Queen of Broken Hearts

by Cassandra King

  I didn’t see Zoe Catherine and Cooter Poulette among those gathered on the shore, but Rye was easy to spot, with his fair hair gleaming silver in the full moon. Because he was so well known and beloved in town, Rye was usually in the center of things, and tonight he stood in front of a small fire as its flames danced in the breeze. On a Jubilee night, all up and down the shore would be little bonfires with clusters of folks huddled around them, warming themselves from the cold wind.

  When Rye spotted me, he waved with enthusiasm, and I greeted those gathered around him holding their paper cups of his juleps, the friends and neighbors I’d shared similar nights with over the years. One of the main things I loved about these occasions was the carnival atmosphere, the hushed expectancy and camaraderie. We were all neighbors then, and people who didn’t even know one another shared stories of past Jubilees as well as their coolers, sandwiches, and drinks.

  “Clare, darling,” Rye cried, eyes bright as he tossed me his car keys, “be an angel and run to my car and fetch the other container of juleps, would you?”

  I stood frozen for a moment, and Rye looked at me oddly until I shook it off, grinned heartily, and replied, “You bet!” before turning to go. He had no way of knowing that for a heart-stopping moment, in the cold light of the moon, he looked enough like Mack to stop me in my tracks. It was a trick of the moonlight; as soon as he turned, the spell was broken, but it shook me to the core. Lugging the half-gallon jug of juleps, ice clanking with every step I took, I decided that if I had any sense, I’d avoid Rye when I returned. Because another unsettling incident had occurred between us recently, I was already uneasy in his presence, disturbed about some confusing feelings I’d been experiencing with him.

  After delivering the juleps, I hurried off to look for Zoe Catherine and Cooter before Rye could stop me, since he was trying to insist I stay with him and his friends. Like Rye, Zoe and Cooter were easy to spot, but for different reasons. If you got within a hundred yards and weren’t deaf as a post, you could hear them. As two of the old-timers, Cooter and Zoe Catherine always tried to outdo each other telling Jubilee stories. Plus, both had hearing problems, which caused them to yell louder and louder. Zoe was seventy, but Cooter had a couple of years on her, and therefore more stories, which infuriated her. Not only that, Cooter had been raised in Daphne, a town a few miles up the bay that was nicknamed “Jubilee Town.” Cooter thought that gave him some leverage over Zoe as chief storyteller, but he had to talk fast to outdo her. I spotted them in front of one of the many piers dotting the shoreline, and sure enough, they were in the center of a group and talking nonstop, each ignoring the interruptions of the other.

  On the outskirts of Zoe and Cooter’s crowd, Austin was standing by the fire, holding Abbie. Wrapped in a long robe I’d given her that past Christmas, Abbie lolled against her daddy’s shoulder, half asleep. Usually neither Zoe nor I called them at night because the phone might wake the baby, but all rules went out the window when it came to Jubilees. I slipped behind the group and put an arm around Austin’s shoulder, leaning over to kiss Abbie on the cheek. She murmured and stirred but tightened her hold on Austin when I tried to take her. I knew how Abbie operated; on being awakened by the phone, she would’ve gotten up and begged so pitifully to come with her daddy that he would’ve been unable to resist her.

  “I’m surprised to see you two,” I whispered. Austin couldn’t hear me because of Zoe and Cooter’s big mouths, so I had to repeat myself, and he grinned, leaning his head toward mine.

  “Looks like now it was a false alarm. Cooter is swearing that he saw the ghost of Jubilee Joe, but I’ll bet what he saw was Gramma Zoe getting up to go to the bathroom. If she was in her birthday suit, that would’ve scared the ghost so bad he’d never show up again.”

  I sighed. “If Zoe dragged me out of bed for nothing, I’m going to kill her, then her ghost can haunt the Landing.”

  Austin inclined his head toward a couple standing next to him. “Let me introduce you to my replacement at the learning lab, Clare. This is John Webb and his wife, Wanda, who’ve just moved here from Auburn and are anxious to experience their first Jubilee. My mother-in-law, Clare Ballenger.”

