“Your secret’s safe with me.” Marcus grinned and looked back out the window. As the car slowed, he noticed a small brick sign that read “Crepe Myrtle Manor” sitting in the middle of an island that divided the street. Yellow, purple, and pink pansies bloomed around the base of the sign, and a few red cardinals sat on the top. He braced against the door to keep from falling over as Helen whipped a sharp right turn into the entrance to the subdivision.
“Welcome to our little neighborhood. It’s supposed to only be for people over the age of fifty, but if you decide to stay here, I’m sure we can bend that little rule.” At the first intersection, Helen jerked the wheel again, and the car skidded into a small cul-de-sac. “This here is our street. Pecan Circle. Though I don’t know why we called it that, because it doesn’t really circle back to anything.”
“Great. Another dead end,” Marcus mumbled and braced himself again.
As Helen eased the car into the driveway of a house, Marcus looked at the neighborhood. Several small brick houses surrounded the paved circle of road with its small central circle of grass. Robins and blue jays fluttered about the limbs of the old oak trees that grew between several of the houses. Their imposing branches draped with Spanish moss stretched over the black-shingled roofs of the houses. Circling behind the houses were row upon row of leafy pecan trees.
Helen turned off the car and pulled the keys out of the ignition. “Well, this is me. Your house is right over there between Inez Coffee’s and Cookie Ginsburg’s. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s a wonderful little neighborhood. This all used to be nothing but a big old pecan orchard, but my husband, Raffield Senior, bought this land many years ago for almost nothing. He was a whiz with real estate. He and I convinced the girls to invest in this place as somewhere we could live out our days in peace without a bunch of screaming kids running around. You know, after you’ve raised your own children, it’s nice to know you don’t have to worry about anyone else’s.”
The houses were all of a similar construction, squat red brick one-story bungalows with only the color of the front door and its placement vis-à-vis a bay window flip-flopping from house to house. Though the neighborhood reminded Marcus of the bland, suburban conformity where he lived with Robert in Atlanta, the personality of each home’s resident was clearly visible in the landscaping and decorations that were lovingly placed in front of each. One house had concrete statues of a doe and a buck staring blankly from a flower bed toward the street. Another had birdhouses and hummingbird feeders hanging from several rafters and a birdhouse built to look like a grand southern plantation house atop a tall wooden pole. Another had a small statue of a child kneeling in prayer next to a battered wooden cross. Robert had praised the rules forbidding such things in their neighborhood, stating that it kept people from “putting their trashy on display.” Seeing the care his grandmother’s neighbors put into making each cookie-cutter house seem individual, Marcus found the “trashy on display” to be charming and inviting.
“So, here we are! Crepe Myrtle Manor. South Georgia’s finest community for the over-fifty set. Welcome home, honey. It’s going to be so nice having a youngster in the neighborhood.”
“Helen, thanks for the ride, but I really doubt I’ll be staying here. I’m just going to settle the estate and—”
“We’ll see. We’ll see. Now you go on in there and get yourself settled. I’ll be over in a bit to bring you some dinner. You aren’t allergic to cream of mushroom soup, are you? Not sure why, but every casserole I make seems to have it in there.”
“That’s fine, but you don’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I do. Marcus, I’m an old, southern woman. We bring people food. It’s in the state constitution or something. Now scoot.” Helen patted him on his knee and opened her car door. “Your house is number five, the one with the green shutters. Go on.”
Marcus stepped out of the car, crossed the street, and stood at the end of the driveway to look at the house. The mailbox next to him had a number five stenciled in white on the front flap and the name “Sumter” painted in a playful cursive script along the side. Hanging baskets of ferns swayed lazily in the afternoon breeze at the corners of the empty carport. Faux stone pots spilling over with bright red begonias sat on either side of the front stoop, and a wreath of silk daisies and sunflowers hung on the dark green front door. Twirling the key ring on his finger, he walked to the front door, unsure why his stomach was full of knots. Near the front door, nestled in one of the pots of begonias, sat a small hand-painted sign that read “There’s no place like home.” Marcus rolled his eyes as he yanked the sign out of the dirt. He pulled the screen door open and slipped the key into the lock. He held his breath and turned the key. Here goes nothing.
