Karen G. Berry - Mayhem 01 - Love and Mayhem

by Karen G. Berry

  “What?” Minah nearly spit out her coffee. “Why on earth?”

  Memphis just shook his head. When suspicion slid over on Raven, who had cared enough about Raven to make sure the suspicion landed on someone else? Who, besides himself, his brother and her mother, loved Raven enough to set up someone else for murder to clear her?

  It all boiled down to who belonged to who.

  Bonnie MacIver belonged to a hill town. Raven belonged to the LaCours. There was no connection. No one who cared about them both, no one… no. There was one. Only one. One person who cared deeply for both of them.

  Wrath is the work of women and gods.

  Maybe, he considered, the question isn’t which gods. Maybe the question is, which women.

  “I have a choice, Minah. I can be a good sheriff, or a good man. I wonder which will win, today.” Minah’s face told him exactly which way she hoped it went. Memphis lay his arms on the table and lowered his head to his arms, an honest man humbled before the truth.

  Minah rose and busied herself. There was a cake plate to cover, a pan to be washed, a counter to be wiped. A little sweeping, a little thinking about lunch possibilities. Tending to her own business.

  A loud rapping broke the silence. Out on the porch, Annie Leigh stood among the tunafish cans licked clean by generations of fat, contented strays. She was shouting through the screen door. “Uncle Memphis! Guess what!”

  “Hey there, Annie Leigh.”

  “You have to GUESS!”

  “Well.” He smiled. “Let’s take a walk, and I’ll try to guess.” Doffing his hat, he left Minah, her coffee and her terrible comprehension of the truth behind in her kitchen.

  He and Annie Leigh walked together down Sweetly Dreaming Lane.

  “Guess now.”

  “Hm. Here’s what I guess, then. You and your mother are going off to become recording stars and such.”

  She jogged from foot to foot. “YEAH! Mom and I are going to Nashville. I won that talent show fair and square. Mom and I are leaving to go be country superstars and things like that. Gramps is going with us.”

  He stopped, too sad to walk on. “You’re leaving us, Annie Leigh.”

  She looked down at the road, traced it with the toe of her boot. Her whole body twisted with indecision, grief, longing. “Uncle Memphis? Maybe I shouldn’t go.”

  He tipped her chin up with his hand, made her search his eyes. “Why not?”

  “I’m worried about Gramma. I think she’s gonna be real sad. I wish you’d take care of her.”

  He stood for a moment, his face held bravely forward. He didn’t hide his emotions from his great-niece. She watched them play like a movie on a screen. Grief. Acceptance. Calm.

  He looked down at her with his dark grey eyes. “I’ll look in on your grandmother.”

  She felt tears of relief in her throat. “OK, good-bye, then.”

  “You don’t ever tell me good-bye, Annie Leigh. You say, ‘until I see you again.’ Because you will.”

  “Until I see you again.”

  “Wherever and whenever that might be.”

  “Wherever and whenever, Uncle Memphis.”

  He cleared his throat. “Well then, Annie Leigh.” He swallowed hard. He placed his hands on her shoulders. “I love you, you know.”

  “I know. I love you, too.” She buried herself against him, inhaling his smells of hair oil and fresh soap in the dusty sunshine of that early morning. She climbed him like the Tyson’s satellite dish, knocked off his hat, set his aviator sunglasses askew. She pressed her face to his cheek in the closest thing to a kiss he’d ever had from the girl.

  He loved this child, and he would miss her. But he would know she was out there, that was the important thing, she would be out there with her mother, making a life together, as was proper. Kids shouldn’t be away from their mothers. An sob escaped his throat as he held that bony, black-haired child in his arms.

  She scrambled down and ran off, wild and free.

  And he stood alone on Sweetly Dreaming Lane, staring at Fossetta’s front door.

  ANNIE LEIGH HAD said most of her good-byes. She’d wandered the streets of the Park, kicking fences and shaking mailbox posts. Most of the tenants waved and hollered out encouragement to her. “Time for the Opry, Annie Leigh!” “Send us a postcard!” Person after person called out, “Don’t forget us, Annie Leigh!”

