A Penny Urned

by Tamar Myers

  I suppose the only reason I was able to carry on such a mundane conversation was because I was still in shock. It isn’t every day one has one’s house ransacked, finds a multimillion-dollar coin collection, and acquires a cousin of a different color—well, in a manner of speaking.

  It wasn’t until Judith returned to our table bearing a dessert menu that reality set in. “Y’all care for some dessert?” she asked quietly.

  We waited for the litany of interesting descriptions to begin, but alas, there were none. Judith Gabrenas just stood there, pen poised over pad, like any other good waitress.

  “That’s it?” C.J. finally asked. “You aren’t going to babble on and on about our choices?”

  “C.J!”

  “Well, it’s the truth, Abby. Even I—”

  “Enough!” I said sharply.

  I believe Judith winced. Either that or she winked at me.

  “That’s all right. I know I tend to carry on about things. Sorry about that.”

  “Still, that’s no excuse for my friend’s rudeness. I’m afraid she left her manners back in Charlotte.”

  Judith shrugged, not altogether an appropriate gesture under the circumstances, if you ask me. Perhaps her medication, if indeed she was taking any, had kicked in.

  “Excuse me for asking, ma’am, but may I know your name?”

  “Abigail Timberlake, and my ruffian companion is—”

  “Crystal!”

  I held out a hand. Judith either didn’t see it or refused to shake. That really was fine with me. Handshaking is an obsolete custom that ought to be abandoned. It began centuries ago as way of showing that one was truly unarmed—no palmed daggers, etc.—but it is now the number-one conveyor of colds and influenza. Much better, in my humble opinion, to bow to one another like the Japanese. Bad backs are generally not contagious.

  Judith glanced around the small room. Her other customers were busy chowing down.

  “Miss Timberlake, you going to do right by my girl?”

  “Excuse me?” It took moxie to ask a stranger for moolah, I’d grant her that.

  “You aren’t going to say anything to my Amanda about—well, you know, her being Miss Wiggins’s biological granddaughter and all.”

  “She doesn’t know?”

  “No, ma’am. Everyone kind of figured it would be easier that way. Then we wouldn’t have to explain the other part.”

  “What other part?”

  Judith glanced around the room again. She was like a monkey on a barbwire fence.

  “About her being black,” she whispered. “I mean, part black.”

  “You mean she doesn’t know?” I’m sure my voice woke more than a few of the dead over at Bonaventure Cemetery, no doubt giving some lucky late-afternoon tourists the thrill of their lives.

  Judith shook her head. She looked as miserable as a cat in a cold rain.

  “But that’s impossible,” I cried. “You blurted it out to us, and we’re perfect strangers.”

  “I can’t believe I did that. It’s just that the subject has been in my mind a lot lately, on account of Amanda has started asking more questions about her past.”

  “Well, you should tell her. Because you’re likely to just blurt it out to her too.”

  “Seems to me life is complicated enough,” she said still in a whisper. Frankly, I was surprised she hadn’t fled the room.

  “Life’s a bitch,” I agreed, “and then you die. But you have no right to deprive someone of her heritage. Amanda deserves to celebrate all of her history, and trust me, someday she’s going to find out, whether you tell her or not.”

  “The time just hasn’t been right,” Judith whined. “I can’t pick just any moment.”

  “There will never be a right time, not if you’ve kept the secret this long. But I can tell you this. If she hears it on the street, it’s going to be worse.”

  I realize that my children’s situation and Amanda’s was not at all the same—or was it? There is no shame in having African heritage. Likewise, there should be no shame in having a cheating father, but Susan and Charlie felt it just the same. Because Buford is Charlotte’s most successful divorce lawyer, we were a high-profile couple. The children heard about Buford’s bimbo at school, and they were mortified on my behalf. Twin Peaks had been on television by then, and that’s what the kids called Buford’s mistress. The guys in Charlie’s class wanted to know if he was getting “a piece of the action.” After all, Tweetie—Buford’s silicon slut of a secretary—was only a few years older than our son.

