Summer in Mossy Creek

by Deborah Smith

  I think Fryzeen knew I didn’t trust her. She never pushed the issue. She just helped and tended, like a good friend or even family. Nothing was expected, but everything was given so freely. After the second week, when I started to feel good enough to get up and start to get my life going, I felt the desire to trust her again. I suppose the Prozac helped a bit. I thought, How silly could I have been to distrust the very person who has selflessly helped me since I got sick?

  That afternoon I couldn’t take a nap after a not-so-bad bowl of lentil soup, which I think Fryzeen actually made from scratch. You don’t get a nice fresh taste like that from a can. So, I actually set out to talk with her. “How did you make the broth so good?”

  “My daughter’s one of them vegans, and she showed me. You got to roast the vegetables first to make the broth, the onions and celery and peppers.” She got behind the bed and fluffed my pillows. “You want to sit up?”

  “That would be nice,” I answered.

  “You look like you’re feeling better today.”

  “A bit.”

  “Good.”

  She left me alone and went to the kitchen. The physical therapists from Bigelow County Hospital had been coming in once a day for the last week or so and making me exercise. I knew just about how much I could do, but pretended, especially around Fryzeen, that I could do a lot less. Even Lorn didn’t know that I could get up and go to the bathroom by myself. However, while they were home, I did as little as possible. Suddenly, it felt good to have someone wait on me for a change.

  About ten minutes before five, I just got the itch to go into the kitchen. I don’t know why. Call it instinct or being led by the spirit, I wasn’t sure. But I slid my legs over to the side of the bed, like the therapist showed me, then I used the stool to inch my way to the floor. I was in my stocking feet because my circulation was real poor since the operation, so I tiptoed to the kitchen door without much of a sound. With one large swoop, I pushed open the door, and bam, I caught Fryzeen red-handed rifling through my recipe box.

  “What exactly do you think you’re doing, Missy?” I asked.

  Fryzeen dropped the three recipes that were in her hand on to the table.

  “I . . . I was just trying to find your lentil soup recipe. I was going to add what I told you, so you’d have it for the next time.”

  It took every bit of energy I had to lift my right arm, but I did and pointed to the door. “I don’t care what you’ve done for me for the last week and a half. You have gone way beyond your boundaries. I think it’s time for you to leave!”

  She knew I was on to her innocent-helper scheme. She wanted my pickled beet recipe so bad she had actually pretended to nurse me all week. And I had actually begun to trust her.

  Fryzeen waved a recipe at me. “See,” she said, “it’s the lentil soup recipe. That’s what I was looking for.”

  Just as I hobbled to the table to check, we both looked down. There on the table, staring up at us like a teenager caught with a smoke, was my secret pickled beets recipe.

  Fryzeen looked horrified—terrified that I caught her cheating, no doubt. Imagine that. She comes into my home on the premise of helping me, and then she takes the opportunity to find out my secrets to keep herself at the top of the pickling community. In my eyes, in that moment, humanity had sunk to an all-time low.

  Her head and eyes lowered. “I swear,” she whispered, “I didn’t know your pickling recipe was there.”

  I didn’t say another word. Just pointed to the door.

  TWO MORE WEEKS went by. The therapy lessened, and I got stronger without the help of anyone except an occasional visit from one of my ladies’ auxiliary friends. They all seemed to feel better at the exact same time, just when I no longer was in desperate need of their help. Imagine that.

  Still, anyone was better than Fryzeen, even a not-so-willing friend kind of forced to do me a favor was an improvement over an impostor. Anyway, I was sure I’d be paying my fellow Creekites back for the next ten years for all the meals people brought for Lorn and me. Even Mayor Walker sent over a pot of venison stew. Probably from a deer she shot, herself. I think the whole county figured out Lorn only knew how to make a meal with a pre-made mix, a crock pot and a can of beer. Chili. And he only did that one time a year, on Super Bowl Sunday.

  Men.

