Dee giggled. “Roxie is still the queen of Roxie’s Blessin’s and Bellyachin’. I’ve been scared to death that she’d change while I was gone.”
“Roxie won’t ever change. She might change Heaven, but nothing will change her. Don’t think they’re bitin’ tonight.” Jack brought his line in and laid the rod beside the quilt. He stretched out and gazed at the stars. He’d been furious when she told him she was eloping with Ray and tried to talk her out of it, but he couldn’t stay angry with her, not when she was right beside him. His world was set aright again.
She looked up at the same stars. Had it really been seven years since she’d been to the Lake of the Arbuckles to fish for catfish? In some ways it seemed like that young girl who’d taken her rebellion and rolled it into nice, fluffy dreams never existed at all. Other ways, it was only yesterday. An eternity. A blink of the eyes. Another woman who went down the yellow brick road only to find it didn’t have a rainbow at the end. A broken road that only circled around and brought her back to the same place.
“Did you go to OU?” she finally asked. That had been his all-time big dream, to go to the University of Oklahoma and become the next Bill Gates.
“No, went a couple of years down to MIT. That would be Murray in Tishomingo, if you’ll remember. Got an associate’s degree in computer programming. By then Poppa was getting more feeble. I told myself I was just laying out a semester to help him with the store. If we’d have shut up the store, he’d have lain down and died for sure. Nanna wasn’t able to drive after the first stroke, so I got up early and brought her down here, got her settled in with her fishing pole, and then went back to open the store. At noon, I’d shut it up for an hour, come get Nanna and bring her home, fix their lunch, and put her down for a nap. Then Poppa and I’d go back to the store,” he said.
“You are a saint,” Dee said.
“I don’t think so.” He smiled.
“I always envied you having a Poppa and Nanna,” she admitted.
“I always envied you having Roxie and Mimosa and Tally and even Bodine when she came to live with y’all. One great big bunch of family to laugh and fight with,” he said.
“But we’re weird. You got to call your grandmother something neat like Nanna. I called mine Roxie and my mother Mimosa,” she said.
“That’s because . . .” He stopped and waited for her to catch on.
“Because only God and General Lee have titles. The rest of us have names in this family,” they said in unison.
“Dysfunctional doesn’t even begin to describe us, does it?” she asked.
“Neither of us came from dysfunctional families, Dee. Dysfunctional is a word that means nonworking. We grew up in eccentric families. We’re not dysfunctional. We’re simply crazy,” Jack said.
“Ain’t it the truth. So are you ever going to go back and finish your degree?” she asked.
“Have no intentions of it. Don’t need to. I’m creating computer games. I just did one about the mafia. You know the old arcade games where the bad guys get shot up and the good guys win? Something like that, only on a CD. Three of us started up a little company when we were in college. I do what I want. I sell bread and milk to the campers. Create games and sit on the back porch with Roxie and the family in the evenings. Do a little fishing? Eat a little catfish. Listen to Floyd Cramer when the mood strikes me. Or Billy Ray or Patsy Cline if I’m in the mood. If I’m not, I sit on the porch and watch the lightning bugs in the evenings or the school bus pick up Bodine in the mornings while I have my coffee. It’s a good life, Dee. Uncomplicated and free.” He shut his eyes and snored lightly.
Free. Happy. But where did she fit into the picture? Sure, she had enough money from the interest on her settlement to live comfortably, but is that what she wanted? To be content to watch Bodine get on the school bus? To be fishing with Jack when she was sixty? She’d have to think about it later, she thought, as she rolled over on her side and watched Jack doze. Just before her eyes got so heavy she couldn’t keep them open any longer, she was grateful that he and Marla hadn’t married. Right then she needed his friendship far more than that hussy needed his money.
Roxie was sitting in the kitchen at daybreak when they came wandering in, sleep still sticking to them. “Good morning. You going to make an honest woman out of my granddaughter? Kept her out all night.”
“No, I’m not going to make an honest woman of her, Roxie. She’s too wild for the long haul. Never know when she’s liable to run off with the next smooth-talking fool that turns her head. Can’t trust the woman. She gave up on the fish and went to sleep. And she drank Coke right out of the can. I had a glass right there but she wouldn’t use it.” Jack’s eyes twinkled.
