Flies on the Butter

by Denise Hildreth Jones

  Rose used the edge of her wrap to pull on the metal door handle. She was greeted by a waitress in a white uniform, a white apron with ruffled pink trim, and white nursing shoes, with a pencil stuck behind her ear. The woman, yellow pin curls firmly pressed to her head and black-framed glasses slipping down her nose, ordered Rose, “Grab a seat anywhere, darlin’.” Then she added over her shoulder, “I’m Daisy. I’ll be with you in a few.”

  Rose scanned the other diners. They scanned her too. The bills of baseball caps and camouflage caps and orange-billed hats had all risen in virtual unison as she entered the door. Even the cooks had stopped flipping whatever it was they were flipping to take a gander over the stainless-steel counter that would momentarily serve up her meal. The other waitresses, however, didn’t pay her a dab of attention.

  Rose could hear the grease. It was sizzling. She could smell the grease. She was pretty certain it was bacon. And she could see the grease. Because everything shone with a light coating.

  Rose took a booth for four in the corner. She slid in with ease, a little too much ease. She was certain a layer of grease had just rubbed itself onto her behind. She set her purse and BlackBerry down next to her. She planned to finally check those e-mails—and all the others that had piled up—before Helen initiated a mental evaluation.

  Rose’s present responsibilities were demanding and costly. And Rose didn’t drop balls. She didn’t go ten minutes without checking e-mails either, unless she was in an important meeting. And even then, she and Helen had devised a system. She’d place her phone on vibrate and set it in the seat next to her leg. If it went off three times in a row, Rose needed to call Helen. If she couldn’t do that, she needed to check her e-mail immediately. Yet somehow today she had lost track of it all for a few moments.

  Sixty-something Daisy headed in Rose’s direction and tossed her a menu. “Darlin’, you just take a gander and I’ll be right back witcha.”

  Rose wasn’t sure if she meant she’d be right back “with her” or “right back with a witch.” She studied the menu. Just “Diner.” Not “Joe’s Diner,” not “Fred’s Diner,” not anybody’s “Diner.” Just “Diner.” She unwrapped her paper napkin from around her fork and knife. She wasn’t sure where her spoon was, but she figured you probably ate most things with your hands around here anyway. In fact, she wasn’t quite sure why they bothered with utensils at all.

  She took the edge of her napkin and used it to flip open the menu so she could actually peruse the inside. It featured fried pork chops, fried chicken, fried steak, accompanied by fried okra, fried green tomatoes, fried squash. She scanned the menu for a salad. There was one—covered with cheese, bacon, and eggs.

  “Might as well be an omelet,” she muttered to herself.

  There was another one with fried chicken, cheese, bacon, and eggs.

  “My arteries are clogging just reading this.”

  The final salad offering was covered with ham, cheese, bacon, and eggs.

  “Well, at least it isn’t fried.” This time the older couple in the booth next to her eyed her curiously.

  “So what’ll it be, darlin’?”

  Rose jerked in her seat. She hadn’t seen the waitress coming.

  Daisy patted Rose’s forearm, trying to soothe her next tipper. Her other hand remained hidden underneath a brown plastic tray. “Honey, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare ya. I was just comin’ to see if you were wantin’ to go ahead and get ya somethin’ to eat.”

  Rose gathered herself. “Oh, well, I was just . . .”

  Daisy set down a glass of water in an amber-hued plastic cup and laid a straw beside it. “Would ya like to hear the specials?”

  “Oh, you have specials too?” The words came out before she caught herself.

  “Darlin’, we’ve got country ham with some red-eye gravy.” Rose had never quite figured out what the red-eye in the gravy was. “We’ve got fried catfish with collards.” Of course they did. “And we’ve got vegetable soup.”

  “Just vegetables?”

  “Whadya mean, just vegetables?” Daisy asked, using the tip of her pencil to scratch her head.

  Rose tried not to cringe visibly. “I mean, does the soup have meat in it?”

  “Well, yes, darlin’, all vegetable soup has meat in it if it’s any kind of vegetable soup.”

