A Penny Urned
Page 3
“Mama, just tell me!”
“I’m lonely, Abby, that’s all there is to it.”
I breathed a huge sigh of relief. “I’m sorry I haven’t been spending much time with you lately. I guess it’s good you talked me into bringing you on this trip.”
“Yes, and I’m grateful dear. But there’s more to it than that.”
“Of course. And we discussed before the problem of you getting a cat of your own. Like I said, a cat can live to be twenty years old. Maybe you should consider a dog. You know, one of those breeds that doesn’t live past ten.”
“I don’t want a pet! I want a man!”
“Well, don’t we all,” I said with mock cheer. “Look, Mama, you have plenty of men friends. Many more than I. Why, there’s Phil at church. And Bill at Shepherd’s Center. You’re always talking about them, how much you enjoy their company.”
“I don’t want just a man’s friendship. I want his body. I want to feel a man’s body next to mine. I want to—”
“Mama!”
“Well, it’s the truth. A woman my age still likes to be touched. To be held.”
I put my arm around her. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t very well advise her to put an ad in the personal columns, now, could I?
We sat there in uncomfortable silence for several minutes. Finally Mama spoke.
“I need chocolate.”
“What?”
“Something sinfully rich, jam-packed with fat and sugar. Something in which you can actually taste the calories.”
“Dark chocolate or milk?”
“Dark chocolate, of course. Milk chocolate is for wimps.”
I was about to argue the merits of good milk chocolate when we heard the sound of footsteps and heavy panting. We stood, and Mama fluffed her skirt. Seconds later a cloud of acrid cigar smoke rose from the stairwell. Arriving shortly behind the stench was a bald-headed man, and several steps behind him was a heavyset woman with a preposterous shade of silver-blond hair.
“Good afternoon, ladies,” the chrome dome said. “I’m Ralph Lizard, and this lovely lady”—he gestured with the cigar at the bottle blonde—“is Miss Duvall.”
“Raynatta Duvall,” the plump platinum floozy puffed. “That’s Raynatta with an A and a Y.”
Stopping just below us, both the man and the woman held out their hands so Mama and I were obliged to shake them. Clearly the couple wanted us to tell our names as well.
“I’m her mother,” Mama said cagily.
“And I’m her daughter,” I said, proving I could be just as cagey.
Ralph Lizard stoked his stogie with cheeks like bellows. “Wouldn’t either of you happen to be Abigail Timberlake, would you?”
I coughed and waved my hand to clear the air. “That’s me, but I have to warn you, I have a black belt in karate.”
“You do?” Mama asked in a tight little voice. “Oh, Abby, when did that happen? I’ve been begging you to take classes with me at Chop a Block Karate School on Cherry Road. Begging for ages, and you keep turning me down. So now you spring it on me, and in front of strangers yet!”
“Mama! I was just—well, trying to play it safe. Of course I don’t have a black belt. I’ve never even been near Chop a Block.”
Mama smiled, the relief painfully evident in her eyes. She wants to do an activity with me—anything—so we can bond. Fortunately I live in Charlotte, and Mama lives across the state line in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Bonding activities are possible but not practical.
“I’ll buy us both lessons for Christmas,” she said. “Only we won’t be in the same class, dear. I decided not to wait for you and bought a book on it. Karate for Idiots. I’m already on Chapter Three and I can do a pretty mean karate chop, if I say so myself.”
The smooth and smoky Mr. Lizard rubbed his pate with the palm of his free hand. “So, what’s the verdict, ladies? Is one of you Abigail Timberlake?”
“I’m Abigail,” I said, and shifted my purse so that I held it only by the straps. I’m embarrassed to admit that I’m one of those folks who still carry a pocketbook the size of a gym bag. In theory I tote with me everything I might need to facilitate my outings—if only I could find the items when needed. At any rate, a good hard swing with it and Mr. Lizard, who was still a couple of steps below the landing, would do a back flip from which there would be no quick recovery.