“I knew it. We’ll just have to retrain her. Is there going to be baggage for me to have to take care of in nine months?” Roxie pulled pink foam rollers out of her bright red hair.
Dee shot her a look meant to freeze her on the spot. “Roxie!”
“No, ma’am,” he said.
“You two stop talking about me like I’m not here. I fell asleep the same as you.” She pointed to Jack.
“You slept with Jack?” Bodine asked from the doorway, rubbing her eyes.
“No, I did not!” Dee threw up her hands.
“Did too!” Jack slapped at her, the wind off his hand fanning across her arm.
“Yes, Bodine, we slept together. On a quilt, but that’s exactly what we did. We slept,” Dee said.
“Well, it’s a good thing this is Sunday and we’re going to church. You can pray for forgiveness for your sins. I think I may be a nun today and wear a black dress and one of those white things on my head. What’s for breakfast?”
“Whatever you want, honey. And there are no nuns in the Baptist church. You will wear your new green sprigged dress and straw hat, so don’t be thinkin’ I’ll give in and let you dress in that pilgrim outfit so you’ll look like a nun. Individuality stops on Sunday.” Roxie pulled the last roller out of her hair with a grimace. “Go tell Mimosa to get up. She’s got to rat my hair up and fix it for church.”
“I’ll get on home and grab a shower. Meet y’all back here at ten?” He looked at Roxie.
“We’ll be ready. You bring the van, and we’ll only have to take one car. It’s your day to decide on where we’re eating dinner. Then we’ll go see Tally. I got a basket of stuff to take to her,” Roxie said.
“Thanks for sleeping with me,” Jack threw over his shoulder as he hurried out the back door.
“Roxie, I didn’t sleep with him, not in the Biblical sense of the word,” Dee protested.
“Honey, I wouldn’t care if you did. Jack’s a good person. Knows where his roots are and isn’t ashamed of who he is. Don’t go dillydallyin’ around thinkin’ he’ll be there until eternity. He was in love with you in high school, but he was too shy to let you know it. You probably could fan those fires a little bit.”
“Roxie! Jack was and is my friend. He didn’t have a crush on me. Not ever. I would have known.”
“Like you knew that man who blacked your eye because you didn’t jump when he told you to? Did he ever do it again?”
“No, he didn’t. I wouldn’t have stayed with him if he’d been abusive. It was a one-time thing and we were arguing really bad. It got out of hand.”
“And you married him anyway. For a year, every time the phone rang I expected it to be the police telling me to come claim your body, or else telling me you’d killed him. Before I answered it I prayed that he was in the morgue and not you, but we don’t need to talk about that. Right now, I’m going to make breakfast. You get upstairs and take a shower. I put a pair of black gloves up there on your bed beside the hat. They’re lace, so that makes up for the fact that it’s still legally summer. It’s all right to wear patent leather and black lace before Labor Day. And darlin’, hold your head up high when you walk into that church. Pride and dignity are our trademarks,” Roxie said.
“Then why did you paint the house this g
awdawful color? There’s not a bit of pride or dignity in it,” Dee said.
“Dee, God made the cardinal, and there isn’t a bird out there with more pride or dignity than the cardinal and it’s bright red. You got about fifteen minutes before breakfast, so you’d better hurry up.” Roxie pointed to the gently curving staircase.
Pride and dignity. Dee almost giggled as she made her way upstairs to the family quarters. The house had been built as a boardinghouse fifty years ago. Five bedrooms upstairs for the family that had four sons. Ten rooms on a wing that stretched out from the dining room for boarders. Eight bedrooms. Two bathrooms. His and hers. A dining room that could easily seat twenty people. A kitchen with two stoves and a mammoth-sized refrigerator. Roxie had paid for it with a very small portion of what Henry had left when he died, back when Mimosa was four years old. The same year the engineers opened the gates and the Lake of the Arbuckles flooded more than two thousand acres of land. Located on Highway 177 and the corner where the campers turned down to that part of the lake known as the Buckhorn, it was one of three white elephants in the county. Molly Branson, known as Granny Branson, ran one of the others. Etta Cahill was the proprietor of the third one. Three old places that had been the place to stay in their day. At least the other two were legitimately white.
