What Happens in Texas

by Carolyn Brown

  Agnes settled into Darla Jean’s vehicle and said, “I never thought about you having family. Your sister got any kids?”

  “No, she never married. She was engaged to a fine young man and he was killed in Vietnam. She never got over it, but she’s really taken to Lindsey like a mother hen.”

  “I wanted kids,” Agnes said. “Didn’t get them and Bert died when the twins were small so I kind of adopted them. You know they’re named after me and my sister. Martha Agnes and Catherine Francis.”

  “They sure named them right. Marty is just as mouthy as you are,” Darla Jean said.

  “Be careful now. At my age I can claim that I don’t remember promising to be good!”

  “Okay, right three blocks down and then a left. I see it right now.”

  “What do you see? I don’t see jack shit. This place hasn’t even got a McDonald’s,” Agnes said.

  “No, but Betty’s church is having a dinner, so we’re eating lunch there.”

  “Who died?” Agnes asked.

  The parking lot was small but there were at least a dozen cars angled in toward the church.

  “No one. It’s the monthly ladies’ auxiliary meeting and they have food. Hungry?”

  “Starving, and I love church dinners. They are the best.”

  Darla Jean settled Agnes in right beside Lindsey at the end of a long table. Agnes lowered her chin and whispered, “Tell me his name that hurt you, and that sumbitch won’t never see the light of day again.”

  Lindsey’s smile lit up the room.

  “If you’ll tell me your story, I’ll tell you about the fistfight I got into yesterday. I’m wearing this so people will feel sorry for me and hate Violet for giving me rabies,” Agnes said.

  “Violet is a dog?”

  “She’s a bitch, but she’s only got two legs.”

  Lindsey giggled. “You go first.”

  “Nope, I’m hungry and you already got to eat so you talk first,” Agnes said.

  Lindsey had barely smiled in the past week and hadn’t even opened up to Betty, but in less than two minutes she was talking to Agnes.

  “Look, Betty.” Darla Jean tilted her head toward the other end of the table.

  Chapter 14

  A blast of bitter cold wind hit Cathy in the face when she opened the door and she almost ran back to the nice warm restaurant. It wasn’t just the cold. She didn’t want to go home. But it was midnight, closing time, and John had to get home to his wife, Maggie Rose. He talked about her a lot. She loved ribs. She liked a walk before bedtime. She loved to watch television.

  He followed Cathy outside and to her car. He crawled into the passenger’s seat. “Turn on the heat and talk to me a while. Tomorrow is Sunday. You don’t have to open your café and I’m closed so we can sleep late.”

  Imagining him as the hero in her romance stories was one thing. Sitting in the car with him when his wife might come around the corner and get the wrong idea was another. She liked her job at the Rib Joint. It put her in the midst of a very different bunch of people than she saw at Clawdy’s. They were exciting, wild, and loud. She darn sure didn’t want to get fired because the wife was jealous.

  He sighed. “I’m in a Jesus mood. I could use some company.”

  “A what mood?”

  “A Jesus mood is what my grandma called it when I got like this. She said that I wouldn’t know what I wanted, and if I got it, I wouldn’t want it, and Jesus couldn’t even live with me. Talk to me. Tell me why you were in that fracas on the football field parking lot the other night at the craft show.”

  Cathy blushed scarlet. “You were there?”

  “I was for a little while. I ran out of Coke syrup and my friend at the convenience store had a spare. I drove by in time to see a fight going on. You do have a twin sister. I could hardly tell you apart from a distance. The elderly lady who was fighting? The one you were having trouble holding back, what’s her name?”

  “That would be my Aunt Agnes who is actually my great-aunt, my mother’s aunt.”

  “What happened?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “It takes a lot to get me out of my Jesus moods, and I’ve got all night.”

  “You want me to start with ‘In the beginning, God made dirt,’ or just jump into the fight scene?”

  He chuckled. “I want the whole thing from the day of the dirt manufacturing.”

  “Okay, but remember you asked for it. Won’t Maggie Rose be worried?”

