by Rhett DeVane
“Who’s in line to replace him? You heard yet?” Mandy asked.
“Uh-huh. Rich Burns, only you didn’t hear it from me.”
Lucille held up one finger and gestured to secure her point. “He’s a fine man, too. If he takes care of this little town as good as he does that old ’54 Chevy he bought off Piddie, we’ll all be able to sleep better at night.”
“My J.T. sure likes working with him,” Melody added. “He’s fair and honest as the day is long.”
Mandy winked at the nail specialist. “When you gonna break down and marry that man?”
“Soon as I can tie him down long enough so he can ask me, I reckon.”
Lucille studied her favorite stylist in the mirror. “You sure are quiet this morning, Miz Wanda. Cat got your tongue?”
Wanda shrugged. “Just not in a talking mood, I guess.”
Mandy smiled. “Wanda Jean’s been bitten by the love bug.”
Lucille slapped her thigh with one hand. “Yeah? Who’s the lucky man?”
Wanda’s face glowed slightly. “I’m not one to kiss and tell.”
Mandy’s head fell backward and she let out a belly laugh. “Since when?”
“Some things are so good; a woman has to savor them awhile before she shares with anyone else.” Wanda drew her lips into a thin line.
Mandy jabbed the pointed end of a rattail comb toward her cohort. “Look at you, acting like the cat who swallowed the canary! I’ll be dog-goned.”
“No use trying to get anything out of her,” Lucille said. “I’ve seen that look before, and she’d bust a gut before she’d let it go.”
“Just as well. Hearing about hot romance when I’m not getting any might make me peevish,” Mandy said.
“Bull doesn’t wine and dine you anymore?” Lucille asked. “Y’all haven’t been dating that long to have him giving up the romance already.”
Mandy chuffed. “Bull’s notion of feeling the magic consists of rubbing his day-old growth of whiskers across my cheek and saying, ‘Don’t you just love your he-man, little gal?’”
Lucille wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. “Where’s Evelyn this morning? I can usually hear her back there with all those fancy machines a’buzzing away.”
“She’s over in Tallahassee at the news channel, filming her big interview for the Good Morning Show tomorrow. Don’t y’all forget to tune in, now,” Mandy said.
“That’s right! I’m sure glad you said something. I’d never forgive myself if I missed it.” Lucille shook her head. “I heard about Karen and her troubles. She back in town yet?”
“Not so’s I’ve heard,” Mandy replied. “Reckon she’ll be here soon, though. Evelyn’s called over and gotten her an appointment with the cancer doctor in Tallahassee. He was recommended by the fella who did Hattie’s surgery a couple of years back.”
Ladonna piped up. “There’s a nut case for you, that Karen Fletcher. Everybody in town knows she’s been off pretending to be something she’s not.”
“She is pretty confused,” Lucille agreed. “Used to weigh heavy on my dear friend Piddie, her going off like that.”
“I can’t imagine how she can even show her face back in town,” Melody added over the drone of the exhaust fan.
Prissy Johns spoke loudly to compensate for the noise of her dryer. “I wonder how many folks’ll give her the time of day a’tall.”
“I, for one, surely will.” Elvina stood at the threshold of the salon, her hands propped on her hips. “And I hope you all will, too. I’m fairly shocked by what I’m hearing.”
Mandy rolled her eyes. “Don’t be so dang high ’n’ mighty, Elvina. You’ve done your fair share of dissing on Karen Fletcher in the past.”
Elvina sniffed. “A fact for which I’ve spent a lot of time down on my knees here lately, begging the good Lord for forgiveness! Besides, it’s Evelyn and Joe we need to support, regardless of how we feel about Karen’s doings. I don’t think Evelyn’s touched a bite of food since Karen dropped the bomb on her.”
Elvina turned to leave, and then twirled around. “Lord, help. I’d forget my head if it wasn’t tied on! Reason I came back here to start with was to tell you your ten-thirty perm canceled, Wanda. It was Sue Ellen Sales. She has a fierce sinus infection. Said her head was near to blowing up, so she’s on the way to the clinic to see about some antibiotics.”
