Divas Do Tell

by Virginia Brown

  We walked across the bare dirt yard toward the trailer. A couple cats sat up under it, one of them washing its face, another orange one stretched out in a supine pose. The dog in the tire planter sat up, suddenly alert at the sight or smell of Bitty’s blamed dog. I foresaw trouble. Not Bitty. She picked her way across the yard behind Rayna.

  “Hello,” Rayna said pleasantly as she drew near the woman watching us. “I’m Rayna Blue, and these are my friends, Bitty Hollandale and Trinket Truevine. We understand that your niece is Mira Waller. The movie star?”

  “I know who she is.” Her gravelly voice held no hint of welcome. I felt uncomfortable. There we were dressed in decent clothes; Bitty, the Queen of the Nile and her familiar next to us in her regal attire, and Latricia Jones Deakins had on a stained sweatshirt with frayed cuffs and stained sweat pants of an indeterminate color. She wore torn canvas tennis shoes that may have been white once. I could feel her resentment wafting toward us, and I didn’t blame her.

  It suddenly seemed too insensitive to be there.

  But there was no way to abort our mission now without making things worse, so I went behind Bitty and Rayna to talk to Latricia. She still regarded us warily. She was a tall woman, almost my height, very slender. As we got close I saw the weariness in her eyes, too. Poverty isn’t just demeaning; it’s exhausting. I’d seen extreme poverty in the Appalachians, the children with the big haunted eyes and pinched faces, wearing shoes with no socks even in the frigid winters of West Virginia. While this wasn’t as extreme, it had to be just as exhausting.

  Rayna started right in once we reached the front steps that weren’t really steps, just slabs of wood across cinder blocks. Latricia crossed her arms over her chest and observed us as if we were an annoying new species of fly. Since Bitty wobbled over with the ugly baby in the sling, I’m sure Latricia was convinced we were all crazy, too. She wasn’t far wrong.

  “Since Mira is so close to her roots,” Rayna was saying, “we wondered if perhaps you’d like a reunion get-together. I live in the old Delta Inn, and there would be plenty of room for all of you if you decided that would be something you want to do.”

  Rayna talked a little fast and a little high, but that was the only sign of nerves.

  Latricia’s mouth curled at one side. “Reunion? Somehow I can’t see Mira showing up for a reunion with her mama’s family. She don’t know us anymore anyway, and we don’t know her. It’s best that way.”

  “Oh, well, perhaps your other relatives don’t feel as you do and would like to—”

  “Look, ain’t nobody here care nothing about seeing her after she said and did all that she did. She’s dead to us, and we’ve been dead to her a long time. She was a kid when she left here and ain’t never looked back. I don’t blame her. If I could get the hell out of here I would, too.”

  My curiosity was piqued. I had to ask, “What did she do that made her dead to you?”

  Latricia’s eyes got narrow. “It ain’t really none of your business, lady. It’s family stuff, and you ain’t family.”

  “Mira’s mother is related to Ruby May Wilson, and we’ve known her for years. While we’re not family, she is and may want to have a reunion. I’m sure she’d like to see all of you. If Mira is Ruby’s niece then she must be related to you as well.”

  “I doubt it. For one thing, Mira, as you call her, is my sister’s kid, not mine. Last time I saw her, her name was Myra, not Mira, and my sister ain’t bothered to so much as send a card on Christmas. Miss Ruby is a fine woman, but Sukey is her niece by marriage, not blood.”

  “Is Sukey a nickname?” Rayna asked. “Possibly short for her given name?”

  Latricia shrugged. “We all just called her Sukey. Used to call her a few other things, too, but I don’t know as you’d call ’em nicknames.”

  “I have a sister, so I can understand that,” Rayna lied. When Latricia cut her eyes toward Bitty, Rayna smiled. “We all have someone in our family that doesn’t quite fit. In fact, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t.”

  That got a faint smile from Latricia. One of her kids who had been playing in the dust came up and tugged at the bottom of her sweatshirt. She looked down, and her eyes softened. She put a hand atop the child’s head, stroking all the braids done up with small pink barrettes on the ends. “You okay, baby?” she asked, and the little girl looked up and nodded.