  “Give me just a minute to go make things right with her. It won’t take long. If you leave, you’ll be responsible for whatever I do when I’m in this mood.”

  “I’ll wait,” she said.

  Reading erotic fiction. Working at a place that sold beer. Talking to a married man after midnight. Aunt Agnes would take away her good twin crown.

  He was only gone a minute and when he opened the car door, a small bundle of black and tan fur bounded inside, bounced up into her lap, and looked up at her with big brown eyes.

  She rubbed the dog and it licked her hands. “Well, hello, pretty baby. Do you live here or are you lost?”

  John reached out and touched the Pomeranian on the head. “I’ll be damned. She doesn’t usually like anyone but me. My friends can’t get close to her. She only weighs five pounds but she acts like a pit bull.”

  She laughed as the dog licked her chin. “I’m a pushover. Dogs know it. You know what they say about not being able to fool dogs and kids.”

  “You got that right. Cathy, meet Maggie Rose, my muse and best friend.”

  * * *

  The Lone Star Restaurant on Main Street in Cadillac did something that Clawdy’s didn’t: it opened for business on Sundays and closed on Mondays instead. That Sunday, Cathy, Marty, Darla Jean, and Trixie claimed the last table in the place. They were still looking over the menus when Agnes hollered from the front of the café.

  “Get me a chair, Myrtle. I’ll eat with the girls,” she said.

  The gray-haired waitress pulled a chair from a side wall and Agnes settled in beside Darla Jean. “So y’all beat the Baptists, did you? Must not take y’all as long to save, sanctify, and dehorn as it does us. If it wasn’t for not lettin’ Violet win, I’d change my membership just for that reason.”

  Marty nodded toward the door. “Speak of the devil.”

  Violet and Ethan stepped inside the door and looked around.

  Violet and Agnes both saw each other at the same time. Violet shot evil looks across the café and Agnes fired them right back at her. If their stares had had sound effects, folks would have been running from machine gun fire.

  Cathy reached out and touched Agnes on the shoulder. “Aunt Agnes, you stay right here.”

  Agnes held up a palm toward Cathy. “I’ll go home and eat cat food before I let her sit at our table even if we do have room. You will not be that nice today, not after the things that bitch said about you.”

  “I wasn’t going to suggest that. I just didn’t want you to go up there and antagonize her,” Cathy said.

  “Well, I damn sure don’t want Ethan sitting here,” Marty said. “That would be as bad as letting Andy join us.”

  “Wow! I didn’t know anything was that bad in your eyes,” Trixie said.

  Darla Jean tilted her head toward the front of the café. “Guess if she can’t run you out of church, then you aren’t allowed to run her out of this place on Sunday. Are we going to have to split the church in two like Solomon was going to do with that baby?”

  Agnes shrugged. “Y’all going to the Council meeting about this zoning shit tomorrow night?” She changed the subject.

  “Oh, yeah!” Trixie said. “Are you going this time?”

  “Damn tootin’ I am. Anywhere Violet is, there I’ll be from now on. She don’t like it then she can leave town.”

  “Aunt Agnes, you wouldn’t show up at the club, would you?” Cathy gasped.

  “Hell no! She can have that one, but only if she’s nice to your sister
. One smart-ass remark about you and I’ll use her to wipe up her driveway and let the whole damn club watch. Hell, I might sell tickets.”

  “Aunt Agnes, didn’t you listen to the preacher this morning?”

  “I always listen. Sometimes I don’t agree.”

  “Move over.” Jack grabbed an extra chair from a table for four with only three people at it.

  He sat at the end with Trixie on one side of him and Darla Jean on the other. “I only got an hour. Don’t have time to wait for a booth or table. I’ll get y’all’s dinner since you are letting me sit by you.”

  “Well, thank you, Jack. That’s sweet,” Agnes said.

  “Missed you at church,” Trixie told him.

  “You did?”

  “Sure. There were old scrooges this morning. I could have used a smiling face.”

  * * *

  Ethan touched Violet on the wrist. “Don’t look at them. Pretend like you don’t even know they are there.”

  “She just makes me so mad,” Violet whispered.

