by Anne George
The question was rhetorical, fortunately for me.
“God’s truth,” Katie McCorkle commiserated. Then she straightened her shoulders bravely and got back to business. “Well,” she said, “you ladies finding what you want?”
“We’ve got four pumpkins in the car and I’m going to find one more,” Sister said.
“I got a lady cans soup mix for me,” Katie said. “Best stuff you ever put in your mouth. All you got to do is add a little stew meat, or just a bouillon cube if you’re scared of the fat. She brought a new batch in yesterday and it’s about gone already.”
“Sounds great,” I said. “I think I’ll get some.”
“Get me some, too,” Sister said. “I’m going to pick out another pumpkin.”
“I’ll help you,” Fly volunteered. “That stack over there where Dick is has some great ones in it.”
I followed Katie McCorkle into the curb-market shed. The jeans, stretched over her ample behind, were alarmingly worn at the seams, in imminent danger of disintegrating. But they were bell-bottoms. Twenty years old? At least.
The shed had the smell of all old curb markets, the smell of overripe bananas and apples, the earthy smell of root vegetables. Open bins of corn, tomatoes and okra as well as other vegetables were lined up in two rows along the hard-packed dirt floor. Along the back wall of the shed, Fly, presumably, had built a small platform and counter on which were a cash register and a small TV. Shelves filled with jars of homemade jellies and relishes lined the wall behind the platform. Jeopardy was playing loudly on the TV.
“Up here,” Katie said. I followed her up the one wooden step. The jars jiggled and clanked as we stepped onto the platform, which I hoped was not indicative of the quality of Fly’s work.
“Huron!” Kate screamed suddenly, wheeling around.
I jumped backward so quickly, I nearly toppled down the step.
“Oh, God, I’m sorry.” She reached out to steady me. “It’s just that those idiots”—she pointed to the TV—“never know the answers to the Great Lakes. Much as they ask them.”
I held my hand against my galloping heart. The past few days had shot my nerves to hell and back.
“You okay?” Kate asked.
I nodded. “You just surprised me.”
“Sorry. It just ticks me off, though. They have to pass tests and everything.” Katie scowled at Alec Trebek. “You think he’s putting something on his hair? I don’t think he’s gray as he was last week.”
I shrugged. Given Katie’s emotional involvement with the program, I felt it best not to comment.
“Maybe not,” she said, letting me off the hook. She walked to the shelves, motioning me to follow. “Soup mix is here”—she pointed—“and here’s new pear relish and chowchow. The pepper jelly’s just come in, too. Red and green both.” She held two jars of the pepper jelly up so the light shone through them. They reflected against the wall, red, green, red, green. And for a second I was back at the Skoot ’n’ Boot and the music was pounding and the lights were flashing on the dance floor, red, green. There was something I should remember. Something…
“Two and a quarter for the little jars,” Katie McCorkle said. “Three dollars for the soup mix.”
I must have had a strange expression on my face. Katie read it as my being critical of the price. She frowned. “That’s cheap.”
Some important fact was still gnawing at the edge of my mind. But I was back at the curb market and Katie McCorkle was holding the jelly and looking displeased.
“Even the jars cost a fortune nowadays,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “My mind was a million miles away for a minute.” More like five miles, actually. I could still feel the beat of the music. I took one of the jars of jelly and admired it. “How much did you say this was?”
Mollified, Katie told me the prices again. When she finished, she said, “You remind me of Fly.”
“How’s that?”
“Daydreaming like that. He’s the worst, I swear. Yesterday, right in the middle of uncrating some cantaloupes, he just stopped. Started staring into space. I went over and tapped him on the forehead and said, ‘Anybody in there?’ He jumped like he’d been shot. Gotten where he does it a lot.” Katie took two jars of soup mix off the shelf. “How many of these you want? I’ve got six left.”
“I’ll take them all. I’ll help you.” We carried the jars to the counter. “And I want one of each color of pepper jelly and one chowchow.”
Katie went back to the shelf. “Sometimes I think it’s still all that acid he dropped years ago.” She brought the jars to the counter and placed them beside the others. “You know that stuff can do permanent damage.”