Marcus pushed the front door ajar, unsure of what he expected to find or how it should make him feel. He knew that legally this was all his now, but it still seemed as if he was breaking into a stranger’s home, as if at any minute someone could come along, say “just kidding!” and haul him away as a petty crook. He pulled the key out of the lock, let go of the front door, and let it swing open into the house. He stepped inside and fought the urge to wipe his feet and call out to see if anyone was home. The screen door slammed behind him, making him jump and then laugh at his nerves.
All of the blinds were drawn, and Marcus couldn’t adjust to the darkness in the room. Fumbling at the wall beside the door, he found a series of switches and flipped the first one. The porch light came on, casting his shadow along the floor in front of him. Not that one. He flipped the next switch and a rush of air brushed across his face as a ceiling fan whirred to life. Not that one, but it sure helps. When he flipped the farthest switch, a pendant lamp hanging to his left came on over a round table covered with a blue gingham tablecloth with four ladder-back wooden chairs around it. Where the hell is the light switch?
Marcus slipped over to the table and dropped the sign from the flower pot, the envelope of papers from the attorney’s office, and the keys onto the table. The table sat in an alcove with a bay window whose closed wooden blinds faced the street. Marcus grabbed the string beside one of the blinds and flipped them open. In front of him was an open kitchen: a wall of counters and plain white cabinets that ended in a corner with a stainless steel refrigerator.
Marcus wandered into the living room and noticed another panel of light switches on the wall over an upright piano next to a hallway leading into the back of the house. He flipped the switches, causing the hall light to turn on beside him and the fan overhead to turn off. Down the hall, he could see three doorways; the one at the far end led into a bathroom. The living room remained dark, with only a few streaks of sunlight cutting through the blinds on the windows. Marcus shrugged and flipped the switches to turn the fan back on.
Marcus wandered the room trying to gather clues about the woman who had lived here and who was willing to leave all of it to a stranger. In the dim light from the hall, he could see a blue and white plaid sofa sitting in front of a glass-topped coffee table with a few magazines scattered across the top. He picked one magazine off the table, Southern Living, and read the mailing label at the bottom. Eloise Sumter.
Well, that much I knew.
Marcus sat in one of two green slipper chairs under the front windows, a small cocktail table between them with a brass lamp sitting on top sat between them. His leg bumped a basket full of balls of yarn, knitting needles, and a swatch of a half-finished project. So she knitted. I know that at least. Marcus sat staring at the room, unsure what to do next. The house is yours. Do whatever you want. He sat and stared at the room’s beige walls.
He walked back to the piano and ran his finger along the keys; the plinking notes broke the silence of the room. He caught his reflection in a mirror over the piano and grimaced at the bruised and bandaged face that stared back at him. He squinted as he inspected his black eye and touched the bandage on his forehead. A clump of blood had dri
ed in his bangs and plastered them to his forehead. As he tried to bend closer to the mirror, he placed his hands on the back of the piano and knocked over several framed photos scattered there.
“I’m sorry,” Marcus said as he attempted to set the frames upright again and knocked a few more over in the process. “Jeez, Marcus, clumsy much?” he muttered before pausing over one photo of himself as a young child sitting on the back of a horse. “Where did this come from?” Marcus held the frame closer to his face as he tried to make out the image in the dim light. A loud rapping on the door behind him startled him and made Marcus drop the picture back onto the piano. He scrambled to put all of the pictures where they had been.
“Come in,” Marcus said over his shoulder.
“Hello?” a woman’s voice called through the cracked front door. “I hope you ain’t naked, because I’m coming in.”