  The county fair was just three days away, and I was nowhere near ready for the contest. But finally, I felt energetic enough to get busy. I’d have to get the beets from the Gooseberry Farm over at Yonder, but it didn’t matter. Charlie Gooseberry’s beets were a lot better tasting than mine, anyway.

  I asked Sandy Crane to help me prepare the jars and carry the pressure cooker up from the basement. However, not even Sandy was going to witness me using my secret recipe. She helped me get ready for the event, but during the actual making of the beets, she had to wait in the living room.

  This year’s beets had to be different, somehow. After all, Fryzeen knew now that I only used fresh dill, just a pinch of dried mustard and honey instead of sugar. I had to alter the recipe just a tad here and there. Otherwise, she’d enter the contest twice and use mine and her recipe. Contestants could enter up to three times. She was just the type to be so greedy.

  It took me all day and night to prepare the new and best beet stock ever, but I was finally ready for the big contest.

  Let the best beets win.

  WHEN LORN HELPED me from our truck, sixteen of my best Creekite friends were all standing around the judges’ table right in front of the statue of General Hamilton on the town square. Every one of them began cheering me on.

  I noticed Fryzeen standing by herself near the back of the small crowd. The judges were to announce the winner at three o’clock exactly. This year was going to be a little different; people were actually going to be able to taste the winning three picks. Each participant had to prepare two extra jars for just that purpose. I had my extras in the truck bed in a cardboard box, figuring I’d at least get up there in the top two.

  At a quarter till three, I saw Lorn inching his way over to Fryzeen after I forbade him to talk to her. Men just don’t know how to be supportive. You just don’t be nice to a woman who has been trying to steal your glory for all these years. “She’s a cheat,” I’d told him.

  He’d said to me, “Why on earth would a woman steal a second-place recipe when her recipe came in first place the last twenty-five years? Why, Lila? Why?”

  Well, the truth is, there was no good reason, except that she was just curious. But curiosity killed the cat. And I was the cat.

  While I was conversing with a few of the ladies, I noticed Lorn shaking Fryzeen’s hand. I wasn’t close enough to hear the exchange between them, but I did see him handing her something on the sly.

  My God, I wanted to run over to them and give them both a piece of my mind. Lord knows, if I could have, I would have read them both the riot act. My own husband betraying me right before my big moment, with Fryzeen, no less.

  But Sandy had me hooked to her arm and was going on about how Pearl Quinlan wasn’t going to be in the Apple Butter Contest this year, so everyone was real curious who was going to win that. The crowd’s excitement, considering the beet controversy and the apple shake-up, was so thick you could cut it with a paring knife.

  Next thing you know, the three judges from neighboring Lumpkin County paraded out in front of the crowd. Betsy Josselyn Joe, the ladies’ auxiliary president, stepped up to the microphone first, wearing her god-awful lime-green pillbox hat, bobby-pinned to purple hair. You’d think her mother would’ve taught her that you just don’t wear lime green with purple or yell like she did into a microphone: “It’s been a great year for beets, hasn’t it?”

  Everyone clapped like at a golf tournament, real quiet.

  “We’re here today to announce the winner of this year’s Pickle
d Beets Contest, a much-coveted prize at the Bigelow County Fair. To do the honor, we’ve chosen the six-year winner of the Lumpkin County contest, Billy Kay Portman.”

  Again the soft clapping.

  Get on with it, I was thinking. Just say my name. Say my name.

  Lorn was suddenly by my side, but I didn’t even want him to touch me, let alone link his arm to mine, like he did. Dressed in a green plaid kilt, trying to make a statement, I guess, Billy Kay walked up to the microphone and cleared his throat. “Pickling isn’t just for farmers anymore. It’s for all those folks wanting to preserve their fresh garden vegetables for use during the winter months. So, not only are we picking a winner for the farmer in us all, but we’re picking a winner for the future of pickling everywhere.”

  Get on with it, I murmured to myself, before I have my second heart attack in thirty days.