  I’m not saying I could have prevented my children’s pain by preempting the rumors, but I could have helped prepare them for their friends’ reactions. Maybe. Perhaps Charlie wouldn’t have been hurt so much when he opened his locker and found the anatomically correct inflatable doll labeled Your new mom. And maybe Susan wouldn’t have felt the need to defend me against allegations that I had forced my husband into an affair by being frigid. But I said nothing to the kids. For months I knew that, thanks to his political clout, Buford was going to kick me out on the street. That kind of thing ought not to happen, especially in a society that has traditionally bent over backward to honor the rights of motherhood, but let me tell you, it does.

  What I’m about to say is an explanation, not an excuse. I honestly thought I was shielding my children by not telling them what the rest of the world so obviously knew.

  Of course, Amanda Gabrenas was not my daughter—my cousin, yes—and it was up to Judith to fill her in, not me. All I could do was encourage the woman.

  “Please think about it,” I said gently. “Not that I could do any good—for her I mean—but I’d be glad to be there if it will help you. I’ve been through a similar situation myself.”

  Judith’s eye twitched. Surely she wasn’t winking this time.

  “Thank you, ma’am. You’ve given me a lot to think about. If there’s anything I can do for you—”

  “Extra desserts would be nice,” C.J. said. “On the house, of course.”

  I grabbed my fork and gave C.J.’s funny bone a quick workout. The girl didn’t even have the decency to yelp.

  “Mrs. Gabrenas,” I said just as calmly as could be, “you can tell me why you refused to have your daughter named in my aunt’s will.”

  Judith rubbed her eyes on a large freckled forearm. Even in the dim light of the restaurant I could see the mascara streaks on her cheeks.

  “I guess I was really in denial then.”

  “I thought it was de Savannah River,” C.J. said with a lopsided grin.

  “That was you in the river, dear. Now, if you don’t mind, please shut up.” I turned back to Judith Gabrenas. “Please explain.”

  “Like I said, I thought it was better for Amanda if everyone just assumed she was white. But your aunt thought otherwise. She was always talking about ‘claiming’ Amanda, as if she was a pair of sun glasses or a wallet at the lost and found. “

  “So you threatened to pull Amanda out of Juilliard if her own grandmother named the girl in her will?”

  Much to my consternation, Judith began to sob. “It was for her own good.”

  “There, there,” C.J. said as she got up and put her arms around the weeping waitress. “My friend doesn’t realize that although she may be little, she can be a big bully.”

  “I am not a bully!” I got up, intending to hug Judith Gabrenas as well, but given the disparity in our sizes, ended up pawing her back like a puppy at the kitchen door. But it was the thought that counted, right?

  Judith Gabrenas seemed to think so. In a few minutes she stopped blubbering and returned to being our waitress. C.J. and I returned to our seats, and Judith whipped out her order pad. Free or not, it was time for some dessert.

  I made up my mind first. “I’ll have—”

  “Oh, my God!” C.J.’s gasp deprived the tiny room of half its oxygen.

  “What is it?” I demanded, when I could breathe again. Judith was still gulping for air.

  “
Look over there, Abby. You’re not going to believe your eyes.”

  20

  “I can believe my eyes, all right,” I growled. “That woman with the flower garden on her head has been following me all day.”

  “That’s Wilma Pridgen,” Judith said, her voice gaining strength with every word. “She brings tour groups in here all the time, but she leaves the lousiest tips, which is worse than leaving none at all if you ask me, because then at least I can pretend the customer forgot, which can happen I suppose if you’re paying cash, but isn’t so likely to happen if you’re paying with a credit card, because it asks you right there what gratuity you want to leave, although I suppose I should count my blessings because in some countries they don’t live tips at all, whereas here in America folks are expected to give at least a fifteen percent tip during the day and twenty percent at night—”

  “Ooh, good, you’re back on a roll,” C.J. said not unkindly, “but I’m not talking about the lady with the daisies on her hat. Abby, I’m talking about Wynnell.”

