The Ladies' Room

by Carolyn Brown

  "I'll be looking for that bike."

  "You won't never see it, honey," one of the other women said. "She's that good"

  "I really am. Trust me" She nodded toward Billy Lee and the others.

  We mounted up and rode off, all three of the other couples waving at us. Those motorcycle folk were a friendly lot, and the mommas riding on the backs weren't a bit skinnier than me. If I had their names and addresses, I'd definitely send them an invitation to our Christmas dinner.

  After we crossed the bridge, we came to a T in the road. A bullet-pocked sign said if we turned right, we'd travel twentyone miles to Nocona. Billy Lee turned that way, and the ride took us through gently rolling hills. At times I could see the river over to the right, but most of the time the view was of Angus cows, oil wells, and those big round bales of hay. We came up to another T in the road, and the signs pointed to the right to Spanish Fort and to the left for Nocona. I figured we couldn't be far from the motel at that point and wondered what on earth Billy Lee had planned, since Nocona didn't have much shopping. I was expecting to drive right into a small town somewhat like Jefferson, but he took a gravel road to the left and slowed down considerably. Ten minutes later he pulled into the driveway of a log cabin set on the edge of a big lake.

  He got off the cycle, removed his helmet, and held out a hand to help me.

  "We're here? Look at those ducks! And that boat," I said breathlessly. The view was spectacular: water, sky, and grass all in Crayola colors. "Who lives here?"

  "I do. It's my place, Trudy. We've worked so hard these past several weeks, and we had such a good time in Jefferson together, I thought maybe you'd like a few days of rest, and maybe we could do some fishing."

  "This is almost as wonderful as the surprise in Jefferson. Can Igo fishing with you?"

  "Of course." He grinned.

  "And whose boat is that? Can we rent it and putt around the lake in it? Do you really own this place? Let's go inside and take a look at it. You amaze me, Billy Lee. You've got more sides than a diamond ring."

  "And you've got more questions than a two-year-old."

  "You love it. You know you do," I teased.

  "Okay, I admit it. I do love it when you are all happy and ask a million questions. The place really is mine. I bought it ten years ago. Got to coming down here to Nocona on my bike because the scenery is nice and the traffic is light. One morning I was reading a newspaper, saw a picture of this cabin, and called the Realtor. The boat is mine too. And, yes, you can go fishing with me, and, yes, we can take it around the lake after supper tonight"

  I clapped my hands. "Would you look at that water? It looks like a sheet of glass, it's so still. Can we come here often? What does it look like in the winter? Do you have a fireplace in there? I think I see a chimney."

  Without answering any questions, he opened the back door. The kitchen, living room, and dining room all ran together to form a combination great room with natural log walls. A big soft burgundy leather sofa took up the west wall, a galley kitchen the east one, with a table for two shoved up against a glass wall broken only by sliding-glass doors that led out onto a deck overlooking the lake. I was already planning to sit in one of those Adirondack chairs out there to watch the sunrise. Plush rugs were scattered haphazardly on oak hardwood floors, with the biggest one in front of the fireplace.

  No wonder Billy Lee had fallen in love with the cabin. It was a perfect hideaway.

  "Bedroom is in here. It's small, but it's got its own bathroom," he said.

  I stopped at the door and looked inside. A patchwork quilt covered the queen-size bed, and another neatly folded quilt was stretched across the foot of the mattress. A rocking chair placed under the window to catch the setting sun had green corduroy cushions tied on the back and seat. A small chest of drawers held a lamp and scented candle. The bathroom offered a shower above a tub and a vanity with a mirror.

  Guilt washed over me. "Billy Lee, you take this room, and I'll sleep on the sofa. I could even sleep on the deck in one of those oversized chairs."

  He shook his head. "No, you will not. No arguing. I'll win, and I'm not just being nice, either. We've got time to take the boat out and do some fishing. Might catch supper."

  "Let's go. And thank you" I'd remembered my manners at the last minute. It seemed I had said those words to Billy Lee more in one summer than I'd ever said them to anyone in my whole life.

