“We each took shifts staying with her,” Francine explained, her voice low and quiet.
“I was with her on her last day and I could just tell it wouldn’t be long,” Inez said and began to sniffle. “Your grandmother had been just lying there quiet for days. She finally looked over at me and said ‘call a meeting.’”
“We were all there when she…” Francine’s words faded as tears began to stream down her cheeks.
“She gave us a little task before she left us,” Helen said.
Marcus leaned forward in his chair. “Go on.”
“Marcus, your grandmother meant the world to all of us,” Helen said, struggling to keep her emotions under control. “She was really the glue that held this group together. Anything she would’ve asked us to do we would do, but especially we had to fulfill her dying wishes.”
“You see, darling,” Francine offered, “your grandmother wanted us to find you.”
“And to make sure you were happy,” Inez added.
“And this I will never forget as long as I live,” Helen said with her lip quivering. “She looked me right in the eye and said ‘Make sure that boy has a home. The way his mother dragged him around…’ Her voice faded out there. Then she took one last breath and said ‘That boy needs love.’”
Marcus stared at the women, unable to formulate anything that seemed an appropriate response. He considered what they were saying. Yet again, it seemed that the grandmother he had never met cared more about his happiness than those closest to him ever had. He rested his elbows on the table. As he slid his hands up his face and smoothed his hair, he let out a long slow breath.
Francine dabbed at her eyes with a napkin. Inez turned her face away, but he could see her neck was flushed. Helen rested her forehead on her hand. She mumbled, “What were we supposed to do? Ignore her wishes? When Raff called and told me you were in town, I knew we had to do whatever we could to fulfill her wishes.”
“Yes, but…”
“Of course, we didn’t have any idea you were gay.” Francine looked at Marcus and forced a half-hearted smile. “What do we know about playing matchmaker for a gay person?”
“But that first day you were here in the diner,” Helen explained, “we all discussed it and decided this was the best thing to do.”
“And where is Priss?” Marcus asked.
“Well, she…you know…with the preacher’s wife thing and all. She didn’t think it would be appropriate to…it doesn’t matter.”
“Ladies, I really appreciate you trying to fulfill my grandmother’s wishes but I really don’t want to stay here. And I really don’t want to get into a relationship with anyone. Can you please just let me—” Marcus’s phone began to ring in his pocket. “What now?” he mumbled as he fished the phone out and glanced at the screen to see Robert’s name. “Oh, that’s just perfect.” He quickly hit the reject call button and tossed the phone onto the table.
“But, sweetie, everyone wants to find love. Why don’t you let us—”
“You know what Helen? That is the last thing I need right now. And this is why.” He snatched the phone from the table and showed them the screen. “I just…” Marcus’s eyes stung with tears. He tilted his head back to stop himself from crying. He willed his mind and body to calm down and prevent another panic attack. The women all began to question him at once, their words tumbling over each other.
“Oh, darling, what is going on?”
“Is that who gave you the eye?”
“That’s not from the wreck?”
“Oh, come on, Inez. You know as well as I do where that kind of thing comes from.”
“Sweetie, tell us.”
The jarring barrage of questions made the muscles in his neck and his shoulders tense. “Can we just drop it and move on?” Marcus could feel his chest tightening and taste the vomit at the back of his throat. “I don’t need you all meddling in my life. Okay?” He pushed against the table and slid his chair back in frustration.
“’Cause you are clearly doing such a great job by yourself.” Inez huffed out a disgusted breath and leaned back in her chair with her arms folded.
“Inez,” Francine chided, “That wasn’t very nice to say.”
“This is really none of your business.” Marcus lolled his head back in frustration and stared at the tiles in the ceiling.
“The hell it isn’t,” Inez spat out. “Is some violent man going to show up on our street?”
“He doesn’t know where I am.” Marcus folded his arms on the table and dropped his head on them to stop the spinning of the room. Through his arms, he mumbled, “And he’s not really violent. Could we please change the subject?”
