by Lynne Hinton
Louise couldn’t believe what she had just heard and she began to choke. She coughed and sputtered, knocking over her glass as she reached for a napkin. George jumped up from his seat and stood behind her. He started slapping her on her back until she finally could speak and tell him to stop, that she was fine.
He walked over to the kitchen sink, grabbed the dishrag, and began mopping up the spill from the table. When Louise caught her breath, she reached for a handful of napkins and finished cleaning the mess. She stood up and walked over to the trash can and threw away the wet napkins. George wrung out the dishrag into the sink and hung it back over the faucet. He took in a deep breath and went back to his seat. Louise sat down again across from him.
“You okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “I don’t think I heard you right,” she noted, sitting forward in her seat and bracing her hands on the table.
George sat back in his seat as well. “No, I think you heard me ex-actly right,” he responded. “I asked you to marry me.”
He waited and then leaned in to Louise. “So, in case you choke again, I need to know, you want me to perform the Heimlich maneuver this time?”
Louise just shook her head and fell back in her chair.
Cocktail Meatballs
1 pound ground beef
2 tablespoons breadcrumbs
1 egg, slightly beaten
½ teaspoon salt
⅓ cup finely chopped onion
⅓ cup finely chopped green pepper
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 can tomato soup
4 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 tablespoon prepared mustard
Mix beef, crumbs, egg, and salt. Shape into 50 balls. Place in shallow baking pan. Broil until brown. Turn over. Spoon off fat. In saucepan, cook onion and pepper in butter until tender. Stir in remaining ingredients. Pour over meatballs. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.
—Lester’s Barbecue Shack
Chapter Five
I don’t understand.” Jessie had ordered and handed the menu to the waitress. She and Louise and Bea were meeting for lunch. Bea was late, and Louise told Jessie the news before they even found their seats.
“I’ll have the special and we’ll have one more joining us. She wants the diet plate with pasta instead of the green salad and she wants her chicken fried instead of grilled.”
The waitress looked at Louise with raised eyebrows and shook her head. “Is Beatrice on her way or do I need to hold the orders awhile?”
Louise smiled. The three of them had been regulars at Lester’s Barbecue Shack for years. Nothing Beatrice did surprised any of the servers or cooks. There was the whole Christmas cake debacle in which she made promises about Lester making cakes that he never intended to make. Once she had even gone back to the kitchen to show the cook how to prepare her sandwich. She was known to be a fussy customer but she was loyal, and because of that, Lester didn’t kick her out.
“Just wait a few minutes. Bea had to go to the bank before coming here so I don’t know how long that will take. Just bring our drinks and when you see her, put our orders in.” Louise handed her menu to the waitress.
“He asked me to marry him,” Louise said to Jessie, who was still waiting for more information.
Jessie knew that George was visiting Louise, and she had been as curious as anybody about his reasons for coming to Hope Springs. “Has he lost his mind?” she asked, and then realized how harsh the question sounded. She waved her hand in front of her. “I didn’t mean it like that, Lou. You would make a fine wife. I just meant, that, uh …” Jessie fumbled for words.
“I understand what you meant. I know because I asked him the same thing. What on earth would make him want to marry me?”
The waitress brought over three glasses of tea and set them before the women. Louise and Jessie both took a sip.
“But he’s sick.” Louise unwrapped a straw and stuck it in her glass.
“And he wants you to be his nurse?” Jessie asked. “That’s degrading for him to ask of you.”
Louise shook his head. “He’s not asking for anything like that. He wants me to be his power of attorney, his health care proxy, and he wants me to get all of his money, all of his and Roxie’s money, when he dies.”
“Why wouldn’t he want his girls to get anything?”
Louise dropped her hands in her lap. “Ruby married a loser who will gamble it away and Laura has too much money to care. I don’t think either of them has much to do with George. I think they’ve been estranged since Roxie died.”