  “Well, I think I’ll just have a salad with nothing but tomatoes and cucumbers.”

  Daisy looked up from the notepad she’d started writing on. “You mean you don’t want no cheese?”

  “No. No cheese, thank you.”

  “And you don’t want no bacon?” Daisy’s head tilt reminded her of her granddaddy’s hound, Scout, and she tried not to laugh.

  “No, no bacon.”

  “No ham or chicken or nothin’?”

  “No, just some lettuce and tomatoes, and some cucumbers, and oh, add some red onion if you have any of those, and I think that’s all.” She hugged herself, rubbing her hands up and down her arms, still encased in her wrap, as if she were trying to keep herself warm, but she was really trying to keep herself calm.

  “So you just want nothing but lettuce and tomatoes and cucumbers, and some onions?” Daisy took her glasses and tipped them to the edge of her nose, causing the bright purple chain they hung from to bounce lightly.

  “Well, I’d really like red onion if you have it.”

  Daisy didn’t write a thing down; she just looked at her. “Yeah, red onion.”

  “And do you have any light dressings?”

  Daisy put her pencil-holding hand on one hip and repeated the question. “Light dressings?”

  “Yeah, not so heavy in fat?” Rose shifted in her seat. Daisy’s piercing blue eyes were making her feel as if her requests might be a little foolish for her environment. If the world actually made vegetable soup by its name—with just vegetables—she wouldn’t be in this position.

  “Darlin’,” she said with a genuine smile, “we ain’t never had a light dressing around here since the day we opened.”

  “Well, do you have oil and vinegar?” Rose wasn’t sure whether poor Daisy would recover after this.

  “Oil and vinegar?” Daisy sighed. “Sure, darlin’, if oil and vinegar will make you happy with your rabbit food, Miss Daisy will find you some oil and vinegar.” She tucked her notepad into the pocket of her apron and put the pencil back behind her ear. Clearly she wouldn’t need notes for this. “I assume you’ll want a diet drink too?”

  Rose thought for a moment. The memory of that Coke this morning brought something back to her that she had almost forgotten. Home. “Actually,” she said, about to surprise herself, “I think I’d like just a Coke. A regular Coke.”

  Daisy raised one eyebrow high. “I don’t think I heard you correctly. A regular Coke? You sure?”

  Rose smiled at her. “Yeah, it’s been the kind of day that deserves a Coke. I’ll have a regular Coke.”

  “Well, thank the good Lord, I was about to think you had that anorexica thing or something.”

  Rose wanted to laugh. “No, I’m not anorexic. Just a vegetarian.”

  “Vegetarian, smegetarian. You just sit here for a few minutes, and Miss Daisy will be right back with you somethin’ to eat.” Then Daisy winked. But it was the words she added after the wink that made Rose even more nervous. “And who knows, I might even surprise ya.”

  Rose watched Daisy as she all but skipped back to the counter. The warmth in the place had begun to penetrate Rose’s chill, and she loosened the wrap from around her shoulders and let it slide down her back.

  The elderly couple scooted their way out of the nearby booth. Rose watched as the gentleman jiggled the change in his pocket and laid out a couple of dollars and some coins for Daisy to gather upon her return. Then he reached into the small pocket on the front of his worn tweed vest and tugged on a chain that held a pocket watch at the end. He opened the watch slowly with shaky hands, studied it, and then closed it gently. He rolled it absently between his f
ingers.

  Rose stared at it. She could hear it ticking from her table, she was certain. At least she thought it was his clock she heard.

  10

  Rosey saw the glint of the small gold watch from afar. She watched as her granddaddy shut it and placed it back inside his shirt pocket. He and her daddy were standing on the front porch of his and Mamaw’s house as she and Charlotte returned from their encounter with the very pit of wickedness.

  Fortunately for them, after her bout of upchucking, Charlotte had remembered her Barbie perfume bottle from her magic bag and squirted them like crazy to cover up the smoke. The attempt, however, at removing the Poisonous Pink lipstick from Charlotte’s mouth was not quite as effective.

  “Where you going?” Granddaddy asked Rosey’s daddy.

