by Lisa Wingate
He flashed a quick smile that was somewhere between giddy and bashful, and I decided two things: I liked him despite the preacher suit, and he knew absolutely nothing about what was going on with my family. As far as he was aware, the uncs were packing up and leaving. So . . . all of Clay’s Moses Lake connections and his plan to live here permanently had developed in the last three weeks?
A horn honked up the hill by the road, and both of us turned to look. Uncle Charley’s Ford pickup, Old Blue, was rolling along the shoulder. The window cranked down, and he waved us closer. “Hey, there you are!” he called, and Reverend Hay and I started up the hill. “Been lookin’ for you, Heather. Your mom said you went out for a walk. C’mon, I’ll take you to breakfast. You, too, if you want, Hay.”
“Got a building committee meeting in twenty minutes,” the reverend answered as we walked toward the road. “Promised Bonnie I’d pick her up at the office in Cleburne and take her to lunch, so I’d better stay here and get everything set for the committee, try to keep things moving along. When lunch hour hits, Bonnie’s ready to get out of that counseling office and go somewhere else for a while.”
Uncle Charley smacked his lips and shook his head as we traversed the ditch. “Well, sorry I can’t be on the buildin’ committee. They get things set with Blaine Underhill about the loan for the new addition?”
New addition. Glancing over my shoulder, I winced. I hoped they found someone who could design the add-on space in a way that would preserve the historic character of the building. So often, these little jobs out in the middle of nowhere were poorly done architectural eyesores.
I noted that Blaine Underhill was involved here, too.
“For the most part,” Reverend Hay answered. “Blaine can’t make the meeting. Said he’d be back in the bank about eleven, so I’ll take everything by there for him before I head for Cleburne. He’s gone to an appointment this morning.”
Appointment? A sardonic scoff passed my lips as I circled the truck to get in on the passenger side. Blaine Underhill was out on the lake with my brother. Fishing. On a workday morning. I couldn’t imagine taking off fishing while the rest of the world was at work.
Actually, that brought up the question of why, if my brother was in such a hurry to relocate to Moses Lake and take over Catfish Charley’s, he was out fishing. Shouldn’t he be at the restaurant, learning the ropes from the manager there, and getting the place ready to open for lunch? A little greasy spoon like Charley’s wasn’t exactly the kind of high-profit place where the owner didn’t have to put in hours. Until his health had declined, Uncle Charley had worked from morning through lunch, taken care of his cattle at the family farm for a few hours in the afternoon, then returned for the supper rush. His wife, Aunt Fea, had worked every day at the restaurant until shortly before her death. They’d lived on a houseboat docked behind Catfish Charley’s, and between the restaurant, the canoe business, and the cabins, they were always busy.
Yet Clay had time to spend the morning fishing with Blaine Underhill?
Then again, maybe there was more to the fishing friendship than just dropping a line in the water. What had Amy said earlier? Something about my brother and Blaine becoming friends after talking so much at the bank.
Hmmm . . . How does a guy with no life plan and no money take over ownership of a restaurant? He makes friends with the banker. When Clay was on fire about his latest plan—whatever it happened to be—he could be incredibly alluring. He didn’t even have to work at it because his beliefs were genuine. The problem was that Clay’s focus was like a butterfly—bright, intense, beautiful to look at, unbelievably compelling . . . but likely to flit off at any moment. Blaine Underhill had no idea what he was being sucked into. Someone needed to clue him in, and it looked like that someone would be me. As much as I loved my brother, I couldn’t let him create a situation that could leave a financial mess behind in Moses Lake.
Uncle Charley and Reverend Hay continued their conversation as I climbed into the truck. Uncle Charley suggested that the church should hire me to design the new fellowship hall, since I drew up buildings and such. Rather than telling them that this project was too small for our firm, I wrote my email address on a feed-store receipt from the mound of dashboard clutter and handed it out the window. Maybe I could do the job pro bono—a gift to my father’s hometown. It would be worth it to see the church building, with its European lines and the decorative stone masonry of the original German pioneers, properly preserved.
