by Cynthia Webb
I felt stupid, but I still had to tell her about the sign out on Night Lake Road. I heard her audible intake of breath across the telephone line. And then silence.
“Sammy?” I said, wondering if I should have kept my mouth shut, wondering if she thought less of me, now that she knew the truth about the kind of place I’d grown up in.
“I’m here,” she answered. “I just can’t believe I was so stupid. So involved with my missing father complex. Knowing Momma the way I do, I should have stayed out of anything she doesn’t want me to know. But what did I do?—I ask you to go asking questions about a dead black man in a place where the Klan is so powerful they go around adopting highways. My god, just like any other civic organization! I hate to even think about it. Laurie, just forget it. Have a nice visit with your folks, and hop on that plane and come on back to me.”
Well, I was offended then. She didn’t think I could handle it. Truth is, I was feeling a bit foolish for my oversight about the black community in Port Mullet. I hated feeling that way and was looking for something to get touchy about. I thought I had my bravery to prove, and I thought it was Sammy I had to prove it to. It was me, of course, that needed the proof. Over the following days, I found myself giving in to my impulsiveness, leaping into hell first and worrying about the devil later. I think my behavior had its start there, in that chip on my shoulder. That’s just a partial explanation, though, and sure as hell not a good excuse.
Four-thirty a.m. came just as early as I had dreaded it would. I woke on the double bed in my childhood bedroom, a pink-flowered shrine to the kind of girl I’d never been, cursing the fates. I could smell bacon cooking, and heard noises from the direction of the kitchen, so that I knew my mother was up. She hadn’t asked me to help. I could just go back to sleep. But I didn’t want her to have to make this big meal all by herself for all those men. On the other hand, I didn’t want her to think she was right to serve them this way. I could be selfish, or I could aid and abet my mother in her doormat-hood. Some choice.
I got up and brushed my teeth. I don’t own a bathrobe, so I pulled one out of my mother’s closet. It was lavender quilted polyester with a chiffon ruffle around the neck and down the front. The effect it had over my red union suit, which I had worn due to the air-conditioning, almost scared me when I went past the hall mirror. I mean, I’m partial to outrageous, but this even frightened me.
In the kitchen, Momma was neat in a flowered gown, matching robe and slippers. She had a skillet of bacon browning, another of sausage frying, a boiler of grits going, and she was scrambling eggs. I smelled biscuits in the oven, and the coffee was brewing. I heard men’s voices in the yard and in the garage. They were loading the fishing equipment into the boats. Under Momma’s instructions, I set the table for six.
The men came in the kitchen door. Some of them weren’t quite as tall as me, but the situation made me feel small. Real small. Almost invisible. There were nods in our direction, but the men were intent on their talk. They were jovial and expansive. They sat down without removing their caps and started right in on the food. I was busy just keeping the platters filled. More biscuits, more eggs, more bacon, another jar of Momma’s fig preserves. One of them, a guy I went to high school with—he’d been a football player—thrust his coffee mug in my direction. “Can I have a refill on that fine-tasting java your Momma makes, Sweet Thing?” I wasn’t sure if I was going to get him more coffee or pour the hot coffee on his lap. In the kitchen, filling his mug, I thought about spitting in his cup.
Momma never sat down, of course, and I didn’t have the stomach to sit with these men. They left, finally, carrying out the coolers Momma had filled, one with sandwiches, the other with beer and soft drinks. They complimented Momma’s cooking, and made jokes about all the fish they were going to catch and how she was going to fix them.
When they were gone, I stood in the doorway to the kitchen, looking at the table. The plates were covered with cold bacon grease, congealed eggs, and sticky fig preserves. Momma looked at me with surprise when I started carrying the dishes off the table into the kitchen. We cleaned up in silence, the sky lightening outside the window as we worked.
She went out to get the paper and I filled two cups with coffee and sat them on the table. I thought for a moment, then went back in the kitchen and filled two glasses with orange juice. I was adding a good measure of vodka to one of them when Momma came back in.