  I stood on tiptoe to get a better view of those patrons waiting to be seated. “Our Wynnell?”

  “Ooh, Abby, she’s wearing a kimono. No fair, I always wanted to wear one.”

  “What?” I still couldn’t see Wynnell.

  “Look over there.”

  “Where?” I wailed. Being short is both a curse and a blessing. I have to look at the world from a child’s-eye level, but at least I don’t see the bald spots on men—or women—and I avoid a lot of halitosis by speaking to folks face to navel.

  Finally the hostess led the irritating tour guide and her flock of victims to an adjoining dining room. Sure enough, the Tokyo tourists were standing in a bunch by the hostess’s stand, waiting to be seated. Several of the women who had been wearing jeans earlier in the day were now wearing brightly colored kimonos. Among them was Wynnell.

  C.J. was right after all. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I opened and closed them several times before my brain finally accepted the absurdity. My friend was indeed wearing a kimono. It appeared to be silk and was predominately red with embroidered images of black and white cranes. There was also a lot of gold thread here and there to represent trees. It was definitely not something a middle-aged woman of Scotch-Irish descent would wear to dinner in the Deep South.

  “In my next life remind me to get some normal friends,” I said, and then immediately clamped a tiny hand over not such a tiny mouth.

  Fortunately C.J. didn’t appear to hear me. Wynnell and her entourage of Tokyo tourists were causing quite a stir. The hostess who was about to seat them had dropped a menu, and when she bent to pick it up, the entire party bowed, even Wynnell. This unnerved the hostess so much that she dropped another menu, and everyone bowed again. The hostess—and I shall call her Madeline to preserve her anonymity—must have relished her new-found power, because she bowed again, this time without dropping anything. Unless a third party intervened, Wynnell and the tourists were going to snap off at the waist from all that repetitive movement.

  “Wynnell,” I practically shouted. “Over here.”

  Wynnell straightened and looked around. Who did she think she was fooling? Even a male Kabuki dancer with a stylized mask didn’t have eyebrows that big. If Wynnell wanted to pass for someone foreign, her best bet was a Persian carpet salesman. One who wore his wares on his face.

  I stood and waved my napkin. “Over here. Third table to your right. With C.J.” Alas, due to my size, it sometimes pays to give folks coordinates.

  Wynnell left her groupies and tottered over. She was wearing wooden platform sandals over white silk stockings.

  “I should be mad at you, Abby.”

  “You’re not?”

  She shook her head. Her face had been painted and then powdered white, like a floured biscuit. Her graying black hair was done up geisha style. She even had what looked like a pair of lacquered chopsticks stuck in the elaborate coiffure.

  “To tell you the truth, I’ve never had so much fun in my life. In fact, I want to thank you, Abby.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. If it hadn’t been for your mean little joke, I wouldn’t have made all these wonderful friends. My new best friends I call them.”

  That stung like a hornet behind the ear. “Wynnell, dear. You barely know these people.”

  “Oh, but I do. Maybe they don’t all speak very good English, but we communicate. Yoko-san has a brand new grandbaby that’s just the cutest thing you’ve ever seen—she showed me pictures—and Hatoyama-san and his wife Yoshi are celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary, and Ikeda-san—that’s our leader—just got a major promotion. This is his last tour. I think he’s going to be a vice president of the August Moon Travel Agency.”

  I attempted a friendly smile. “That’s nice. But tell me, don’t you feel at least a little bit—well—odd in that getup.”

  “Oh, no. Folks just think I’m part of the group.”

  C.J. wrinkled her nose. “Are you sure? ’Cause you’re a foot taller than any of the others, and you walk kind of funny, sort of like my cousin Alvin when he tried to saddle-break Granny’s prize breeding bull.”

  “It’s the—hell, I forget what you call them. You know, the shoes. But I’m getting better. I only twisted my ankle twice.”

  “That’s nice, dear.” I turned back to Judith, who’d been waiting patiently. “I’ll have the pecan praline pie.”