  “Well, hello!” Anna Ruth sat down beside Violet. “Are you okay, honey? That was horrible the way Agnes treated you.”

  “It was, wasn’t it?” Violet whimpered just enough for effect.

  Anna Ruth patted her on the leg. “Y’all are waiting for a table, I guess?”

  “Yes, we are. Looks like… Oh no!” Violet’s eyes almost popped out of her head.

  “What? Are you ill? Can I get you some water?” Anna Ruth asked.

  “Mrs. Prescott, we have a table for you,” Myrtle said.

  It was the table right beside Agnes’s. She simply could not be that close to the redheaded witch. But Myrtle was already leading the way. It was follow or lose—those were Violet’s options, and she damn sure wasn’t going to forfeit to Agnes, especially when Lone Star was the only place open on Sunday. She stood up, back ramrod straight, and followed Myrtle to the table right beside Agnes.

  “Speak of the devil,” Agnes said.

  When Violet and Ethan had gone three steps, Ethan turned back and said, “Anna Ruth, come join us. It’s a table for four, and there’s only two of us.”

  “Ethan!” Violet hissed.

  “It’s just being polite, Mother.”

  “Didn’t you hear the gossip?”

  “No, I was too busy taking care of your fight, and you were asleep when Clayton finally left.”

  “They said that you are in love with her and that’s why you and Catherine broke up.”

  “That explains a lot,” Ethan said.

  * * *

  “You are going to be good. I mean it. No more public scenes,” Marty whispered to Agnes.

  “There will be plenty of time to be good when I’m dead. I have to seize every moment in this life, but I promise I won’t throw the first punch,” she whispered back.

  Then Agnes said loudly, “We were discussing these zoning laws, weren’t we? I’ve been thinking about making my famous fudge to sell to the public. If you girls can make a buck with red beans, your mamma’s famous pepper jelly, and turnip greens then I should be able to make a quarter with my fudge. I make other kinds than chocolate, you know. And it has so many wonderful uses.”

  Marty was glad that she was sitting between the two old women. Maybe she and Jack together could separate them if food or dishes started flying.

  “Hey, guess what? John, my boss, isn’t married,” Cathy blurted out to get Agnes on another subject. “I thought his wife was Maggie Rose. He talked about her all the time, but I found out that’s his dog. She’s this cute little Pomeranian. I could just put her in my purse and bring her home, but the inspectors would have a conniption if we had a dog in the house with the café.”

  “All bitches don’t have four legs,” Agnes said.

  Violet took that comment like a slap to the face and made a motion to push her chair back, but Ethan laid a hand on her arm. “Don’t make a scene.”

  Marty wrapped her arm around the back of Agnes’s chair and dropped a hand on her shoulder. “Be still.”

  “So what does your boss look like, Cathy?” Darla Jean asked.

  “He wears glasses, has blond hair that is too long, wears a baseball cap backward, and cooks in cutoff jeans, a company T-shirt, and flip-flops. Real laid back and nice as he can be to me. Makes some fine barbecue. Y’all should come out and have some.”

  “We’ll have to get a party together and do that,” Jack said.

  Violet hissed something toward Ethan and he removed his hand. She stood up and deliberately held her skirt to one side as she passed by Agnes on her way to the ladies’ room at the back of the café. Agnes hid her giggling behind the menu.

  “What’s so funny?” Jack asked. “You don’t want to go to the Rib Joint with us?”

  “Nothing to do with the barbecue joint. I was just thinking about some right fine fudge,” she said loud enough for Violet to hear.

  Trixie whispered in Jack’s ear, “I’ll tell you later. It has to do with the fight.”

  His eyes got big. “Oh!”

  “You understand now?” Trixie asked.

  “Oh, yeah! And I wish I didn’t get here right at dinnertime.”

  The waitress arrived, and everyone at their table ordered the Sunday special: chicken and dressing, mashed potatoes, cranberry orange sauce, green beans, and hot rolls. It came with sweet tea and pumpkin pie for dessert.

  “And put it on one bill,” Jack told her.