“That black eye says you’re lying.”
“Girls,” Francine said, “drop it. It’s his business to tell or not. We gave it our best shot and now we have to admit defeat. Also, I need all you old biddies to go home so I can close up shop. Marcus and I have an early day tomorrow.”
“I still don’t see why—”
Marcus jerked his head toward Inez with anger flashing in his eyes. “Miss Inez, drop it.”
The women and Marcus sat in uncomfortable silence. Inez crossed her arms and frowned at the other women. Helen looked at the table and shredded a napkin into tiny pieces. Marcus looked at Francine to see her staring at him with a concerned look. Marcus blinked the tears away from his eyes and tried to force a smile at his employer. Francine smiled back and nodded her head knowingly. The bell over the diner door cut through the silence as Skeet bustled through from the street.
“Well, I finally got all those very confused men into their cars and on their way,” Skeet said as he strolled into the room and flopped on a chair at a nearby table. “I think a couple of them figured out what game y’all were playing but… Wow! You could cut diamonds with the silence in here.”
“Marcus was just making it clear that he didn’t appreciate our very kind act of trying to find him some friends.” Inez threw up her hands.
“Kind?” Marcus scrunched up his face and frowned. “I’d call it more meddlesome than—”
“Moving on,” Skeet interrupted him. “I take it no love connections were made here tonight. Go figure. Honestly, Nonnie, was that the best y’all could come up with? Golly Dorney? Martin Prescott?”
“It appears that none of our choices were Marcus’s type,” Inez said. “Though I thought they were all perfectly nice gentlemen.” She stood and snatched her purse from the counter. “Francine, I’m leaving. I don’t think I need to stay around here where I’m not appreciated.”
“Aw, Miss Inez, don’t be that way.” Marcus leaned toward the departing woman and tried to grab her hand. She snatched it away and stormed toward the door.
“Sweetie,” Helen whispered in his ear, “you just got to let that one stew in her juices until she’s done. Trust me, by tomorrow she’ll have found someone else to be mad at, and this will all be forgotten.”
Francine untied the apron from around her waist and waved it toward the other women. She turned to Marcus and said, “Punkin’, why don’t you head on home and I’ll close up. You’ve had a rough night.” She kissed Marcus on the cheek. As she pulled away, she added quietly, “If you ever want to talk about anything, I might understand better than you would think.” She turned toward the kitchen and called back over her shoulder, “Now y’all get the hell out of my diner.”
“That’s perfect,” Helen said as she rose from the table and held her hand out to Marcus. “Marcus and Skeet can escort me to my car.”
Marcus stood and took Helen’s hand. “Fine, but I’m going to let Skeet drive me home.”
The threesome stepped out into the night air, and Helen hooked each of her arms through one of the young men’s arms. “Sweetheart, you’ll have to forgive us old ladies. Really, it was my idea and I talked the other girls into it, so don�
�t be mad at them. My mind just gets to going sometimes, and I forget to think it all the way through. But we really didn’t mean any harm.”
“I’m sorry I lost my temper, too. I just felt ambushed and… well… I don’t know.” Marcus shrugged.
“So, Marcus, you have disappointed all the women of the Do-Nothing club,” Skeet said. “I guess I’m going to have to take you to The Woodshed.”
“I beg your pardon?” Marcus stopped and scowled at Skeet. “I’d like to see you try, you little squirt.”
“No, I don’t mean beat you. Good lord, I ain’t into that. It’s a bar. A gay bar.”
“In this little town?”
“Marcus, we are more modern than you’d think,” Helen said.
“Not that modern,” Skeet added and chuckled. “It’s just an old barn out in the country. But it’s fun, and the music is good for dancing. You’ll see.”
“Oh god, I could use a drink. Let’s go.”
“Not tonight, dummy. Tomorrow night when you don’t have to work on Sunday. I’ll drive us out there. We’ll see if I can’t introduce you to someone who is at least actual facts gay and not a member of the AARP.”