  “Oh, I’ll never forget you!” she called back, speaking with the innocent conviction of a child who has never walked out of one place and into another, not realizing that doors swing shut after they open.

  She’d have liked to see Fossetta naked one last time. She loved looking in the windows at Fossetta in the bathroom, hitching up her skirts and settling on the toilet, or sliding into the bath, her pink-tipped breasts floating like lily pads in the warm, oily water. Fossetta was lazy, just like Gramma said. The only exciting stuff in her life happened in bed, as far as Annie Leigh could tell. Still, she was the prettiest thing in the world, and Annie would have risked peeping in daylight hours to have seen her one last time. But Fossetta’s trailer was silent.

  Annie Leigh ran the fence, wandered through some flowerbeds, petted a few more stray cats. She swung one last time on the Tyson’s old satellite dish, and stole a half a bag of Fritos from their porch and scattered the chips into the dog pen. She kicked down Abner’s pile of empties, the stingy old pervert. She stopped by to pat Old Beau, the canine namesake of her favorite bartender, and gave him a little beef jerky she found in the pocket of her jeans. It had been through the wash but he seemed to like it anyway.

  She passed by her mother’s rig and saw her Gramps stirring, sitting up, wrapping that blanket around his shoulders, scowling. He had always explained that he was a man of morning moods. He rose to his feet and walked up the street, looking fierce. Maybe too fierce. She left him alone and continued on her way.

  Across the highway, the door was open. “Hey Beau?” she called into the interior gloom. “Are you there?”

  Beau came out of the backroom, rubbing his eyes. “Good morning Annie Leigh! Would my future Nashville superstar like a ginger ale?”

  “It’s kinda early for that? Maybe some coffee.” He shook his head and set her up with a pop. She sat at the bar and sipped while he leaned on one elbow and smiled at her. “Hey, guess what? Guess!”

  Beau pretended to think. “I guess you’re leaving today.”

  “You always guess right.” She slurped away. “I saw Old Beau, today. Gave him some jerky, just like you asked me too. Jerky gives him the craps, you know.”

  Beau nodded. “You’re a good girl, Annie Leigh.”

  And she looked up at him, silver eyes dancing. “Oh no I’m not!” They both had a laugh at that. “Beau, you think you wanna come with me and get famous yourself?”

  “I been there, honey. I was there for years and years.”

  “Well, you like getting married, right? You could marry my mom.”

  He smiled. “Well, how about you talk to your mom about it, and just let me know what she says about the whole idea, all right? And then send me a postcard.”

  “Will do.” She sucked up the last of the beverage, the tiny bar straw fitting neatly in the gap between her front teeth, and jumped down with it still protruding from her mouth. “Well, Beau, happy trails.”

  He studied that child, all the skinny, awkward and shining glory of her. And he found that he couldn’t do a thing but nod and wave, as he might choke on the word good-bye.

  HER DOOR WAS unlocked, of course. He stepped in. The living room was empty, the television on. Sound, but no picture. His feet moved of their own accord down the hall to the darkness of her room.

  Her head lay at an angle on the feather pillow, an entanglement of blondish curls framing her face. The breeze of the fan played against her cheeks. She shifted, woke. Her eyes, veiled with tears and lashes, looked into his.

  She nodded.

  He stripped off his clothes and lifted the bottom edge of the du
vet and crawled under it. He was so aware of his size, then, how tall a man he was, moving onto her, stopping a moment between her knees to inhale her piney smell. He kissed her stomach, took a pink nipple into his mouth, and felt her body stir under his teeth and tongue. Her gasp ran up his spine and struck the tenderest of notes.

  The air warmed, and began to smell like honey. She opened her white thighs a little farther, shifted to welcome the heft and bulk of his body. He pushed into her warmth. She shook, she trembled, her heart pounding. He began to move, but slowly.

  Her hands that had lay beside her shoulders rose to touch his face. She twined her white fingers in his dark hair and pulled his mouth down to hers, where he drank the honey of her open lips, her soft tongue, sharing the deep union at mouth and hip as her body moved rhythmically with his.