  "No thanks necessary."

  Riding on a Harley took second place to relaxing on the pontoon boat and watching a red fishing bobble dance on the still waters. Billy Lee insisted on smearing more sunblock on my arms when I took off the overshirt; then he concentrated on fishing. I hadn't cast a line into the water in more than twenty-five years. Daddy used to take me along once in a while, back before I found out dating was more fun than spending the day out on Lake Texoma with a fishing pole.

  "I love your idea of rest and relaxation," I said.

  "Do you like catfish?" he asked.

  "Love it."

  "I was hoping you'd say that, because here comes supper." He pulled back on the line and brought in a nice big catch.

  "How'd you know?"

  "He's been teasing my line for several minutes. It was about time for him to take the bait."

  After he'd snagged a smaller one, he put his rod and reel away.

  "Do we have to go?" I almost whined.

  He put the fish on ice in a blue cooler and opened the lid on a red one. "No, I put up the equipment because we have enough for supper and some left for the freezer. I'm going to read for a while. You catch anything, we'll do a catch and release. Hungry?"

  "Sushi?" I snarled my nose.

  "No, sandwiches and Cokes."

  "Did you think of everything?"

  "Hopefully. Want something to read?"

  "Got a John Grisham?" I asked.

  "Oh, you like mystery, do you? How about J. A. Jance?"

  I removed the plastic wrap from the sandwich he handed me and took a bite. "I do like mystery, and J. A. Jance is a favorite."

  He opened a tote bag and handed me a book. "Okay, then you can have this one, and I'll read the new James Lee Burke"

  "Who is James Lee Burke?"

  "Another good author. He can describe Louisiana so well, I can hear the nutria screaming and smell the swamp water. You'll have to read one of his books. You'll be hooked if you like mystery and good writing."

  We finished our sandwiches and spent three hours reading in comfortable silence. The sun had reached its high point and started falling toward the western sky when Billy Lee fired up the motor and steered us back toward the pier beside his cabin.

  He cleaned the fish, and I made baked beans and cabbage slaw. While he fried the fish, I added chopped onions, baking powder, egg, milk, and a little salt to the leftover cornmeal and made hush puppies.

  "Been a while since I've had fresh catfish. Smells good, doesn't it?" he said.

  "I can't remember the last time I ate fish fixed at home. Daddy liked to fish, and we had it often, but he's been gone ten years"

  "Did he put cayenne pepper in the cornmeal?"

  "Momma did. Said it needed a little fire."

  "I agree," he said.

  We ate out on the deck. The zapping noise of the bug killer competed with Mother Nature's night sounds, but there were no mosquitoes to ruin supper.

  When we finished, he carried the paper plates inside to the trash can and pulled a couple of cold Cokes from the refrigerator. "Think I'll read a little more before bedtime, unless you want to do something else."

  "Actually, I left Sheriff Joanna in a bind," I said.

  To anyone else it would have been a boring evening. To me it was the stuff cotton candy and dreams are made from. No tension. No boredom. Not even a trip to the refrigerator to find something to eat just to have something to occupy the long hours. My tummy was full. I had a good book to keep me entertained. And Billy Lee was right there. Life was truly good.

  Billy Le
e took a shower at about ten o'clock and came out of the bedroom wearing knit pajama bottoms and a gauze undershirt. He wasn't as scrawny as he looked in his overalls. His arms and abs were rock hard. I had to exercise a good measure of self-control to keep from reaching out and touching the fine brown hair on his chest to see if it was as soft as it looked.

  My voice was a little hoarse when I said, "Good night, Billy Lee. You sure you don't want me to take the couch?"

  "Now you're being nice," he said.

  "Yes, I was, and I apologize. I really do want that bed, and I'm looking forward to a long shower."

  He tossed a couple of cushions onto the floor and pulled a bed out of the sofa. He opened a closet door beside the fireplace and found two pillows. "See? It's a real bed, and I'll be just fine."

  "Then sleep tight. Any time we need to be up and around?"