“That’s okay, ’Vina. I have some busy-work I can do. If you can’t fill it, don’t stress.”
Elvina scuttled back to the reception desk.
Mandy shook her head. “Is it just my imagination, or does that woman act more like Piddie Longman every day? I swear she’s channeling the dead.”
Lucille smiled. “There can be only one Piddie on this earth, but I do believe Elvina’s been around her so many years she’s beginning to pick up her ways.”
Melody spoke up. “One thing I noticed is her hairdo. She’s piling it up in a bun now.”
Mandy chuckled. “She’s got a lot of height to reach to come up to Piddie’s bouffant. Last time I did her hair, it stood a good twelve inches!”
“Long as she doesn’t start sticking flowers in it like Piddie did. She does that, we might ought to get her to a shrink,” Wanda added.
Mandy pointed. “Or get her a nice padded room up in the Hooch.”
“My mother was a fancy cook. Sauces, loads of spices, that sort of thing. My favorite? Blueberry pancakes with maple syrup. I can close my eyes and almost taste them. Joe Fletcher makes them as close to my mother’s as I have ever tasted. That’s one of the fringe benefits of being married to his wife’s cousin. I can get myself invited when he’s making a batch.”
Holston Lewis
Chapter Seven
The Davis family homestead three miles south of Chattahoochee encompassed one hundred and fifty acres of prime hardwoods and aged longleaf pine. Laced with several springs, the gentle hills and valleys gave the property a mountain retreat ambience. Deep in the woods, Hattie’s father, Dan Davis, had created a one-acre catfish pond at the base of a natural depression where three streams converged.
Initially, the farmhouse was a rickety wooden affair riddled with holes big enough for the local vermin. Shortly after her mother and father moved in, reconstruction began, room by room until the completed house bore little resemblance to the original structure. The white wooden one-story home with dark green plantation shutters boasted a wide shady porch across the front. A small in-ground swimming pool had been added in the mid-sixties. Mr. D’s workshop and assorted sheds were hidden from view. The farmhouse was perched atop a small rise at the end of a one-lane sandy drive, Bonnie Lane.
Recently, Bobby, Leigh, and baby Josh Davis had moved to the family acreage. Their spacious cypress log home was tucked into the forest out of sight of the farm house on a separate driveway off the main lane. The Davis clan’s only nearby neighbors were John and Margie Frasier, old family friends who occupied a modest ranch style dwelling close to the highway.
Hattie Davis Lewis sat in her father’s worn rocking chair on the front porch with a strong cup of morning coffee in hand. Sarah and her cousin, Josh, played in a large Kiddie Corral set up in the soft grass beneath an old magnolia tree. Spackle, Hattie’s mixed-breed mutt, perked his ears and barked.
“Visitors? This early?” Hattie frowned. Her shoulder length brown hair stuck out at odd angles. She glanced down at her stained sweatshirt and faded jeans. “Whoever it is better take me like I am.”
A sleek sports car with Georgia plates pulled shy of the grass, and Karen Fletcher emerged from the driver’s side.
“Well well,” Hattie muttered, “look who we have here.” She called the dog to her, then yelled out, “Don’t let Spackle scare you. He’s all bark and no bite.”
“Good morning!” Karen stepped onto the porch. She motioned toward Hattie’s cup. “Any more where that came from?”
Hattie jumped up. “Oh, sure. My apologies. I’m not much of a hostess first thing of a morning. What d
o you take in yours?”
“Strong and black.”
“Must run in the family.” Hattie disappeared inside, returning shortly with a tall pottery mug and a plate of cinnamon buns.
“Compliments of your daddy.” Hattie offered a fresh sweet roll and napkin.
“Amazing, isn’t it? My father with a restaurant? I wish he would have started cooking back when I was growing up.”
“You saying your mama’s cooking stunted your growth?”
“Hardly.” A slight smile played across her features. “I have to admit, my warm memories of home never include wonderful aromas wafting from the kitchen.”
“Piddie always said Evelyn’s cooking kept her regular.”
Both women chuckled, and then rocked in silence for a few minutes watching the children play.
“Your yard looks so nice, Hattie.”
