Why had he given Gert one costly piece of jewelry a year, and why hadn't she worn any of them? They couldn't be anniversary presents, because they'd married in June of 1957, and not all the dates on the jewelry were in June. She'd told me at my wedding, which was also in June, that she'd married in the same month and that I was not to expect a happily-everafter marriage just because I'd chosen that most traditional month to marry.
I scattered the jewelry on the bed all around me. The topaz and opal pin looked familiar; I'd seen one like it before, but where? I picked it up, and then it dawned on me. Daisy Black wore one pinned to the lapel of a black suit almost every Sunday. Why would Aunt Gert and Daisy have identical fancy brooches?
I untangled a pendant with a fine gold chain and looked at the diamond cross and remembered that Patsy Banner had had one like it. She had died a couple of years ago and had passed it down to her daughter, Loretta, who wore it all the time to remember her mother.
A square-cut emerald ring caught my attention. As I laid it back in the box, I noticed the corner of something sticking out from the felt bottom. It was a certificate for the diamond pendant from a famous jewelry store in Oklahoma City.
What a mystery! Either Uncle Lonnie Martin had purchased the necklace for Gert, and she'd been too mean-spirited to ever wear it, or she had bought the jewelry for herself and maybe kept it a secret from Lonnie. If the designer was still living, the jewelry store that sold it could probably tell me something about the pieces. Finding the jeweler took a little longer than typing the address into the laptop I'd left behind with all my other belongings, but the telephone operator finally located it for me.
The phone rang twice before a nice voice asked if she could be of assistance.
"Hello, this is Trudy Williams. I've just inherited several pieces of jewelry from my aunt, Gertrude Martin..
"Just a minute, ma'am. You'll need to speak to my husband. Please hold on while I transfer you to his office ""
A deep voice promptly answered. "Hello, Mrs. Williams. My name is Paul Fisher. I understand you have inherited a collection of jewelry from your aunt. I wasn't even aware that Gert had passed on. Please accept my condolences."
"You knew Gert?" I was amazed.
"Oh, yes. I only met her once, but we've talked several times on the phone. I've been trying to buy back those pieces ever since Lonnie died. It's the only complete set of my work. Name your price."
"Mr. Fisher, I know of at least two more pieces you designed right here in Tishomingo. Two different women each own a piece exactly like these," I said.
"Yes, they do. There are thirty-seven pieces in all, and I made two of each design. But Gert had the only complete set"
"Why did Gert have them all and these other women have one each?"
"Because Lonnie had two pieces done each time he came in. I didn't ask questions. I was here to design and sell jewelry."
"That rat!" I changed my mind about Gert.
"Could be. I didn't ask what he did with the two pieces when he walked out of here. I just knew that after Lonnie died, Gert came here toting a wooden box with all that jewelry and asked me what it was worth. I made her a generous offer, but she laughed at me. Every year I beg, and every year she tells me the same thing."
"Which is?"
"Verbatim?"
"That would be nice."
"'I'll keep these until I die. The world is going to the devil in a handbasket. These will keep me and my family from starving.' So, are you selling?"
"Not today, but if I decide to, I won't sell to anyone else. You've got my word"
"If it's as good as Gert's word, then that's all I need. Call me when you get ready to give them up"
A cuckoo clock in the living room clicked six times, and Billy Lee knocked on the door at the same time I hung up the telephone. When I opened it, he was standing there with a container of food.
"Suppertime," he said.
"Have you eaten?"
Crimson flooded his cheeks. "No, me and Gert always ate together."
"Then bring it in. I've got sweet tea in the fridge."
"Gert and I ate in the kitchen on the bar. Is that all right with you?" He followed me through the living room and dining room and into the kitchen.
"How did Gert stand you? You're too nice to get along with her."
He squared his shoulders and set his jaw. "I'm not always nice. I speak my opinion. I just didn't want to offend you on your first day here."
"I'm not going to be nice all the time, and I don't want you to be. I'd rather have honest than nice. So we'll always speak our minds. Deal?" I stuck out my right hand.
