All the Single Ladies: A Novel

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  I hit the send button and knew because of the time difference that I wouldn’t hear from her for a ­couple of hours.

  I could smell onions cooking in butter. There was nothing to compare except when you added garlic to the pan. I dressed and went to the kitchen, which, of course, was bustling with breakfast preparations. My little dog was there, ever vigilant, just praying for a piece of bacon or toast to fall to the floor.

  “G’morning!” I said. “How’d y’all sleep?”

  “Dog’s been for a walk,” Carrie said. “She did what she was supposed to do.”

  “Really? Thanks, Carrie.” I fixed Pickle’s food bowl and gave her fresh water.

  “She’s growing on me,” Carrie said. “I might get a little dog myself . . .”

  Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at her.

  “When I get married again! Don’t worry!”

  Did she really think she was getting married again?

  “Whew! Well, I slept great! Lisa, we just told Miss Trudie about what you found last night,” Suzanne said. “Here, you want coffee?” Suzanne filled a mug and handed it to me.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Cream’s on the table,” Carrie said as she continued slicing strawberries.

  I helped myself. “What are y’all making?”

  “Coddled eggs, toast, and fruit salad,” Suzanne said as she stirred the onions around in some butter.

  “What exactly is a coddled egg?” I asked.

  “It’s like a tiny omelet steamed in a cup with a lid,” Miss Trudie answered.

  “A steamed omelet. What next?”

  “See? Here’s the cup.” Suzanne held one out for me to see. It was a simple ceramic cup with a lid that screwed on and a loop of stainless steel on the lid that had some purpose I was sure to see.

  “My mother taught me to make coddled eggs. But who cares about that? My goodness! We have a real mystery on our hands, don’t we? This is the most peculiar thing that’s happened around here in decades!” Miss Trudie said. “Lisa? I want to hear what you think.”

  “I think it’s kind of miraculous, if you want to know the truth,” I said.

  “Miraculous? Why?” Miss Trudie said.

  “Because between Suzanne, Carrie, and me, we decided Kathy’s landlady was stealing from her estate. Until last night, we were stuck at a dead end. We couldn’t prove it. This is our first shred of evidence. Well, not evidence, really. But we know that Kathy had secrets.”

  “And,” Suzanne said, “he might be able to help us.”

  “The only satisfaction we’ve gotten out of this whole mess was seeing Wendy’s yard without the bushes she tried to say were a gift from Kathy,” Carrie said.

  “That was some bull,” Suzanne said.

  “What are you talking about?” Miss Trudie asked.

  “I’ll explain it all to you in a minute,” Suzanne said.

  “Anyway, we didn’t know of anyone who might confirm our suspicions,” I said. “Now suddenly we have a real possibility of putting this to rest, if we can find her ex-­husband.”

  “How are you going to find him?” Miss Trudie asked.

  “Internet, Facebook, I don’t know,” I said. “We’ll start there. What do you think, Suzanne? I’ll set the table.”

  I went to the cabinet where the dishes were kept, took what we needed, and began placing them around the table.

  “White pages on the Internet?” Suzanne said.

  “If he’s got a landline,” Carrie said. “Hey! Here’s a thought. If we can find out where he went to college he might belong to an alumni association. And don’t forget about Match.com and all the others. I can search those. I’ve already paid the membership fees.”

  Carrie was right. Not too many ­people had landlines anymore. And she did belong to every Internet dating site there was. Every single one.

  I watched Suzanne assemble the coddled eggs. She just cracked a raw egg into each cup, gave them all a bit of salt and pepper, a teaspoon of sautéed onions and minced ham, and about a tablespoon of grated cheese. She screwed on the caps and into the water they went for just five minutes.

  So, over fruit salad, toast, and coddled eggs—­which were delicious, by the way—­Suzanne, Carrie, and I brought Miss Trudie up to date. Miss Trudie was completely flummoxed and annoyed to a degree I’d never seen in her before.

  “Someone ought to give that insufferable woman a good slap right across her lying mouth!” she exclaimed. “She’s a crook!”

  I said, “I know. Isn’t she terrible?”

  Suzanne said, “Don’t worry, Miss Trudie. We’ll nail the bitch.”

  Miss Trudie flinched at Suzanne’s choice of words but still she said, “Good!”

  When the meal was finished, Miss Trudie went to her room to read and Suzanne, Carrie, and I cleaned the kitchen together. No one was rushing anywhere. It was Sunday, the one day of the week when we all slowed down. Somewhere between the scraping of plates and loading the dishwasher, I told Suzanne and Carrie that I had heard from Marianne. They were delighted.

  “This must be such a relief for you,” Suzanne said.

  “I just love her so . . .” I choked back tears and they threw their arms around me.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Suzanne said.

  “It’s going to be fine!” Carrie said.

  I finally got a grip on myself and said, “Things are looking up slightly, but this is going to be a process.”

  “You have to fight for everything that’s truly of any value,” Suzanne said.

  “It sure seems like it, doesn’t it?”

  “Even Kate Middleton,” Carrie said.

