The phone at the cashier’s desk rang, the cook tapped the ‘order-up’ bell on the ledge of the pass-through window from the kitchen, and the conversation level in the room returned to normal.
Linda beamed at me. “Now that’s how I want people to notice me when I walk into a room. The way they looked at you. Like you were a movie star.”
Or a criminal, I thought. “It’s all in the attitude.”
We’d been served our iced tea and were looking over Linda’s blouse pattern when the restaurant’s screen door opened with a bang, admitting Jimmy Polk.
“I don’t care what you told her!” he yelled.
Mrs. Polk trailed him into the restaurant, pulling hopelessly on his arm.
“Oh, no,” Linda said under her breath. She had time to give me one pained, apologetic gaze before her father descended on us like a red-faced human Rottweiler.
“Linda Polk, I’ve had enough of this defiance! You get up from that table and get yourself home!”
“Jimmy—“ Mrs. Polk pleaded. She glanced around with an embarrassed look.
“But, Daddy, I—”
”You heard me!” He jerked her to her feet, knocking the pattern envelope to the floor.
Before I had a good idea of what to do next, I was standing as well. “Take your hands off her.”
“What did you say to me, woman?”
Mrs. Polk stepped between me, Linda, and her husband. “Now Jimmy, you leave Miz Beleau alone. And leave Linda alone, too. Please. I told her she could go to the movies next week. Look.” She retrieved the pattern from the floor and held it up like a shield. “She’s making a new blouse and everything.”
“You corrupted my baby!” Jimmy Polk shouted, jabbing a finger within six inches of my nose. “I want you to stay away from my baby girl.”
“Jimmy, put your hand down.” The calm but intractable order came from Amos Royden. Tall and capable and deadly serious, Mossy Creek’s young police chief, a former Atlanta cop, faced Jimmy Polk without a glimmer of sympathy.
Although I wasn’t afraid of being hurt by mister I’m-bigger-than-you, it was nice to have an even bigger keeper-of-the-peace on my side. Otherwise, I might have had to do something completely outrageous to defend myself like emptying my tea glass over Jimmy Polk’s hot head. Instead I offered him an inscrutable, Mona Lisa smile.
I’d dealt with all sorts of tempers in the past and learned the tactical advantages of outer calm. Whether someone wanted to fight over honor, a card game, or ‘last call,’ the episode invariably took the same basic course. The person who refuses to argue always wins.
I never argued. I cajoled, I illuminated and if all else failed, I ignored. Most men crumbled to one of the three. And if for some reason they didn’t, then they found themselves ‘put out’ so to speak. Ejected from my circle of influence with the efficiency of a Major League umpire after three strikes. You’re outta here!
But in this case, I was the outsider, cornered in a small town well outside my former circle of influence. I glanced around at the myriad of frowning faces surrounding me and experienced a sinking feeling. Maybe the people in my new hometown might just up and run me out on a rail courtesy of Mr. Jimmy Polk.
“Amos, that woman is corruptin’ my girl,” Jimmy accused as he wisely lowered his hand.
“Ms. Beleau? I don’t think we’ve met,” the chief said as he offered his hand. “I’m Amos Royden.” His large hand gripped mine and gave it a firm shake before letting go. “This is one of my officers, Mutt.”
“Glad to meet you both.”
The chief nodded. “Step back, Ms. Beleau. We’ll handle this.”
He turned to Jimmy Polk, again. I’d dealt with every sort of police officer from federal agents to state and county, right on down to city and small town ‘boys in blue.’ One fact always saved me: What I did for a living may or may not have been illegal, but my hide, and my connections, were too expensive to risk damaging. The New Orleans police protected me as diligently as any valuable city asset. Most of them with hope in their hearts that I might express my gratitude in private.
Mossy Creek’s police chief didn’t know me, didn’t want anything from me, and had no reason to protect me, except the best one: I was a citizen of his town, and protecting me was his job. I felt better already—except for the fact that he knew my name without being introduced.
Jimmy continued to bristle. “Amos, this woman is brainwashin’ my girl, and I want it stopped.” He screwed up his face like he’d smelled something objectionable. “I think she’s some kinda pervert.”
