“Thank you, Mrs. Shelby. This is for you.”
Melinda smiled at her and then handed her the bottle of wine.
“Thank you, dear. And remember, I asked you to call me Norma.”
We followed Norma into her apartment and Melinda looked around and exclaimed, “Oh wow!”
“I know, right? It’s wonderful.” I grabbed her elbow and pointed towards the movie poster. “This is what I was telling you about.”
“Oh yeah, how cool is that.”
“What’s that, dear?” Norma returned from the kitchen carrying a tray of finger sandwiches and cookies that I took from her and set on the coffee table.
“We were just admiring your legs, Norma.” I said in jest, and she laughed, her cheeks turning a lovely shade of pink.
“Well, I never liked the look of my legs, I always thought they were too boney. Melinda, dear, would you mind opening that wonderful bottle of wine you brought? There’s a corkscrew in the kitchen.”
“Not at all, Norma. That is if I can tear my eyes away from those gorgeous gams of yours, and I’m not talking about that movie poster either.”
“Oh, go on with you.”
“I swear, I think I’m in love, Norma.”
After another moment, I heard giggling coming from the kitchen. I knew it was to high pitch to be Melinda’s, and when they returned to the living room I saw the sweetest smile on Norma’s face. Melinda winked at me as she sat beside me on the settee, and Norma sat in the arm chair. We had a very nice lunch and wonderful conversation. I marveled at how Melinda had so easily captivated Norma. At one point, on a dare from Melinda, Norma got up and sang for us. Her voice was operatic, clear and precise, and beautiful to the ear. It was so good to see the once timid old woman, who was afraid of her own shadow, blossom into the leading lady that she must have been in her youth. What a gift Melinda has given her today.
Melinda pulled out her cellphone, “Norma, I wonder if you’d mind if I take a picture of that movie poster?”
“I’m flattered, Melinda.”
I poured Norma another glass of wine, and noticed that Melinda had not touched hers. Maybe it was because I hadn’t drank any of mine either. I was afraid to. But then I thought I’d prove to myself that one sip of wine, does not a drunkard make. Besides, I wanted to see if Melinda was refraining only because I had been. I took a big gulp and found it invitingly smooth, tastefully light, where the vapor lingered on my tongue. It was too good and I set the glass back down for fear of gulping the entire thing.
I walked over to Melinda and pointed out the date on the movie poster. It might be helpful and Melinda took a picture of it.
“Chris, let’s get in the picture with Norma, all right?”
We turned around and Norma had left. “Norma?”
“Right here, dear.” She came from the kitchen, carrying her wine glass, which was empty.
With Norma in the middle, we smiled as Melinda took a selfie of us. Just before we left, I looked at Melinda’s glass and smiled. She hadn’t touched a drop.
We walked down the hall to my apartment, where I hesitated, more from embarrassment than from not wanting her to come in. I argued with myself that I shouldn’t be embarrassed. That I had worked damn hard for what little I had. But in the end, I guess I just wasn’t ready to take that next step.
“I’d invite you in, but my place is a mess.”
“Oh, that’s all right. I want to get the picture of the movie poster over to my detective and see if she can use it to find Norma’s family.”
“That really was a brilliant idea on your part, Melinda, and um, if you think it’d be okay, I’d love to go with you to talk to her.”
“Oh yeah, that would be great! Oh, but don’t you have to work today?”
“No, actually, I have the night off.”
“Well then, what are we waiting for, let’s go.”
It’s in the Past ‒ Melinda Blackstone, Christine Livingston, Frankie Bonner and Meg Bumgartner
“Ms. Blackstone, so good to see you again.”
Frankie was being kind, I’m sure, since I barged in without even calling first, this time. Ever the genteel southerner, she offered us a libation, as she called it, and showed us to the fake leopard skin chairs. I remained standing because I think quicker on my feet.
“I’m sorry to take advantage of you like this, but I have another case I want you to pursue.” I gave her a look that pleaded with her to hear me out in spite of how I left things with her and her wife.
