The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat

by Edward Kelsey Moore

  Vondell, her stepfather or whatever he was, stood beside Barbara Jean’s chair. He had disappeared a month earlier, making Barbara Jean’s life easier and giving her the hope that she might not have to deal with him anymore. Between free meals at Odette’s and Clarice’s houses, the tips she made at the salon, and the low rent on the dump she lived in, Barbara Jean had been able to afford a teenager’s dream. She had a house of her own and complete independence.

  But now Vondell was back and he looked even worse than he had the last time they had seen him. His stubbly graying beard had grown thicker, and his processed hair had grown out so it was nappy at the roots and matted at the ends. And then there was that odor of his that permeated the room, that sharp blend of cigarettes, whiskey, and poor personal hygiene.

  He glared at Odette and Clarice for a minute. Then he said, “Barbara Jean, you didn’t tell me we was gonna have company this evenin’.” That wide, froglike mouth of his broadened into a grin as he talked, but no one in the room sensed a bit of goodwill in him.

  Odette said, “Hello, sir, we’re going to a birthday party tonight and we just came to get Barbara Jean.” She looked at Barbara Jean in the chair and said, “Come on, Barbara Jean. We don’t wanna be late.”

  But Barbara Jean didn’t move. She just glanced up at Vondell and then stared at her knees again. The big man had lost his smile now. He glared at her, daring her to rise from the chair.

  Clarice joined in and said, “Yeah, we have to finish up our hair and nails at my house and …” She lost her nerve and didn’t finish. No one was listening to her anyway. The battle was on, and it was being fought between the other three people in the room.

  There was a long silence during which Clarice heard only the big man’s breathing and the sound of the plastic carpet runner crunching beneath her feet as she inched backwards toward the front door. Then Vondell said, “I think y’all best get movin’. Barbara Jean ain’t goin’ out tonight.”

  The tone of his voice scared Clarice half to death and she ran to the door. But Odette stayed put. Odette looked back and forth from Barbara Jean, still cowering in the shabby chair like a scared two-year-old, to the hulking man who had moved closer to Barbara Jean and was now stroking her hair in an imitation of fatherly affection that caused acid to rise in Clarice’s stomach.

  Odette said, “I haven’t heard what Barbara Jean wants us to do. If she wants us to go, she can say it herself.”

  Vondell took a step toward Odette and put his hands on his hips to puff himself up. He was careful to keep a smile on his face so she would know he wasn’t taking her seriously. “Li’l girl, I told you to leave my house. And, believe me, you don’t want me to have to say it again. Now, get a move on before I put you over my knee and teach you some manners.”

  Vondell had Clarice scared, but the look Odette gave him now frightened her almost as much. Odette’s eyes narrowed and her mouth twisted. She lowered her head as if she were preparing to ram into him headfirst. Clarice could see that even if Odette didn’t scare Vondell, she definitely surprised him. When he saw the change in her posture, he jerked back away from her a little before he could stop himself.

  Odette, talking louder now, said, “Barbara Jean, do you want to stay here or come with us?”

  Barbara Jean didn’t answer at first. Then, almost too quietly for anyone to hear, she whispered, “I want to go with you.”

  Odette said, “Well, that settles it. She’s coming with us.”

  Vondell didn’t speak to Odette, but turned his attention to Barbara Jean instead. He moved beside her again and grasped her right forearm in his big hand, pulling her halfway out of the chair so awkwardly that she would have fallen to the floor if he had not been supporting her with the strength of his hold. She let out a gasp of pain and Vondell growled, “You best tell these girls to go on home, or you gonna be in some real trouble. I fixed your mama’s uppity ways and I can do the same wit’ you.”

  Odette’s voice dropped an octave and she very slowly said, “If you don’t want that hand broke, you’d better get it off of her right now.”

  Clarice got swept up in the moment and put in her two cents. “She’s coming with us,” she said, trying to act like Odette.

  But Clarice wasn’t born in a tree. When he took a couple of quick steps in her direction, she hopped backwards and let out a squeal. Odette moved, too, but she moved sideways to stand between Vondell and Clarice.