  She threw her legs up over his shoulders. He raised up on his arms for the pure visual pleasure of seeing the place where they met. Her skin moved in barely perceptible waves, her breasts trembling, her eyelids fluttering like hummingbird wings. Beads of sweat formed along her hairline from her gentle exertions.

  This was it, he understood, this was the oneness. And yet, he was the invader. Would this not hurt her, not damage her? Was this not a violence on her fair and tender person? As if in answer, she planted her feet flat on the bed and raised her hips to brace herself. The odor of vanilla rose from her skin as the song of her pleasure filled the air. He answered her body’s desperate call, did not hold back, was not afraid as he let free the full force of his body on hers. Something broke from his throat, half sigh, half roar. A song of his own swelled, and burst, and cracked free with a surging power.

  He emptied all he had into her.

  THE WINDS OF change had blown into the Francie June Memorial Trailer Park. They’d shaken the lattices, rattled the plywood cutouts, lifted the tarps and dislodged the beauty bark of more than a few gardens. And these same winds blew into the windows of the dilapidated trailer in Space 48, whipping the sheers, disarranging the soft yellow curls of Fossetta Sweet as she slept alone in her bed. Her locks danced across her soft body and flushed cheeks, tickled her freckled nose, traced her lips and teased her seashell ears. Her odd eyes popped open, one brown, one green. She smiled and rose from the scented disarray of her tossed bed. Pulling an old slip over her head, she padded down the hall to her kitchen and sat down at her table.

  Fossetta lifted the receiver and dialed a number.

  THE SAME WINDS of change had blown through Rhondalee’s trailer that morning, but they’d done little more than dry out her parched little lips. She’d rummaged through the bathroom cabinet in search of a jar of Vaseline, muttering to herself about ingratitude and nefarious husbands while she searched. Oh, she’d had it. Just had it.

  She didn’t know what had happened after she’d surrendered to the arms of despair and passed out, but she had a good idea. She’d woken up alone in the bar, stretched out on a counter that had been carefully cleaned around her. She’d lay there for a bit, horrified by the sound of some young thing calling encouragement and gently bumping her head against the wall of Beau’s back room. She’d gathered herself up and let herself out the door.

  Everything, that’s what had happened. Everything she’d ever dreamed of had happened for her no account, shiftless, mule headed daughter and her dirty, sassy, wild granddaughter. To top it off, she had a horrified feeling that the same thing had happened for her stumbling drunk silver-eyed husband, too.

  They were all going to Nashville. It wasn’t FAIR, she told the Committee. All these years, all these dreams. They were going without her, unless she found a way to impress upon her husband, daughter and granddaughter just how important it was that she come along. Well, she’d been the manager all those years before, hadn’t she? How could they think of doing it without her now?

  She stopped herself. I am not going to indulge in any thoughts about my husband living on the road and slipping from bed to bed like an old coyote slips from trashcan to trashcan, looking for something to eat, she told herself. I am better than that.

  And the Invisible Committee knew it.

  Through her open window, she heard a clatter, and an unfamiliar, musical voice shouting “Merde!” Merde? What on earth did that mean? She peered out the window and into Fossetta’s, to see the unmistakable sight of Fossetta Sweet moving with haste through her own house, holding an armful of, what? It looked like laundry.

  What on earth was going on in Space 48?

  Oh, the other women of the park had all liked Fossetta, just because she didn’t do married men. It wasn’t for a lack of trying on the part of the menfolk, however. And That Woman could always change her ways. How would all these stupid wives feel about her, then? What if she just started letting the married men climb all over her fat body in wanton displays of animal sex and loose morals? THEN these women would understand the viper in their midst.

  Rhondalee pulled a recliner over to the window with a great deal of dramatic yanking. She squinted up her eyes and peered out the window to watch. She watched Fossetta move things around, throw things to the floor.

  She watched Fossetta Sweet pin up her hair.

  Rhondalee’s mouth fell open. “What is she DOING?” she demanded of the Invisible Committee.