  Taylor walked down the steps and paused at the bottom. “I’m just going to the church for a little while to work on the hymn selection for Sunday.” Rosey loved to see her daddy anytime. Except after moments of heathenism. “Hey, baby girl.”

  “Hey, Daddy,” she called and waved.

  He waited for them, setting his right foot on the bottom step and placing his hand on his leg. “What have you and Charlotte been up to today?”

  They glanced at each other. “Oh, nothing much going on ’round here today,” Charlotte assured him. Nothing much but her mischief.

  “Well, you two girls have a great afternoon, and don’t you drive Granddaddy crazy,” he said. Rosey looked beyond her daddy to see her granddaddy grab the arms of his metal rocking chair and sit himself down. It was his favorite seat, where he could spend the rest of the day watching the neighbors go by, like he did most days.

  “I’m going home for a little while, Rosey,” Charlotte said, turning green again.

  “I think that might not be such a bad idea,” Rosey assured her. “We can play later. Bring your tape recorder over and we can record ourselves singing with Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta.” They loved Grease.

  Charlotte slowly began to jog with only a wave of her hand. Her house was only two blocks over. Rosey figured they would be two of the longest blocks of Charlotte’s life.

  “Come sit here with Granddaddy, Red.” He motioned with a pat on his left knee.

  Rosey loved Granddaddy’s knee. She had since she was a baby. His thin dark-gray pants and thin button-down white shirts with their small pinstripes always felt soft against her skin. And his suspenders gave her entertainment.

  She ran her hand along the porch railing as she meandered toward Granddaddy’s knee. Scout lumbered along beside her, sniffing at her shorts. She was growing up now. Ten was ancient to some. But she didn’t ever want to get so big that she couldn’t sit on his knee anymore. Granddaddy offered a wrinkled hand and she took it, and they both tugged together to pull her weight up on his knee. Once she was planted securely, she took both of her legs and swung them across his other knee.

  Scout walked to the other side of the porch and took some long slurps from his freshened water bowl and then came back and laid his long, gangly self beside them.

  She grabbed the gold clasp that adjusted the strap on her granddaddy’s suspenders and began to move the straps up and down. “So how was The Price Is Right, Granddaddy?”

  “Oh, you know that Bob Barker. He knows how to put on a good show.” His calloused hand patted the top of her knee as he looked straight out in front of him. “Somebody actually won the Showcase Showdown today, and you know your mamaw, she gets so excited when that happens.”

  Rosey ran her fingers up and down his suspender that she had extended out to its farthest length. “Did they win a car?”

  “Two.”

  She stopped her tugging. “Two? Somebody got two cars at one time?”

  “I know. Can you imagine it?” He leaned down and kissed her head.

  She straightened his suspender and closed the clasp shut. Then she laid her head on his shoulder and reached around his face to rub the soft part of his earlobe. She had done this since she was a baby too.

  “You and Charlotte have you a big time this morning?” She felt the movement of his lips still placed against the top of her head.

  Rosey looked down the porch and could see the side of the church. “We had a good time. Charlotte and I always have a good time,” she said, still rubbing his ear softly.

  “Have you been smoking out there a little today, Red?”

  Rosey’s fingers froze at the tip of his ear. Panic swept through her, right down to the tips of her bare feet.

  “I can smell it all over you. That and Charlotte’s Barbie doll perfume.”

  Rosey felt the sting of tears as they filled her eyes. She sat up and looked straight into the piercing blue eyes of her granddaddy. It wasn’t as if she could go anywhere anyway. “Granddaddy, I know . . . I know it’s a sin and we’re bound for the eternal pits of hell. And it wasn’t even that good, but whatever you do, if you have to beat me till the sun comes up, please don’t tell Mamaw, and whatever you do, don’t tell Mama and Daddy.” Her eyes pleaded with her words.

  His face was expressionless for a moment. Then, with that soft smile that had been her companion for the last ten years, he patted her head and pressed it back down on his shoulder. “I’m not going to tell anyone what you’ve done, baby girl. But you need to know that cigarettes can hurt you. And I don’t want anything happening to you,” he said, going back to rhythmically patting her knee as he rocked.