  “Huh?” Lorn asked. “Whattid you say?”

  “Just shut up, Lorn, and pray,” I whispered, “because I swear, if I don’t win this year, I’m going to march right over there, with a defective heart and all, and tear out every bit of Fryzeen’s football-helmet hair.”

  “And second runner up goes to . . .” Billy Kay said, “a newcomer to the contest, our police dispatcher, Ms. Sandy Crane.”

  I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. Sandy hadn’t even told me she was entering. The humanity.

  Sandy smiled at me and held up her jar of beets as everyone clapped.

  “This is exciting,” Billy Kay whispered to Betsy Jocelyn Joe just loud enough for everyone to hear. “And first runner up goes to . . .”

  I thought my heart was going to beat right out of my chest, I wanted not to hear my name so bad.

  “. . . Mrs. Fryzeen Sneerly.” Billy Kay looked back at the sheet of paper, like he didn’t even know who had won. “Yes, that’s what it says. Mrs. Fryzeen Sneerly.”

  The entire audience gasped, as every eye turned to me.

  “And so the winner,” Billy Kay bellowed, “of this year’s Bigelow County Pickled Beet Queen is . . . our own little heart-attack, quadruple-bypass-surgery survivor, Mrs. Lila Spivy.”

  I suddenly felt faint. The words I longed to hear so badly for twenty-five years were finally being spoken. Without realizing it, old Fryzeen had given me her own pickling secret. I had roasted my vegetables before I made my beet stock, just like her vegan daughter taught her.

  Lorn helped me up the step to the stage, and before I knew it, Betsy Josselyn Joe was handing me the coveted Pickled Beet First Place trophy.

  As customary, the winner shakes the hands of everyone on stage. I shook Betsy’s hand, then Billy Kay’s hand. Sandy reached out to kiss my cheek. Then suddenly I was face-to-face with my nemesis, the woman who would have tried anything she could to keep me from her crown.

  Fryzeen looked at me with tears in her eyes as she held out her hand.

  “Congratulations, Lila,” she whispered, barely opening her mouth.

  “I’m so glad for you. You truly deserve it.”

  Suddenly, I realized who my nemesis was.

  I turned to the crowd.

  “Speech, speech,” they all chanted as Betsy Josselyn Joe shoved the microphone in my face.

  I cleared my throat, something I promised myself I would never do if I ever had the chance to speak in public. But I couldn’t help it. I seriously didn’t know what to say. I was as shocked as everyone else there.

  I hadn’t believed I was good enough to win. Just like I hadn’t believed I was old enough to have a heart attack. Just like I thought there needed to be a loser, so that I could be a winner.

  But one lonely woman, with nothing but a stupid pickled beet recipe, made me realize I was strong—strong enough to get over more pain than I ever thought I could face, more insurmountable fears than I thought I had, more of own my crummy judgment, of her, and everyone else in my life—including Lorn, including myself.

  I turned away from the crowd and faced Fryzeen and smiled. I’m sorry, I mouthed in her direction.

  It was then I noticed what Lorn had given to Fryzeen just minutes before the contest winners were announced. She still had it in her hand.

  It was a thank-you card with a big sailboat on the front. I recognized it, because I’d bought a box of them on sale at the Dollar Store down in Bigelow. I noticed her eyes welling up, but I was certain in my heart that it wasn’t because she lost. No, I believe that Fryzeen Sneerly, the queen of pickled beets five years running, was actually crying because she was happy I finally won.

  Imagine.

  I’m sure no one in the entire county knew what I was doing. But I left the podium, right in the middle of my speech.

  I went over to Fryzeen and hugged her real tight. I felt tears coming down my own eyes, so I grabbed Grandmother’s Woman-of-the-Year handkerchief. Just as my hands went to dry my cheek, I gazed into Fryzeen’s innocent eyes.