"Deal." He set the food on the counter and shook.
He opened the plastic containers, and I popped ice out of those old aluminum trays that have a handle on top, filled two glasses, and added tea. The aroma of barbecue and baked beans filled the kitchen, and my mouth began to water. He opened cabinet doors and removed two plates, took out silverware from a drawer, and pulled the paper-napkin holder over to the middle of the breakfast bar.
"Dig in," he said.
The ribs had just the right blend of smoke and sauce. The baked beans had been slow-simmered until they were thick, and the biscuits were light and fluffy.
"Tell me something," I said between bites.
"Long, slow cooking over a low flame"
"No, not about supper. This is better than a five-star restaurant's food, and you ought to run a barbecue joint. But that's not what I wanted to know. Do you know much about the relationship between Uncle Lonnie and Aunt Gert?"
He shook his head. "I was off at college when Lonnie died. I didn't know Gert really well until after that. She didn't talk much about him. Matter of fact, the only time we talked about Lonnie was a couple of years ago. I was helping her with some plumbing and noticed the padlock on that door up there."
"What did she say?"
"She said that what was in the past was best left there and that talking about it was like stirring a fresh cow pile with a wooden spoon. Didn't accomplish a thing, and only made the stink and the flies worse and the spoon useless for anything else. Then we came downstairs and had a beer and talked about the new president. His inauguration was on television."
"You remember exactly what you talked about?" I asked, amazed.
He shrugged. "Sure. I'd stepped on her toes pretty badly, so I remember it well. Gert was a fine old girl."
"What else is this old place going to tell me?"
He smiled, and his whole face lit up. "Whatever it is, I hope you like it."
The phone rang, so I dashed off to the foyer table where the ancient blue object was located.
I hoped it was Crystal, but the minute I picked up the receiver, Drew started yelling, "Have you gone as crazy as your mother, woman? I'll be home on Monday, and you'd better have a good excuse for what you've done. Why did you take all that money out of the bank?"
"I'm not having this conversation right now." I hung up on him.
The phone rang again immediately. I picked the receiver up. "I took the money out of the bank and buried it in the backyard under Aunt Gert's apricot tree. I left two bits in the accounts for your newest fling. I'm having supper with a friend, so leave me alone."
Drew was yelling and cussing as I hung up on him. I made a mental note to ask the phone company about getting caller ID when they came to add a jack to every room.
I returned to the kitchen and loaded another helping of barbecue onto my plate.
"Hey, I forgot to tell you this afternoon. I love your new haircut. It looks just like it did when we were in high school," Billy Lee said.
"Thank you." I smiled, and it felt dang good that he remembered.
"Was that Drew?"
"Yes."
"Want to talk about it?"
"No."
"Then we won't."
I'd never appreciated a person as much as I did Billy Lee right then.
I'd never been claustrophobic in my life until I shut
the bedroom door the second night. Every knickknack in the room seemed to stare at me with those never-closing eyes. Shelves were covered with everything from cats to elephants waiting for me to shut my eyes so they could come alive like in a sci-fi movie. Poorly painted ceramic ducks on the windowsills had cacti growing out of the holes in their backs. I imagined them jumping off the sills and throwing cactus needles at me like porcupines.
The cold breeze from the air conditioner caused the wooden thread spool attached to the end of the light cord to sway. Would the menagerie of glass-eyed critters blink and begin to breathe if I yanked on the cord? Why was I suddenly afraid to turn off the light?
A little introspection said it wasn't all that junk that bothered me but the fact that Drew was coming home in two days. We'd never fought. Not one time. I'd figured out early how to keep him happy and made a full-time job of it. The wind-up clock beside the bed sounded a tick-tock warning in singsong fashion: Drew is coming home. You are dead. You will never out-argue a lawyer. He'll talk you into going back with him ... yes, he will!
I vowed that the next morning the animals and the clock were all going to the Dumpster or Goodwill. It was their last night to look at me with black-enameled eyes and evil little smirks on their faces or for the clock to tick out a message. I was in charge of my future, and Drew wasn't going to win, lawyer or not.