After Dee showered she slipped into her black dress and picked up the gaudiest hat she’d ever seen. Ray would hate it. He’d refuse to go to church with her wearing that monstrosity. A grin brightened her whole face as she picked up a hat pin with a big gold button on the end and shoved it in the back.
She was ready to face the world.
Chapter Three
Forget about sneaking in and sitting on the back pew just to satisfy Roxie. Oh, no, the Hooper family, plus Jack, sat together in the second pew on the left, just like they’d always done. Bodine led the way, a princess in her green-sprigged dress with a wide, darker green satin ribbon sash, pretty white sandals, white short gloves with a tiny covered button to tighten them up at the wrist, and an enormous floppy straw hat with the same green ribbon encircling the crown and tied in a bow at the back with streamers hanging to her waist. Roxie had used mousse in Bodine’s naturally curly, light-brown hair, and it looked as if she’d just gotten a spiral perm at the beauty shop. There were women who would die for hair like Bodine’s.
Mimosa followed Bodine. Dressed in a cute pink suit with a skirt that stopped at midthigh, she wore a fluff of something in her short hair that barely resembled a hat. It’s a wonder Roxie ever let her out of the house. But she did have pink gloves with white daisies, so that would probably keep her out of hell’s heat for one day. Even Lucifer had more self-respect than to let someone wearing pink gloves trimmed with white daisies inside the fiery gates.
Dee held her head high. If she hadn’t, the red hat with the black lace and illusion trim with the big bow on the side would have fallen off. The disgrace of such a thing would have put the whole Hooper family on probation for a hundred years. She wasn’t totally sure St. Peter would even let them peek at the Pearly Gates with a demerit like that on their sheet. She felt the glaring stares of every woman in the church. Thank goodness Jack was right behind her or she might have thrown her hat at the altar, turned around, and lit a shuck for . . . she couldn’t think of a single place she’d go, suddenly.
“You are beautiful today. I forgot to tell you that when I picked you ladies up. I was spellbound by your beauty,” Jack said as they waited for Roxie. Nobody sat down until Roxie arrived. It was downright disrespectful and bordered on a mortal sin.
“I look like an overdressed country hick or someone you’d pick up off the streets in this getup. Next week I’m going shopping for the tiniest hat I can find. Maybe just a bow on a headband so I can fake it like Mimosa,” she whispered.
“Pick up off the streets, huh? I didn’t pay you for last night.” He pulled a quarter from his pocket and placed it in her hand.
“Some help you are,” she hissed.
“Made you smile though, didn’t I? Really, you look beautiful,” he whispered.
“And you are a wonderful liar.”
Roxie took her place, and they all sat down at the same time. Roxie wore her trademark: ruffles, and lots of them. Around a plunging neckline as well as the hem of her red dress, belted in the middle with a wide white sash that matched white three-inch spike-heeled Prada pumps, white gloves, and a white hat decorated with red roses. Her ratted and sprayed red hair peeked out from the edges of the hat, giving testimony that Mimosa had created a wonderful hairdo that morning.
Dee touched Jack’s arm and leaned toward his ear. “Thank you for the compliment. You don’t look so shabby yourself this morning, but you don’t have to wear a hat and gloves.”
“Roxie would kill me if I wore a hat in church.” He leaned over to whisper in her ear.
The warmth of his breath on the soft skin of her neck sent a shiver all the way down to her toes, encased in black patent leather two-inch pumps. She told herself that the shiver was caused by his 98.6 temperature on her skin that had been chilled by the air-conditioned church. She wasn’t going to trust any man, not even Jack.
“Shhhh.” Roxie tapped Jack on the leg and put a finger over her lips. “You two got things to say, you can say them after church.”
A little lady with freshly styled hair somewhere between purple and blue leaned over from the third pew and touched Roxie on the shoulder. “Is that Dee? Is she home for good or just a-visiting?”
