by Ruth Moose
“Worry us to death,” Ida Plum said. She picked up his plate. “Even if some of us have to keep the everyday wheels turning.” She looked at me, pointed to a bill on the counter: $240. The real plumber had come and gone. “He said these old houses are only patch-up jobs until the next fitting decides to spring a leak. I think he looked around and saw graduate school for his kids.”
“Thank you,” I said. And meant it. She was my rock, my steady ground to stand on when the world around me was crashing like ocean waves. “Mr. Fortune get back?” I asked, as I ran my hand over the hammer handle. I bet my grandmother’s hands were the last ones to touch this hammer. Or had this hammer belonged to my grandfather, the furniture maker, the woodworker? I could almost feel a warmth in the worn smoothness.
“Who’s Mr. Fortune?” Scott stood and pushed his chair in.
“The person who found Verna after she fell,” I said. “And my latest Dixie Dew guest.” I pointed upstairs.
“What does he look like?” Scott asked.
I wondered why he’d want to know and felt like saying none of your beeswax, that old sassy grade school answer. Instead I said, “Oh, you’ll know him when you see him.”
Ida Plum laughed. “He’s not only a mystery, he’s picking up our mystery guest. Someone to do something with the festival.”
Scott rolled his eyes. He knew something he wasn’t telling.
I left Scott with his hand in the cookie jar and Ida Plum pretending to slap it. The cookie jar was in the shape of a giant green apple. It had been on my grandmother’s kitchen counter as long as I could remember. And as long as I could remember it was never empty, most often filled with oatmeal raisin cookies baked from scratch, except when I came home last fall. There hadn’t been a crumb in that cookie jar. My grandmother had been in the nursing home where she died after her fall. Sometimes I stocked the jar with packaged stuff, but not often, and sometimes I cheated and popped in some “almost homemade” oatmeal cookies with coconut and chocolate chips from the new Phoenix Bakery that had opened next to Gaddy’s Drug Store.
I grabbed a box of tacks and headed out the front door.
Chapter Twenty-four
Reba was the first person I met outside the white picket gate of the Dixie Dew. She was humming some tune I couldn’t quite name and carrying one of Verna’s umbrellas that had a bent spoke. The sky was a perfect blue. Not one cloud sailed across it. Verna’s umbrella had one side flopped down like a huge red bird with a broken wing.
Reba wore an orange chenille housecoat I’d seen on Verna’s clothesline in the past. The tufts were gone in a lot of places and it was too short for her. She’d tied the belt in front so the back hiked up, where I saw some of the long-legged panties Verna favored. They had torn and ragged lace on the legs that came to Reba’s knees.
If Verna was able to come home after some rehab, she wouldn’t miss that robe or the panties. I bet in that house she had a dozen packs of new panties ordered from some old-fashioned mail-order place in New England. I’d seen stacks of their brown catalogs on one of her tables downstairs.
“Think it’s going to rain, Reba?” I asked, as I tacked a poster to the utility pole.
“Sometime,” she said, and looked at a sky so clear and bright it blazed blue.
She was right. It was going to rain. Sometime. Just please not on our Green Bean Festival.
“Where you headed?” I asked as I walked and she walked beside me, holding the poor umbrella over my head.
“Not to jail.” She punched the air with her fist. “Not to Mr. Ossie’s jailhouse room. No sirree. Broke the door down.” She laughed, jumped up and down and jiggled the umbrella with both hands.
I tacked up more posters. Reba held the posters to the poles with the tip of her umbrella while I tacked.
“You haven’t seen Robert Redford anywhere, have you?” I tapped the poster.
“TV,” she said. “On a horse, horsey, horse.”
“I mean the rabbit named Robert Redford. The white rabbit.”
She shook her head no. “No rabbit nowhere no time. Anytime.” She walked on. Barefoot. Which made me remember her flip-flops. In my car parked in my driveway. With her wedding dress. The wedding, which started this whole business of God and him being dead and Reba killing him. She seemed to have forgotten the whole thing. Jail had been the most recent thing on her mind. I wondered how much wedding cake she’d eaten and if the rest of it was left in Verna’s bed for rats and mice and who knows what else to find.