She saw what I was doing, but she didn’t say anything. We sat down across from each other, drinking our coffee. In the harsh light, I could see how old Momma was, and how tired.
Momma went back into the kitchen and put some cold biscuits on a plate for us and stuck it in the microwave. While they were nuking, she picked up the vodka bottle I’d left on the counter, and carefully poured a few drops into her own juice. I had never known Momma to drink, aside from a rare whiskey sour on those occasions when we had been far enough away from Port Mullet to make it extremely unlikely that she would run into someone from her Sunday School class. And here she was, drinking vodka before eight in the morning. “Us ladies do deserve a treat now and then,” she said. I laughed, and she kinda grinned, and then she sat down and opened the paper to Ann Landers.
It was a nice moment between us, but it wasn’t like we had resolved all our differences. Not by a long shot. When I borrowed the car again to go visit Mr. Miller, she gave me that kicked puppy look again. I tried to ignore it.
The route to the Miller’s house was completely familiar, but everything—streets and trees and houses—seemed smaller. I was seeing the physical surroundings of my childhood shrunk to doll-size.
I got there sooner that I’d expected, and was surprised when I saw the house. I remembered it as grand. It was bigger than any other house around, but now the fake plantation style struck me as, well, tacky. I know it sounds funny to hear me say that, because I’m usually tacky’s biggest fan. But, thing was, a lot of things looked different to me. If I was wrong earlier, I was afraid I could be wrong again, that I couldn’t trust my own judgments. And since I’ve made it my business not to depend on anyone else’s, where did that leave me?
Mrs. Miller opened the door. Another funny thing. I’d almost forgotten her existence. She was quiet, without presence. Whenever I had thought about her, she always reminded me of a little brown bird. She invited me in, exclaimed over how long it had been since she had seen me, and led me back to the Florida room. I sat down on the white wicker couch with floral, peach pillows. Mrs. Miller hurried away to get Mr. Miller and bring us some iced tea. While I was alone, I studied the framed photographs on the table by the wall. There was a formal studio pose of Mr. Miller, and several of Susan, including her wedding portrait. There was a small one near the back of the table, in a heavy, old-fashioned, silver frame. It was almost hidden behind the others, so I got up and walked over to get a better look at it. A pretty girl in a velvet dress with a sweetheart neckline. From the hairstyle and the dress, it looked to be from the late fifties or early sixties. I thought she must be Belinda, Susan’s older sister. I had never met her, and had heard very little about her. I vaguely remembered that she was much older than Susan, maybe fifteen years, and I thought she had been institutionalized somewhere. I hadn’t thought much about her, but if I had, I would have guessed she was mentally retarded, or something like that. One of those private family tragedies—you don’t ask, and they don’t volunteer. A shame, I thought, she looked so lovely, so alive, in her portrait.
Mr. Miller was just as I remembered him: courtly, polite, discreetly flirtatious. He asked me about my life, and managed to make all my responses to his questions sound fascinating. Mrs. Miller brought the tea, and cookies, and excused herself to do some sewing. After she left, Mr. Miller took the initiative.
“So, Laurie, tell me what it is I can do for you.”
I did tell him, as simply as I could, what I was there for. I didn’t lie, but I was reasonably sure that my words led him to believe that Sammy was a pal
of mine. As I chose the words to give him that impression, I realized that it was even more important to me that Mr. Miller approve of me than my mother and father.
“I am certainly honored and pleased that you have come to visit me today, Laurie. And this is a most interesting project you have here. I am curious, however, as to why you have come to me with this.”
I was at a loss. Of course he didn’t know the role he’d played in my life, in my imagination. He had always listened to me, and talked to me, and found time for me when I was a guest in his house. At a time when my own family had found me uninteresting at best, and often unbearable, he had seemed to take me seriously.
While I was struggling to think of how to say this, Mr. Miller reached over and put his hand on my knee. The touch was warm, intimate, comforting. I couldn’t remember the last time my own father had touched me like that. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You did the right thing coming to me. I will see what I can find out for you. We’ve missed you, Laurie, and it’s good to have you home.”