Jessie waited. She was still trying to understand what this unexpected marriage proposal meant. “Well, what happened to the woman he left Roxie for? Why aren’t they still married?”
“They never got married.”
Jessie sighed. “So, I still don’t get any of this. Did he suddenly realize after all of these years that he was actually madly in love with you?”
Louise laughed. “No, I don’t think that’s the reason behind this crazy notion.”
“Then what?” Jessie asked again. “I just don’t understand what made him drive all the way down here and ask this question if he didn’t expect something in return from you.” She glanced out the window. Beatrice was standing outside waving at the two of them. She waved back. “You hadn’t heard from him in years, right?” Jessie asked.
“Right,” Louise answered. She noticed Beatrice too. She looked over and got the attention of the waitress, who saw Beatrice as she walked in the front door.
The server reached into her pocket and pulled out the order ticket and placed it in line with the other tickets.
“I don’t know really,” Louise added. “He seems to think it’s just karma or something. He was looking through old photo albums and remembering all of our old times together, me and him and Roxie, and he just decided that I was meant to have his inheritance, that Roxie would have wanted that. He seems to think us getting married would make amends to Roxie for his affair, for the fact that he left her.”
“And he wants to marry you even though he knows you’re not interested in …” Jessie cleared her throat, struggling to find the right words.
“Even though I’m gay?” Louise asked.
“It is kind of an important matter, don’t you think?”
Louise waved at Beatrice as she started walking toward them. “I thought it was but he didn’t seem to.”
Jessie sighed and shook her head. The news from Louise had completely shocked her.
Beatrice made her way to the booth where the two friends were waiting. “I tell you what, if Dick Witherspoon wasn’t my husband and we didn’t have a joint account, I would take all of my money out of that bank and put it in a coffee can and bury it. We might as well be taking it down to the dog track as to let them keep investing it for us!” She huffed and sat down next to Jessie. She pulled the scarf from around her neck and placed it in her purse. “This one mine?” she asked, pointing to the third glass of tea.
Louise nodded. “Good afternoon, Bea,” she said. “Did you have a fight at the bank?” she asked.
“Some fight,” Beatrice replied. “I told them to take my money out of their investment portfolio and give me a CD and a savings account. I’m tired of getting their loss statements every month.” She smiled as she glanced over at Jessie and Louise. “But enough of that, hello friends,” she said. “Did Jessie tell you about our wedding plans?”
Louise looked surprised.
“We hadn’t gotten to that,” Jessie responded. “There’s been some other wedding news to talk about first.” She glanced over to Louise, waiting for her to catch Beatrice up on the latest.
“Well, that certainly piques my interest. What wedding news?” Louise asked.
“Jessie and James are renewing their vows in May and we’re calling Charlotte to come back and perform the ceremony. It’s going to be in Jessie’s b
ackyard. We’re going to have a nice reception with little finger foods, nothing over the top, but a little more dignified than chicken wings and potato chips, and a beautiful cake, of course. Casey Hampton is the photographer and his brother-in-law is making a video, which I guess now is really a DVD or some such as that. Sharon Newbright is handling the floral needs and Caroline Bender is going to sing a solo.”
“Good heavens, Bea.” Jessie turned to look at her friend. “When on earth did you make all of those arrangements?” She shook her head in disbelief. “We only agreed to this thing a couple of days ago.”
Beatrice drank a sip of her tea and pointed to the sugar packets. Louise slid the plastic holder over, and Beatrice pulled out three packets and poured them in her tea. “Why didn’t you order sweet tea?” she asked.
Before either Jessie or Louise could answer that the tea was already sweetened, the waitress arrived with their lunches. She placed them in front of each of the women, calling out the order. When she got to Beatrice, she set the plate down on the table with the remark, “Diet plate,” and rolled her eyes. Beatrice smiled and looked at her order. “No French fries?” she asked the server, who simply turned her head and walked away.
“What is with the attitude?” she asked her friends, who had already started to enjoy their food.