Mrs. Polk gasped, and Linda blurted, “That’s not true!”
“She’s makin’ Linda into some kind of weirdo.”
“Daddy, she is not!” Linda said, close to tears.
Jimmy Polk briefly turned his menacing stare to his daughter, and she sniffed before raising her chin in a tiny show of defiance.
Mrs. Polk slipped an arm around her daughter. “Jimmy, how can you say such a thing? I’m tired of your attitude. Tired, you hear?”
The patrons in the entire restaurant had halted in mid-chew to watch this drama. Even the cook stood poised at the order window so he wouldn’t miss a thing.
“Just who do you think you are?” Jimmy ranted at me. “Takin’ my girl to Atlanta and gettin’ her hair dyed like some, some—”
“Movie star?” I said, helpfully.
“Trashy singer,” he finished. “Like that Madonna—”
“Linda isn’t trashy. She’s a beautiful girl, and I won’t allow you to trample her confidence any more.”
Jimmy Polk’s face went redder, and he sputtered like a bottle of Perrier, shaken, not stirred. Again, he raised a pudgy finger and shook it near my face. “I don’t care who you tried to make her look like. You had no business—”
“Jimmy—” the chief interrupted. “Put the finger down, or I’ll put it down for you.”
“I’m not tryin’ to scare her,” Jimmy argued, but he lowered his hand once more.
Scared? I would have chuckled if I had less sense and wanted to provoke him. He’d be the one who ended up in jail. That would be like winning the battle and losing the war. Jimmy Polk had already scored with this public airing of his grievance with me. He’d introduced me to the greater part of Mossy Creeks citizens as the local pervert. I could feel my new, quiet lifestyle slipping back into notoriety. I felt like handing him the Cajun version of ‘what-for.’ I used cold courtesy instead.
“Mr. Polk. I had your wife’s permission to take Linda to Atlanta—”
He made a huffing sound and his face flushed to his hatline. “Mary Beth don’t have no more sense than God gave a cow.”
Two of the five women sitting at the table closest to Mrs. Polk gasped in outrage. Mrs. Polk squeezed her daughter closer and lowered her eyes.
Her husband snorted. “She had no right givin’ any kind of permission without my say so.” He stared at the chief. “Amos, I want you to tell this strange woman—” he spit the words “—to mind her own business and to keep away from my daughter.”
“M-i-s-t-e-r Polk,” I said firmly. “I find your wife to be both charming and knowledgeable.” I met Mrs. Polk’s grateful gaze and saw the same two women who’d gasped nod their heads in agreement. “And I beg to differ with you about her right to give permission. Linda is her daughter, and she has the right of a mother—”
“Beg to differ? What’s she talkin’ about, Amos?”
“Miss Beleau isn’t from around here,” the chief said. “Moved from New Orleans, isn’t that right?”
I couldn’t tell by the quiet tone of voice if his question was welcome or warning but in any case I felt a hard tug on my past. He knew. I blinked, but held the chief’s gaze. A worthy adversary, if it came to that.
“Actually, I’m from a little town outside of Baton Rouge.” Truth—I’d been born there. Or dare—not the answer he’d wanted.
One side of his mouth kicked up in a half smile.
We both
knew I’d tossed out the question-ender. Revisiting my past with the local chief of police was not on my personal list of good ideas. And doing so in public would be close to the top of my list of personal nightmares.
“And, where’s Mister Beleau?” Jimmy Polk asked snidely. I suppose he expected my husband to control me.
“There is no ‘Mr. Beleau.’ In my opinion, Mr. Polk, husbands are a luxury and sometimes more trouble than they’re worth, as you seem to be proving to your wife.”
The front door to Mama’s swung open and in rushed Rainey with her assistant, Wanda Halfacre—her sister, Betty, worked for Ingrid Beechum—one customer with a half-rolled perm, and a small, wiry woman in a tan police uniform and plastic salon smock. Her short, curly hair seemed to be half blonde and half some other color.
“Hey, Mary Beth, hey Linda,” the small half-blonde woman said, then turned to the chief. “Chief? Why don’t you let me handle this since you and Mutt haven’t finished your lunch yet. I know all the particulars. It’s a beauty problem. Me and Rainey are on top of it.” She pinned Jimmy Polk with an evil look. “Some folks just don’t have any table manners.”