She looked at Chris and smiled, and I realized I had forgotten to introduce her.
“I’m sorry, where are my manners. This is‒”
But just as I was about to introduce her, Meg comes in mumbling something about she had lost her. The startled look on her face told me who she had been referring to. A shimmer of sweat broke out across her forehead, and it was then that I realized I had made a huge blunder in bringing Chris here. Oh shit! I think I’ve really fucked it up this time.
“Honey, you remember Blackie Blackstone?”
“Yes, of course.” Meg replied.
I looked at the two women, so stern and rigid, and then Meg’s accusing eyes told me that I should play along. I wasn’t sure why, but it seemed the best thing to do at the moment, considering I was hoping she would do the same for me.
“And this is Chris Livingston.”
Chris held out her hand and Meg took it into both of hers, looking at her as if she were looking at Saint Mary herself.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Livingston.” She said with actual affection in her voice.
“Please, call me Chris.”
“Chris is the reason I’m here today. She would like your help, Ms. Bonner, in finding this woman’s family.” I scrolled through my cellphone, to the picture of the movie poster. While she looked closely at it, Chris began telling her everything she knew about Norma, which admittedly, wasn’t much.
I noticed that Chris kept glancing over at Meg, who had positioned herself behind Frankie’s desk. Suddenly, Chris stopped talking and turned to her.
“Do I know you, Ms. Bumgartner? You look so familiar to me”
“I have that type of face.” Meg replied with a smile.
Chris repeated Meg’s last name, “Bumgartner, Bumgartner. I knew a Bumgartner once in middle school. She was my best friend and we used to sleep over at each other’s houses.”
Chris stood up and began talking about her best friend, her hands accentuating her words. “Her name was Bonnie, and her big sister use to tease me all the time, and… and oh my God,” Chris grabbed my arm to steady herself and I could feel her trembling when she said, “you’re her, aren’t you? You’re Bonnie’s sister.”
You could have heard a pin drop, it was so quiet in that office. Perhaps because three of us had our mouths hanging open and our eyes wide with surprise. Only Meg had a panicked look on her face, as if she had been caught in the headlights of a speeding car. After a brief pause, she nodded her head.
“Oh my gosh, Meg, how is Bonnie? I’ve love to see her again, maybe catch up on old times.”
Chris’s eyes had already transposed her into a kid again, with the anticipated excitement of seeing her old friend once more. But I watched as Meg’s eyes turned from panic to sorrow in a heartbeat. She crossed her arms as if to shield herself and walked over beside her wife.
“Bonnie was killed by a drunk driver when she was sixteen.”
The way she bluntly stated it, and the way she looked at me with such contempt, I thought I was going to throw up. I knew I hadn’t cause the tragic death of her sister, I had never hurt anyone when I was drunk, except maybe emotionally. But it was as plain as the nose on her face that she was as much as blaming me for it. That explained why she was so dead set against me, and why she was so over protective of Chris.
“Oh no… oh my God, I’m so sorry, Meg.” Chris jumped up and hugged Meg, who opened her arms to her.
It was obvious that no one knew what to say next. I’m
not sure why, but I took it upon myself to step out on that cliff, and jump off.
“Did they catch the bastard?”
Meg looked at me queerly, as if I had struck a nerve that didn’t need to be pinched. And Chris turned her head away, putting her hand to her stark white cheek.
“Yes, I caught him and he spent several years in prison for his crime, which was not enough.”
“You caught him? How old were you then?” Frankie asked, slipping her hand into Meg’s.
“I was twenty, and I naïvely thought the cops would catch him, but they had nothing to go on, since it was a hit and run. I followed up on a few clues, camped out in a few bars, and finally overheard a man talking about how he was afraid to go home, because his wife was going to kill him when she saw the dent in their car. Apparently he had been in Memphis for a week long convention. After I cold cocked him a few times, he came clean. If I could have, I would have broken every bone in his body and let him live with the pain.”