  A long dark car glided smoothly into Fossetta’s drive. Three men got out, scanned their surroundings through dark glasses, took positions fore and aft. Though they differed in age, race and size, their shared professional bearing rendered them almost identical in affect. They all spoke constantly into cell phones. They communicated through questing nods. One waited by the car while two approached Fossetta’s metal screen door.

  A sharp rap. An opened door. They entered.

  What was this? Who were those men? And what on earth was That Woman up to now?

  The Invisible Committee had no idea.

  Rhondalee waited, speculated, and she was finally rewarded with the sight of That Woman exiting her trailer in the company of two strangers in dark suits.

  It was a moment of supreme dislocation.

  Fossetta’s mismatched eyes hid behind a pair of cat eye sunglasses. She had on a smart navy suit from many decades past, and her hair was tucked up in an artful chignon. Strangest of all, her tiny feet were tucked into actual shoes, a pair of 1940s brushed suede platforms in an appealing shade of dusty rose. Those precious little pumps took such delicate steps down the aluminum steps of the trailer, across the gravel to the waiting car. All she carried was a vintage Samsonite makeup case.

  “She’s not really leaving,” Rhondalee informed the Invisible Committee. “She’s not leaving. She’s not. She can’t.” Rhondalee demanded an answer. “Could she have given up this easily?”

  The Committee, as always, was silent.

  One last flash of those plump legs as she swung them into the car. One last tilt of that blonde head as she caught Rhondalee’s eye. One last flash of those mismatched eyes, so full of life and amusement. One last dimpled smile. One last wave of a gentle white hand.

  Fossetta Sweet was gone.

  RHONDALEE REMAINED AT the window, watching the road, worrying a nail. A curious flatness had settled over her. It didn’t feel like relief. It felt like, well, disappointment, and a certain loss of purpose. When you’ve spent years imagining the worst, only to have something so much less likely happen, what’s left?

  Well, she decided, I am not going to worry about this any longer. I am the manager, here. I have a purpose. I will go to work with my head held high.

  She walked to the clubhouse with the determined air of an Amway representative preparing to show the plan to a group of derisive co-workers. She didn’t see the sun on the sundial, the soft glow of the pop machines, the delightful way the sun glinted off each individual fiber in the Kelly green indoor-outdoor of the courtyard. Rhondalee’s mind was elsewhere.

  Why was the Clubhouse door open? Despite her best efforts, her heart leapt up and crouched in her throat like an over-eager Pomerani
an. Hope made her betray herself by calling out, voice shaking, heart hammering. She entered the air-conditioned dimness. He wasn’t at the piano. “Tender? Are you in here?” She moved to the door to the office, and it, too, was slightly open. “Tender?” She peered in. He wasn’t asleep at the desk with his handsome head in his arms. “Well, I guess I got a little forgetful with all the various stresses and strains of this particular week,” she squeaked out loud to the Invisible Committee. “I guess I left things unattended to for once. Well excuse me.”

  The Committee said nothing.

  It was time to work. She sat her narrow behind down in her twirling desk-chair. She looked her small stack of letters to the Fashion Filly, feeling downright appalled at just how fashion-uninformed some people were in the Park.

  Dear Fashion Filly,

  Would it be improper to wear my Nurse’s Aide uniform to my cousin’s wedding? I work the swing shift, and will have to leave the reception at the Elk’s Hall a little early.

  Signed,

  Wondering

  Dear Wondering,

  I’m surprised you even have to ask that question! Of course you can! With the variety of patterned polyester smocks now available for health care professionals, you will look lovely and spring-like! However, I want you to understand that this is only true if you are NOT a member of the wedding party!

  A WEDDING. A marriage. And finally, a divorce.

  She lay her palms on the desktop to steady herself, and noticed that that lower left-hand drawer was slightly ajar. With a shaking hand, she pulled it the rest of the way open.

  Gone. It was gone, the secret shoebox, the box that held her dreams, her plans for the LaCour family to rise above this trailer park tragedy and reclaim their rightful place on the stage once more. Gone. Who took it? Who? Was it That Woman? Did she make away with the money and leave behind the man that Rhondalee had always assumed she wanted? But Rhondalee had watched Fossetta leave. She’d never left the trailer.