“Skeet, I already told your Nonnie, I’m not really looking for anything—”
“Oh, shut up, Marcus. You act as if the world will come to end if you accidentally have a good time. I’m just talking about gay therapy. You know? Dancing? No arguing.”
“Fine. You’ll have to drive.”
“I know. Trust me. You’re going to love it.”
Chapter Eight
“How far away is this place?” Marcus asked as he stared out the window at the tilled rows of tobacco fields that whizzed by as they sped along the highway in Skeet’s huge, black Mercury Montego.
Forty-five minutes earlier, when Skeet had pulled into the driveway of his grandmother’s house to pick Marcus up, Marcus had been shocked at the sheer size of the boat-like car. The car swayed gently along the bumps in the road and the murmuring sound of the tires on the pavement had nearly lulled Marcus into sleep. His shift at the Tammy had started way too early that morning, and he regretted not working in a disco nap between getting home and Skeet picking him up at nine. An afternoon rain shower should have been the perfect inducement to sleep, but he’d laid down and closed his eyes only to toss and turn on the sofa for an hour before giving up and getting in the shower.
He couldn’t decide why he was nervous. He had been to dance clubs hundreds of times, but had not stepped into a gay bar in over two years since he met Robert. Skeet had told him so little about The Woodshed, he was unsure what would be appropriate to wear. A nagging voice in the back of his head kept telling him, “You’re going to look foolish.” Hoping to look as though he hadn’t put much effort into his appearance, he had changed into three different dress shirts before settling on a simple green T-shirt and blue jeans. Around the eighth time he paced from checking out the front window for Skeet to glancing in the mirror to debate his choice of shirt, he realized that the voice in his head was Robert’s. The realization sent a wave of rebellion through his bones. Screw you. I’m going to wear this shirt because it is comfortable. I’m going to have a good time. I’ll look foolish if I want. To prove his point, he crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue at his reflection in the mirror. With a sudden desire to dance himself silly, he fussed with his hair until Skeet honked from the driveway.
Now the only things keeping him awake were the loud dance music thumping from the speakers, Skeet’s endless prattle about the high school production of Guys and Dolls that he and Frankie had starred in the past spring, and the knot of nerves sitting in his stomach.
“We’re almost there,” Skeet said as he turned down the stereo. Skeet wore a tight black T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up over his biceps. His faded, baggy jeans were cuffed over black boots and he wore a leather belt with silver studs along the back.
“Anyway,” Skeet continued, “I told Miss Henderson that even though Adelaide and Nathan aren’t officially the leads of the play, that Frankie and I still clearly deserved the awards for best actor and actress because… shoot!” Marcus braced himself against the dashboard as Skeet stomped on the brakes and the car squealed to a stop in the middle of the road. “Almost passed it. I told you to help me look for mile marker seventeen! You know, Sarge should really put a sign out here.”
Skeet flipped his turn signal and steered the car to the left, off the highway and onto a dirt driveway that led through a gap in a ramshackle wooden fence. The path twisted through row upon row of pine trees before it stretched out between two large but empty fields. A half a mile down, it emptied into the yard of an old, white farmhouse with a large porch wrapping from the front door around the side of the house. Though it had clearly been built at least a hundred years ago, the home was well maintained and clean. The full moon reflected off the bright white paint of its siding. A porch swing swayed gently in the evening breeze next to two wooden rocking chairs. Despite an overwhelming urge to jump from the car and run and plop into the swing, Marcus shifted in his seat and waited for Skeet to stop the car and hop out.
Marcus turned and mumbled, “Doesn’t look like any gay bar I’ve ever seen.”
Skeet glanced over at Marcus and chuckled. “No, silly. That’s Sarge’s house, not the bar. Why on earth would anyone put a bar in an old farmhouse? For somebody from the city, you sure don’t know much about how things work.”