Marcus turned around to find an elderly woman shoving the front door open with her foot. She had jet-black hair floating around her head in a tall bouffant and bright red lipstick smeared across her lips. A chunky gold necklace hanging across her large bosom glittered as she stepped into the room. She carried a plastic jug filled with an amber liquid.
“No, ma’am. Fully clothed.”
“Well, shit. Thought I might get me a free peek. Why are you standing in the dark?” The woman set the jug on the kitchen counter, raised her hands, and clapped twice. Three small lamps scattered about the room lit, casting a warm light over the room. “That’s better.” She thrust the plastic jug at Marcus. “I thought you might be thirsty, so I brought you some sweet tea.”
In the light, Marcus could see the woman had dark skin, tanned and freckled by many hours in the sun. She wore a dirty old Atlanta Braves T-shirt, and the knees of her capri pants were stained with muddy patches. A pair of gardening gloves was tucked into the waistband of her burgundy fanny pack, and a gardening trowel poked out of her pocket.
“Hello, darling, my name is Inez Coffee. I live right next door. The house with the deer in front?” Her voice had the sandpaper rasp that came from years of smoking. “Excuse my appearance. I was working in my flower beds when I saw you and Helen pull in and thought I’d just come on over and introduce myself.” Inez thrust her hand out to Marcus and smiled; the many bangles on her wrist clinked. “Only stopped to slap on some lipstick, because, well, I wasn’t raised in a barn.”
“Hi. Marcus. Um…Sumter.” Marcus gave her hand a weak shake. “But I guess you knew the last part.”
“Good lord, yes. I’d know that strawberry hair from across a football stadium. You can’t deny your roots. Now my roots,” she turned to the mirror hanging over the sofa and fluffed her hair, “well, that’s between me and my hairdresser.”
“Well, a person’s got to have some secrets.”
“Oh, Marcus, do you have secrets?” She spun to face him with her eyes opened wide. “Thank god. That’s something we need on this street, some new secrets. I’ve heard everybody else’s. I was just telling Helen the other day that if something interesting didn’t happen in this town soon, I might have to run naked down Main Street just to give us something different to talk about. But now that you are bringing some new, younger life to the street, well, we should have a whole lot to talk about.”
“Oh, I’m not staying on the street.” Marcus crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m just here to tie things up with my grandmother’s estate and then I’ll be moving on. Did you need something?”
“Hello? Marcus?” Helen’s voice called through the screen door. “Inez Coffee! What are you doing over here? This boy’s barely had time to kick off his shoes, and you’re already over here getting all up in his business. Now you shoo.” Helen flung the screen door open and stepped into the house with a glass casserole dish covered in aluminum foil.
“The hell I will. I’m saving this boy’s life. Marcus, whatever you do, do not put a drop of that,” she gestured to the container in Helen’s hands, “in your mouth. Helen here is a whiz at many things, but how she raised a family without killing them all at the dinner table is a mystery to me.”
“Inez, shut up.” Helen stuck her tongue out at Inez.
“What is that?” Inez tipped her head back and stared down her nose at the dish.
“It’s a broccoli chicken casserole, and I used your recipe from the church cookbook. So if he dies, it’s on your head.”
“I’m sure it will be fine,” Marcus said as he took the container from Helen and set it on the counter. “I’m not very hungry right now anyway.”
“Well, you just stick that in the fridge. When you’re hungry, take off the aluminum foil and throw the casserole in the microwave for a few minutes and it’ll be just fine. You can just give me my dish back when you’re done. My name’s on some tape right there on the bottom.” She turned back to the other woman. “Now, Inez, I’m serious. You’ve introduced yourself. Now run along and leave this boy alone. He’s had a hard day, tangling up with Delores Richards and signing all that paperwork for the will. The last thing he needs is to try to be sociable.”
“I’m not just here on a social visit.” Inez turned to Marcus and shook her finger at him. “Young man, I have a bone to pick with you. You went and blew it for us all.”
