Dearest Dorothy, Who Would Have Ever Thought?!

by Charlene Baumbich

  “That’s my girl,” he said as he hurried off to make his journey down into the earth.

  “God, take care of us,” she prayed aloud. “Take care of us both.” The last thing she’d needed to hear last night was the news report of a group of coal miners trapped in a mine out east. There was already enough to worry about without renewed fears of that.

  The minute Josh was off to school, Katie ran up the stairs and got her folder down from her bedroom closet shelf. She had a few more numbers to run, another reference to check out about that BackRoads Illinois publication and a building inspector to meet. She’d made up her mind there was going to be no better place or time to unfold her plan than at the Happy Hookers’ meeting tonight since most of her key players would be present. There was a part of her that dreaded the announcement; she’d spent plenty of time figuring how to deliver it—no present it—in the best light. She’d strategized how to defuse any hot spots, parlay any doubts into positive thoughts. Yes, she’d need all their support if she was to make this happen profitably. And that was the thing that scared her the most: she didn’t like relying on anyone else. Not anyone. If it all came to pass, this would be the exception to her rule about not mixing business with friendships, which she hoped she wasn’t jeopardizing. Although the real estate portion of the deal was sound—barring any surprises by the inspector—relying on others was definitely out of her comfort zone. Reliance made her vulnerable and she was allergic to vulnerable. And, of course, Gladys would probably hate everything about it since it wasn’t her idea, but Katie had been working on a way to bring her around, too.

  May Belle couldn’t remember ever having had such a backache. Whatever she’d done to it—and it started the day she’d climbed up on the step stool to rehang her bedroom curtains after washing, starching and ironing them, although her back had already been tired from all the baking—those mid-back muscles were determined to stay clenched, especially along her right side. She’d asked Earl to rub some Vicks VapoRub on it for her since she couldn’t reach the area that hurt the worst, it being too far up the small of her back. Earl had done his best in the awkward situation. But he wasn’t much for contact and nothing had really been rubbed in with a good friction, which May Belle was sure was the trick. Maybe she could take Dorothy aside at the Hookers’ meeting tonight and have her rub in a good dose of it. She put the jar in her purse, just in case.

  Vicks VapoRub had been one of her lifetime favorite antidotes for all kinds of things, especially colds and sore muscles. Living on limited funds, she’d grown accustomed to items in her medicine cabinet—and everywhere else—serving double duty. But Vicks was at the top of the list. Her fond attachment to Vicks dated back to the days her own mother would rub a Vicks-smelling liniment on her chest when she had a cold, but not before first holding an old cloth diaper over a steaming kettle of water. Her mother would smear her entire chest with a thick layer of the product, rubbing it in real good, clear up over the top of her shoulders, up her neck to her chin, then quickly put the warm, damp cloth on top of the love rubs. “It always feels better with the warm cloth on top of the love rubs,” her mom would say. Sometimes on days when May Belle was filled with memories, she would find herself drawn to the jar of Vicks and she’d rub a little under her nose, just because. Cleared her sinuses and her head, she thought. Helped bring the memories into a three-dimensional focus.

  Aside from Vicks, though, she wasn’t one to take much to any kind of drug. She’d rather suffer through a headache than to swallow a pill any day. Not only did she not like putting things like that in her body, but she’d always had trouble just getting pills to go down. “My swallower just does not want to swallow them,” she’d told Dorothy once when she’d had to give in years ago and get a round of penicillin from Doc Streator for a terrible bronchitis. “Pish-posh on your swallower,” Dorothy had told her. “Do like I do with Sheba and just put the pills in a wad of braunschweiger and eat it. You won’t even know it’s in there.” Dorothy had been worried sick about May Belle’s horrible cough and threatened to hog-tie her and put the pills down her throat with her turkey baster if she had to.

  “What if I don’t like braunschweiger?” May Belle asked somewhat defiantly, not wanting to ingest the drugs but knowing she had to if she wanted to get her health back (and what would ever happen to Earl if she didn’t?), Vicks VapoRub not having done the trick for the last week—ten days, if she’d been honest with the Doc.

