gizmo toward him. “Just the septic tank and the water line and the gas line. So far.”
Tommy eyed it with alacrity. “Well, it’s a big yard.”
“You can try it out in the morning. The haul-away people left the Big Blue Bag under the attic window, so I plan to start cleaning up there at five in the morning, before it gets too hot.”
It probably wouldn’t hurt to scan the attic, too, but this model was way too big to get up all those stairs. I resolved to find another, smaller version for inside the house. Maybe I could borrow one from somebody Mama knew.
Buoyed by the prospect of finding Daddy’s treasure close to home, I linked my arm with Tommy’s and dragged him toward the house to wash up. “Down, boy. It’s time to eat.”
I was done in. We could deal with the metal detector tomorrow.
Tommy escaped my grasp to rescue the metal detector. “Better keep this thing inside, or somebody’s liable to steal it.”
He had a point. “Good idea.” Mimosa Branch was still Mimosa Branch, but the days when we could safely leave any equipment unattended in the yard had passed away with the advent of cocaine and crystal meth.
Leaning it back, Tommy slowly pulled the machine up the stairs, one at a time.
I heard Miss Mamie’s crystal bell ringing insistently from deep inside the house.
“We’re coming!” I hollered, causing Tommy to flinch.
“Sheesh, Lin,” he chided. “You know she can’t hear you.”
He was right. I was wrong. Again. “Sorry. I didn’t think.”
“That’s one of our slogans in AA,” he said benignly as he parked the detector beside the foyer fireplace. “Think.”
Apparently, I hadn’t been doing much of that since I came back. I just kept reacting on autopilot, despite the tools I’d been given by my enabler’s recovery group. Why was I at my worst in my mother’s domain?
I hadn’t been to a meeting in weeks. Maybe I needed to get back to my program. Call my sponsor. Read my literature. I knew these things, but something inside me resisted.
That was the clincher: I definitely needed a meeting.
But not tonight. Tonight I needed food, then a long shower, then sleep.
On my way inside the house behind Tommy, I sent up an arrow prayer. Lord, it would be really nice if we found the Krugerrands in the house or the yard. I mean, it would save us all a lot of time and expense.
Again, I sensed God smile.
Sometimes it’s not such a good thing when God smiles. You might just be in for a lesson.
Twenty-nine
At dinner, we told the Mame about the metal detector, and she wanted in on the new toy, too.
“Talk to Tommy,” I said. “I’m starting on the attic at five A.M., and not quitting till it gets too hot. Then I’m taking a long, cool shower in Zaida’s bathroom and heading back to bed.”
Zaida had been our second mother and housekeeper till she retired at seventy to live with her daughter in California. She’d finally escaped this town, but I’d had to go back, a fact Zaida found hilarious. We kept up by e-mail, but I resolved to call her later from my apartment and tell her what was going on. She’d love to hear it.
“You’ve more than earned a long shower,” Miss Mamie said, chipper, then turned back to my brother. “Ladies first, Tommy. As soon as we finish b
reakfast tomorrow, I want you to show me how to work that thing.”
At five the next morning, I took a ten-pack of cold bottled water in a small, soft little cooler up the three flights to the attic, then put on my allergy mask and worked in bare-bulb, blessed silence till eight, when the air began to get hot and stuffy. So I turned on one of the General’s giant construction fans that roared like a jet engine but put out a lot of air.
Box by box, broken toy by shattered chair, I sorted the trash of my heritage from the possible treasures, then threw what was definitely worthless (as in, twenty-seven cans of dried-up paint remnants, etc.) out the window and into the Big Blue Bag below.
My stomach went with it every time, but I couldn’t help watching.
Once that was done, I started working through the ancient cardboard boxes, luggage, and military duffel bags that remained. Most of the boxes held aged-out paperwork or old toys, clothes, and junk that were beyond hope. But at least I managed to cull out the junk and organize the rest for further attention.
Please, Lord, help me find what we need to find. For Mama’s sake.
I didn’t find any Krugerrands or deeds, but I did find a lovely cameo between the floorboards and discovered an airtight strongbox crammed with ancient correspondence and documents reaching back to the late seventeen-hundreds, including an ancestor’s citation for bravery in the Revolutionary War, signed by George Washington, and my great-great-grandfather’s oath of loyalty to the Union after we lost the War Between the States. Miss Mamie would love going through those.
I found military uniforms from the mid-eighteen-hundreds to Vietnam. And in Tommy’s duffel from his two years in that horrible war, I found a stash of what looked and faintly smelled like marijuana, so I took it down to Zaida’s bathroom and flushed it, too.
Not only were the microbes in the septic tank drunk on moonshine, they were now high.
As for the holiday decorations, most were ruined and went into the big bag, but I did find the sturdy red, white, and, blue bunting Daddy had always put around the verandah’s railings for the Fourth. The reds were darker now, but other than that, they seemed fine. Perfect for Tommy’s election day!
Queen Bee Goes Home Again Page 15