  "When you wake up. Sleep as long as you like. When we start in on that dining room and living room, we'll be working from sunup till sundown. Gert kept more junk in those two rooms than any of the others"

  I lingered. "She did, didn't she? But then, that was what folks saw when they came inside the house. She wanted them to notice all her collectibles."

  "Collectibles? That's not a collection. It's rejects from forty years of yard sales"

  I almost ducked and ran for cover. Surely lightning would come crashing out of the sky. Billy Lee had just said something derogatory about Gert, and that was even more surprising than the motorcycle momma's prophecy.

  "Amen!" I hustled on into the bedroom.

  I wasn't really sure how accurate lightning bolts were. Keeping a wall between me and Billy Lee might just save my life.

  I fought back tears when we left the lake. We'd slept late. We'd eaten when we wanted. We'd fished. We'd trolled around the whole lake one day and fed the fish and turtles part of our sandwiches.

  "I don't want to leave," I whispered as we got onto the Harley.

  "I never do. But it wouldn't be nearly as much fun if we had it every day," he said.

  "Bet me"

  "We can come back anytime you want to, Trudy."

  "Is that a promise?"

  "It is. But if you had all the candy bars you wanted every day, you'd get tired of them."

  "You don't know me very well." I managed a smile even though my chin was almost quivering. "Next time we need to leave for the floor man, will you bring me back here?"

  He nodded, and I believed him. Billy Lee had never lied to me.

  Riding on the back of a cycle for more than two hours gave me lots of time for thinking. If we hadn't put so many long hours and elbow grease into redoing the top floor, I might have gathered up some twenty-year-old newspapers from a corner, soaked them in ten-year-old gasoline from the garage, and set fire to the whole house. The only thing that saved the place was the furniture Billy Lee had built. That and the brandspanking-new big deep Jacuzzi the plumbers had installed in the bathroom. I couldn't very well torch something that expensive. But the thought of having to do the whole downstairs was enough to make me tell Billy Lee to turn the bike around and take me back to the lake house, where I intended to live permanently.

  It was dusk when we got home, and Billy Lee didn't even come inside. He said he'd see me the next morning bright and early and went on home. I was tickled with the new, shiny floors, but all that junk in the living room and dining room hadn't mysteriously disappeared while we were gone.

  I wandered through the downstairs, which was almost a perfect square. The foyer and living room extended across the entire front, taking up half the downstairs. Whoever had designed the place hadn't been thinking of rowdy children who could slide down the banister into the living room and run circles from the living room, through the dining room, into the kitchen, and back to the living room. Visions of the lake house danced in my head, and it became the light at the end of the tunnel.

  The next morning we had breakfast together, and Billy Lee went straight up to my new office, where he would be assembling the desk and cabinets. I would rather have been helping him than boxing up all the junk.

  "Hey, when you get all that done, you can come up here and keep me company," he yelled down the stairs.

  "You're going to die a lonely old man!" I yelled back. "I'll have gray hair before this is done. I'm not totally sure that doing this job won't cause Alzheimer's. Going through Grandmother Matthews' old stuff is probably what snatched my mother's memory. You've got time to construct a new home complete with three stories and a basement and attic in the time it'll take me to empty the dining room."

  He went back into the office. "Then when I get done, I'll help you °"

  With one last little whimper, I steeled myself and took a step into the room. Flattened cardboard boxes were stacked on the table, along with duct tape, wide packing tape, and a Magic Marker. I popped a box into a square, taped the bottom, and started on the bookcase along the back wall. In the beginning the shelves had been installed to hold fancy dishes and shiny silver platters. Gert had long since packed away anything of worth, and the shelves were now covered with junk.

  I wished Gert would appear like a hologram right beside me. First I'd ask her what gave her the right to buy a turkey from the store when she knew how to wring a neck and pluck feathers. And then I'd make her tell me what was worth keeping and what was junk.