“I’m impressed. I mean that you solved the case so fast?” I said as a genuine compliment.
“I was motivated.” She replied snidely.
“Yes, of course. I’m sorry, I meant no‒”
“Don’t worry about it, Ms. Blackstone.”
This was not going well. Maybe if I led the conversation back to the reason we were there.
“I am sorry for your loss, no matter what you might think of me.” That was so not what I meant to say.
Chris wiped the moisture from her eyes and looked at me, “I don’t understand, Melinda, what do you think she thinks of you?”
“Well, apparently my reputation got here before I did, and as you know, and I recently learned, my rep is why some people in this room won’t trust me.” I nudged Chris playfully with my shoulder and she smiled back at me.
“Yes, but you’re changing your reputation, aren’t you? That’s why we’re here today, right?”
“Exactly right, Chris. So, do you think you’ll be able to help us, Ms. Bonner?”
“Yes, I think so. Do you have a recent photo of Ms. Shelby?”
“Sure, let me show you.” I took the cellphone from her and scrolled to the picture of Chris, Norma and I.
She looked at it closely, enlarging the picture with her two fingers, apparently studying the background, more so than Norma.
“My goodness.”
“What? Something wrong?”
“In the background, do you see it? The Tiffany lamp in the corner and the painting on the wall, that’s a van Gogh. I can’t be sure, but the bookcase looks to be mahogany. And see that doll there?”
She tilted the phone towards me so I could see better.
“That’s a vintage 1930's Shirley Temple doll.”
“Nice.” Was the only thing I could think of to say about an old doll with curly hair.
“Nice? That doll alone is worth a thousand dollars. That Tiffany lamp is probably another thousand. And can you imagine what the van Gogh is worth if it’s an original?”
I looked at her questioningly; again not sure what she wanted me to say.
“My hobby is antiquing. I’ve spent many an hour at the antique shows and estate sales. In fact, what you see in my office are antiques that I acquired from estate sales.”
“So then you know what you’re talking about.”
She smiled and nodded her head.
“Why would an old lady, who apparently has wealth of a sort, want to live in a dump like that?” I asked out loud before I remembered that Chris also lived in that same dump.”
“Because that’s her family,” Chris offered, “That’s all she has left to show for her life.”
“Um, I’m sorry about the dump crack, I’m sure your apartment is perfectly lovely inside.”
Chris laughed, “No, you were right, it is a dump.”
“As long as you have a roof over your head, right Chrissie?”
It was a side to Meg that I hadn’t seen yet, the playful big sister side. I liked it. Chris’s eyes welled up again, but this time, they were happy tears.
“You are so right, Margaret.”
“All right now, don’t start that up again. You know I hate my first name.”
“I know, but I just couldn’t resist. Bonnie would dare me to call you Margaret just too…”
“It’s okay, Chrissie, I miss her too.”
“Meg, could we maybe, have lunch sometime? I work at night so that would be the only time I’d have.”
“I would really like that, Chrissie.”
“Are you working tonight, Chris, we could go out for dinner right now, my treat. Oh and of course, you’re invited to, Ms. Blackstone.”
I knew I liked Frankie for some reason. “Please, call me Blackie.”
Meg shook her head, “I’m sorry, but I can’t, I have a case I’m working on.”
The soft way Meg squeezed Frankie’s hand, and the look she gave her, made me wonder if she wasn’t talking about Chris. But then, if she was, why wouldn’t she want to stay close to her anyway?
“Chris, Blackie, would you excuse us for one minute, please.”
“Of course.”
Meg and Frankie went into the next room and by the time Chris looked at me wondering what that was all about, they returned with a smile on their faces.
Meg put her hand on Chris’s shoulder and said, “Uh, Frankie pointed out that I would regret not taking the opportunity to get to know you again, so I am happy to spare the time to do just that.”
“Oh, I’m so glad. It’s so nice to reconnect with old friends. If you could show me where the bathroom is, I need to power my nose and then I’ll be ready to go.”