  The Webbs were a perky, bright-eyed young couple who looked like siblings, dressed almost identically in plaid Bermudas, polo shirts, and matching windbreakers (his yellow, hers pink). They shook my hand enthusiastically and went on and on about how familiar they were with the work I was doing, and how impressed they were with the concept of the retreats, and how honored they were to meet me. Finally I was embarrassed enough by their gushing that I excused myself and left them, moving closer to the water’s edge, where Zoe and Cooter held court.

  Oblivious to the seaweed and possibility of stingrays, eels, and jellyfish, Cooter was standing ankle-deep in the gently lapping waves of the bay, his britches rolled up to his knees. His thick steel-gray hair, hanging from beneath a Red Man chewing tobacco cap, was caught by the wind, which was blowing much stronger now. Even in overalls, Cooter looked so much like an Old Testament prophet that you expected him to be holding a staff and dressed in flowing robes. His face was long and craggy, with sharp jutting cheekbones that hinted at his Native American ancestry, and he had deep-set black eyes that smoldered like coals. When Cooter got tanked up or on his high horse, as Zoe called it, he looked even wilder because he was slightly walleyed, one of his eyes straying a bit to the left. Unless he got excited, then it would stray even farther, which frightened Abbie but caused Zach to squeal with delight.

  I realized that Austin and the Webbs had followed me when Austin, standing behind me, snickered and poked John Webb with his elbow. “That’s the crazy old guy I told you about, the boyfriend of Haley’s grandmother,” Austin whispered. “Wait till you hear him.”

  Cooter has a couple of oddities of speech that greatly enhance his status as an eccentric in a town that glories in its characters and loves telling stories about them. One is his use of malapropisms. Everyone loves telling about the time he went to the ice-cream parlor to buy himself and Zoe a frozen yoga in a cone. He couldn’t eat real ice cream, he told the girl at the counter, because it gave him loose vowels. Another time, at the ballpark, Cooter ordered a couple of hot dogs with mustard and sour crotch. When he wasn’t able to finish both hot dogs, Cooter declared that his stomach must have been bigger than his eyes.

  Cooter’s also known for his colorful expletives. With cupped hands, he scooped up bay water, which he drank with a loud slurp, smacking his lips and wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “Yep,” he declared in a voice that could be heard halfway to Mobile, “old Joe was right, by God. Sumbitch is always right. Water’s so damn salty I can hardly swallow it.”

  Although Zoe snorted derisively, several people left the milling crowd to follow Cooter’s lead and scoop up handfuls of water for tasting. “You couldn’t pay me to do that,” Austin said out of the side of his mouth, and Wanda Webb shuddered.

  “Doesn’t matter how salty it is, Cooter, you old fool,” Zoe declared, arms akimbo. “If a Jubilee is coming, you can smell fish from here to New Orleans. I don’t smell a thing, do y’all?”

  She looked to the crowd for affirmation, which started everyone sniffing the air. Dressed in her fatigues and boots, Zoe was a fitting companion for Cooter, with her unpinned white hair flying around in the breeze, making her appear as wild as the night. “The seaweed’s not thick enough, either,” she added for good measure, kicking at the water with her booted feet.

  “Aw, hell, woman,” Cooter shouted, throwing his arms high. “You can’t tell how much seaweed is here till you get them boots off and your big toe in the water! Y’all don’t pay her no mind. She’s crazy as owl shit.”

  “You get stung by a jellyfish like I did,” Zoe yelled back, “and you’d be wearing boots, too, if you had any sense. Don’t you remember me getting that jellyfish sting, you senile old fart?”

  Austin raised his voice to be heard above the racket. “I’m taking Abbie home, Clare,”
he said, shifting her in his arms. “I don’t want her waking up and hearing them using such profanity.” Abbie had fallen asleep, a limp rag doll in the curve of her father’s arm, and I pushed her soft sweet hair off her face for another kiss. No point in reminding Austin that Abbie had grown up with the vocabulary of her great-grandmother.

  “I’ll take her if you want, Austin, and let you stay with your friends. I’ve seen dozens of Jubilees, and this could go on for a while.”

  But Austin said he realized how exhausted he was, and he was going to call it a night. “If it comes after all, bring us some of your loot. You stay here and talk to the Webbs, okay? Wanda is especially interested in hearing more about the retreats, since she did her thesis on the benefits of group therapy.”