  Trixie leaned over and whispered again, “Have they always been this way?”

  He nodded. “Oh, yeah. Mamma says it started when Agnes married Bert.”

  Agnes pointed her finger at Jack. “You two stop that whispering. I might be old but my hearing is just fine and I heard my name.”

  “He didn’t understand why Violet was so mad at you,” Trixie said.

  Myrtle carried out several glasses of iced tea, stopping to put three on Ethan’s table before she brought the remainder to Agnes’s table. “Food will be out in a minute.”

  Violet came out of the bathroom, took one look at the tea and at Agnes, and shook her head so hard that her chins had trouble keeping up.

  “Myrtle!” she called out. “You get me another glass of tea. This has been tampered with.”

  “But it’s not been touched, Mrs. Prescott, I promise. I just set it down there, and there ain’t been nobody except Ethan around it. I don’t think he would do a thing to your drink.”

  “My son wouldn’t but someone else, and I’m not naming names, would sneak something into it. And she’s just crafty enough to do it,” Violet said.

  Agnes fumbled with a bottle of Miralax, transferring it from pocket to purse, purposely missed, and kicked it so it would roll under Violet’s feet.

  Myrtle picked it up and looked around.

  “It’s mine.” Agnes held out a hand. “Can’t taste it in anything so that’s my fiber of choice.”

  Violet shuddered. “Get me another glass. I insist, and when it is here, you can take this one back and dump it.”

  “Agnes!” Marty said.

  “It don’t hurt to come prepared, and I didn’t say a damn word to her so don’t you look at me like that,” Agnes said.

  Chapter 15

  Violet took her place behind the podium, called the meeting to order, and asked if there was any old business. She wore a bright red skirt and matching jacket with the customary flag pin on her lapel, a classy scarf knotted intricately around her neck, and the smell of her hair gave testimony to the perm she’d had that afternoon.

  Agnes thought she looked sweaty and flustered in spite of the brisk fall weather. Probably because Agnes had made good on her word and brought the fancy-pants Dallas lawyer along like she said she’d do. Violet could just worry and sweat some more. Agnes was there for Cathy and she would have her say if it gave Violet a stroke.

  “Is this zoning thing old or new? It ought to be old since it’s like that old dead horse that’s been whooped plumb to death,” Agnes said.
r />   “That would be old since it has been discussed before.”

  “Well, I want to discuss it again. I’m thinking about putting in a shop and I want my house and the whole block zoned commercial so I won’t be breaking any laws. My lawyer, Mr. Frank Watson, says that all I have to have is a paper signed by the Council. Do we need to take this to a citywide vote? The television has already been down here and there’s concern everywhere about zoning laws. Small towns like ours are withering up and dying. We should zone the whole damn town commercial so we could get something in here to generate revenue.”

  “There are empty buildings on Main Street that could be used. We don’t need to zone our residential property commercial. Do you want McDonald’s right next to your house?” Violet snapped.

  Agnes pursed her lips and thought about it. “I don’t give a shit if Long John Silver’s goes in next to my place, and I hate fish. I’d support it if it brought money into our town treasury for things like street repairs and maybe a new jail. There’s potholes in our side streets that could swallow up an army tank.”

  Violet ignored her and looked around the room. “Anyone else?”

  Trixie stood up. “Could we just get a quick count of the folks here tonight? Those for zoning our block commercial so we can keep Clawdy’s open, raise your hand.”

  Anna Ruth did not raise her hand.

  Ethan did not.

  The rest reached for the ceiling.

  “I would like a word,” Frank Watson said. “If there is this much proactive response, then what is this fight about? Sign the paper and let these folks keep Clawdy’s open. I understand lots of folks like their beans and greens and lunch buffet as well as their breakfast. Zone the block commercial and maybe you’ll see some quaint little businesses come into town. Ever been over on the eastern border to Jefferson, Texas? They have more than a dozen lovely bed and breakfast establishments in old homes. Couldn’t do it without the zoning. They have built quite a little tourist town there and it generates a lot of revenue. You don’t see potholes big enough to bury tanks in, let me tell you.”