Reba skipped down the street like a child, the umbrella bouncing up and down. Oh, to be so innocent, so absolutely carefree, trusting in everything and everybody.
For a long moment I just stood and watched Reba skipping down that sidewalk, stopping to hop over a raised place or crack, and I wondered if maybe all of us who had been involved in the so-called wedding joke had learned a lesson. In our boredom and need for something to talk about, a shared experience, we had used her. Not something to be proud of. Now one man was missing and maybe dead, another one nearly dead, plus a wild and strange woman was after me breathing fire. Verna could have a broken ankle and Robert Redford was missing. Or dead? And people thought this was a quiet little town where nothing ever happened. Little did they know that underneath the appearance of peace and tranquility in Littleboro things went on. And on and on. The ordinary and sometimes, since I had moved back, the not so ordinary. Dead or nearly dead bodies kept blocking my way toward normal. Quiet small-town days and months and years. The kind I’d grown up with and wanted back. Peace and harmony. No crime. No Ossie DelGardo anywhere in sight.
We had births and deaths, but these days in Littleboro, we had more deaths than births. The Mess always had at least a half page of long obituaries and during the winter months, more. The obits said things like “Zelina Hatley passed at age 101 after having lived a good life in the community where she was born.” Other deaths were ages ninety-six or eighty-eight, teachers, a barber beloved by the whole town, pillars of Littleboro. Gone. Buried on the hill. Not many moved in. People kept “dying off” as the saying went. The population was dwindling.
We had the usual seasonal things: the Easter egg hunt at Lemon Lake with “fewer in attendance than ever before” and an ominous note that this would be the last year unless attendance picked up. The annual opening of the town pool in early summer had the same ominous note. The town was dying natural deaths, mostly. Miss Lavinia’s death in my bed-and-breakfast had been “unnatural,” as was Father Roderick’s and later Miss Tempie’s final swat at the sensibility of Littleboro’s “upper class.” The Mess simply reported the facts, but everybody knew. We have always known how to read between the lines in The Mess. Between the lines was where the truth often hid.
With these thoughts tumbling in my head, I kept tacking posters.
Chapter Twenty-five
Tuesday came and I was no closer to any sanity than I was on Saturday when all this business with Reba and God and Ossie started. It was also the third day of the missing rabbit. Reba was wandering around barefoot. I should tell her that her flip-flops were still on the front seat of my car along with her wedding dress. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to the Green Bean Parade Day, followed by the Green Bean Cook-off.
Normally I hate parades. Maybe I’m the only person in the world who does. They’re boring. They’re all pretty much the same: marching bands, some Miss Somebody of Something in a convertible waving and fake-smiling, the usual fire truck, police car, mayor, city council person, some horse people pulling up the rear, blah, blah, blah. Still, it had been a long time since I’d seen a real parade and since this was Littleboro, I knew the parade wouldn’t be a big one or last very long.
This one would start at the fairgrounds, meander downtown, wind around the courthouse and end up back at the fairgrounds where Debbie Booth and Miss Isabella (if she’d recovered) would be judging the green bean entries. I assumed the mayor had rounded up a third judge. Somehow I could imagine Debbie and Miss Isab
ella coming back to the Dixie Dew looking a bit green around the gills. I knew I would if I taste tested all those green beans.
Ida Plum said she’d seen all the parades in her life she ever wanted to see and then some. She headed home and though she didn’t say so, I had a feeling she’d stop by to check on Verna. I knew she wouldn’t mention that Robert Redford was still missing; that sort of news could or would cause Verna to spring up, weak ankle, rehab and all, and start sprinting or hobbling down the street calling that rabbit. Ida Plum knew how to mind her Ps and Qs and she never carried gossip. At least not that much and not too often, just shared what she picked up at Juanita’s when she went for her weekly appointment to get her mass of cotton white curls washed, fluffed and sprayed to perfection. She always looked the same. I bet if you shook her awake in the middle of the night she’d look like she always did, every hair in its proper place. Several ladies who had been Juanita’s regulars for ages still got modified beehives. Ida Plum said as they left the shop, they’d pat the sides of their beehive hairdos and say, “The higher the hair, the closer to Heaven.” She’d laugh saying that.