“Good to meet you,” Mr. Lizard said, and pumped my hand again. “I had a hunch it was you. Dewayne said you would be coming, but he didn’t say when. Miss Duvall and I were just passing by and figured we might give it a try. Dewayne not in?”
“Mr. Kimbro is not in,” I said, “if that’s who you mean.”
He nodded, while blowing another puff of noxious smoke into my space. “Well, it doesn’t matter now, because you’re here.”
“Oh?” The grip I had on my purse straps tightened.
“It’s all strictly on the up and up, ma’am. Dewayne keeps his fingers in a lot of different pies, but real estate isn’t one of them.”
“Please, Mr. Lizard, get to your point.”
Mama gasped but said nothing. No doubt I’d hear later—ad nauseam—just how rude I’d been.
Ralph Lizard laughed. “I like a woman with spunk. Yes, ma’am, I do. And you,” he said, waving the disgusting cigar, “have spunk.”
“Hey!” Raynatta with an A and a Y was not amused.
“But I like you most, sugar doll.”
Raynatta beamed and waggled a finger sporting a rock so large and clear, it could only have been cubic zirconia. If not, well, I had no objection to changing my name to Abigail Lizard. Or course, the cigars would have to go.
“Please,” I begged, “I have a pussy waiting for me in my car.”
Ralph laughed again. “Here.” He thrust a business card at me, which I reluctantly took. “My home phone number is on there as well. You can reach me night or day.”
“This is all very nice, but why would I want to?”
“Because I can get you top dollar for it.”
“For what?”
“Why, for your aunt’s house.”
I shoved the card in my purse. “She was my cousin, not my aunt, and I haven’t even seen the place. Who knows, I may just want to keep it.”
His frown was barely perceptible. On a man with hair it might have gone unnoticed.
“Well, in case you do decide to sell, remember Ralph Lizard. Just like the reptile.”
“I’m sure,” I said pleasantly. He was free to interpret that as he pleased.
After rejoining Dmitri, we backtracked to City Market, where we found a little shop that sold melt-in-your mouth, to-die-for pecan fudge. We had a couple of pieces each, and of course Mama had to find a chocolate shake with which to wash her share down. I, I’ll have you know, settled for a diet cola.
At any rate, it was already dusk by the time we drove past the famed Bonaventure Cemetery. The live oaks hung low over the road, forming a veritable tunnel. Spanish moss hung from their limbs like fragments of a tattered shroud.
We drove the specified quarter-mile but didn’t see a white sign with a black paw on it. About a mile down the road I turned around, and we searched again. Still no sign. Desperate, I turned around in the drive leading into Bonaventure Cemetery.
In fact, I was so agitated at having missed the Velvet Paws sign I almost ran down a woman standing just outside the wrought-iron gates. Mama and I both gasped, and Mama even threw her arms protectively in front of her face. For one heart-stopping moment the woman stood there, just inches from my car, my headlights full on her, and the next second she was gone. I mean that literally. The woman had totally and utterly disappeared.
My only thought was that she had fallen. I hadn’t felt a thud, but perhaps I’d hit her just hard enough to knock her off balance.
I jammed the gear into Park and jumped out of the car. “Mama!” I screamed. “Come help me!”
But there was no one there. No one at all. Just the hard pave
ment of the drive and a fallen clump of Spanish moss. I got on my hands and knees and looked under the car. No one.
“This is too spooky for me,” Mama said.
“So you saw her too?”
“Did I ever!”
“Straw hat? Bright orange top? Long purple skirt?”
“And the beads,” Mama said. “She had on about eight strings of beads.”
“A black woman?”
“Yes. Abby, I’m getting back in the car.”
Call me a chicken, but I got in before her. The second her door slammed shut, I locked all the doors. It was only then that I thought to check the back seat.
I’ve never screamed so hard in my entire life.
4
“Well, it’s about time,” the woman said.