  Suzanne and I crossed our arms and dropped our heads to one side, looking at her as if to say, Have you lost your mind?

  “Well? She had to stay thin and keep her mouth shut to get the green light to marry William, didn’t she?”

  “She’s going to have to do that for the rest of her life,” Suzanne said.

  “Good point,” I said, hanging up my dish towel to dry. “I’m going to drive over to Bed Bath & Beyond. Anybody want to join me?”

  “Good luck finding parking,” Carrie said. “You couldn’t pay me to go to Towne Centre on the weekend.”

  “I’m going to take apart another box,” Suzanne said. “It’s weird that the marriage license didn’t give her husband’s middle name. Not even an initial. So I’m going digging.”

  “I’ll help you when I get back,” I said.

  Half an hour later I was in the Towne Centre parking lot, and, as predicted, riding around and around, looking for a place to park. I finally found a spot by Barnes & Noble, which was a good long walk from Bed Bath & Beyond. But I needed the cardio, so I pulled in and checked my messages. There was a smiley face from Marianne. It was just a few minutes shy of eleven. I called her.

  “Mom?”

  “Yep, it’s me, baby. How are you?”

  “I’m good. I’m fine. You?”

  “Well, there’s a lot going on.”

  I told her about Debbie Smith showing up and how I’d had to move out of the house in one day. And I told her about Suzanne and Carrie and, of course, about Miss Trudie and how nice they all were to take me in. She asked about Pickle and I told her our dog was now everyone’s darling and watching television all the time. She laughed and my heart melted. I didn’t know how much I had missed the sound of her laughter until I heard it.

  “I wish I could see you,” I said.

  “Well, we could FaceTime,” she said.

  “No, I mean in person. FaceTime makes me look like I’m in a fishbowl.”

  “It makes everyone look fat and weird,” she said. “So, Mom?”

  “Yes?” I said. God, it was just so wonderful to be talking to her again.

  “I’ve met
someone, a guy.”

  “That’s wonderful! Who is he? Where’s he from?”

  “Well, his name is Bobby and he’s really sweet. I think you’d like him. Well, I do.”

  “I’m sure I would.”

  “He’s from a little bitty town in South Carolina right by York called Smyrna. Population forty-­five. It doesn’t even have a grocery store.”

  “Some of the best ­people come from tiny towns,” I said. I wasn’t just listening to my daughter’s voice; I was listening to the sound of my daughter in love.

  “His family grows pecans and peaches,” she said. “Isn’t that amazing?”

  “Farmers know the best dirt,” I said, and giggled.

  “Oh, Mom! That is so lame!”

  “I know, I know. Okay, just tell me that you’re fine.”

  “I’m fine and I’ve never been happier in my life.”

  “Good, baby. That’s all I really wanted to hear.”

  “And you’re okay too?”

  “Yes. I am doing remarkably well. Maybe we should do this next Sunday?”

  “Sure. Same time?”

  “Yes. That’s fine. I really love you, Marianne. You know that, don’t you?”

  “You have to love me. You’re my mother!” She laughed and I did too. “Love you too, Mom.”

  We hung up and I stared at my phone. I’d straighten her out but it was going to take time. At some point you can no longer insist that your children do this or that. I had learned this lesson the hard way. You have to let them fall down and then you can help them get back up. But you have to let them become adults. Still, it was not easy to silently stand by on my high moral ground while she continued on this road that was so problematic for me. High Note. What a stupid name for a stupid business.

  I quickly bought what Miss Trudie needed and popped into Belk’s to see what they had on sale. Well, don’t you know there was a huge pre–Labor Day sale in progress? Everything was marked down and that included the lingerie department. Here was my dilemma. I wanted to buy something that didn’t scream “whore.” I didn’t want to buy anything that screamed “matronly.” I was looking for a middle road that said “she’s a lady but she’s sexy and she’s not trying to pretend that she’s in her twenties.” No thongs and no garter belts. Thank you.

  Sorry, Carrie, I thought.

  I went for Donna Karan because in real life she was in the zone of my actual age. Call it a decision of designer confidence, not consumer confidence. And I saved some money. Now, I don’t want anyone to think that tonight was the night I was going to let Paul wander into my secret garden, but I’d been around enough to know that kissing was a gateway drug. For the duration of the relationship I’d be prepared for car accidents and close inspections. Although, I have to say, I had always carried a suspicion that most men could care less about your underwear. Maybe a few viewed it as wrapping paper, but I’d bet twenty dollars that the majority of them never even noticed.

  I hurried back to the house with three huge bags. Carrie and Suzanne were in my room going through scrapbooks and manila envelopes filled with papers. Pickle was curled up and fast asleep.

  “Hey!” Suzanne said. “You’re back! That didn’t take too long.”

  “I got lucky,” I said. “I’m going to go upstairs and fix Miss Trudie’s bed.”

  “You are so sweet to do this for her,” Carrie said.

  “I may be a lot of things, but sweet ain’t one of them.” I laughed.