Uncle Charley and I discussed the new fellowship hall as we wound our way around the lake, headed, I surmised by the direction we were driving, to the Waterbird Bait and Grocery. The local crowd of fishermen and retirees had been gathering there to sip coffee and solve the world’s problems since shortly after the lake went in. I found myself picturing the Waterbird now, remembering my father taking me there when I was little. We bought lemon drops, cartons of squirmy worms, and dips of ice cream. Scoops of ice cream and scoops of worm-filled dirt came in the same white waxed-cardboard containers, so when you reached into the sack, you had to be careful which one you grabbed.
A laugh tickled my throat as I remembered squealing and tossing dirt all over the car once when I opened the wrong container. I was twelve or thirteen then, a sophisticated city girl, convinced that worms were not for me, but the lure of an afternoon alone with my dad was irresistible. We were visiting my grandparents for some holiday—Easter, maybe. The bluebonnets were out, the roadsides everywhere awash with sprays of vibrant azure that rivaled the water in the lake. My brother must have stayed home, because it was just Dad and me.
“Somethin’ funny?” Uncle Charley asked as we rounded the corner and I saw the Waterbird’s tin roof peeking through the cluster of overhanging live oaks ahead. For an instant, I heard my dad.
“I was just thinking about coming here with Dad,” I answered, and I was surprised that, for once, the mention of him didn’t trail dark threads behind it.
Uncle Charley chuckled. “Your dad liked this old store. Used to be when he was little, if I ever passed by here with him in the truck, he’d beg me to stop, so he could get at the penny candy counter. That boy did like his sweets.
“Wasn’t too many years after that, he would’ve hung around here all day long, if he could’ve. It was where the young folks went to look at each other, and all them girls liked your daddy. Back when your granddaddy was farmin’ cotton at the old place, if we ever had a tractor or a truck break down and we made the mistake of sending your dad to town, it’d be an hour later, and we’d say, ‘Where in the world is Neal?’ Sure enough, we’d call up to the Waterbird, and he’d be there—stopped in for a Coke and ended up flirtin’ with some girl.”
“Really?” I said, trying to imagine that side of my dad. He’d always been the responsible one when I was growing up. He had to be.
“Oh, sure.” Uncle Charley chuckled as we drifted off the shoulder into the gravel parking lot. “Your dad was a corker. Gave his mama and daddy more than a few gray hairs. I ever tell you about the time he and some other boys found a little ol’ possum curled up in a dead tree during the cold weather? They put it in the choir closet at church on Sunday mornin’, thinking they were gonna get it later and use it to play a joke on somebody. That thing got all warmed up durin’ service and went to growlin’ and thumpin’ around in there, and you never seen a bunch of boys sitting so straight in the pew, trying to look like they didn’t hear a thing. Ended up, those boys had to work the rest of the winter to pay for a new set of Christmas choir robes.”
Uncle Charley and I laughed as we exited the car to go into the Waterbird. Suddenly I was glad I’d come. I’d never heard that story about my father, never known that side of him. When we’d come to Moses Lake to visit my grandparents during my childhood years, my mother had poured on the guilt long-distance, until we felt bad for enjoying anything.
As we entered the Waterbird, old men gathered in the red vinyl booths on the left wall waved and called out
greetings worthy of an episode of Cheers. They observed that I was much more attractive than Charley’s usual traveling companion, Uncle Herb. Already positioned in a seat along the wall with a cup of coffee, Uncle Herb pretended to take offense.
The Waterbird was exactly as I remembered it: the café, deli, and cash counter along the right side of the room; the booths and a pay phone on the wall at the far left; three aisles of indiscriminately mixed groceries, fishing tackle, doughnut cases, and candy in the middle. Beside me, the minnow tanks burbled in strangely close proximity to the drink machine and the freezer case. Along the far wall, a bank of tall windows afforded a view of the lake below, complete with docks, boathouses, and a waterside gas pump for boats.
As Uncle Charley ordered coffee for the two of us, I moved across the room to look at the wall of wisdom. I wondered if Gary and his family had signed it while they were in town. It wouldn’t be easy to find their entry, if they had indeed made one, among the countless signatures and bits of Sharpie-pen lore that stretched from the front counter, circled the windows, and went all the way back to the bathroom. Without even intending to, I followed a rhythm of remembered steps, moving toward a place I hoped would still be there, just to the left of the windows. And then I was in front of it, reading the quote my father and I had jotted on the wall together.