“W-w-what are y-y-you d-doing in my c-c-car?”
“Help!” Mama shrieked. “Help! We’re being carjacked!”
The interloper laughed. She had deep voice that resonated of cigarettes and age.
“I ain’t no car-jacker. And if I was, I sure wouldn’t get me a bitty little car like this. No, ma’am, a Lincoln Town Car is more my style.”
“Who are you?” I was trying to feel under my seat with my foot. I sometimes keep an umbrella there. It wouldn’t be of much use against a real weapon, but deployed at the right time, it might allow Mama and me to escape.
“My name is Diamond,” the woman said. “And who might you be?”
“That’s none of your business,” Mama snapped. “Abby”—her voice was now a whisper—“step on the gas and ram the gates. She’s probably not wearing a seat belt.”
Instead, I flipped on the interior lights. “Diamond who? And what are you doing in my car?”
“Just Diamond. And girl, I’ve been waiting. What took you so long?”
“Excuse me?”
“Miss Amy say you’d be here at five on the nose. I reckon it’s a good deal after that.”
“Who, pray tell, is Miss Amy?”
“Little white girl over there in the north corner. Drowned in the Savannah River when she just nine. Miss Amy see everything. Know everything, too. And if you follow all the steps right, she tell all, too.”
“Mama,” I muttered. “We’ve got another C.J. on our hands.” That was meant to be code, but when it comes to things like this, Mama is as subtle as Tammy Faye’s makeup.
“Do you mean this woman’s crazy?”
Diamond’s laugh was like gravel rattling in a galvanized bucket. “Yes, ma’am, I be crazy. But we all be crazy.”
“I’m not!” Mama said, and puffed her crinolines.
“Yes, ma’am, you is. But I ain’t gonna argue.” Diamond tapped me on the shoulder. “Whatcha waiting on, girl?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Let’s ride. Let’s get us a move on. Y’all can’t be sitting here after dark—not without taking all the steps.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“You really don’t know?”
“I haven’t a clue. Now if you’ll you be so kind as to get out of my car.”
The back driver’s side door opened. “Miss Amy’s gonna get herself a good talking to.”
“Give Amy our best, dear,” Mama said. No doubt she rolled her eyes.
“Yes, ma’am. But you be talking to her soon—real soon.”
“Somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Mama said primly.
“Yes, ma’am, it is.”
The second the back door closed, I jumped out. Diamond was nowhere to be seen. I even made Mama get out, which was almost as hard as giving Dmitri a bath.
“N-n-no,” Mama said, her teeth chattering. “I don’t see her either.”
“Do you think we just imagined her?”
“Of course not, dear. No one looks good in orange, but if you have to wear it, for heaven’s sakes forget the purple.”
“Maybe we hallucinated. Maybe there was something in the fudge.”
“Been there, done that,’ Mama said dryly. “What happened here was not a hallucination.”
“What?”
“She was too clear. Distinct, I guess you’d say. And the colors didn’t vibrate.”
“Mama! What do you know about hallucinations?”
My petite progenitress patted her pearls, which gleamed in the light of the rising moon. “It only happened once, Abby, and it wasn’t even my idea.”
I leaned against the cool metal trunk of my car. “What happened?”
“It. Our one experience. And it wasn’t my idea, mind you, but Thelma Lou’s.”
She paused, and her pearls got a good workout. Thank heavens for the moon, because if the string had broken, we’d have had a devil of a time finding them in the sand.
“Go on, Mama.”
“I think it was 1971. Thelma Lou and—I’m not going to tell you all their names, Abby—anyway, a few of us gals who were mothers of college kids got together and decided we should do a little experimenting of our own. Just a little, mind you. Just enough so that we could know what it was y’all were trying. You know, so we could see the pitfalls for you and maybe be of some actual use instead of just wringing our hands.”
“Mama, you didn’t!”
“Like I said, just the once, dear.”
“I can’t believe this! My mama smoked marijuana.”