  I thought about that while I was climbing the stairs. No, I wasn’t sweet. But I was reliable and honest and surely I had some other redeeming qualities. I was reasonably smart and I had a decent sense of humor. But next to Paul, I certainly wasn’t very worldly and sophisticated. Did that matter to him? Well by now, surely he realized what I was and wasn’t. But what did I bring to the table for a guy like him? Even though the thirty-­six questions had shown we had a lot in common, the same basic principles, and we liked a lot of the same things, the depth and breadth of his experiences were vastly greater than mine. I decided as I began unpacking the duvet and its cover that I would probably be smart not to invest too much emotionally until I knew more about his feelings. On the other hand, he had given thought to my dilemma with Marianne and it was his guidance that brought us together again . . . well, got us on speaking terms.

  I pulled all the linens from Miss Trudie’s bed except for the bottom sheet and folded them in a neat pile. Then I pushed the duvet into the cover and buttoned up the opening. I rolled it out across the mattress and restacked her pillows. It looked like a bedroom in a spa hotel.

  “So is this my new bed?”

  I nearly jumped out of my skin. I was so deep in thought I didn’t hear Miss Trudie’s shuffle or her cane’s thump.

  “Oh! I didn’t . . .”

  “I know, I’m wearing my new tennies! See? Aren’t they dreadful?”

  She was referring to her athletic shoes.

  “They’re not so bad.”

  “If you say so. But now I can sneak up on everyone!”

  “Oh! Well, good for you!” I stood back so that she could enjoy the full view of her bedroom’s updated look. “So, what do you think?”

  “My goodness! It looks like something out of a magazine!” she exclaimed. “It’s fresh and it’s inviting. I might dive right in. Thank you, Lisa. I really appreciate this.”

  “It’s my pleasure. It really is. It makes me want to make a white bed for myself!” I said. “Well, for wintertime. I get too warm at night to sleep under a duvet in the summer.”

  She looked at me and squinted. “I remember those days. My husband used to call me the furnace!”

  “Ha ha! That’s hilarious. Now, did you get some lunch?”

  “Oh, no. I’m not hungry today. We had such a big breakfast.”

  I said, “Miss Trudie, you know it’s not about appetite. You have to eat for other reasons, even if it’s just a little bit.”

  “Give me a good reason,” she said.

  “Blood sugar. Blood pressure. If it dips, you can get dizzy and fall. Eating helps to keep you upright.”

  Miss Trudie pulled her lips together in a straight line and gave me some stink eye. She knew I was right and she wasn’t too happy about it.

  “That’s an excellent reason. I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

  “Egg salad on white toast. How does that sound?” I actually made a pretty darn good egg salad, if I said so myself.

  “Delish!”

  “Okay. I’m on it.”

  In the kitchen, I put a dozen eggs in a pot of salty water to boil and stopped by my room to see how Suzanne and Carrie were doing.

  “How goes the war?” I asked.

  “Pretty good but I can’t say we’re finding anything that helps us,” Suzanne said.

  “Wait!” Carrie said excitedly. “Y’all! Look at this! Is this the chest-­on-­chest in this picture?”

  We all stared at the photograph.

  “It might be!” Suzanne said.

  “Y’all, let’s take this out to a better light,” I said.

  “That’s right, you know antiques better than we do,” Carrie said.

  We took the scrapbook into the bright light of the kitchen and laid it on the table. The timer went off for the eggs, so I moved the pot from the flame to a cold burner and covered it, resetting the timer.

  “Let me see that picture,” I said, and sat at the table.

  Carrie and Suzanne pushed the scrapbook over toward me.

  “What do you think?”

  I gave the picture careful scrutiny. It had to have been taken decades ago with Kathy’s husband. Who was that baby? Were those other ­people her parents? Those details didn’t matter. I compared it to the picture of the chest-­on-­chest in my phone. There was no doubt. It was the exact same piece of
furniture.

  “Ladies and gentlemen?” I said. “No more calls. We have a winner.”

  “Woot woot!” Carrie said.

  “High five!” Suzanne said.

  Much high-­fiving ensued and then we settled down and got serious.

  “One mystery is solved, but how are we going to get it out of Wendy’s possession?” Carrie asked.

  “Good question,” I said.

  “It would be so great if we could find a picture of the linen press too,” Suzanne said.

  The timer went off at the same time Suzanne’s cell phone rang. She stepped away to answer it.

  “What are you making?” Carrie said.

  “Egg salad,” I said as I ran cold water over the eggs. “There’s plenty for everyone.”

  Suzanne returned.

  “If it was anything more exotic than egg salad I couldn’t eat it,” Suzanne said. “My stomach is doing flips. That was Harry Black.”

  “Really?” I said.

  “Yeah, he wants me to see a movie with him tonight.”

  “What did you tell him?” I said.

  “I said yes. Before I even thought it through. Am I really this impulsive?”

  “It’s not impulsive,” Carrie said. “Go! Have a good time, for heaven’s sake. You need a social life outside of the three of us! Besides, when I get married again, I won’t be able to hang around with y’all as much. You know how husbands are.”

  We were quiet then and for every reason.

  “You sound pretty sure about marrying this guy. Are you?” Suzanne said.