You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. –Winnie the Pooh.
We’d signed our names after the quote—Neal Hampton, Heather Hampton—and then the year. I was nine, my father still a young man. We’d read the Winnie the Pooh books together so many times we could recite them by heart. It had never occurred to me that this place, Moses Lake, was my father’s Hundred Acre Wood, and he wanted me to love it as much as he did. Maybe he’d had a premonition when we wrote that quote on the wall. Even now, I knew the rest of the quote—the part we’d left out, so as to save space. Touching a hand to words, I heard my father and me reciting the last part together, giving each other a high five after adding our entry: But the most important thing is, even if we’re apart, I’ll always be with you.
My father hadn’t chosen our place on the wall at random. He’d picked a spot directly underneath a wooden plaque left behind by a German tinker who passed through Moses Lake back in the days when tinkers drove from town to town, sharpening knives and sheep shears, and fixing leaky kettles. The tinker’s riddle had been the beginning of the wall of wisdom. Looking at it now, I remembered standing with my father as I read it. The future is a blank page, but not a mystery. The riddle had eluded me then. I’d complained to Dad that it didn’t make any sense; I didn’t see how it could be his favorite. He’d only laughed, scrubbed a big, brawny hand over my hair, and said No sense trying to cheat a riddle. You have to figure it out for yourself, or it’s no fun. Keep thinking on it. It’ll be clear one of these days.
Unfortunately, the tinker’s riddle was no more logical to me now than it had been then. A page is either blank, or it’s not. If it is blank, the possibilities are endless, the end result a mystery.
“Better come fix this cup the way you like it, darlin’,” Uncle Charley called from the coffee counter.
I turned away from the wall and crossed the room, feeling unburdened, rather than weighed down, by the memory of that day with my father. The quote we’d written seemed almost a message from him, a promise that even though I hadn’t been the person I’d wanted to be during our last turbulent months together, he realized that inside the melodramatic teenager there was still the little girl who loved him in the Winnie-the-Pooh sort of way—always and no matter what. The same way he’d loved me.
One of Uncle Herbert’s fishing buddies vacated a seat for me as I finished preparing my coffee and walked to the table. A round of greetings came my way, along with some comments about how I couldn’t really be related to Charley and Herb, because I was too pretty. I laughed and blushed at the banter circling the table, a few anecdotes about my father livening up the mix. A warm feeling washed over me as Uncle Herb reached for my coat and threw it into an empty booth like we owned the place. I had the sense of being right at home.
Two of the men sharing space with us looked familiar, although it took a minute for my memory banks to dredge up the information. They’d aged since my time here, but I knew who they were—Nester Grimland, who’d kept the Moses Lake school busses running, and Burt Lacey, the high-school principal, apparently retired now, since he was sitting in the Waterbird midmorning on a Friday.
“Hey, Missy, I ever tell you that your dad worked for me one summer milkin’ cows?” Nester Grimland offered, wiping coffee off his thick gray moustache and directing a wink my way. He looked like one of those skinny cowboy statues you’d find for sale in a roadside tourist trap.
“Really?” I asked. “Dad never talked much about his dairy work.” Actually, my dad had said that growing up on a dairy made him want to get a college education.
Burt Lacey frowned sideways, squinting through glasses that had gotten thicker since his days as a principal. “What are you talking about, Nester? You never had milk cows.” I remembered them arguing just this way any number of times when I’d passed by the bus barn after school.
“I sure did,” Nester insisted, seeming offended. “Neal Hampton worked milkin’ cows for me.” Adjusting his cowboy hat, he flashed a covert glance my way, a brow lifting conspiratorially. “Bet your daddy told ’ya about workin’ for me, didn’t he?”
I felt compelled to play along. “You know, I think he did say something about that . . . uhhh . . . once or twice.” Both of the uncs swiveled toward me, cocking their heads, confused.
“See there,” Nester held up a weathered hand, serving me up as proof. “Her daddy milked for me. Only problem was, every time a pretty girl drove by on the highway, that boy would come all unfocused. Ruined a whole batch of milk one time. He ever tell you that story?” Nester aimed a quick head-twitch at me.