  The doorbell rang before I had time to put a single item into the first box. I didn't care if it was Marty or Betsy, just so long as I could procrastinate a few more minutes. I opened the door to find a smartly dressed woman and man on my porch, each with a briefcase. It was definitely not my day. It didn't matter if they were selling encyclopedias or religion-I wasn't interested.

  "Trudy Matthews?" The man had a high-pitched voice with a lisp.

  Maybe they'd been sent straight from heaven to punish me for thinking about burning down the house. How else would they know my name? Or maybe Crystal had really declared me insane, and the briefcases were filled with drugs to sedate me until they could get a straitjacket onto me.

  "Why do you want Trudy?"

  "Mr. Tucker called last night and made arrangements for us to come by. We are antiques dealers from Ada, and..

  I swung the door open and motioned them inside. "Please, come right in. I'm about to clean out the dining room."

  "Hey, Trudy, I forgot to tell you I called an antiques dealer to ... Guess it doesn't matter now," Billy Lee shouted from the top of the stairs.

  I shook a finger at him. I'd deal with him later. He was full of surprises, and I truly loved most of them, but someday he was going to forget to tell me something that would cause a heart attack.

  The woman made introductions as they followed me. "I'm Linda, and this is my husband, Art. Is it all right if we set up shop on the end of this table?"

  They were the same height and age, somewhere around sixty, and all business.

  He gasped at the dining room table. "It's oak. Late eighteen hundreds. Are you selling it?"

  "No, we're keeping it," I said.

  "Please let us be first to bid on it if you decide to sell. Now, what would you like us to catalog and make an offer on?"

  "Oh, Art, look at these precious salt and pepper shakers, and they're clearly marked on the bottom. I can see a lot of items we'd be interested in purchasing, so let me explain our rates. We will pay sixty percent of book value on any antique. We will show you the item in the catalog, so you'll know we are not cheating you"

  Heck, I didn't care what they paid me. Anything was better than the nothing I'd get when I took it all to the Goodwill store in Durant.

  "Just keep a list, and I'll look at it when you're finished. What you don't want, please . .

  "For the honor of getting to go through this stuff, we'll gladly box what we don't want so you can store it." Art popped open a briefcase, brought out several books, a yellow legal pad, and a calculator, plus a hardbound business checkbook.

  We all took a break at lunchtime. They asked about a
restaurant, and I sent them out to the Western Inn for the lunch buffet. Billy Lee stopped work, and we made sandwiches in the kitchen.

  "So, are they finding anything good?" he asked, as I looked over the paper where they'd listed what they had found so far.

  "About ten thousand dollars' worth so far. That's six thousand to us" That last word came out so naturally, it scared me.

  "And is it making a dent in the junk?"

  "Not nearly enough. Could we take what's left to the Goodwill down in Durant?"

  "Anytime you want, we can load it up in the van and run it down there. Got any more of that coconut cream pie?"

  I brought a frozen pie out of the refrigerator, cut off two slabs, and put them on paper plates.

  He reached for his. "Gert used to tell me she'd had a fortune in this house right under Lonnie's nose. Guess she did know the difference between good antiques and pure junk. I thought she meant it was hidden in the attic or basement, but then, that wouldn't have been right under his nose, would it?"

  "What else did she tell you?" I asked.

  "That when she was dead she hoped ..." He paused.

  "What?" I pressured.

  "Okay, I'll fens up. I knew she was leaving it all to you."

  "And?"

  "She said she hoped you went through things really slowly and didn't toss out anything valuable."

  "I can see why, but was she talking about just the stuff in this house?"

  He shrugged. "Don't know. She'd say something like that and then tell me what happened back when she and Eula were little girls or some other piece of her history. There at the end her mind flitted from past to present and back again during the course of one supper."

  He ate, and I pondered, finally putting my untouched pie back into the carton. What on earth could she have meant? The jewelry? Maybe she was afraid I'd toss everything without taking time to really look at it.

  "I guess she meant that jewelry."

  "You might want to put it into the safe"

  Thinking he meant a safe deposit box at the bank, I asked, "And where's the key to that?"

  "Don't need a key. It's a combination lock, and I know the combination."