  He said, “What you gonna do, call your daddy? You know, I asked around about your daddy after the last time you was here, and I heard he ain’t no cop at all. What I heard was that you was that child born in a tree and you ain’t supposed to be ’fraid of nothin’. Maybe it’s time somebody gave you somethin’ to be scared of.” He moved closer to her and pushed out his chin.

  Odette stepped away from him then and came over to where Clarice stood with her fist clinched around the handle of the door, ready to escape. Vondell laughed at her and said, “That’s a good girl. Run on home.” Then to Clarice he said, “You can come back sometime if you wanna, baby. But leave that crazy fat bitch at home.”

  A few feet away from Clarice, Odette stopped, yanked the wig from her head, and tossed it to her. Clarice caught it out of reflex and then watched in bewilderment as Odette spun away from her and said, “Clarice, unzip me.”

  When Clarice didn’t say anything or do as Odette had told her, she said it again. “Unzip me. I spent too much time making this dress to get this asshole’s blood all over it.”

  She fixed her eyes on Vondell and said, “You’re right about me. I am the girl who was born in a tree. And you’re right about my father. He’s not a cop. But he was the 1947 welterweight Golden Gloves champion. And from the time I was a little girl my boxer daddy has been teaching me how to deal with dumb-ass men who want me to be afraid. So let me thank you now, while you’re still conscious, for giving me the opportunity to demonstrate some of the special shit my daddy taught me to use on occasions like this.

  “Now, Clarice, unzip me so I can take care of this big bag of stink and ignorance, once and for all.”

  With fingers that shook so badly she could hardly grab hold of the zipper, Clarice did as she had been commanded. She pulled the zipper down and Odette’s shiny gown slid off of her and formed a shimmering pool at her feet. Wearing just a white bra and floral-patterned panties, Odette lifted her fists and danced her way toward Vondell, already floating like a butterfly and apparently prepared to sting like a bee.

  For a moment, Vondell stood gaping at her, eyes wide, mouth open. Then, to Clarice’s amazement, he started to back up. First one step, then another. He tried to act as if he were in charge, calling her a string of filthy names and threatening to hurt her. But Clarice could see from the way his eyes darted left and right searching out an escape route that this short, chubby teenage girl had him unnerved.

  Odette kept moving toward him and he kept backing away. He moved across the living room floor, his feet shuffling across the orange carpet. His hands gripped the backs of the heavy, mismatched furniture he was careful to keep between himself and Odette. When he had backed completely out of the room and into the hallway that led to the kitchen, he yelled out, “I ain’t got time to be dealin’ with this crazy shit. Go on, get out. I don’t care where you go. You ain’t none of my concern.” He moved out of sight then, and a few seconds later they heard the rear door of the house open and slam shut.

  Odette maintained her Golden Gloves stance for what seemed like an hour, but was probably less than a minute. When Vondell didn’t return, she brought her fists down, shaking out her shoulders as if she’d just gone ten rounds. Then she walked toward Clarice, who was still frozen at the front door. Stepping into the circle of golden fabric she had shed onto the floor earlier, Odette said, “Clarice, could you give me a hand getting back into my dress?”

  After Clarice packed Odette into her gown, the two girls went to Barbara Jean, who sat in the maroon chair staring at Odette with awe. Clarice p
icked up the imitation fur stoles and dime-store jewelry from the floor while Odette helped Barbara Jean up from the chair. Odette said, “Come on, Barbara Jean, we’ve got us a party to go to.”

  The three girls squeezed into the front seat of Clarice’s car for the drive to Little Earl’s party. They were about a third of the way there when Clarice finally found words. She said, “That was incredible, Odette. I had no idea your father taught you how to box.”

  Odette snorted and said, “Box? Daddy’s never weighed more than a hundred ten pounds his entire life. Who the hell was he gonna box? Vondell would’ve broken my neck if he’d decided to fight me.”