“How things work?”
“Honey,” Skeet drawled as he turned the steering wheel to the right and drove around the side of the house, “any good southern boy knows the real party is always in the back yard.”
Behind the farmhouse, a big red barn came into view. The two massive main doors were thrown open and bright light spilled out onto the ground in front of the building. Through the windows on either side of the doors, Marcus could see flashing lights in red and blue and the silhouettes of a few people dancing. Some figures just inside the door sat at a picnic bench, clapping, laughing, and raising their beer bottles in a toast. Over the doors, a solitary, bare light bulb hung swinging in the breeze above a hand-painted sign that read: Welcome to the Woodshed. As Skeet pulled the car into an open spot between two trucks, Marcus noticed two men standing beside one of the trucks; one was leaning against the truck bed with the other standing in front of him with his arms draped lazily over the leaning man’s shoulders. Their heads were close together; the wide brim of one of their cowboy hats hid their faces from Marcus’s view. The men looked over and shielded their eyes from the bright light of Skeet’s headlights. After Skeet turned off the lights, one of the men leaned over to say something to the other before they both turned and waved to the car with big smiles.
“Well, here we are! Welcome to the gayest little spot in South Georgia.” Skeet turned off the car, flung open his door and looked back over his shoulder at Marcus. He grinned and wiggled his eyebrows. “Let’s go look at some men!”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Marcus said as he opened the door and stepped onto the grass. He stretched his arms above his head and took in a deep breath, smelling the dirt of the nearby fields and the lingering damp of the afternoon rain. Strands of white twinkle lights stretched from the corners of the building toward the pecan trees along its perimeter. Through the open door of the second-story hayloft, a mirrored ball twirled lazily, sending glimmers of light dancing across the hoods of the twenty or so pickup trucks parked all around the yard. Marcus followed Skeet toward the doors and heard the familiar twang of older country music blaring out into the dark night. As they passed the two men beside the pickup truck, Marcus nodded a hello.
“Clint. Seth,” Skeet said with a careless wave of his hand. “What’s on the menu tonight?”
“Hey, Skeet,” the taller man responded. “Low country boil. And Toona and Pattie are doing their Judds tribute.”
“Ugh. Again?”
“Who’s your friend?” the other man asked, turning his head to look Marcus up and down.
“His name is Notfa.”
“Notfa?” the first man said and twisted his face.
“Notfa you to worry yourself with, you two old perverts.” Skeet blew a kiss toward the men and sashayed to the barn.
As Marcus hurried to follow Skeet toward the door, Clint and Seth laughed before one said something about “that sassy little shit.”
Marcus grabbed Skeet’s wrist and slowed him down. “That was rude.”
Skeet stopped and looked at Marcus. He rolled his eyes and giggled. “Oh, they know I’m kidding. Clint and Seth live over in Wellerton. One of them is a photographer or something for the newspaper there, and the other is a farm animal vet. They’ve been a couple for like a hundred years. Everybody gives them a hard time about being on the prowl for a houseboy or something, but it’s not true. I think everyone does it because most of these guys are just jealous they both found someone. They’re just here to have a good time like everyone else.”
“Oh. Okay.” Marcus glanced back to see the shorter man kiss the other on the cheek. “So they’re regulars?”
“Hell, Marcus. Everyone’s a regular here. Not a lot of choices of places to go. Now, can we go inside while I’m still young and fetching?”
“How much is the cover charge?” Marcus asked as he pulled his wallet out of his back pocket.
“The what?”
“The cover.” Marcus gestured with his wallet.
“Money to get in?” Skeet laughed as he pushed Marcus’s arm down. “It’s not a real bar. That wouldn’t be legal at all. No, this is a house party that has just been going on every weekend for about five years.” Skeet walked into the barn. “Come on. I’ll introduce you to Sarge, and he can explain it.”
Lunch with the Do-Nothings at the Tammy Dinette Page 10