  When Austin left and the Webbs began chirping enthusiastically, I forced myself to feign interest, even though I felt like putting my hands over my ears and groaning. The Webbs were a nice enough young couple, but talking shop was the last thing I wanted to do. With only a flicker of guilt, I retrieved my net and sack and told them that I needed to get my cooler if I was going to get enough fish for Austin and Haley, then scurried away. When I looked over my shoulder, Cooter was holding a finger high in the air, testing the way the wind was blowing, while Zoe yelled at him that it didn’t matter which damn way the wind blew, no Jubilee was coming tonight, and he’d gotten everybody out of bed for nothing, the dumbass.

  I met Lex Yarbrough as I was trying to decide which would be worse, staying around Zoe and Cooter’s crowd and talking with the overzealous Webbs, or going back to Rye’s group, most of them good and soused by now. Since I’d vowed to avoid Rye, I decided I’d go home instead and get back into my warm bed, thinking Zoe was probably right. In spite of the full moon and the extra-salty water and the ominous stillness of the bay earlier on, tonight appeared to have been a false alarm.

  To return to my car, I had to pass a lone figure kneeling in front of a fire made up of a bundle of sticks not much bigger than a bird’s nest. He was tossing another handful of sticks on, which I assumed he’d just gathered along the shore. Passing so close by, I would’ve been rude not to speak, so I paused by the fire to say, “So, what do you think? False alarm or Jubilee?”

  The man got to his feet politely, brushing the sand off his knees, and removed his baseball cap before smiling down at me from what seemed an enormous height. The fire was so small it offered little illumination, but I could tell that he was dark and craggy and sort of tough-looking, in spite of a rather sweet smile. He seemed massive, with shoulders as wide as a refrigerator, until I saw that most of his bulk came from the oversize jacket he wore. My first thought was, Jesus, was he expecting snow?

  “Does it not have the right feel, or is it just me?” I said with a shrug. “The signs are there, but still …”

  “What signs are those?” he asked in a rich, lilting voice, and I tilted my head to look up at him. There was something odd about his voice, but I couldn’t put my finger on what.

  “Oh, you know. The water’s plenty salty, and—”

  He interrupted me with a hearty laugh. “The water is salty?” He said it in such obvious surprise, his eyes dancing merrily. “Isn’t it always?”

  “Ah! You’re not from here, are you?” I felt like an idiot, realizing he was most likely a tourist and had no idea what I’d been talking about.

  But he nodded. “Am, too. I live in Fairhope.” He was grinning down at me like he was having me on, and I studied him, trying to read his face in the moonlight and the meager flames of the fire.

  “No way.” I’d realized it wasn’t his voice that was odd; it was his accent, and I was having difficulty with it. “Sounds like you’re—what?—Scottish?”

  “Scottish?” He appeared genuinely taken back.

  “Okay, not Scottish, but what?” I persisted. “Australian?”

  “Me an Aussie?” He grinned again. “Not a chance. Those guys are too big and rough for me.”

  I laughed, enjoying our little game. “Well, you’re definitely not Southern. And you’re not a Yankee, either, but I can’t quite place the accent. Or brogue, rather. More like a brogue. Ah—you’re Irish!”

  He folded his massive arms as he regarded me solemnly. “Yawp. You’re right, me lassie. Irish.”

  “Oh, bull. Nobody in Ireland says ‘me lassie.’ Surely not! Where’re you from, really?”

  “I told you, lassie. Fairhope.”

  “You are not. For one thing, I know everyone here, and for another, nobody in Fairhope talks funny like you do.”

  “I talk funny!” Again he tossed back his head and laughed a great big laugh. “I can’t understand half of what you guys say.”

  “You guys!” I cried. “I was wrong—you are a Yankee. Right? Or maybe Canadian?” He shook his head, and I sighed. “Okay, I give up.”

  “I live here now,” he told me. “But I was born and raised in Bar Harbor, Maine.”

  “Maine? I never would have guessed it. Well, obviously. Bah Hah Ba, did you say?”

  “That’s right. Bar Harbor.”