  During the rest of the ride to the All-You-Can-Eat, Clarice fought to keep her eyes on the road and not stare at her insane friend in disbelief. Barbara Jean gazed out of the car window and periodically gasped, “Holy shit.”

  They had fun at the party that night. They flirted and lip-synched Supremes songs. They watched Little Earl, in a costume consisting of his best Sunday suit and a Bible, try to use the “I Have a Dream” speech as a pickup line. They admired Chick Carlson.

  Girls approached Chick all night. Freed from convention by their costumes, they forgot for that evening that they were on opposite sides of a racial divide and constantly interrupted his busboy duties by asking him to dance. Clarice, Barbara Jean, and Odette got a kick out of watching him hop across the floor in his cowboy costume—his everyday clothes plus a bandana. And they giggled as, regardless of the song, he treated each girl to a two-step—the only dance that country white boys knew back then.

  Late in the evening, Odette went missing for a while. She returned to the window table with Big Earl and Miss Thelma, who promptly shooed away all of the kids, except Barbara Jean, Odette, and Clarice. Then, after seating themselves on either side of Barbara Jean, they told her that she would be moving into the room that their daughter, Lydia, had vacated when she left Plainview two years earlier. They didn’t ask her opinion or entertain other options. Each of them held one of Barbara Jean’s hands and informed her that Lydia’s room was hers that night and for as long as she wanted.

  Barbara Jean protested just long enough to show that she had good manners. Then she agreed. So that evening, courtesy of Big Earl, Miss Thelma, and Odette, Barbara Jean had a family for the first time in her life. And Clarice came to understand that she had a friend who could perform miracles.

  Chapter 16

  Between them, Lester and Barbara Jean owned four vehicles when he died. When she learned that Odette was sick, Barbara Jean donated Lester’s truck and his year-old car to the American Cancer Society. She thought it might buy her friend some good luck. That left her with her Mercedes and an old Cadillac.

  Lester had bought the Cadillac new in 1967, the first in a long string of Caddies he bought over the years. He babied it, keeping it looking as if it had just rolled off the dealer’s showroom floor until the day he died. It was the only one of his cars he never sold or gave away when newer models came out. The car hadn’t been touched since the last time Lester drove it. It just sat in the garage taking up space and reminding Barbara Jean of the past.

  One day when she arrived at the museum to work a volunteer shift in her butter-churning outfit, Barbara Jean discovered that a sign had been posted near Benjamin Harrison’s flag. The sign asked for volunteers to contribute something to the annual Christmas auction. She offered the Cadillac.

  Judging from the shocked reaction she received when she contacted the committee putting together the auction, a mint condition 1967 Fleetwood was a little more than they had in mind. They had been expecting donations more along the lines of handcrafted needlepoint chair cushions, beeswax candles, or gift baskets full of homemade strawberry preserves in quaintly bonneted jars. But once they understood that Barbara Jean really intended to donate the car itself, not a ride in it or some sort of leasing arrangement, they eagerly accepted her gift. In return, she took them up on their offer to have a room of the museum, the one with the Indian artifacts, renamed the Lester Maxberry Exhibition Hall. They had wanted to name the room after Barbara Jean, but she declined the honor. The Fleetwood had been Lester’s baby. And he had been the one with happy memories of it, not her.

  Barbara Jean had been living at Big Earl and Miss Thelma’s house for about a month when she first saw the car. She was walking home from her job at the salon when she saw a crowd gathered across the street outside the All-You-Can-Eat. Clarice stepped out of the knot of people and called her name.

  When she got closer, she saw that the dozen or so people in the street were clustered around the nicest Cadillac she had ever seen. In fact, it was the only brand-new Cadillac Barbara Jean had ever seen outside of TV commercials. It was a beauty, so shiny that it was hard to look directly at it in the afternoon sun. It was sky blue, and the brilliant gloss of the car’s paint job reflected the clouds above so perfectly that looking down at the hood almost made you feel dizzy, as if you didn’t know which way was up. The back end of the car was long and so sleek that it seemed likely you would cut your finger if you ran it along the sharp fins. Occasionally one of the people circling the car in admiration would lean in to exhale on the bright finish and watch the oval of their condensed breath appear and then evaporate.