Roxie’s red painted mouth broke into a smile. “Yes, it’s Dee. She’s home for good. Tally will be with us in a few weeks.”
“That’s good, Roxie. That’s real good. I’ll be sure to speak to her after church,” the lady said.
“Shhh,” Dee leaned forward and mouthed to Roxie, putting a finger on her own red lips.
Roxie shot her a mean look and tilted her chin an inch higher.
The beginning hymn was sung. Afterward, special music was delivered by none other than Marla Pritchard, who presented a moving contemporary gospel piece. The sermon was delivered and the offering plate passed. Roxie put in a twenty-dollar bill. Inflation had reared its ugly head, Dee thought, because seven years ago Roxie laid a ten on the plate every Sunday. Jack put in a folded check. Dee dropped her quarter inside the velvet bag.
“And there was a widow lady who gave her all,” she whispered to Jack.
“Bless you my child,” he whispered back.
The invitational in which the whole congregation sang every last word of “Jesus Is Calling” netted no sinners who wanted to be redeemed. So the preacher announced that the Reynolds children would be hosting a golden anniversary party for their parents on Thursday night in the fellowship hall. The Andersons had a new baby girl named Hannah Elisabeth, who would be dedicated next Sunday. And Marla Pritchard and Jeff O’Toole were announcing their engagement. The wedding would be a Christmas affair, and all friends and family were invited.
The preacher gave the benediction.
Dee whispered in Jack’s ear as they stood up and waited for Roxie to lead them out of the building. “I’m so sorry, darlin’. It must be painful to see old Jeff O’Toole cheat you out of the love of your life.”
Jack placed a hand over his heart. “Oh, it is. I may never get over it. Want to go fishing this afternoon and help me forget the torment tearing my heart out?”
“I’m taking a nap this afternoon,” Dee told him. “You snored all night and kept me from getting a good night’s sleep.”
Marla stopped Roxie when they were halfway up the aisle. “Oh, Roxie, darlin’, is this your granddaughter who was in jail?”
“No, this is the one who had the good grace to kill her husband and get away with it. You know: no body, no evidence. I trained her well,” Roxie said.
Dee smiled and held out her gloved hand. “And you must be Marla. I’m so glad to make your acquaintance. You sing like an angel, darlin’. Do you do weddings and funerals?”
“Of cours
e,” Marla said. “I’m even singing at my own wedding. Jeff insisted.”
“I will remember that. One never knows when they’ll need a singer,” Dee said.
“Yes, well, I see Jeff waving at me. I must go now. Oh, hello, Jack. I didn’t see you there.” She extended her left hand. A diamond the size of a good big hailstone on a wide platinum band sparkled.
Jack bent low and brushed a kiss across her fingertips. “Congratulations, Marla. I hope you and Jeff are very happy.”
“Oh, we will be,” Marla sniffed dramatically. “So glad to meet you, Tally.”
“No, darlin’, that’s the one in jail for hot checks. I’m Dee, as in Delylah. You know, the one in the Bible who outwitted the strong man, Samson. That’s me. Dee. The one who married the man whose body they’ll never find.”
“Yes, well, I’ll be seeing you all.” She shuddered. The whole bunch of those Hooper women was crazy as loons. As long as Jack lived next door to that batch of witches, he’d never find a bride.
“Well done, my child. And you’ve only been home two days. Couldn’t have done better if I’d coached you,” Roxie said out the side of her mouth.
“It’s like riding a bicycle, Roxie. You never forget how to perform in a catfight. Now where did you say we’re having lunch? I’m starving. They do have fried okra, don’t they?”
“Honey, any restaurant worth its salt has okra. How about Jewel’s today, Roxie?” Jack asked.
“Sounds good to me. I could eat a big plate of barbecue, and they know how to make it,” Roxie said.
“But I wanted a Sonic hamburger with cheese tots,” Bodine said.
“Next week, it’s your turn,” Mimosa told her. “This week it’s Jack’s. You can order a burger at Jewel’s, and I’m sure they’ll melt some cheese on your tater tots. After we visit Tally, we’ll go to Braum’s for banana splits.”
Dee all but moaned. In a week, her jeans would be too tight.
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