by J.T. Lewis
to wet myself. Besides, Kate’s wits are so scattered, it’s
going to take a while to gather them!”
Kate began to sputter with laughter again, but quickly
caught herself.
“I love your sense of humor, Manda. It’s just like Nanny
May’s.”
Manda rolled her eyes as she headed for the bathroom. When
she returned to the table, Kate had managed to control
herself, but Teresa was still patting her arm in a calming
gesture. Manda, looking at Kate with a mix of concern and
exasperation, sat down.
“You know,” said Kate,” I think that people CAN die from
laughter!”
“Do you feel up to telling us what that was all about,”?
smiled Teresa “
“I have to begin by telling you that Nanny May was one of a
kind, God love her. There will never be another like her.
She was outrageous…. to put it mildly!!!”
“When she decided to renovate the cottage, she drew up a
simple blueprint of what she wanted, then called Herb
Shivley, a local contractor.”
“By the way, he’s very good if you ever need any work
done.”
Kate continued to mop her face.
“Herb picked her drawing up and went to the cottage to see
what supplies he needed, to take measurements,etc.
A little while after he left for the carriage house, he
turned up at Nanny May’s door and told her that there was a
problem and what did she want him to do. He explained that
when he took measurements, he discovered a difference of 10
feet between the inner and outer walls at the rear of the
carriage house. In other words, a fake wall had been built
and there were no doors or windows on the inside or outside
of those walls to give access to the unexplained extra
footage. So, she told him to tear the wall out.”
Manda and Teresa glanced at each other.
“Ah…a mystery,” said Manda.
“Later that day, Herb showed up at her door again.”
“Miss Harris,” he says,” We have another problem.”
“What is it, Herb,” she says.
“Well, Mam, I think that you need to come with me and take
a look.”
“Nanny May called me later that day and told me that I had
to go to her place as soon as possible, but she wouldn’t
explain over the phone.”
Kate began grinning and with a slow shake of her head began
to relate her story.
“The door of the carriage house was open so I just walked
in. Nanny May was standing with her back to me staring at
the back wall. She was standing stiff as a board with her
fists planted on her hips. I could tell that she was in a
fine state…. madder than a rooster with no hens in sight.
It was kinda dark where she was standing so I couldn’t see
much of anything. She heard my footsteps and without
turning, told me to brace myself and come take a look. I
walked over to her where she was glaring at that Gawd awful
monstrosity.
“Do you believe this, Kate?” Can you believe that someone
could design this horror and have it built?”
“What kind of family did I spring from? It’s very clear
that one of my relatives was crazier than a bedbug. I have
insanity in my genes!”
“Now, Nanny May, maybe it was someone just a little
eccentric.”
“A little…a LITTLE. Don’t you mean a full blown lunatic??”
“Nanny May look at it this way. So you had a relative that
had peculiar tastes, BUT, you had another relative who had
the good sense to cover it up.”
I remember she turned her head and glared at me.
“Have you taken leave of your senses, Kate?”
“No, Nanny May, and neither have you. I’ve know you for a
long, long time, and you have never had a strange bone in
your body or a strange thought in your mind. You are
perfectly normal!”
“You really think so, Kate?”
“I know so…so relax.”
“Well, it’s going to have to come down! I can’t live in the
same house as this!”
“But, its still there. What changed her mind?” Manda
wondered.
“Herb said it was going to be hard and time consuming to
remove without damaging the rest of the structure. She
wanted the renovations done as soon as possible so she told
him to do the rest of the place first so she could move in.
That way he could take his time with the fireplace. She
really wanted out of the big house. Anyway, the more she
saw of the fireplace, the more it grew on her. She finally
decided to keep it.”
“What was it doing in a carriage house to begin
with,” Teresa asked.
“We never found out the answer to that. We had no idea and
she couldn’t find any references to it in any of the family
history.”
Manda and Teresa looked at each other. It had been an
amusing story but hadn’t warranted the hysteria displayed
by Kate.
As though Kate read their minds, she went on to say that
there was more to the story.
“I helped her move in and a few days later, she called and
invited me over to join her for a house warming party. I
got her a gift and a bottle of good wine, wrapped em up
real pretty, got all dressed up, and went to the cottage.”
“Now, Nanny May had some hobbies. One of them was making
candles. She made some beauties…she was really good. Some,
well most, were unusual. She really liked to experiment and
see how creative she could be.”
“ We’ve already seen some examples of her talents,” Teresa
commented with Manda nodding in agreement.
Kate began to chuckle,” Yeah, she had quite an imagination.
She enjoyed being a little shocking, too. She liked getting
a rise out of people.”
“It was nearly dark when I got there. The place was kind of
dark but I could see light flickering from inside. The door
opened just as I walked up to it, and there she
stood…. this tall, slender, regal lady who looked like she
was in her 60s instead of her 80s. She had a long black
dress on with a train, for heaven’s sake, and these full
draping sleeves. She was wearing a gaudy black necklace
and matching earrings that dangled almost to her shoulders.
She had a ‘nose in the air’ look on her face and she said
in this slow deep voice, “Enter, my good friend.”
“ I stood there…My jaw had to be on my chest…. and I thought
that maybe she did carry a ‘crazy’ gene and something had
pushed her over the edge of reason. I stood there like
an idiot.
She finally laughed and told me to come on in.
“Good grief, Kate, I was just going to have some fun with
you. I got all dolled up in this ridiculous get up, but you
looked so scared that I just couldn’t go through with it.”
“Sit down, I’m going to change into something comfortable.”