“It’s supposed to be a diet plate,” Louise replied. “And you turned it into the Hearty Man’s Special.”
Beatrice shrugged and reached for the salt and pepper. She seasoned her food and took her first bite.
“Well, Jessie, that is fabulous news about you and James. That will be a lovely event. And Charlotte is coming back for it?” Louise asked.
“I haven’t called her yet,” Beatrice explained.
The other two women looked at her in disbelief.
“You’ve arranged for a florist and a soloist and a photographer and you haven’t called Charlotte to make sure she can make that date?” Jessie asked.
“And the videographer,” Beatrice added. “And no, I tried Charlotte a couple of times yesterday and didn’t reach her.” She wiped her mouth and took a sip of tea. “Maria says her boyfriend was married before and didn’t tell her. No se puede confiar en los hombres.” She shook her head. “Men are so untrustworthy,” she translated. “So, I don’t know what we are going to do about the police officer.”
“What police officer?” Louise asked. She hadn’t heard any of the recent news about their young friend. “And I didn’t know you spoke Spanish.”
“Sí,” Beatrice responded with a grin.
“Oh, Charlotte is dating a young man in the Gallup Police Department and Beatrice is all upset because she wanted her to fall in love with a North Carolina boy. She even set her up with the funeral director’s nephew.”
“You set Charlotte up with Rollin Fair?” Louise asked. “Rolypoly Rollin?”
“He has not been called that since he was a teenager, Louise Fisher. He’s almost forty years old now.”
“And we still call him Roly-poly Rollin,” Louise noted. She took another bite of her meat loaf.
“Beatrice found out that he was going to a conference in Albuquerque, so she decided to play matchmaker.” Jessie reached for her tea. “I don’t think it went so well,” she added, taking a sip. She had also talked to Charlotte about her blind date.
“I thought he was married,” Louise remarked. “I thought he married Jack and Rita’s daughter from over in Winston-Salem.”
Beatrice was enjoying her fried chicken. She nodded while she chewed. “She left him for her tennis instructor. This chicken is fried too hard,” she commented.
“Well, I don’t think you can send it back now.” Louise was looking at Bea’s plate, which was mostly empty.
Beatrice wiped her mouth. “You’re probably right but somebody ought to tell Tony so that he can correct the problem,” she noted as she ate the last bite of her chicken and then wiped her face and hands. “Okay, now Louise is caught up on Charlotte and the policeman.” She placed her napkin beside her plate. “He’s Indian, by the way,” she added.
Louise nodded.
“And we’re all on the same page about the wedding renewal in May, what else did I miss?” Beatrice had finished her pasta and was starting on a dinner roll.
“Are we on the same page about the wedding renewal?” Jessie asked as she ate her sandwich.
Beatrice nodded while she cleaned her plate and reached for her tea. “Of course we are, Jessie.”
“George Cannon is sick and he asked Louise to marry him,” Jessie said.
Beatrice suddenly choked on her drink. She sputtered and coughed while Louise and Jessie gave her napkins and she tried to catch her breath again. Everyone in the diner turned to watch. Finally, she seemed okay.
“You know, I did the exact same thing. Made a mess on my blouse and all over the kitchen table,” Louise noted.
Beatrice was taking in a few deep breaths. The two women waited for her response and to make sure that she was really fine. She held her hand on her chest. “I think this is so wonderful.”
Jessie and Louise looked at each other. This was not at all the reaction they were expecting.
“You what?” Louise asked as the waitress came over and put more napkins on the table.
“Are you okay?” the waitress asked.
All three of them nodded.
“You want anything else?” she asked.
“Do you have any wedding cake?” Beatrice wanted to know.
The server seemed confused. “We still have a few slices of chocolate cake but I don’t think it’s for anybody’s wedding.”
“Well, it is now!” Beatrice announced. “Let us have one slice and three forks.” The waitress walked over to the counter and took out the chocolate cake.