I nodded.
“Me, I was scared to death of it. Folks thinking they could fly and stuff. Seeing God. You know how it was.” She began to put the jars into a sack.
Because I had been a teacher living in the suburbs with small children during the hippie heyday, my knowledge of LSD was from educational films, the precursors to the “Just Say No” movement. One puff of marijuana in those movies and the smoker went mad. The one on LSD had things flashing and turning different colors. A couple of kids threw up during that one, so we had to turn on the lights and get the janitor in with the cat litter. I think the film had the desired result by association.
“Fly thought he could fly?” I asked, then realized how dumb it sounded and grinned.
Katie grinned back. “How do you think he got his name?”
“I thought it was maybe from ‘butterfly.’ Like the one on the truck.”
Kate shook her head. “He flew out of the third-floor window of a friend’s apartment. You noticed him limping?” She folded the top of the sack neatly. “Weird thing is, he still swears he flew.”
“Did he see God?” I was not being facetious. I really wondered if he thought he had.
“Not unless he was dressed like an intensive care doctor.” Katie added up the bill and took my money.
“Sister’s paying for the pumpkins,” I said. I looked out and saw that Mary Alice had both Fly and Dick Hannah loading the car with them. At the rate she was smiling, flirting and buying pumpkins, I might have to hitchhike back to Birmingham. The car would hold only so much.
Katie counted the change into my hand. “You know all the folks at the Skoot ’n’ Boot?” I asked.
“Sure. Henry Lamont comes up here sometimes for salad stuff. That’s about all the vegetables they serve there. And Bonnie Blue. She’s a character.” Kate looked outside at the pumpkin frenzy. “I swear, that Dick Hannah is a pretty man.”
While I agreed with her thoroughly, I didn’t want to stray from the subject. “What about Doris Chapman?” I asked.
“Had a falling-out with Ed a few weeks ago. Said he got her in the freezer and tried to rape her. Hnnn. Took off for Florida. Mrs. Crane want to hire her back?”
“Probably. You don’t think he was trying to rape her?”
Katie slammed the cash register closed with her hip. “I’d say it was highly unlikely, since Ed cut a plug out of his weenie that day. Fly took him to the doc-in-the-box to get it sewed up and didn’t sleep a wink that night. Just sweating. It’s amazing, isn’t it, how much men empathize with each other about things like that.”
“Ed cut a plug out of his weenie?” Somehow Kate McCorkle had not struck me as the type to call that part of the male anatomy a “weenie.” But Fly had mentioned grandchildren, hadn’t he? It goes with the territory.
Katie gestured with a downward motion of her hand, thinking I hadn’t understood. “His you-know.”
“How did he do that?”
“He was unloading some crates that were on a metal shelf and the shelf came loose and fell and cut him. It’s a wonder to me, the way they hang there like they do, they don’t get hurt more. You know?”
The thought had occurred to me the first time I played doctor with Lewis Goodwyn and he showed me his funny looking little appendage. “And you’re su
re this was the same day Doris said he tried to rape her? Maybe it was before the accident.”
“Fly was already home looking for aspirin and sweating, like I said, and here comes Doris saying she needs something with sugar in it ’cause she’s about to faint, and I gave her a Nutty Bar and a Coke and she started this story about Ed being crazy and trying to rape her. I figured he might be zonked on pain pills, but I knew good and damn well he wasn’t trying to rape her.”
“Did you tell her?”
“Sure. But she just took her Nutty Bar and Coke and stomped out. Called Fly the next day and asked if he’d keep her dog. Wouldn’t even talk to me. Like I’d insulted her or something. Good thing I like that dog.”
“You know where she is?”
Katie looked at me with the beginning of suspicion in her eyes. “You need her now?”
I backed away from the questioning. “Of course not. Mary Alice is going to need some good help out at the Skoot, though, and she’s heard Doris is terrific.”
“I wonder who told her that,” Katie said.