“Ummm . . . yes. Yes, I think he . . . did.”
Burt Lacey rolled his eyes. “Well, let us have it, Nester. You’re not gonna hush up until we’ve heard the whole thing. How’d the batch of milk get ruined?”
Reclining comfortably now that he had the conversational floor, Nester hooked an elbow over the back of his seat. “Well, see, it was like this. One day, that there boy was a-milkin’, and he had him a good rhythm goin’ along—playin’ a little tune in the bucket. ‘America the Beautiful,’ I think it was. Must’ve been close to the Fourth of July.” Pausing, he stroked his chin, pretending to think.
Burt Lacey snorted, Uncle Charley added sugar to his coffee, and Uncle Herb scratched his bald head, quiet as usual.
“Anyhoo, so there’s young Neal Hampton, milkin’ along, and a load of cheerleaders drives by, and he ain’t payin’ no attention at all to what he’s doing. Right about then, a big ol’ horse fly comes along and starts circling that milk cow . . . just buzzin’ around and buzzin’ around. Which ain’t really a problem, since there’s always flies in a cow barn, but that boy didn’t even notice when that fly went right in that old milk cow’s ear. The kid just kept watchin’ them cheerleaders and milkin’ along, tryin’ to finish, so he could chase after them purdy girls. He didn’t hear that fly buzzin’ round and round inside that milk cow, looking for a way out. Didn’t notice a thing. Finally, that kid was milkin’ so fast it created a vacuum inside the whole cow and sucked that horsefly right out the udder. Landed smack in the milk bucket and ruined the whole batch.”
Uncle Charley groaned and pulled his hat low over his eyes, and Uncle Herb shook his head. Burt Lacey slapped the tabletop, air whistling through his teeth. “Nester, that’s not one bit possible. Even she knows that.”
I shrugged and, quite wisely, kept quiet, not being an expert on milk cows.
Nester drew back against the wall. “She don’t know any such thing, do ya, young lady?”
I shook my head again, and Nester took a sip of his coffee, then swilled it while all eyes remained
focused on him. “Just goes to show, that boy took after the rest of the Hampton men. Why, you ask any of their wives and they’ll tell you that it ain’t the first time someone in that family’s—” he paused for dramatic effect, the corners of his moustache twitching as he finished with—“let somethin’ go in one ear and out the udder.”
A chorus of laughter followed, and from his wheelchair behind the counter, Pop Dorsey joined in. I laughed along, having the fleeting thought that it felt good to be here, just sitting and watching the world go by on a Friday morning, taking a little time for coffee and conversation. When was the last time I’d done that?
Ever?
Gazing out at the water glistening in the morning sunlight below, I had the weird thought that I might miss Moses Lake after all of this was over.
The conversation turned to spinner baits and fat bass, and Burt Lacey went to the coffee counter and commandeered the pot to refresh everyone’s coffee. As he was returning the pot to its resting spot, a little dark-haired girl wandered from behind the deli counter and walked down the center aisle between loaves of bread, bags of charcoal, and a smattering of plumbing supplies. Studying the shelves, she picked up imaginary items and put them in a miniature shopping basket. The attention of every “grandpa” in the room quickly gravitated to her.
“Hey, Birdie, you gonna come serve us up some tea?” Uncle Charley motioned her over.
The little girl smiled shyly, her wide blue eyes twinkling.
Uncle Charley leaned back in his chair. “I’m tellin’ ya, I’m just about dry as a baked horned toad on a six-lane stretch of blacktop. Sure could use me some tea.”
Her smile widened, and she skipped on over to us, standing on her toes, so that she could look into his cup. Her lips twisted to one side, and she braced a hand on her hip. “It ain’t empty.”
I had the fleeting thought that it was a shame Uncle Charley and his wife hadn’t been able to have kids. He’d been one of my favorite Moses Lake attractions when I was little. Every kid in town loved him. “Aw, that’s just that old black coffee,” he complained, giving the cup a disdainful look. “I need me some of that good ol’ magic tea. You got any of that in yer basket?”