  “Then put them in a marshmallow or roll them up in one of your wonderful gooey oatmeal raisin cookies.”

  “I don’t have any cookies.”

  “Want me to bake you some?”

  “Anybody but you,” May Belle had teased before going into another fit of coughing, since Dorothy’s strong suit was certainly not her baking. “If there’d be a prize for the worst pie crust at the county fair, I’m sure I could claim it,” Dorothy had joked, although it was surely the truth. About the only sweet she made on a regular basis—and most often it was for breakfast—was white toast smeared with butter and sprinkled with sugar. If she was feeling extra hungry for dessert for breakfast, she added a light dusting of cinnamon.

  Eventually, of course, May Belle got her pills down and healed. But now, as evening drew closer, May Belle wasn’t convinced she could bear to sit at a bunco table since sitting was the worst for her back. She could hardly stand to even think about missing a Hookers’ gathering since the Happy Hookers were not only her closest friends, but the evening was always her social highlight each month. A chance to just let her hair down, although she never literally did. She kept her hair up in a silver-white bun on the crown of her head, loose silvery strands often flying around her face. She imagined her hairdo looked quite the sight now since stretching to reach her hair was so uncomfortable that she’d just pulled the long thin strands to the back of her neck, put a rubber band around it and left it in a ponytail all day. Earl all but did a double take every time she came within his vision. This did not look like his mother. No, he was used to her looking a certain way and this wasn’t it. The more she got to thinking about how she looked, the more she decided to see for herself. When she turned on the bathroom light, she could hardly believe it. She looked like an octogenarian hippie! All she needed was a string of beads. “I cannot show up at the Hookers’ meeting tonight looking like this and be unable to sit through even one round of dice, Earl,” she said on her way to the phone. As soon as she was done dialing, she tried to rub her back again while the phone rang.

  “Yup,” Arthur said into the receiver.

  “Oh, hello, Arthur. It’s May Belle.”

  “May Belle who?”

  “May Belle Justice.”

  “I know it’s May Belle Justice. I was jist pullin’ your leg.”

  “Well, Arthur, I wish you wouldn’t because my back is too sore for a leg pull today.” Arthur heard the smile in her voice, but he also could tell she was in pain. “In fact, that’s why I’m calling. As much as it breaks my heart, I cannot make it to the Happy Hookers tonight. May I speak to Jessie, please?”

  “Welp, now, you might could if she were here, but she ain’t. She and Vera are out spendin’ my money for you gals tonight.”

  “Will you please give her my regrets, Arthur? Assure her I’m going to be fine so she doesn’t worry. Just tell her I’ve got a backache that’s making it too difficult to sit. I hope she understands. I hate canceling this late.”

  “Yup. I’ll tell her when she gits home, if she ever does. Ya put a couple hens in the car together and set ’em loose to get ready for a pack of wild women and ain’t no tellin’ what time they’ll be back!”

  “Oh, Arthur. How you talk,” May Belle said, covering her mouth with her hand as she laughed. “I’m sure they’ll be back in short order. Jessie’s not the type to run away for too long.” In light of Jessie’s recent disappearance (yes, he’d blown it up into that), Arthur thought May Belle had used an odd choice of words. If something was going on with Lester
and his wife—and he was becoming more convinced of it by the imaginative moment—did everybody in town know about it?

  “I’m beginnin’ ta think I don’t know that woman at all,” Arthur said with an edge of anger in his voice. “I’ll tell her ya called. Bye, May Belle.” And he hung up.

  He wandered back into the living room where Herm was napping on the couch, his usual pattern right after lunch. He wondered if Herm had noticed anything peculiar like about Jessie’s or Lester’s behavior this morning, like how pink her cheeks were. Looked like she was wearing rouge. Since when did his wife wear rouge? And Lester, well, he just couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off Jessie. Arthur had even noticed Vera was looking kinda suspicious-like at the two of them. Something ain’t right. It ain’t right at all.