“Oh, no, dear. It wasn’t marijuana. Just some little pills Thelma Lou bought up in Charlotte.”
“Oh, no!” I wailed. “I’m the daughter of a psychedelic drug user. My mama’s a freak!”
Mama let go of her pearls and put her hands on her hips. “Why, Abigail Louise! What a thing to say to your mama. It was only that one time. And don’t tell me you never took drugs in college.”
“I only smoked pot! That was it. And I never inhaled!”
“Don’t be silly, dear. You can level with me.”
“But it’s true! You know I hate smoke. Lord knows I tried to inhale, but it just made me choke.”
Mama’s eyes widened. “Oh, my.”
I shook my head miserably. “I can’t believe this. I’ve got to be the only woman alive who came out of the seventies with less drug experience than her mother.”
“Oh, no, Abby! There’s Thelma Lou’s daughter Angie, and Lauren’s daughter Christie, and Connie Sue’s daughter—” Mama clapped a hand over mouth. “Now see what you’ve done!”
“Me?”
“Well, I’ve never claimed to be a saint,” Mama wailed. “And it was the seventies—drugs, sex, even something called swinging. I remember once—”
I hustled Mama back into the car before I had opportunity to learn other tidbits that a daughter has a right not to hear. Of course, I didn’t believe, not even for a second, that Mama and Daddy had swung. Well, maybe if the swing had consisted of a sturdy wooden seat suspended from a stout oak limb by ropes or chains. But even that image was going too far.
“Look for the paw sign,” I barked.
“Aye, aye,” Mama said smugly. She was, I knew, immensely satisfied that she had gotten my goat.
We found the Velvet Paws sign, but it was a quarter of a mile before the cemetery, not after. The little white house was set well back from the road at the end of a sandy drive. The front door was almost hidden by a pair of enormous camellia bushes.
I held Dmitri while Mama found and rang the bell. My yellow bundle of joy was decidedly unhappy. He was growling the way he always does when he smells another cat.
The door opened a crack. “May I help you?”
“Yes, ma’am. The clerk over at the Heritage sent us. I need to board my cat.”
“What’s the clerk’s name?”
I drew a blank. “Mama, what’s her name?” I whispered.
“Lord, Abby, don’t expect me to remember. Besides being so much older than you, I’m a freak.”
“Mama!”
The door started to close.
“She’s a strawberry blonde with more freckles than Opie!”
“Sorry, about that. But ever since The Book, I’ve had to be real careful. Especially at night. Tourists do some pretty strange things.”
“I bet.”
“Lougee Hawkins,” she said, and extended her hand. She had large brown eyes that were warm and welcoming. Never mind that her hair resembled a haystack that had been through a wind tunnel.
Mama shook her hand, but I couldn’t, because Dmitri was struggling. Lougee leaned over to pet him, but when her hand came within six inches of him, he hissed.
“This ferocious beast,” I said, after Mama and I had introduced ourselves, “is Dmitri Timberlake. He’s eight years old. Aren’t you, boy?”
Dmitri produced a moan that sounded like it had escaped from the gates of hell. “Stop that, boy!” I smiled at Lougee. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him. He’s not usually this antisocial.”
Lougee had the grace to return my smile. “Strange place, long car ride, it’s not so unusual. Maybe he smells other cats. Maybe dogs. You board him a lot?”
“No, ma’am. This is only the third or fourth time.”
“That explains it, then. He’s just insecure. But he’ll adjust. Won’t you, big guy?”
She reached out again, and this time Dmitri swiped at her with a paw. Fortunately he missed, or it would have been a spontaneous game of connect the dot with Lougee’s freckles.
“For shame, Dmitri! Now, what do you say?”
My baby’s meow was a pitiful, high-pitched squeak that made me want to fold my body over his protectively and run him back to the car. But unless I planned sleeping there with him, that was not an option.
I sighed. “Well, this has to be done, I guess. So, where does he go? Where’s his room, so to speak?”