  In that moment, my heart made a three-sixty. I wanted to sell my car and buy her a plane ticket to see her children. I wanted to help her get involved in some women’s activities in Mossy Creek. I wanted to throw a fundraiser to help get her the cash to have her teeth fixed. I wanted to give her a makeover. I wanted to find her a home with running water and new everything.

  But I knew the Fryzeen standing next to me was much too proud for any of that nonsense. What she needed to make her happy, I had all right. And it was standing in my own two-inch pumps and holding on to trivial things much too tightly.

  Before I lost my nerve, I put Grandmother’s handkerchief in the hand of the only woman in all of Bigelow County who actually deserved it, Fryzeen Sneerly.

  Mossy Creek Gazette

  Volume III, No. 6 * Mossy Creek, Georgia

  Young Poetry Winner Opines

  On The Great Beyond

  As always, the Gazette is pleased to print contributions from younger Creekites. Here is the winner of our Summer Rhymes With Bummer poetry contest. It was submitted by Lucy DeLong, eight, great-great granddaughter of Eula Mae Whit.

  On Passing Over

  Granny Eula says that Jesus calls

  those he needs in heaven.

  She says that means when a person

  loses, he will still win.

  There’s no waiting line to get in.

  I don’t much like to go to funerals.

  Too much hugging and tears.

  But afterward there’s food for all.

  And cookies chase away fears.

  Because there’s no hungry folks in heaven.

  Near every week someone goes on

  To the other side, they say.

  Granny says that all their trouble’s gone.

  If it’s all the same, I’ll stay.

  I’m thinking there’s no room in heaven, anyway.

  Chapter Eleven

  LAURIE and TWEEDLE DEE

  “I want you to live to be a hundred. I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you.”

  —Winnie the Pooh

  THE YEAR I TURNED thirty-seven, my life got hit by a bus, which is how Tweedle Dee and I ended up in Mossy Creek.

  Actually, the bus started barreling my way the previous spring when David, my husband, politely informed me that he wanted to move on to greener pastures. So the next few months were spent dividing “ours” into “yours” and “mine,” meeting with lawyers to deal with the paperwork that left a greasy film on my heart and finding a place to live that I could afford on my own.

  The whole thing put enough strain on my health to push me into seeing the doctor. Nothing was found on the tests, so my “not feeling sick but not feeling well” was put down to stress, and friends gently suggested that, since David had already found his greener pastures, maybe I should start looking for companionship
too. I knew what they meant, but I was feeling too fragile to entertain the idea of Men. Still, after slogging through the workday, it was also hard to come back to an apartment that felt too empty to be a home.

  I tried a few adult education classes, but meeting people who were transient acquaintances made me feel lonelier than being alone, so I stopped going. The only thing I stayed with was the storytelling meetings. I loved storytelling. I attended the workshops the group offered, bought suggested books for beginning storytellers, practiced diligently in the evenings, listened avidly when the other members told stories at the monthly meetings—and never had the nerve to put my name on the sign-up sheet to tell a story of my own.

  As the long Thanksgiving weekend suddenly loomed before me, the idea of a companion became more appealing. So, one evening on my way home from work, I stopped at a strip mall and walked into the pet store. An hour later, I walked out with a cage, a variety of food, several toys, a book . . . and Tweedle Dee, a blue, baby parakeet.

  I spent most of that long weekend sitting next to the cage and talking to him while I read the budgie book to learn about my new little friend. What I learned very quickly was that Tweedle Dee had his own ideas about the world. He wouldn’t sit on a finger. He’d sit on a wrist, an arm, a shoulder, or any other part of me he deemed a suitable perch, but the only time he would sit on a finger was when he wanted to do kisses—that is, have me lift him up so that he could gently nibble on my chin. He was perfectly happy playing with his own toys during the day, but when I got home, he wanted out so that he could play with his person.

  I tried to teach him to say, “Tweedle Dee and me,” once he started vocalizing more, but what he learned to say was “Tweedle Dee is me.” Which actually made more sense. So I’d come home to happy chirps followed by, “Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dee is me.”