I pulled the cord, but all the dark did was bring on acute insomnia. I tossed and turned and finally groped around for the cord and turned the lights back on. All the animals were exactly where they'd been, and Drew was still coming home. I went to the kitchen and had a cookie. That led to another cookie and a glass of milk. While I was pouring the milk, I dropped the jug and drenched the front of my nightgown. I cleaned up the mess, then went back upstairs to find another nightgown in Aunt Gert's dresser. I pushed aside the flannel gowns searching for a cotton summer one, and found a manila envelope addressed to Gert.
The jewelry box had taught me not to throw anything away unexamined, so I carried the envelope to my bedroom. I removed my wet gown, put on the fresh one, and crawled into the middle of the bed. The envelope was dated the previous March, and the postmark said it had come from Hollis, Oklahoma. The return address label had Harriet Stemmons on it, but the handwriting was big and masculine.
I turned the envelope upside down, and letters tumbled out in front of me. Aunt Gert's precise, small writing on the outside of the letters addressed them to either Harriet O'Brien or Harriet Stemmons. A single sheet of paper among them explained that Harriet had prized their friendship and had kept a few of the letters she had received through the years. But Harriet had passed on the month before, and the sender was now returning those letters to Gertrude. He hoped she'd enjoy remembering all the good times they'd had when they were the two new teachers in the Milburn school system and the letters they'd shared since then. The letter was signed Thomas O'Brien, Harriet's son.
I shuffled them into order by date and opened the one dated December 10, 1944. In it, Aunt Gert wrote about riding a horse nine miles each day so she wouldn't have to use her gas ration stamps. She mentioned her sister, who would have been my grandmother, and then told Harriet how much she missed her beau, Miles, who was fighting in the war.
It was hard to think that Aunt Gert had ever been that young or happy, but there it was on the page. One letter turned into two, three, and four until I'd read all of them.
Gert didn't go into much detail, but there was a splotch that looked like a teardrop on the letter she wrote saying that Miles had died in the war and that she'd never marry.
Letter number twelve was dated May of 1957, and she was almost giddy. She was in love, and she was going to be married. He worked at the local Chevrolet dealership and was ten years younger than she. She hoped that in the near future she and Lonnie Martin would make a road trip to western Oklahoma to visit Harriet and Rick.
Number thirteen, written in December of 1957, was a very different letter. Gert's tone had changed drastically. She apologized to Harriet for not writing since the wedding but confessed that the marriage had been a very big mistake.
The fourteenth letter was the one that caused my eyes to pop wide open. It was dated June of 1958, a year after she'd married Lonnie. It started out:
Dear Harriet,
I made a mistake. If I could figure out a way to kill my husband, I'd do it in a heartbeat, but I'm stuck with him until he dies. He married me because he thought I had money, and he's cheating on me, and the crazy thing is, most of the women he goes after are my friends. Daisy Black and I were friends from the time we were just little girls, and now she's sleeping with my husband. He even gave her a fancy piece of jewelry just like one he gave me. I saw her wearing it at church and knew immediately what was going on. When I confronted him, he laughed in my face and said that when I gave him access to all my money instead of a monthly allowance, he'd stop giving his mistress the same jewelry he gave me. Until then I could expect to see lots of jewelry just like mine in Tishomingo. If I divorce him, he'll get at least half my property. What am I to do? If I toss him out, everyone will think I was just a silly old woman who played into the hands of a con artist. If I don't, I'll be miserable.
I wish I'd never married him.
I took a deep breath. It's a wonder the man lived another thirty years. No wonder she'd grown bitter. I yawned twice and turned off the light. A full moon filtered in through the lace curtains, and I thought about Lonnie's spirit being locked up in the room across the hall. If I heard chains rattling in Uncle Lonnie's old room, I was hightailing it out of that house and buying dynamite the next morning.
I had just shut my eyes when I heard a sound like a freight train headed right toward my pillow.