I watched the parade from in front of Mr. Gaddy’s, which had closed, as had a few of the other stores along Main Street. Mama Alice told me that during WWII all the downtown stores closed every Wednesday at noon so people could go home and work their victory gardens. She said that’s when it became prayer meeting night at churches, too. Now most of the stores I knew as a child were vacant, empty, yearning spaces. A few were occupied by consignment shops or antiques stores. Somehow the fabric shop and Juanita’s Kurl Up and Dye had hung on, along with Bennett’s Jewelry, which had been on Main Street forever. And of course Gaddy’s Drug Store, and the S & T Soda Shoppe, which still had a soda fountain with the original booths and little metal chairs and tables and the best and world’s biggest banana splits. So there wasn’t much to close for a couple of hours and it was Tuesday, not Wednesday, after all.
At noon Malinda locked the door of Gaddy’s and came out with her son Elvis. We each held one of his hands as he stood between us. He loved us to swing him back and forth and he’d giggle until Malinda made him stop asking. I personally thought at three it was cute and showed he was getting to be more little boy than baby these days.
“He loves a parade,” Malinda said, “as long as they don’t include a flyover. One Fourth of July some planes flew over a parade in Faith and he screamed for an hour. We had to leave.”
“No chance of that here. This is Littleboro,” I said. “And it isn’t a Christmas parade, so Santa won’t be throwing out stale Tootsie Rolls.” This parade would be raggle-taggle whatever could be rounded up, shoved into a band uniform or dance costume and marched down the street.
“What do you bet You-Know-Who will be somewhere in it?” Malinda asked. “If she can still squeeze herself into her car.”
You-Know-Who was Lesley Lynn Leaford from high school, whose daddy bought her a baby-blue Thunderbird convertible when she first got her driver’s license. She drove all the cheerleaders in it for high school homecoming football parades. After that her life went downhill. The car became a classic and she became well padded with a couple hundred pounds. A town legend, Lesley Lynn Leaford. I hadn’t thought of her in years.
Mama Alice had catered her wedding the summer after Lesley Lynn graduated from high school. She’d dated the groom since eighth grade. Their wedding was the talk of the town: twelve bridesmaids, parties, luncheons, bridal showers. She was feted so much Mama Alice and I laughed for years whenever we saw the word “fete” in The Mess. Hadn’t been a wedding in Littleboro to match Lesley Lynn’s to this day. Lesley Lynn divorced in a year and moved back home to live with her daddy and take care of him. Every day the two of them ate breakfast at The Nook, had lunch with John Blue and the crowd at the diner and they probably went to Apex for supper. People said they hadn’t had a stove in that house in years. She never learned how to use one. But she sure knew how to use a knife and fork, people said behind her back.
“I figure she’ll be right up front in the parade in that vintage car,” I answered Malinda.
Ossie DelGardo started things off by blowing the siren of the police car. He didn’t smile or wave, just cruised slowly down the street. The car and driver and siren seemed to be saying, Get out of the way. Get out of the way, you idiot people who have nothing to do but stand here waiting for something to happen. His set lips and thick eyebrows seemed to say this parade business was not in his job description and he considered it all a waste of his trained professional, framed-degree, expert time. Elvis pulled his hand away and waved. Malinda laughed. “He likes cars. Any car.”
I thought of Crazy Reba, how she liked to ride. She’d get in the car with anybody. Look at the trouble she was in now. Not a dangerous business, just sticky. I knew when The Mess came out Ossie would be on the front page right in the center: badges, white hat and all. Ossie in his glory. Our hero on the trail of this mysterious man, John Doe, aka Mr. Nobody, found “at roadside picnic area.” Only Reba and I and Pastor Pittman would know the truth. Or half of the truth. The other half remained. Where was the real Butch Rigsbee? Was Ossie even looking? He couldn’t be doing much looking if he was leading a parade!
Now I just stood there as Ossie’s police car passed, not waving or smiling, not willing to give him the pleasure of seeing me being friendly. We had crossed swords too many times for him not to know that any show of enthusiasm from me would be false. And I didn’t play false. I played fair. I wasn’t sure he did.