“Why are you happy about this?” Louise asked, surprised at Bea.
“Who doesn’t love a wedding?” Beatrice asked. “And I need more tea.” She turned and yelled at the waitress, “And make this batch sweet!” She glanced around at her friends. “You need more tea?” she asked.
Jessie and Louise shook their heads, still stunned at the response from Beatrice. She didn’t even ask any questions.
“Bea, Louise doesn’t even like George. He had an affair while he was married to her best friend, when she was dying.” Jessie was staring at Beatrice.
“Not to mention that I’m not that thrilled about the idea of living with a man,” Louise added. She waited while Beatrice took the dessert plate from the waitress, had more tea poured in her glass, and positioned the plate in the center of the table. The server handed out the forks.
“Have you forgotten who I am?” Louise finally asked.
“You’re Louise Fisher, fabulous friend to Jessie and me and Margaret and Roxie Barnett Cannon. You’re a terrific gardener, especially with those little bonsai trees, and an excellent typist. You’re a terrible cook but you still participate in the potlucks at church by bringing simple salads or cookies you buy from Sam’s Club. You do make good iced tea. You’re very smart with crossword puzzles and you haven’t bought a new sweater in ten years.”
Louise glanced down at her sweater.
Beatrice continued. “You send a small donation every month to the Humane Society because deep down you think animals are much closer to God than people. You’re very smart, read a lot of historical fiction, and you’re all paid up on your funeral costs.”
Louise set down her fork and stared at Beatrice.
Beatrice took a bite of cake, chewed, and swallowed. She smiled. “And George Cannon owes you for taking care of his wife, so you marry him, let him take care of your household needs, pay your bills, and then when he dies, you get all of Roxie’s things and all of his life insurance and Social Security.” She took another bite of cake. “This is really good,” she said. “How much money does he have, by the way?”
“I don’t know,” Louise replied. “I wouldn’t imagine there’s a lot. He and Roxie never lived a life of luxury
. But really, that’s of no interest to me.”
“Well, it should be, and you should find that out before you jump in his bed,” Bea responded.
Jessie took a bite of cake. She had nothing to add to Beatrice’s line of reasoning.
“But aren’t you forgetting something?” Louise asked, still astonished at her friend.
“What?” Bea asked. “Oh, the wedding,” she noted, and then put down her fork. “Hey, why don’t we do a double ceremony with James and Jessie?” She clapped her hands together at such a great idea. “We will already have all the necessary flourishes and attendants! It would be perfect!”
“No, I’m not talking about the wedding ceremony,” Louise said. “I’m talking about the fact that I don’t love George Cannon. I thought you were the great romantic. Shouldn’t two people love each other when they get married?” she asked.
Jessie nodded. She thought what Louise was saying made perfect sense.
Beatrice made a kind of shooshing noise and waved the idea away. “Love?” she asked. “I’m with Tina Turner on this one,” she added. The other two women looked confused. “You didn’t see that movie about her and Ike?”
The two friends shook their heads.
“What has love got to do with it?” she asked.
Louise shook her head. “Aren’t you even curious as to why he drove down here to ask me?”
Beatrice shrugged. “Not really,” she responded. “I suppose it was what, guilt? Loneliness? The need for a companion? He’s dying and doesn’t want his children to make decisions for him?” She took the last bite of cake. “Does it really matter?”
“I would say that yes, it matters quite a lot.” Jessie had finally chimed in. She was stunned to hear that Beatrice seemed to know so much without hearing the entire story. “Louise shouldn’t enter into a marriage with a man she doesn’t love. Louise is gay. She’d be selling out to marry a man.”
Beatrice looked over at Jessie, then turned to Louise. “So what, that she’s gay? Haven’t most gay people our age been married to a straight person at some point in their lives? And furthermore, do you think Louise is ever going to look for a woman to love? Do you think she shouldn’t get married because she’s waiting for the perfect woman?” She waited. Neither woman replied.