“Thank Jake Witherspoon for that. He lived with me for a while before Holston and I married. Then, he moved to the upper story at the mansion. Even though he doesn’t live out here anymore, he periodically gets overcome with the need to landscape and takes it out on our property. Course, that has slowed down since he and Jon inherited Aunt Piddie’s little frame house on Morgan Avenue.”
Hattie pointed to an area at the end of the porch. “My favorite is the butterfly garden. It’s not pretty yet, but given a couple of months, it’ll be loaded with butterflies and hummingbirds fighting over the blooms. Jake designed the gardens at the mansion, too, with help from a nursery in Tallahassee.”
“I haven’t seen him since I’ve been home, but he delivered a bouquet of spring flowers to Mama’s the day after I drove in.”
“Not that I’m upset by your coming by, but . . . this isn’t just a social call. I mean, you didn’t come to talk about my yard, I presume.”
Karen pushed a loose blonde curl from her face. “Mama thinks I should try to mend fences. I don’t know how that’s possible, since I didn’t leave any standing.” She turned to face her cousin. “I do hope to have a second chance to . . . to try to build anew.” Karen stared into the distance. “I don’t know where, or how, to start.”
“By telling me who you really are, and why you decided all of a sudden to act like any of us meant anything to you.”
“Fair enough.” She took a deep breath. “God, it’s all so tangled. I suppose, if I had to pick a point where it all started to go off track, it would be in my first year at Florida State. I was such a freaked-out, mousy little thing, back then. Terribly insecure.”
“We all were, Karen.”
Karen shook her head vigorously. “You made friends easily, Hattie. Always did. I was so lost in those massive freshman classes. Looking back, I should have started out at the community college.”
“So you ran off and became British because you weren’t Miss Popularity? Is that what I’m hearing?”
“When you put it that way, it sounds so simple. Like it was one big case of pretend that got way out of hand.”
“What I’d like to know, Karen, is how you managed to pull off such a huge deception? It takes balls of steel to do what you’ve done.”
“Not really. Just documentation and a vivid imagination. Remember the drama class I signed up for in our freshman year? I tried to talk you into taking it, too.”
“Vaguely. I can barely recall what I ate for dinner yesterday, much less something from over twenty years ago.”
“I discovered I had a knack for accents—could pull anything off, especially British. I started pretending I was an exchange student from Liverpool whenever I went out to clubs. I was a magnet for men for the first time in my life. Mary Elizabeth Kensington was born, and when I was her, I was witty and confident.”
“All the things you weren’t.”
Karen studied her cousin for a moment. “Precisely. The fake identity helped immensely in the world of broadcasting and journalism. Karen Fletcher would’ve been just another Southern female seeking employment, whereas Mary Elizabeth stood out—cool, exotic, and impeccably dressed.”
“But how did you get past the legal stuff—your diploma?”
“I changed my name shortly after freshman year. The rest was a piece of cake.”
Hattie considered. “That’s why you didn’t walk with the rest of us on graduation day.”
“I couldn’t. When they called Mary Elizabeth’s name, lowly Karen Fletcher would have claimed the diploma.”
“Unreal. Still, wouldn’t your employers do some sort of background check on you?”
“My degree was legitimate. I had references lined up who only knew me as Mary Elizabeth, and my invented parents in England were deceased. The only kinship I claimed was with a few distant cousins in Florida whom I stayed with off and on during my first years of college.”
“You’re a piece of work, Karen. Your story would make a great movie script.”
“Except for the ending.”
“If not for the cancer, you’d still be living large in Atlanta? Don’t you have anyone close up there to help you through everything?”
Karen twirled the coffee mug slowly in her hands. “I have a fiancé—Donald. That is, Mary Elizabeth has a fiancé. It remains to be seen if that’s the case when this is all said and done.”
“I presume you haven’t told this man about your cancer?”
“No.”
“So, what—did you have an attack of conscience and come crawling back to your family?”
“It wasn’t just the illness that brought me back. I had been considering it for some time. Grandma Piddie’s party cinched it for me.”
“Your documentary film on aging? You surely didn’t act like you even knew any of us when you were here last time.”