  He took the TV remote and turned up the volume. Herm didn’t stir, so he turned it up again until it was nearly full volume. Herm’s eyes flew open and he sat up.

  “You know, Arthur Landers, Jessie is right.”

  “What are you talkin’ bout?”

  “She said you needed a hearing aid and now I know you do.”

  Arthur turned down the volume until there was only an unintelligible faint mumbling of voices wafting from the set. “How’s that for ya? Kin you hear that? I kin hear it just fine.”

  “Yup. I hear ’em just fine, too.”

  The two of them sat there watching the man and woman on the soap opera. They appeared to be yelling at each other, although neither man could make out a word they were saying.

  “Such nonsense, these stories,” Arthur said. “Who’d believe a word of it?”

  “I don’t know if this is the one Vera watches or not.” He sat up on the edge of the couch to take a closer look. “Yup, I believe it is. That doctor there looks familiar.” The scene had changed to a crowd of people in a hospital waiting room.

  “Herm, did ya notice anything funny at breakfast today?” Arthur asked, still looking at the set.

  “Like what?”

  “Like Jessie. Or Lester. Notice anything peculiar like ’bout him? Or her?”

  “Can’t say as I did. Lester looks exactly the same although maybe a little thinner hair on the top of his head, but that’s about it.”

  “Notice anything . . . odd about his service?”

  “He was a little impatient with Vera, I thought, if that’s what ya mean.”

  Who wouldn’t be, Arthur wondered. “I was thinkin’ more along the lines of how he acted with my wife.”

  “Is that right. Can’t say as I did.” Although Vera certainly had, and she’d whispered her speculations to him when they were in the bedroom. He’d poo-pooed her crazy suggestion until she’d talked about Jessie’s cheeks being so red, which he had noticed, like she was wearing rouge or something. He’d never seen her cheeks look like that before. He’d only seen Vera’s look something like that once when she’d bought some new fandangled compact that came with two cheek colors in it and she’d put them both on at the same time and then asked him how she looked, which he thought was a trick question because he assumed she wanted him to say fine, or wonderful, or glamorous, but she did not since she looked like a clown but he couldn’t say that either so he didn’t say anything. He just stared at her, which upset her. She’d skulked out of the kitchen, where she’d come to parade her new rouge while he was drinking coffee and reading the paper, and then after she skulked out during his silence, he’d heard the water running in the bathroom for a long time. Then he heard her crying. Then more water. And when she returned, he heard something hit the garbage can. When she sat down across from him she was no longer wearing the makeup but she’d scrubbed her cheeks so hard they were redder than the makeup and he started laughing and she ran out of the room again. He felt like he was kind of in that same situation right now with Arthur. There just wasn’t a good way to respond.

  “How he was?” Herm asked, playing dumb, hoping Arthur wouldn’t want to dig any deeper.

  “Yeah. How he was. How he looked at her, for one dern thing.”

  “He looked at all of us, Art. We all look at each other all the time. Look, I’m looking at you and you’re looking at me right now.” Dumb. Where was Vera? He didn’t know how to do this. Now he felt his cheeks getting red—which made Arthur wonder if HERM knew something!

  “Ya don’t think he was givin’ her googly eyes?”

  “Googly eyes?”

  “Herman Landers, ya know what I’m talkin’ ’bout. Stop playing dumb. It was as plain as day and we all saw it!” Arthur clicked off the TV and slammed the remote down on the coffee table.

  “Arthur Landers, I do not know what you’re talking about.” Lie, lie. “But it sounds like you’re accusing Lester of . . . flirting with your wife. Surely you don’t mean ta tell me that.”

  “I mean to tell ya ex-act-ly that! That scallywag was flirtin’ with my wife. I wonder ’bout the way he looked at her, Herm, and I’m beginnin’ to wonder if there ain’t somethin’ a goin’ on here!” Now Arthur’s cheeks were turning red. In fact his whole face looked like he was holding his breath, just like when he’d imitated Jessie’s rampage.

  “Now simmer down, Art. Simmer down. For cryin’ out loud, you’re both old men! And Jessie, well, she’s no spring chicken. You’re talking like a teenager here.”