  “I’ll have the double chocolate cake,” C.J., said without a second’s hesitation. The girl would use chocolate toothpaste if it were available.

  Judith left to get our orders, but Wynnell seemed reluctant to budge, even though her party had by now been seated. It was an awkward situation. I wanted to tell Wynnell about my discovery, but I was too miffed at the moment.

  Finally Wynnell spoke. “So, Abby, do you mind if I sit down for a minute? There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

  “What about me?” C.J. whined.

  Wynnell smiled, the white paint on her face cracking slightly. “You too.”

  I scooted over to the far side of the booth. “Sit. Assuming you can in that outfit.”

  Wynnell managed it quite well. “Look, I know you think I look ridiculous, but it was Yoko-san’s idea. I really am enjoying myself. In fact, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Oh? You mean you want us to dress up in costumes too? Would that make you like us better?”

  Wynnell sighed deeply. “I know I hurt your feelings with that comment about my new best friends.”

  “Hurt them? Why, you stomped on them first and then ran them through a blender. When you were done, you threw them on the floor again and did the jitterbug.”

  C.J. nodded in somber agreement, a fact that really surprised me. The girl is usually so quick to forgive.

  “I didn’t really mean it,” Wynnell said, her voice breaking. “I was just trying to pay Abby back, and I guess I went too far. I’m really sorry.”

  C.J. and I exchanged meaningful glances, but I spoke first. “Forget it. And I’m sorry about playing that joke on you. I sometimes go too far as well.”

  Wynnell slapped a silk kimono sleeve around my shoulders and gave me a tight squeeze. “You’ll always be my best friend.” She looked at C.J. and scrambled for words. “And you’re very special too. I really do love y’all. I want you to understand that. But”—she released me from her grip—“I need something more in my life right now.”

  “Oh, no,” C.J. wailed, “you’re becoming a Moonie.”

  “What?”

  “You’re joining a religious cult. I saw it on 20/80.”

  “That’s 20/20,” I said kindly.

  “Not on Granny Ledbetter’s television. The picture tube blew out, and now all you get is the sound.”

  Wynnell laughed nervously. “I’m going to miss you, C.J.”

  “Don’t be silly. You and Ned can come over to my house anytime. You know I love having company. Hey, how about coming over
for Easter brunch. You too, Abby.”

  “My husband’s name is Ed,” Wynnell said with remarkable patience, “and I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, it would be awfully expensive, for one thing.”

  My scalp prickled, and my hair began to rise like that of a good watchdog when he hears an unfamiliar footstep. “Wynnell, dear heart, this sounds ominously like you’re going away.”

  Wynnell nodded. “I leave tonight.”

  “Ooh, cool,” C.J. cooed. “You’re going back to Charlotte dressed like that?”

  Wynnell shook her head so vigorously one of the chopsticks in her hairdo broke its lacquer hold and sailed across the narrow room, just barely missing the thigh of a dedicated diner. Fortunately neither Wynnell nor the other woman noticed.

  “No, I’m going to Tokyo.”

  “You what?”

  “My friends—I mean, my new friends—tell me there are lots of antique shops in Tokyo for sale. Of course, prices are very high there, and I won’t be able to afford much in the beginning, but I’m not too old to start over again. Am I?”

  I ignored her question. She wouldn’t have liked my answer anyway.

  “What about Ned?” I wailed.

  “That’s Ed,” Wynnell growled. “And what about him?”

  I swallowed my irritation. “Will he be going with you?”

  The hedgerow eyebrows fused then parted. “Ed doesn’t like to travel. Abby, you know that.”

  “How long will you be gone?”

  Wynnell shrugged, and the remaining chopstick wobbled dangerously above my head. “Who knows? Maybe years. Maybe forever.”

  “You can’t be serious!”

  “I am.”

  “But Ed—”

  “He and I have needed a break from each other.”

  “Maybe so, but years is not a break. Years sounds more like a divorce.”

  “Maybe it is.”

  “Oh, God, I didn’t know.”

  “Yeah, well, now you do.”