Mary Alice and Dick Hannah came in just then to pay Cuddin Katie for their pumpkins. I tried to remember just one thing that was on the platform he was running on. Something about crime? Health care? Education? He smiled at me with those perfect teeth; there was a Kirk Douglas cleft in his chin. Oh, my. Politics are so complicated, so political.
I rode home straddling a huge pumpkin on the floor in the front seat. The drive was becoming a familiar one, but the fall colors seemed more vivid every day. This far south, it is usually November before the leaves peak. In the late afternoon, even with a pumpkin between your knees, you have to be grateful for the goldenness of it all.
Mary Alice was quiet, not even suggesting that we stop at a fast-food place for a snack. I took advantage of the quiet and tried to put things in perspective. Things such as why I was being so secretive. There was no reason for me not to tell Mary Alice about my lunch with Bonnie Blue and her request to find Doris Chapman. There was no reason not to tell her about Doris and Ed having the argument which Doris said was attempted rape but which couldn’t have been, unless stitches and pain affected Ed very strangely. And Henry and the frying pan. More stitches. That had been a busy day at the doc-in-the-box for Ed! And all about Henry and his wife and the drugs and her death.
Was I just trying to protect Henry? I thought about this for a minute and decided that was part of it. But there was more.
I sneaked a look at Sister. She was concentrating on the road, reaching up occasionally to push her huge dark glasses back on her nose. She looked competent, like she had never hit a mailbox in her life or suffered the thousand slings and arrows of a younger sister. I stretched my legs around the pumpkin and smiled. For once, little sister knew a whole lot more about what was going on. It was something to savor.
Eleven
Indian summer held on. On Saturday, Fred pushed his riding lawn mower from the basement and gave the grass what he hoped would be the last cut before frost. It was wishful thinking since frost sometimes doesn’t arrive in Birmingham until after Thanksgiving. But the yard looked nice and would for several days.
Saturday night, we had Haley and a friend of hers from the hospital, Amy Russell, over for supper. While I was fixing it, I realized you could trace American economics and cuisine through the meals we have shared with company: spaghetti to steaks to low fat turkey cutlets.
“Anything new at the Skoot ’n’ Boot?” Haley asked.
“Your mother’s not involved in that at all,” Fred said.
“Oh, okay.” Haley concentrated on her salad with fat free dressing.
“This turkey’s great, Mr. Hollowell,” Amy said. “What did you marinate it with?” Smart girl.
“What’s Mary Alice doing this weekend?” Fred asked later as we were getting ready for bed.
“I don’t know.”
“She hasn’t called.”
“You want me to see if she wants to go to Tannehill with us tomorrow?”
One weekend a month, they have Trade Day at Tannehill State Park. It’s one of our favorite things to attend. Fred heads for all the old tools and I migrate to the quilts, dolls and old dishes. We’ve never found a real treasure there, but it’s fun. Mainly, we see a lot of things that are already in our basement that we thought was junk. That makes us feel good.
“Are you kidding?” Fred said. “The last time she went with us she bought all those weird birdhouses. Had the whole car full of them.”
I slid into bed. “I expect she and Bill are staying busy.”
“One of those birdhouses looked like an outhouse, little quarter moon and all. Remember that one, honey?”
“And one was shaped lik a mailbox with the name ‘Jenny Wren’ on it.”
We both laughed. That’s got to be the best way in the world to go to bed.
Henry Lamont, who seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth the past few days, had resurfaced when we got home from Tannehill, and was even, according to the message Debbie left on my machine, at this moment preparing a gourmet meal at her house that Uncle Fred and I were invited to come and partake of.
I called her and got Richardena, who said Debbie had gone to the store to get some unsalted crackers for the patty Henry was making out of ground up green peppers, onions and carrots. Pretty, like a pinwheel.
“What?”
“A pinwheel patty. Little circles you spread on crackers. They’re great!”
I think this was the most emotion I had ever heard Richardena show, though, given her history, I certainly knew she was capable of plenty. I wasn’t about to tell her I thought Henry was making a pâté.
“He’s a fancy cook, isn’t he?”