The Littleboro High School band came next with the usual bass drum behind a couple majorettes in white twirling their batons and high stepping in their tasseled boots. A bunch of clarinets, a trumpet or two, and some snare drums followed. They made a hardy and brave attempt to play a jazzed-up version of what I guessed was supposed to be “Carolina in the Morning.” We jumped Elvis up and down to the music as they walked past.
Then came a dance troupe in pink tutus. Five little girls with their hair rolled atop their heads, wearing makeup and eye shadow with sparkles, pranced by. Two of them looked to be about the age of Elvis. I could swear several wore false eyelashes. And bright-red lipstick.
“My grandmother wouldn’t let me out of the house like that,” I said to Malinda. Not that I ever twirled around a dance studio when I was growing up. Piano lessons with Miss Tempie had been my Waterloo. That awful woman with her alcohol swipes on the piano keys and the ruler she used to whack my hands when I hit a wrong key.
A float from the First Baptist Church putt-putted by. A half dozen choir members in white sat stiffly in straight chairs and sang “Shall We Gather at the River.” They didn’t look up from their books. Several looked as if they had just eaten a pickle.
The First Presbyterian Church float followed. Pastor Pittman waved and waved. His wide smile and friendly wave seemed almost a beckon. He belied that old bit about Presbyterians being the “frozen chosen.” The choir wore purple robes and sang “For All the Saints.” I wondered what his choir members would think if they knew he’d been seen at Motel 3 and with me, of all people? He seemed to give me a secret little half smile at the mayor’s luncheon and I made sure not to return it in kind. But the turtle incident would have taken anyone’s mind off anything said or referred to about motels and/or Crazy Reba’s latest escapade. That was old news. We were in parade mode now.
Where was Lesley Lynn Leaford? Some convertibles drove past with officials of some sort. County commissioners, I guessed. The fire truck. A van from animal control that had cats painted on one side, dogs on the other.
“Wonder where turtles and rabbits fit in their scheme of things?” Malinda asked. I’d told her about Nadine the turtle’s luncheon adventure while we waited for the parade to start. “Let’s take Elvis there sometime, let him meet and pet a cute turtle,” she said. “I wouldn’t object if he wanted one. Quieter than a hamster, doesn’t have to be walked and Mama would be impressed Nadine likes PBS. Wonder what she thought
of Downton Abbey?”
We laughed and Elvis let go our hands to play with some pebbles from one of the empty flowerpots next to the metal table and chairs in front of the drugstore.
A Boy Scout troop marched by. A tubby little boy carrying the flag was so drenched in sweat his hair looked wet.
A Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud drove past, but it had dark windows and we couldn’t see who was in it. There was no sign on the side that declared a sponsor of some sort. It seemed to have gotten in the parade by mistake. Certainly didn’t belong.
“Nobody I know.” Malinda shrugged both shoulders.
I said, “But I saw that car at Mayor Moss’s.” I told Malinda how I had seen the car from the dining-room window. The car had backed from one of the five garages and quietly rolled down the hill toward the street. I’d wondered if inside those dark windows was the mysterious Mr. Moss. What was the purpose of this car in the parade, if indeed there was one? People in parades smiled and waved, they didn’t hide behind dark windows, anonymous. Could it be our mystery guest Miles Fortune was always saving a room for and buzzing back and forth to RDU Airport?
Our Mayor Moss came next in a white convertible draped in green bunting. She wore a green dress and matching hat big as a forty-eight-inch pizza box. Kate Middleton had nothing on our girl. Miz Mayor even wore green gloves and waved and smiled like a pro. I wondered if, in another life, she had been a prom queen or sweetheart of some fraternity at some swanky East Coast college. Someday when I had nothing else to do I’d Google her.
A floral truck painted with every flower that ever bloomed drove by with the Betts Brothers’ logo squeezed between the roses and ivy garlands. Ronnie Betts waved from the driver’s-side window, his brother from the passenger’s side.
“Still no Lesley Lynn?” I peered down the street. The parade was almost at its end. Only one more float, a car or two and the horses.