&n
bsp; “I sat down in the dark; well, nearly dark. The only light
was from a bunch of candles
sitting in those little shelves like things down the side of
that silly fireplace.
She came back in a set of sweats and flipped a lamp on.”
“Dammit, Kate,” she says,” You are such a spoilsport! I
was going to pretend to have a séance and all that witchy
stuff, but you are such a chicken.”
“Anyway, we had a good time for an hour or so, in spite of
me being a chicken, then we started getting tired and
decided to call it a night.
She handed me a candle snuffer and asked me to put the
candles out for her, so I went over to the fireplace.”
At this point, Kate started to laugh again…hard.
Manda and Teresa started grinning, knowing they were about
to hear the rest of the story.
“This is going to sound terrible, but I you can’t say I
didn’t warn you about your great aunt, Manda.”
Kate tried valiantly to relate the rest of the evening
without losing control, but it was
impossible, so it was told interspersed with bouts of
laughter with Teresa and Manda as a captive audience.
“The candles were these huge ---pink--- columns. She had
shaped or carved them and…,” Kate broke up again, hugging
her stomach with her arms. “Oh, my stomach hurts!”
Almost choking with hilarity, causing Teresa and Manda to
start laughing, Kate blurted, “They looked just like
men’s…men’s…men’s…”
All three women started whooping in fits of laughter as
vivid pictures formed in their minds.
Patrons, their attention drawn by the commotion, swung
around in their seats again, and watching and hearing the
woman howl, they couldn’t help joining in.
Kate, Teresa, and Manda all covered their faces with
napkins to stem the tears and smother the noise.
Between gasps, Teresa said, “Are you going to finish,
Kate?”
“I’m trying…I’m trying.”
“I’m standing there with that damn snuffer, laughing so
hard it was pathetic…. I put the snuffer over the flame and
then went to the next…one….but the first one lit up again.’
Another spate of loud laughter followed this comment.
“Every time I’d put one out, it’d relight!”
“Party candles,” they shouted in unison as Kate nodded her
head.
“Nanny May was sitting there as straight faced as you can
imagine and she said…she said…”I guess I accidentally mixed
some of that Niagara stuff in the wax. You know, the
medicine men take for a long satisfying experience?”
“Oh My Gawd,” Teresa laughed.
“I say…Nanny May…you mean Viagra!”
“She said, ….
Manda and Teresa quieted and grinned with expectation.
Kate continued with great difficulty, “She said….Well,
Kate, I think Niagara is more appropriate!!”
At this, Teresa jumped up,” Wait till I get back,” she said
as she ran laughing for the ladies room.
By the time Teresa got back, Kate and Manda had toned down
to giggles.
“Is there more?” Teresa asked.
“Oh Yes!”
Manda did her eye rolling and grabbed her mother’s hand.
“The candles wouldn’t go out, so Nanny May decided that
we’d have to drown em in a sink of water. Anyway, we
started grabbing all the candles which were just sputtering
away….and Nanny May said…said,” Kate….Kate’s face contorted
as the struggled with the rest of her sentence.
“She said, without even cracking a smile, “ Kate…I haven’t
touched this much man flesh in sixty years!”
The restaurant became a riot of sound as the three women
lost any vestige of control that might have still existed.
Manda and Teresa laid their heads onto the table in
weakness as they laughed and cried at the same time.
Kate was clutching her stomach again, laughing and moaning
with pain.
It was several long minutes before they could begin to
regain any composure.
The other diners had gotten anxious and concerned about
them and watched them out of the corners of their eyes.
“Damn, “ Manda grinned.” I wish I could have spent time with
her.”
Kate shakily stood,” Gals, I need a drink. Let’s go down a
few doors to Tom’s place and get something to calm our
stomachs.”
“YES!”
“Lorie,” Kate hollered,” I’ll be back in a day or so….
maybe
three! Oh, and remind me to apply for a liquor license.”
Lorie laughed and waved at them as they slouched boneless
toward the door.
Gem drove up to an area not too far from the carriage house
and off loaded several good size boxes and rolls of high
grade insulation from the bed of his truck He then moved
his truck some distance away, hid it as much as possible
behind several trees and walked back to the things he’d
unloaded.
He began to calm down and breathe easier after he carried
it down into the tunnel where it couldn’t be seen by
curious eyes. From there, he transported it to his room
beneath the carriage house. He began by restocking his make
shift pantry. He had tried to think ahead so he’d have
anything he might need available.
He then spent the biggest part of the night preparing his
room by adding additional insulation to prevent noise from
traveling up to the living quarters. Then he had planted
several listening and recording devices so he could keep
track of the women’s movements and conversations.
After he tested the units and set them to record and then
checked that he had made all the
preparations that he could think of, he left the cottage
and walked back to his truck.
He was very tired and needed to go home and grab a few
hours sleep. It wouldn’t do for people to see him haggard
in the morning.
He started his truck and crept, without turning on his
headlights, off the grounds of Live Oaks…a satisfied smile
on his face.
#
The three of them sat on the beach enjoying the murmur of
the surf and the moon painting the crests of the
incoming rollers with diamonds of light.
It was close to the witching hour.
They had gathered at the beach to compare notes in order to gather insight into the puzzling situation that had weighed them down for generations.
“How are Manda and Teresa, Megan?”
They’re fine, Nanny. Asleep- they had a long busy day.”
“How are you doing, Nanny?” questioned Patrick.
“I think I’m pretty well adjusted now, although things were
a little confusing at first,” admitted Nanny.