“Professional distance. Mary Elizabeth was the queen.” Tears appeared in the corners of Karen’s eyes. “When I saw all of you together—happy, close, obviously loving each other—something came apart inside of me. I . . . ” She leaned forward and covered her face with her hands.
Hattie reached over and tentatively touched her shoulder.“There’s always room for one more, Karen.”
She dabbed her eyes with a tissue from her purse. “You think?”
“Aunt Piddie always maintained our family was good at taking in strays—people and animals.”
Karen stared into the distance. “When I was first diagnosed in mid-February, all I heard was the word cancer. The rest was a blur. I got in my car and drove. I wasn’t aware of anything until I reached Lake Lanier, a half hour above Atlanta. Couldn’t tell you how I got there or if I ran over anyone on the way. I sat next to the water thinking about what it might say on my epitaph. ‘Here lies—well, we’re not quite sure—she pretended to be someone else most of her adult life.’”
“Cut yourself some slack. There’s not one of us who haven’t made mistakes. Granted, yours was a doozy.”
“You always could cut straight to the chase, Hattie.”
“Sorry.” Hattie offered a sheepish smile. “Look at me. It took until my mid-forties to realize what I wanted. I took off like a shot after graduation, too, only I didn’t make it past Tallahassee. Now, here I am—husband, baby, and back at being a farm girl. I spent a number of years chasing my tail in a circle.”
Karen reached over and grasped her cousin’s hand. “Thank you for trying to understand—for giving me a chance. It means the world, honestly.”
“I’m not the only one you have on your side. Mandy told me Elvina Houston’s taken up your cause. Let me tell you, since Piddie died, Elvina’s the heartbeat of this town. You’ll be lucky to get a moment’s peace once she rounds up the troops.”
Karen laughed. “I barely remember her.”
“She was Piddie’s number one. Elvina still holds court with Piddie’s ashes every morning at the Triple C. She swears Piddie told her to look out after you and your mama.”
“A little help from the other side will be welcome, too.” Karen smiled. “There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about.”
>
“Hit me with it. We’ve made it past the hard part.”
Karen squared her shoulders military straight as if preparing for battle. “Mama and I saw the oncologist yesterday. He was gung-ho to set up surgery as soon as possible, but I asked to hold off.”
“What the heck for? Don’t you want the tumor removed? I did! I couldn’t get to the O.R. fast enough after they diagnosed the colon cancer.”
Karen fidgeted with a loose wicker strip on the seat of the rocker. “I’ve done considerable research on it, Hattie. I read everything I could get my hands on. I started chemotherapy with a doctor in Atlanta, was convinced I could go it alone. I wanted to try several sessions of chemo first—to shrink the tumor’s size. The oncologist in Tallahassee has agreed to continue treatments for three more sessions before surgery. Also, I’d like to plan Reiki treatments with you. Mama told me you were a practitioner.”
“Not that I’m not happy to help out in any way I can, but aren’t you taking a hell of a chance, not jumping right on this?”
“There has been a lot of evidence with breast cancer treatment lately, where the doctors use chemo and alternative therapies first, then excise the lump. Especially in Europe, they’re not as quick to lop off the entire breast.”
“And the doctors agreed with your plan?”
“Reluctantly. My tumor is sizable—four by five centimeters. Both the surgeon in Atlanta and the one in Tallahassee recommended immediate surgery. But I’d more than likely end up losing my entire breast. What I hope to do is shrink the tumor down to a size that can be excised with a lumpectomy. I want to save my breast, Hattie.”
“Gosh, Karen. That’s a huge tumor! Didn’t you notice anything? How about your yearly mammogram? Didn’t anything show up on that?”
Karen frowned. “I’ve been terribly blasé about my health. I didn’t actually detect a lump. My nipple started to sink in a bit and the skin took on a strange appearance—like the peel of an orange. Still, I didn’t put too much importance on it. I was terribly busy at the station at the time. When I finally went in for a physical, my primary care physician sent me in for a mammogram. The rest is history—ultrasound, needle biopsy. Poof! Your life is on the line. Amazing how quickly things can spin out of control.”