  I still didn’t catch the name of the town but said, surprised at the realization, “Funny, I’ve never met anyone from Maine.”

  “You have now.” He stuck out a hand that appeared to be the size of a baseball glove, and we shook. “Lex Yarbrough.”

  “Clare Ballenger.” Later, both of us would realize that we’d heard the other’s name from his ex-wife, but neither of us made the connection at the time.

  “Lot of Ballengers in these parts,” he said, but I had to ask him to repeat himself because I thought he said “in these pots.” Lex proved to be right; until we got to know each other well, neither of us could understand half of what the other said.

  “My husband’s people,” I replied.

  “What does he do? Maybe I’ve met him.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Your husband. What does he do?” He was looking at me like he couldn’t decide which I was, retarded or deaf.

  “Oh! Well, he’s … ah … He died.”

  Lex looked taken aback but recovered enough to say, “Sorry to hear that. So you’re a widow, then?”

  A weeder? “Ah, yeah. I am. I guess I am.” Realizing how that must sound, I quickly asked, “So, when did you move to Fairhope?”

  “Let’s see. Several months ago now. Damn, time goes by so fast, I can’t recall the exact date.”

  “And what brought you here?”

  He inclined his head in the direction of the marina. “Retired from the navy and bought the marina.”

  Had we kept talking at that point, it would have all clicked into place; I’d certainly have remembered the visit of Elinor to my office and known who he was. But both of us jumped at hearing the cries of “Jubilee!” coming from the people standing near the shoreline. It started at the pier where Zoe Catherine and Cooter were, and soon traveled the length of the beach until it was only a faint echo in the distance.

  “You’ve never seen one, right?” I asked breathlessly, and he shook his head.

  “Nope, but it’s all I’ve heard about.”

  “Come on, then,” I cried. “Grab your net or gig or bucket or whatever you brought, and let’s go.”

  “You caught me. I didn’t bring anything, because I didn’t really believe the stories. Figured it was just tall tales,” he admitted, but a note of excitement crept into his voice. It was impossible not to catch the feverish anticipation that accompanied the Jubilee cry.

  I handed my net to him. “Here. You scoop and I’ll hold the sack.” It was an old croker sack Mack had given me for that purpose. Nowadays, most people brought buckets, but Mack never used anything else, saying croker sacks were not only easier to fill but also to drag across the sand, once filled. In addition, the crabs couldn’t crawl out, like they did from buckets. The only problem with the sack was an obvious one: You had to get the captured loot into water as soon as possible once you filled the sack and left the bay.

&nb
sp; Lex and I hurried to the pier just in time to see Cooter dancing around in the shallow water, waving his hat high, and whooping. Then he fell down on his knees and raised his arms to heaven like a praying evangelist as he cried, “Thank you, Jubilee Joe! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

  “Would you look at that,” Lex muttered in astonishment. “Is that old coot nuts or what?”

  “Just another of Fairhope’s many characters. And that’s his name, believe it or not.”

  Lex’s eyebrows shot up. “His name is Nuts?”

  “Of course not.” I laughed. “It’s Cooter. Cooter Poulette.”

  Lex shrugged. “Can’t ever tell with you Southerners. Just the other day I met a fellow named Fuzzy, and he had a buddy with him called Screwy Louie.”

  “Look!” I grabbed his arm and pointed to the moon-bright waters of the bay, where hundreds of mullet were exploding into the air like popcorn. Zoe had been right: The salty smell of fish rode strong on the breeze blowing in from the east. Tugging on his sleeve, I dragged Lex closer to the water’s edge, then turned my flashlight downward to show him the droves of blue crabs crawling out of the bay sideways, making their way past the spidery seaweed that lapped at the water’s edge.

  “Holy Mother of God,” Lex Yarbrough said reverently, and crossed himself. All around us, people were running and shouting and laughing, splashing barefoot in the fish-filled waters. Some were gigging the flat, bug-eyed flounder and whiskered catfish, while others were scooping up nets full of gray shrimp and claw-waving crabs. Wordlessly, Lex and I worked together, pointing and bending and gathering the riches of the sea as though picking from a garden at harvesttime. In a matter of minutes, the croker sack, which I’d kept at the water’s edge to submerge the fish, was full.