  “Ya sayin’ my wife is too old to have somebody flirt with her? Or that she ain’t pretty enough for some old codger to give her a second look?” He’d taken a step toward Herm. Not a dukes-up step, but a step. Herm stood up and put his hand on Arthur’s shoulder.

  “No, Art, I didn’t say no such thing! Your Jessie is a fine woman. A darn fine woman!”

  “Darn fine enough for that Lester K. Biggs to still be carryin’ a torch for her after all these years?”

  Just like Vera’s rouge. Danged if he said she was, and danged if he said she wasn’t. “I think, Art, that you’re making something out of nothing here.”

  “Nothin’, huh? I’m the one with a wife who disappeared for an entire afternoon—and when she had company, no less—and then came back with nothin’ more than a bag of potato chips—POTATO CHIPS!—and some root beer—actin’ crazy suddenly playin’ euchre war games and . . .”

  “Slow down, Arthur. Just slow down and calm down. You are inventin’ things now.”

  “You kin tell me for a fact my wife didn’t run off to see Lester the other afternoon?”

  “No, I cannot tell you that for a fact. But wasn’t Harry’s open when she left? Wouldn’t Lester have been working? And good Lord, Arthur, I don’t think you could hide something that was happening right there in the grill, a place you and Harold both just told me was where everybody learned everything.”

  Arthur thought back to the day she’d run off. It had been . . . Saturday. Yup. The grill was open, and one thing you could count on was that Lester would have been there and been open from 6 A.M. to 6 P.M., just like clockwork. But she’d been gone until mid-afternoon and the grill wasn’t usually busy then. They could have been there alone.

  “That scallywag!” Arthur stormed out the back door and headed for his truck.

  “Where you goin’, Art? Now just calm down and get back in here before ya get yourself in trouble.”

  “I’m goin’ to give that scallywag a piece of my mind. That’s where I’m a goin’!”

  “What if you’re wrong, Art? You’re gonna make a fool out of yourself!” Both men were next to the truck now, one on each side. Arthur got in and so did Herm. “I am not letting you do this, Art.” Arthur cranked over the engine and, before Herm even had his door closed, the truck was on its way down the driveway. It was all Herm could do to latch the door.

  18

  “Let’s see. I think that does it,” Jessie said peering into the Wal-Mart cart. She’d placed the prizes on top of a few other items. “Most buncos gets the beige dish towel; most wins, the black oven mitt; booby prize, the nylon scrubber.”

  “Need wrapping paper?” Vera asked, hoping they could get ou
t of the kitchen department and into something a little more fun.

  “Nope. Got sandwich bags at home. They’ll do just fine. And, they can be used again. All that fancy paper is such a waste. Now where was I? Oh, gotta go to the doughnut shop and then to Your Store to get the bridge mix since they were out of it here. I don’t want to listen to those women if they don’t get their bridge mix.”

  “Oh, I haven’t had bridge mix for so long!”

  In the checkout line Jessie said, “The only thing left to do at home is set up the card tables, get out the dice and scrap paper for scoring and clean the bathroom again. No doubt those men have made a mess of it while we were gone. I don’t know what I was thinking cleaning it before we left. I swear, Arthur just waits until I put out the clean hand towels to dip his hands in axle grease, then wipe them on my towels. Is Herman like that?”

  “Aren’t all men?”

  They finished their in-and-out stop at Your Store (which was also out of bridge mix) and were heading around the square to turn toward the Kmart on the outskirts of Hethrow when Vera asked Jessie if she wouldn’t like to stop and get a cup of coffee, maybe a piece of pie. She’d noticed the dessert tray on Lester’s counter at breakfast and had been thinking about it ever since, which she told Jessie. What she did not tell Jessie was that she’d just like to see how she and Lester behaved together—when Arthur wasn’t around.

  “We should probably get on with the rest of our errands and hightail it home to get things done so we’re not running around at the last minute. We still got supper to cook since no doubt Arthur and Herm haven’t decided to become chefs while we were gone.”