“Now Sandy—” Jimmy Polk began, and wonder of wonder, the man actually looked worried.
Amos Royden arched a brow, and I swear he almost smiled.
“Jimmy? What exactly is the problem here?” Sandy demanded. “Everybody knows better than to bother the chief while he’s at lunch. Do I have to come in here and sit with him to get him some break time? I swear, the chief wouldn’t have to swallow anti-acids if idjits wouldn’t just—”
“Sandy, why don’t you go look for the elephant,” the chief said. “And keep an eye out for the moose, too.”
Sandy pursed her mouth. “Gotcha, Chief. Sorry.”
Jimmy Polk waved his hands. “Isn’t anybody listening? Look what this woman did to my girl’s hair. And now she’s puttin’ her up to hang out with boys and make her ‘debut’ or some such crap this fall at the reunion dance.”
Rainey stepped forward. “Jimmy Polk, I told you the other day, and I’m tellin’ you again in front of all these good people.” She fluttered a hand to indicate the culinary audience, then seemed to notice someone she knew. “Hey, Katie Bell.”
Jimmy looked around wildly.
The gossip columnist smiled and raised a tiny tape recorder.
Rainey went on, “It’s a woman’s God-given right to have her hair done.” She turned and gently pulled Linda forward. “Look at this beautiful girl.”
Linda looked struck dumb, as though she’d been presented to the Queen.
“I know you’re scared about her growin’ up, Jimmy, but you can’t stop it. Jasmine Beleau here hasn’t done anything the rest of us wouldn’t have done for Linda—except she did it better.”
Mrs. Polk cleared her throat. “I think you should apologize to Miss Beleau, Jimmy.”
Several of the restaurant patrons nodded in agreement.
“And as for you callin’ me a cow. . .well, you might as well go find yourself a pasture and hope some other cow cooks you dinner and gives you a bed to sleep in tonight, because this cow doesn’t want to see you for a while.”
The five church ladies applauded.
Jimmy Polk looked to Chief Royden one last time for, if not help, then at least a little male commiseration. The chief shook his head and sat down to eat the last bite of his pie.
Jimmy cleared his throat and faced me. “I’m just protectin’ my own,” he said finally. Not exactly an apology but close enough for this encounter. “Linda’s only fifteen, she’s still got three years before she can do what she wants. The law says so.”
“I’m almost sixteen, daddy,” Linda corrected, emboldened by the power of pure righteousness surrounding her. She only flinched slightly when her father looked her way. I wanted to hug her. She’d come a good ways from the ‘p’ word.
“I’ll be watchin’ you,” he warned.
I knew he really meant he’d be keeping an eye on me. As would most of the rest of Mossy Creek after today’s public entertainment.
Jimmy Polk turned and stalked out the door, banging the screen behind him. I only felt slightly better—for Linda’s sake. She’d definitely taken my advice to heart about self-confidence, whereas I had completely ignored my own rule about meddling.
Sandy dusted her hands and said, “Well, that’s that. I better get back to the salon before my color sets up. Be back at my desk in an hour, Chief. Chief, be sure and drink your milk—”
“Moose,” the chief said. Sandy put a hand over her mouth.
“Good work,” Rainey said to me.
Then she, Sandy, Wanda Halfacre and their other customer marched out looking as though they couldn’t wait to tell the rest of the patrons at Goldilocks.
The chief sighed, stood, and nodded to me. “Welcome to Mossy Creek, Ms. Beleau. Excuse me, now, I think I’ll go drink my milk in the privacy of my office.”
Welcome, indeed. At least he didn’t say, I’ll be watching you, even though I knew he would.
* * * *
As I said, when I write my memoirs, someday…
My intent to stay out of the limelight had failed. Maybe I was destined to be notorious—my father used to tell me that, and I’d believed him. Mossy Creek had been my clean slate—a place to start over and prove my father wrong. After all, he’d only known the skinny, big-eyed thirteen year old I used to be—the girl he controlled as long as he could chisel money out of me and Jade.