He bent his head close to me in a confidential way. As he did, his hand moved farther up my knee. “I’ll ask around, and see what I can find out. You know, you don’t look a day older than the last time I saw you, dear. You’ve certainly kept your lovely figure.” And his hand moved up farther.
Or did it? I wasn’t sure, because I’d stood up suddenly, in the grip of a sudden panic. As I so gracelessly leapt to my feet, his hand accidentally brushed my crotch. I didn’t know where the sudden panic had come from. Yes, I was embarrassed that I’d remembered him as sophisticated and subtle in his appreciation of me, when he now revealed himself as clumsy and transparent. But he was a small town man trying to be kind to his daughter’s best friend whom he hadn’t seen since she was a teenager. I tried to convince myself that there was nothing sinister in his touch or his compliments.
I had jumped because his touch had opened up another fact about myself I’d been refusing to recognize. I’d had a crush on the man. That was one of the reasons why I’d spent so much time at the Millers’ house. That was one of the reasons why Susan had been my best friend. I had basked in his compliments and attention. I had craved the proof of my attractiveness, my desirability. I had not thought it out consciously, but my feelings were something like this: My father doesn’t find me interesting, but Forrest Miller, with his infinitely more refined taste, does.
But that was no reason to leap away from an innocent touch. Just because I’d been a girl desperate for adult male attention, and Susan’s father, whose style and sophistication I had overrated, had been kind to me. I did see that there was a good chance I’d overrated his importance, too. I had to quit looking for people to bail me out here, to do my work. I had to do this myself.
Mrs. Miller appeared suddenly and quietly in the room, and I remembered she had always had a way of doing that. I felt guilty when I saw her, though I didn’t know why the hell I should. She walked me out of the house that I had known so well, past the hallway that led to Susan’s room. I wondered if they had changed Susan’s room, or if it was the same. The canopy bed, the ruffled curtains, the pompoms on the wall.
Mrs. Miller and I made the usual small talk on the way out. She sent her best to my parents. Then, just I was stepping out of the door, I realized something. Mrs. Miller stood there, as bland and hidden as a person could be. For all the hours, days and nights I’d spent in her house, I knew nothing about what she thought, nothing about what was important to her. And until that moment, I’d never cared.
Chapter Six
I stepped out onto the front porch and was nearly knocked over by the heat again. I wondered how long it was going to take for me to get used to it. It felt like I was crawling through waves of soggy air to the car. I kept thinking about the way Mr. Miller had touched me. It left me feeling funny, and I wasn’t sure why. I wasn’t normally a prissy person, to understate outrageously. I wanted to believe that his gesture meant to be warm and fatherly, and that my sudden movement had ruined it. Maybe my uneasiness had been caused by my Electra complex gone haywire. Still, something far back in my mind was nagging at me. There was something I was forgetting, or something I wasn’t paying attention to, but whatever it was, it wouldn’t let me be.
I started the car and turned up the air conditioning. Okay, so I had been disappointed with Mr. Miller’s response. That was a good thing, I thought, because it reminded me of the first and last, and primary rule of the universe: that when it comes down to it, I’m all alone in this.
I even knew my next move. I’d seen The Port Mullet News on the coffee table at the Miller’s, and it had reminded me to go read up on The News for the week Elijah Wilson had died.
As I was backing out of the Miller’s driveway, a cop car turned the corner. It followed me slowly. Gave me the creeps, although I didn’t have anything to hide.
I kept glancing in the rear view window, and it just kept following me.
Then I looked back and saw the cop had turned his lights on. No siren, just the lights. I pulled over to the side of Main Street, rolled down the window and started pawing through my backpack on the seat beside me, searching for my driver’s license. I wasn’t sure I was carrying it; all the years in the city has gotten me out of the habit.
I felt rather than saw the officer approach my window. I had just found my license when I heard a throat clearing and a tentative “Ma’am?” I looked up and was instantly relieved. It was Tony Gardner, the little brother of one of my high school pals, Marla. The idea that he’d gotten old enough to be a cop, let alone that Marla—one of my pot-smoking, beer-drinking, skinny-dipping pals—had a brother in law enforcement blew me away.