“Inez, what are you babbling about?” Helen asked as she slid one of the barstools out from the island and sat.
“Dolores Richards. That’s what. Evidently, this fella came rolling into town in a car so little that, when she hit him, the police and ambulance had to come.” Inez glared at Marcus. “Why on earth would you drive a car that little?”
“It was a gift?” Marcus replied and shrugged.
“You won’t see anything that little in this town. Hell, I couldn’t get my hair in something that little.”
“Inez, lay off the boy. It’s not like he hit her on purpose.”
“No,” Marcus said and shook his head. “But it was my fault. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
“Honey, even if you’d had both your eyes on the road and a lookout riding shotgun, you were doomed the minute she turned on her ignition.” Inez shooed the thought away with her hand and frowned. She pulled the other barstool out from the island and hopped onto it, letting her lime green sandals drop to the floor below her dangling feet. “But that’s not my point. When the police got there, they asked her for her license.”
“Oh no.” Helen gasped and covered her mouth. “You mean—”
“Yes.” Inez looked at Marcus and shook her head in disbelief. “She promptly turned to Spud Stewart, he’s our local sheriff, and said ‘License? What the hell is a license?’”
“You don’t mean?” Marcus asked.
“Yes.” Inez threw her hands up and rolled her eyes. “That woman has been driving for fifty years without a damn license. All the rest of us were smart enough to keep the police out of it. But now they know and they took her keys away, so all of us are going to have to spend our days driving that bag of bones all over town. It was all well and good, but you done ruined it. Personally, I think it should be your job to be her chauffeur.”
“Well, I would but, as I said, I don’t plan on staying very long and also I don’t know where my car is.”
“Shoot!” Helen snapped her fingers. “I forgot. Raffield told me that Hank Hudson hauled it down to his garage. I’ll take you there tomorrow morning to get your things and see how bad the car is.” As Marcus grimaced, she assured him, “I’m sure Hank can fix it, no matter how bad it is. He’s a miracle worker with a car.”
“And easy on the eyes, too,” Inez leered and elbowed Helen in the side. “Good lord, that is a sexy young man!”
“Inez Coffee! First of all, he is young enough to be your grandson. And secondly, you’re a married woman.”
“Married, not dead! I can still appreciate a good-looking man when I see one. It’s not like I’m going to chase him
down and jump him.”
“You couldn’t catch him if you tried. At least, not without breaking a hip.”
“Don’t I know it?” Inez threw her head back and laughed. “But as I always say, it don’t matter what cranks the mower as long as you stay on the right lawn.”
“Inez, the last thing this young man wants to hear about is the fantasies of an old woman.”
“True. Marcus, I’m sure you prefer your women a little younger than me and old Helen here.”
“Well…” Marcus looked at his feet.
“A fine-looking young man like you, I bet you have to beat them big city girls off with a stick.”
“Not exactly.”
“Oh?” Inez leaned forward onto her elbows on the counter. “You have a girlfriend? Steady lady? Wife?”
“No, ma’am,” Marcus said with a chuckle. “No girlfriend.”
“Well, you’re young. Time for all that foolishness later. You should be out there sowing your oats while you can. Lord knows, if I had it to do over again, I’d’ve kicked a few more tires before I settled down with Elbert. No, you take your time, sweetheart, and find the right girl.”
“I don’t think that’ll happen.”
“Oh, now come on.” Inez clucked her tongue. “She might even be right here in this town. You never know—”
“Inez, hush.” Helen slapped the back of Inez’s hand. “You’re making a fool of yourself. I think Marcus is trying to tell you politely that he is a confirmed bachelor.”
“A what?”
“You know. Good to his mama?”
“Helen, what are you babbling about?”
“For someone who loves New York City theater so much, you sure don’t know much. A homosexual, darling.”
Lunch with the Do-Nothings at the Tammy Dinette Page 3