How on earth the train had jumped the tracks in Ravia and made it five miles to Tishomingo was a mystery, but clearly it was on Broadway Street and coming on strong.
I sat up so fast, it made me dizzy, and I tried to jump out of bed, but my legs were tangled up in the sheets. My life flashed before my eyes as I got ready for the impact.
If I died, Drew would automatically get everything Aunt Gert had left me. I'd rather suffer the wrath of Lucifer than Aunt Gert in those circumstances. I hit the floor in a run and made it to the door when I realized it wasn't a train but Gert's alarm clock, which I'd set the night before so I wouldn't be late to church.
The cursed thing had two bells on the top and no volume button. It took me several minutes to find the off button on the back, and the silence did nothing to stop the ringing in my ears. I grabbed the clock and slung it against the far wall, but it kept ticking. I kicked it like a soccer ball against another wall, and it still kept ticking.
I picked it up and marched downstairs, out the back door, and to the garage. The cursed thing was not going to live to ring another day. The noise it made when it hit the concrete floor was pitiful but still not enough to kill it. Until that moment, I hadn't known that inanimate objects could be immortal.
I searched for something to use to destroy it. I uncovered ant poison in a bag with the top rolled down and secured with two clothespins. Would alarm clocks be susceptible to ant poison? Probably not. I pushed around a dozen cans of paint with labels dating them back at least fifty years. It would take an act of God to get any of the lids off, so lead poisoning was out too. There had to be a hammer somewhere. Finally I spied a rusty metal toolbox pushed up under an old chrome kitchen table. I bloodied a knuckle trying to open it, but finally a good, solid cussing popped the lid, and there was a hammer, right on top. I picked up the clock, set it on Uncle Lonnie's worktable, and smashed it with the first swing.
It felt so good that I hauled off and hit it again, then once more as I envisioned Drew's face between the bells. He was still smiling, so I gave him a couple more licks for good measure.
"That clock do something to make you mad?" Billy Lee asked from the doorway.
I was wearing one of Aunt Gert's cotton summer nightgowns in Pepto-Bismol pink. My hai
r kinked all over my head. My bare feet were dirty from trekking out across the dusty yard, and rising blood pressure was no doubt turning my face red and blotchy. But I did not care. For the first time in my entire life I was liberated.
I pointed at him. "Yes. Scared the devil out of me. It won't do that again."
"You don't give second chances?" He grinned.
"Not anymore."
He stepped aside and, I guess, returned to the peace of his own home when I marched past him and into the house. I wasn't living one more second doing what society expected. That had gotten Aunt Gert a life of misery until Lonnie died, and by then she was so set in her ways, she couldn't change. I had just destroyed the first thing to upset my brand-new life. I was brave enough now to take Drew on.
I put a Band-Aid on my knuckle and ate leftover ribs for breakfast-cold, right out of the refrigerator, licking the sticky sauce off my fingers instead of using a napkin or even a paper towel. The phone rang as I started up the stairs to get ready for church. I picked it up on the third ring.
"Hello"
"Trudy, are you still there? You will go home right now. Mother is mortified. Dad is ready to commit you. You've proven your point. You've embarrassed me. I'll be home tomorrow, and you'd best be there," Drew said.
"You can kiss my naturally born southern hind end, Drew Williams." I hung up. That felt even better than murdering the alarm clock had.
The phone rang again, but I gave it a threatening look and reminded it that the hammer was still out in the toolbox. It stopped on the fourth ring. Guess I made a believer out of it.
I held up the two new dresses hanging in the closet and decided on the red one. I liked the yellow with the Hawaiianprint jacket, but I would want to wear the hat with it, and today I wasn't covering up my hair. Not one resident of Johnston County, Oklahoma, was going to say I wore a hat out of shame for a bad decision.
I slipped the red dress over my head. It was as comfortable as one of Gert's nightgowns. The jacket didn't bind me up, and the shoes felt pretty darn close to house slippers.
The Ladies' Room Page 5