“He’s a chef,” Richardena corrected me. “He’s going to sprinkle a little fresh basil over the lemon chicken just at the last minute, and he’s stuffing cherry tomatoes to go on the side.”
“What’s he stuffing them with?”
“I don’t know what it is, but it’s not the stuff you stick up a turkey.”
“No, I wouldn’t think so.” Though actually, that might taste pretty good. I’d have to try it sometime.
“And roulage for dessert. He even whipped the cream.”
“What time does Debbie want us?” I asked. Usually I check these things out with Fred for politeness’ sake, but when Richardena mentioned roulage, I knew Fred would be happy.
“Seven o’clock. The twins will be in bed by then.”
“Sounds great. How are those angels today?”
“Fine. Mrs. Hollowell?” Richardena’s tone had the slight impatience of a woman who didn’t have time to waste on small talk. “I got to go chop basil.”
“Okay, Richardena, you go right ahead. We’ll see you at seven.”
I hung up the phone, smiling. It sounded like Henry had added a couple more converts to his admiration society. And getting invited out to dinner gave me time to take my poor, neglected Woofer for a walk.
He was waiting for his food. When he saw the leash, he turned away in disgust.
“You don’t want to walk?” I asked, shaking the leash. “We’ll go down the block and speak to Miranda.”
Don’t tell me animals can’t reason. Woofer leaned his head one way: if he refused to go, I’d feed him now. Then the other way: if he went, he would see that gorgeous collie. Maybe even get a few sniffs through the chain link fence.
Lust won out as usual. We had a nice walk, and Woofer and Miranda exchanged a few happy yelps. I stopped for a chat with Mitzi Phizer, who lives three doors down and who came rushing out with pictures of her new grandson. Most of us have lived in the neighborhood since our children were little, before we had central air-conditioning and cable TV. We sat on our porches at night, walked down the sidewalk, drank iced tea or beer together and visited while the children played or fell asleep in our laps. Now we have planned cookouts and Christmas get-togethers, but it’s not the same. A lot of our old neighbors have retired and moved aw
ay. Young couples are moving in, which is great. They are inside, though, in the long Alabama twilights, watching TV or, God forbid, doing housework, since they have just gotten home from work. Or they jog by the house and wave.
I was delighted to see Mitzi’s grandbaby. His mother, Bridget, is Haley’s age and had been one of her best friends when they were growing up.
“Isn’t he something?” Mitzi said, beaming. “I thought Bridget never would decide to have a family. Now she says she wants a dozen.” She took the picture back and made kissing noises toward it. “Andrew Cade. Can you believe that?”
“He’s wonderful,” I agreed. “Maybe you can get her to settle on a half dozen, though.”
Mitzi laughed. “She’ll change her mind soon enough.”
“You tell Bridget how happy I am for her,” I said.
“I will.” Mitzi stepped over Woofer’s leash, which he had encircled us with. “It’s going to be Haley’s turn next.”
“Keep your fingers crossed.”
Fred was pulling into our driveway as I walked home. He smiled when he saw me coming and waited for me. And at that moment I loved him. I mean, I knew I loved him, which is something entirely different. One of the things you learn in a long marriage is that these moments happen. You’ll see him standing in line at the movie waiting to buy tickets, or walking toward you at the Winn-Dixie with a gallon of milk, squinting at it to see if the date is okay, and you think, Hey, I love this man. You also learn not to take these moments for granted. So we didn’t. Woofer was furious when we finally got around to feeding him. And Fred had agreed, without any complaints, to go to the Hannahs’ party on Thursday night.
Debbie was the second surprise of the night. She met us at the door dressed in a peach silk dress and bone-colored high heels. Her mother would have had a fit about those shoes because it was after Labor Day, and Mary Alice tends to be very rigid about shoes. No matter what kind of god-awful outfit she has on, her shoes will be darker than the outfit, never white before Memorial Day or after Labor Day, and never patent leather after five o’clock. I have three pairs of dress shoes—taupe, navy and black—and I wear them all year, so I miss her lectures. But I swear I’ve seen her look askance at nurses’ white shoes in doctors’ offices after Labor Day.