  “But what are we going to do about the hell part, Grand-daddy? I mean, I know today I made the decision to no longer be able to go up to heaven and be with you and Mamaw and Mama and Daddy.” She felt a hot tear run down her face. “Now me and Charlotte are going to be the only two in our family having to live with the devil for the rest of our natural-born lives.”

  She felt his belly shake as he chuckled. He wiped her tears away. “Who made you think smoking a cigarette would make you go to hell, baby girl?”

  “That’s what the preacher says. He says smokers and liars and adulteresses . . .” She felt his belly shake again. “He said those people are going to hell, and I know I might have told a lie once by mistake, and now I’ve smoked, and I’ve got to find out what the adulteresses thing is so I can make sure I at least don’t do that.” She sniffled.

  “Red, you’re crazy.” He didn’t try to hide his laughter now. “You aren’t going to hell for smoking.”

  She sat up and looked at him. “I’m not?” she said, wiping her nose with the back of her hand; then she wiped it on her shorts.

  “But you could get to heaven pretty quick if your mamaw catches you wiping your snot on your shorts.”

  He and Rosey both got a kick out of that. She laid her head back down on his shoulder. “So you don’t think this smoking stuff is going to send me to hell, Granddaddy?”

  “God looks at your heart, Red. Thank the good Lord, He looks at our hearts.”

  She wasn’t quite sure if that was such a good thing either, because Charlotte had her convinced that her heart was cancer stricken already. “What do you think He sees?”

  “I think He sees that you’re sorry. That you really don’t want to sneak around and do things that are wrong or hide things from us. You’re going to have a thousand opportunities in this life, Red, to make good choices or bad choices. And God wants you to make good choices all the time. But when you make choices that aren’t the ones you know you should have made, well, if you come back, with your tears, and with your repentance . . .”

  “With my what?”

  She could tell he was smiling even though she was back to looking at the side of the church. “If you come back saying you’re sorry, then He will forgive you. But you have to mean it. It’s not about getting Him to forget this time so you can just do it again. That’s why I said He looks at your heart. He looks to see what you really mean inside.”

  “So let me get this straight one more time. You’re absolutely certain I’m not going to hell?”

  His belly shook o
nce more. “No, Red, I can assure you, you’re not going to hell for smoking today with Charlotte.”

  He felt her exhale against his chest. Then she asked, “How did you know, Granddaddy?”

  “Know what, baby girl?”

  “Know that I had been smoking.”

  “I’ve worked around tobacco all my life, baby girl. It’s part of my nose. And there isn’t enough of Charlotte’s perfume in this world to get rid of that smell.”

  Rosey let her body relax against her granddaddy’s chest. She moved her arm around to get his earlobe again. As she began to drift off to sleep, the thought flitted through her mind that she wasn’t sure how everyone would handle the news of Charlotte’s cancer, but then the soft ticking of Granddaddy’s pocket watch and his gentle rocking drew her to sleep. Charlotte would just have to take care of the rest.

  “Here you go, sunshine!” Daisy said, yanking Rose back to the present and the aroma of grease. She set the heaping plate of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, and macaroni and cheese down in front of her.

  Rose’s eyes glassed over at the feast in front of her. “I think you have my order mixed up with someone else’s. I’m the salad with the oil-and-vinegar dressing, remember?”

  Daisy set down the ice-cold Coke in another amber-tinted glass and laid the straw beside it. “Darlin’, I ain’t got your order wrong. I need you to trust me. I saw your bones when you came in here. I mean, look at ya,” Daisy said, grabbing Rose’s wrist. Rose felt the urge to jerk it back, but Daisy’s grip was pretty strong. Daisy made a ring around Rose’s wrist so that her middle finger could touch her thumb.

  “That, my dear, is the wrist of a woman who is in need of fat.”

  “But I don’t eat meat.”

  “Well, I can tell that by the size of your wrist. And that’s part of the problem. Now, you just trust Miss Daisy on this one and eat you some meat, darlin’. It really will be good for you. Everyone needs protein in their system.”