I continued to help Linda sew her blouse with her mother’s complete approval. But, for the next week or so I stayed close to home. No use tempting fate, as a self-styled psychic named Madam Pearl used to tell me over tarot cards. Fate just might tempt back.
But the next Saturday morning, as I was making coffee for my usual ‘beauty consult’ meeting with Linda, I opened my door to find that fate had definitely gone overboard, this time.
Linda and her mother stood in front of at least four other women, along with two teenagers who must surely be somebody’s daughters. The women were armed with coffeecakes from Beechum’s Bakery and gift mugs from The Naked Bean.
I wondered if this might be some unknown ritual peculiar to Mossy Creek. Yeah, they forced her to eat coffee cake until she waddled out of town.
On the upside, there were no irate husbands or officers of the law. On the downside, it seemed like I had no choice but to let them in.
Before I could stammer more than good morning, Mrs. Polk spoke up. “Jasmine, these ladies and their daughters need your help. There’s the big reunion and dance this fall, and they want to have a beauty consultation.” It sounded like a rehearsed speech but she faced me as though she’d been making demands all her life. “Will you help us out?”
“You’re a role model,” one of the women said.
I started laughing. Jezebel Jasmine in the beauty consulting business. Jezebel Jasmine, a role model. Jezebel Jasmine, a citizen of Mossy Creek, Georgia, with friends who called on her bearing food and good wishes.
And then I hugged them all and said yes.
Jasmine Beleau had found a home.
The Mossy Creek Gazette
215 Main Street • Mossy Creek, Georgia
From the Desk of Katie Bell, Business Manager
Dear Vick:
You asked if Samson, the ram, lived well and happily after the terrible events of the high school fire. Well, yes, he survived the fire and the things that were done to him during the homecoming halftime, but he was never the same.
Some of the other citizens and I visited poor Samson during his recuperation. His singed wool was just starting to grow back, he shifted his sheepish eyes a lot, and any little noise made him jump. We all just stood around him as if in a prayer circle and sobbed. I recall saying to Principal Dolittle, “But surely he’ll get over the trauma, in time. He’ll be marching in the Christmas parade this winter, right behind Ed Brady in his Santa outfit.” Ed would be in the Santa suit, not Samson, that is.
I was wrong. Samson lived on quite a few more years after his fateful duties as The Last Mascot of the Mossy Creek High Rams, but he was never comfortable in public, again. Beauty is only skin deep, but the smell of flaming wool goes straight to the heart. Remember what I said some time ago about our local beauty contestants? And about Mossy Creek welcoming everyone? Yes, but sometimes people have the same problem as Samson with their confidence. And their singed pride.
Katie
TAMMY JO
Sometimes you have to go where you don’t feel safe to find out what you fear the most.
TAMMY JO
Beauty and the Beast
They say pride comes before a fall, and looking back, I can see I had plenty of that commodity before fate gave me a big ol’ shove. I’d thought I’d hit rock bottom many times.
Most of those times, I was wrong.
But to fully appreciate the impact when I did hit, you’d best hear the tale from the start.
I was born a Bigelowan, by the grace of God Almighty, and from the time I was no bigger ‘n a minute, I was hailed as the prettiest little thing in Bigelow County—a real comfort to my mama, considering she’d lost my daddy shortly after I was born. My Bigelow relatives looked down on her, saying that Daddy married beneath him. Mama is pure country, and you can tell from the way I speak that she raised me pure country, too. Everyone else in the Bigelow family speaks what they call Good English. I speak Mama’s English, and proudly.
Considering her lowly status in the Bigelow family, Mama took special glee in knowing I was prettier than the other Bigelow girls. My earliest memories have to do with being taught to sing, dance and “smile, Tammy Jo, always smile.” I heard it said that Mama spent her last dime to give me lessons. I felt bad about taking that dime from her, and tried real hard to make her investment pay off.
When I grew old enough to sing Elvis’s “Blue Suede Shoes” and shimmy across a stage, I won Little Miss Bigelow County and Little Miss Dixie. Oh, how Mama’s eyes did shine! “Your future’s brighter than the sun, Tammy Jo. You do me proud.” I felt the warmth of that sun she’d mentioned just a’glowing in my heart. It was no easy task, doing Mama proud.
Reunion at Mossy Creek Page 17