Frankie led Chris out the door into the reception area, where the bathroom was located. As soon as they stepped out of the room, Meg jumped all over me.
“Listen, now that you know my deep, dark secret, I want you to understand that I still think you’re bad for Chrissie, and I will still be keeping my eyes on you.”
And indeed, now that I knew her secret, I wasn’t going to be her whipping dog anymore. I stiffened my back and took a step closer to her.
“Listen, hard ass, I don’t give a flying fuck what you do. I’m her friend now, and I didn’t buy my way in, like you said I would. I’ve changed, or at least I’m changing, and if you can’t see that, maybe you’re the one who needs to change.”
“For your sake, I hope you prove me wrong, I really do. But so far, I haven’t seen that change you’re talking about, and until I do…” she leaned in and whispered, “I will ride your fucking ass every step of the way.” And just as she turned to leave the room, she had to get the last word in, “Count on it, Blackie.”
Dinner ‒ Christine Livingston, Melinda Blackstone, Meg Bumgartner, and Frankie Bonner
Thankfully, Frankie had the foresight not to take us to a barbeque restaurant. I’m getting to where I can’t stand the smell of barbeque anymore. She picked a great southern restaurant, with fried chicken, fried fish, and fried okra, pretty much everything on the menu was fried, as it should be in the south. We were seated at a booth by a window that overlooked the Mississippi River. Melinda sat next to me and Meg and Frankie set across from us.
“Chrissie, how can I keep in touch with you?”
“Well, I don’t have a telephone, but let me write down my address for you.” I grabbed a pen from my purse and wrote my address on a napkin. I was so happy that she wanted to stay in touch with me. Right now, she’s all the family I have. I handed her the napkin and she thanked me, explaining that if I ever need her she can find me at the office, or have someone at the office call her, no matter the time. I was very pleased with her generosity.
We perused the menu and I saw that they had fried okra, one of my favorite vegetables.
“Have you ever had fried okra before, Melinda?”
“No, can’t say that I have.”
“You’re in for a real treat then. Bonnie and I use to eat fried okra like it was popcorn. We’d toss them
up in the air and see who could catch the most. I was never as good at it as she was.”
“I remember that,” Meg said, “you both got more on the floor than you did in your mouth. It was just a good thing that our beagle, Stubby, liked okra.”
“Meg, how are your parents? I mean, was it very hard on them? Oh, that was a completely stupid thing to say, I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right Chrissie. My parents had a very rough time of it. Mom lost a lot of weight and dad stared out the window a lot. But when I told them that I was going to the murderer’s trial, they came with me. The judge asked them if they wanted to say something to the defendant, and my mother said, right to his face, that she forgives him. Can you believe that? I was so disappointed with my mom, that it took several arguments between us before I finally understood. She needed to forgive him in order to forgive herself. She had been blaming herself for letting Bonnie stay out late that night.”
“And have you forgiven him yet, Meg?” I was afraid of her answer, but I had to ask the question. What would she say if I told her what I had done? Would she hate me? I don’t think I could bare that.
“No. And I never will.”
Tears stung my eyes and I quickly turned to look out the window, wishing I was anywhere else just now. But then I saw in the window’s reflection that Frankie shook her head at Meg and I panicked, fearing they had figured out my secret. I heard Frankie whisper ease up to her and I could breath again.
“I’m sorry, Chrissie. I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just that the bastard is back on the street now, and still drinking. Perhaps if he were trying to make amends, trying to help others with a drinking problem, then maybe I could forgive him.”
Now my eyes watered in gratitude. Someday, after I can make amends for my drunken past, I will tell Meg, and apologize to her from the bottom of my heart.
“Hey, Chrissie…”
I looked at her and she was holding a piece of okra.
“Open wide.” She said, and when I did, smiling from ear to ear as she tossed the okra into my mouth.
Regrets and Promises ‒ Meg Bumgartner and Frankie Bonner
“What a delightful young lady she is.” Frankie said as she pointed to her zipper.
From Riches to Rags Page 9