  Only one person in the crowd dared make any real physical contact with the car. That was the Cadillac’s owner, Mr. Lester Maxberry.

  Barbara Jean knew Lester, of course. He was famous. At one time or another, he had employed half of the boys in her high school in his landscaping business. James Henry worked for him all through high school and his two years of college. James worked for Lester so long that everyone expected him to take over the business one day. They went on expecting it until James surprised them all by becoming a cop.

  Lester sometimes came into the All-You-Can-Eat with James and sat with the young people at the window table. He was always nice, courteous, and charming in an avuncular way. He would talk sports with the guys, or dispense advice, or compliment the girls. But he usually didn’t stick around for long. He would say, “Let me get going, so you young people can enjoy your evening,” and then he’d tip the fedora he always wore and leave while they objected.

  Barbara Jean enjoyed Lester’s company, but she never thought of him in a romantic way, even though just about every other woman she knew did. He had a small, compact body and a long face with droopy eyes that most of the girls thought were sexy. He also had a slight hesitation in his stride from an injury he had received while he was in the service, but he layered it over with so much cool and self-confidence that it seemed like a stylish accessory. Lester was light-skinned and had curly, but not kinky, hair at a time when there weren’t many attributes considered more important than fair skin and good hair.

  Lester stood at the prow of his automobile with one foot on the front bumper and his hip leaning onto the driver’s-side quarter panel. He wore navy blue pinstriped pants, a dress shirt the same sky blue as his new car, and a black fedora with a blue feather in its band. He must have been cold. It couldn’t have been more than forty-five degrees on that December day. But he looked perfectly comfortable posing there, smiling and showing off his car.

  When he saw Barbara Jean, Lester stood and said, “Hey, Barbie, what do you think?”

  She said, “It’s slick, real slick.” She immediately regretted that answer. “Slick” sounded so stupid and childish, just the wrong thing to say to a man like Lester Maxberry. She corrected herself. She said, “It’s a gorgeous car, truly gorgeous,” and felt better.

  “Wait till you see this. This is the best part.” He walked around to the driver’s side of the car and then leaned into the open window. He pressed the horn, and after it sounded he turned around with a big grin on his face. The horn had been modified so that it honked out the first three notes from the chorus of Smokey Robinson’s “Ooo Baby, Baby.” The crowd gathered around the car went nuts, some of them singing, “Ooo, Ooo-ooo.”

  Barbara Jean was sque
ezed off to the edges of the crowd by the boys who pushed forward to ask car questions or just to hear the horn again, so she went into the All-You-Can-Eat to say hi to Miss Thelma. By this time on a Saturday she could usually be found in the kitchen of the restaurant starting the baking for Sunday’s after-church rush.

  Barbara Jean walked through the dining room and headed down the hallway that led to the storeroom and the rear of the kitchen where the baking table and ovens were. Before she got to the kitchen, the door to the storeroom opened and Chick Carlson stepped out. She acknowledged him with a nod and kept walking. But when she came closer to him, she saw that he had a cut on his forehead.

  She knew that she shouldn’t ask. She knew that it was none of her business. But she asked anyway.

  She pointed to the cut just below his hairline. “What happened?”

  He said, “My brother, he gets mad and …” He stopped himself and looked embarrassed, as if he hadn’t intended to say what he had said. He bit his lip and stood there turning redder and redder.

  She didn’t recognize it at the time, but something started between them at that moment, an irresistible need to say and do things before common sense could intervene and hold them back. That need would stretch out over far too many years. And she would live to regret it.

  Barbara Jean slipped off her jacket and rolled up the sleeve of her blouse. She pointed to three small scars on her arm and said, “My mother hit me with a belt buckle.”

  He said, “I’m sure she didn’t mean it.”

  “Yes, she did. She used to hit me a lot when she was drunk. But you’re half right; she didn’t mean to give me the scars. She was just so drunk that time that she didn’t realize she’d grabbed the wrong end of the belt when she swung it.”