“Miss Coldwater, Ma’am, I’m sorry to disturb you like this, but I’ve got a message for you from the Chief. Chief Berry, Ma’am.”
Now I was pissed. “Yeah? Doesn’t the mighty sheriff believe in the telephone?” And how the hell did he know where to find me? The answer to that takes just one word, of course: Momma. The two of them had me under surveillance.
“I wouldn’t know anything about that, Ma’am, but Chief Berry would like you to meet him at Bobby D’s Restaurant for lunch. Around eleven-thirty, if that’s all right with you, Ma’am.”
I’d forgotten there were grown-ups who really ate lunch at that ridiculous hour.
Tony was looking at me nervously, as if he was considering the possibility that he was going to have to call for back-up to deal with the crazy woman in front of him.
“Don’t mind me, Tony.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“And don’t call me ‘Ma’am’. Or Miss Coldwater.” I took a slow, deliberate look up the length of his body. “You’ve grown up awful cute, you know that, Tony?”
He had. He was lean and even that horrible uniform couldn’t hide a fine set of buns. But he wasn’t as young as he looked, even though he was blushing up to the tips of his ears. He leaned down towards my car window and said softly, “You’re looking pretty cute yourself, Laurie Marie. But then you always were. Good dancer, too.”
I almost blushed myself, I was so surprised. I had completely forgotten those dance sessions in Marla’s bedroom. Marla and me stripped down to our bras and panties, dancing away. And little Tony, the irritating little brother we were always stuck with, watching. We had just ignored him. Figured he didn’t count.
Ah, what the hell. I winked at him, started the car, and hit the gas, pulling off with a squeal of tires, speeding down Main Street.
I slowed down as soon as I saw he wasn’t following me. I turned down a side street right before I reached the main intersection in town. There it was, the tiny, ancient office of The Port Mullet News. I pulled into the parking lot.
When I walked in the front door, I was surprised to see the woman behind the long reception counter. Well, actually, I wasn’t surprised to see her. It was Mrs. Pannell. She’d worked there as long as I could remember. Of course, I’d expected to see her.
What surprised me wa
s how she looked. She’d always been interchangeable with all the others, as far as I was concerned. Small, neat. Pastel-flowered dresses for work and church, pastel “jogging outfits” for home and casual wear.
But here she was, standing behind the counter at the Port Mullet News, wearing a tight yellow dress, bright red earrings, and a big, floppy red bow in her brassy red hair (formerly dull brown). Her lips were shiny and red, carefully lined into a perfect kiss shape. Her eyes were lined with turquoise, and her eyelids up to her well-shaped, penciled brows were a work of art. Various shades of pink, from pale to deep rose, along with violet, and purple were symmetrically applied over and around her brown eyes in an intricate pattern.
The effect was hypnotic. I couldn’t help but stare at her lips and eyes. I had to refocus and blink a couple of times before I could even see the rest of her face.
“Mrs. Pannell?” I asked.
“Well, my goodness gracious. If it isn’t little Laurie Marie! Bless your little heart, child, you’re a sight for sore eyes!” She tottered out from behind the counter on red patent leather spike heels and gave me a warm hug. Even with her heels, her head reached my chest level and I was pretty sure I was now wearing lipstick, mascara and eye-shadow over my boobs. It would take a hot water wash to remove the heavy floral scent she had imparted to my black scoop-neck bodysuit.
Momma had told me that Mr. Pannell had died two years ago, and that Mrs. Pannell had grown quite eccentric. This new look of hers was not what I had envisioned. I had pictured her growing stooped and sad, wearing her loss like one of those white cardigans old ladies throw over their shoulders. Instead, she was glowing with a strange light, just like a neon sign for a good-time bar. I was having a hell of a time keeping back what I wanted to say, which was, “Widowhood certainly seems to agree with you, Mrs. Pannell.”