  “Jus’ firsty.”

  “Say it right, baby, and then go on in, and I’ll get you a drink.”

  Smiling up at her mother, the little girl said, “Jus’ t’irsty.”

  “That’s better. Take your brother with you. He’s probably thirsty, too.”

  The little girl held out her hand to her brother, and he took it. He looked to be about two years old, his sister maybe four. They were dusty, a tan coating on their dark skin, wearing long pants and shoes with no socks, long sleeve shirts but no coats. It was cool, almost too cool. I was glad for my jacket. They clambered up the steps and pushed open the door and went inside.

  Latricia put her hand back to hold open the door. “You ladies be careful goin’ back down the road. Sometimes it’s washed out.”

  We were about to lose our chance to ask the question that had been burning on my tongue since we got there, so I just took a deep breath and asked, “Is your sister Sukey the same person as Susana Jones?”

  Latricia stared at me for a moment. Then her lips quirked with humor. “Is that why you come up here? You think Sukey and Susana are the same person? It’s all that movie stuff coming here that brings it all back to haunt folks. No, Sukey took off when she was young, but it wasn’t Billy Joe that got her pregnant. I don’t know why y’all want to stir up all that old stuff anyway. I was just a little kid, but I remember how upset my mama got at everything that went on back then. It was hard times. We kept to ourselves all we could. Now it just needs to die, but some fool has gone and written a book about it, and there’s gonna be a movie—seems to me people oughta have something better to do.”

  I couldn’t help but agree with her. I might have told her that, but she stepped up into the house and shut the door behind her with a final thud that left us in no doubt how she felt.

  “Well,” Rayna said, “I guess we’ve hit a dead end.”

  During the past few minutes Bitty hadn’t said a word, just stood next to us with her pug in a sling and looked around as if she was bored. I glanced at her and saw something like horror in her expression as we turned to go.

  “Are you okay?” I asked her, and she nodded.

  “Mostly. I want to do something. Anything. Buy them clothes, coats, shoes and socks—and a gross of pink barrettes.”

  Bitty is one of the most generous people I know. She donates to charities, heads fund drives, and supports benevolent societies. Sometimes Jackson Lee has to rein her in before she gets too carried away.

  “I know, honey,” I said softly. “It’s difficult to see people in need. We’ll think of a way to help them. I have a feeling Latricia wouldn’t be pleased if you showed up with a gift basket.”

  “You’re probably right, but I must do something. I will do something.”

  We were almost to Rayna’s SUV when like a bolt from the blue, a tan and black comet leaped at the pink pug still attached to Bitty. She turned quickly, shielding Chen Ling with both arms while I tried to grab the dog jumping up at the fiercely growling lunch meat wearing pink velvet. Chen Ling is dumb as dirt. She egged that dog on by barking and snarling, scrabbling at the pink chenille sling to get loose and go after a dog five times her size.

  Staggering sideways in her stilts, Bitty tried to keep her balance, but it was a losing battle. Rayna leaped for Bitty since I was doing my best to keep that coonhound from gobbling up Chitling, and she managed to grab the sling right before Bitty went down. She landed with a solid plop in the dust. Small clouds rose up around her
. One of her stilettos had come off in the tumble and lay next to her. I had to grab the hound by its ragged collar and hold tightly while Rayna did her best to keep the little dragon from springing an attack from her chenille launch pad. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

  By the time we got Chen Ling slung into the car and the door shut on her high-pitched protests, Bitty up off the ground and her shoe back on her foot, I was breathless and sweating. If my face looked like Rayna’s, it was probably a mottled red from our exertions. With the pug out of range, the coonhound gave up its pursuit and snuffled off toward the double-wide. I was a bit surprised Latricia hadn’t heard the commotion and come outside. Of course, there was always the possibility that she was standing inside looking out a window and laughing at the crazy white women.

  That’s what I would have been doing if I was her.

  Once we were all in the car and headed back down the goat track to civilization, I turned to look at Bitty in the back seat checking Chitling for any possible injuries. “I hope you realize,” I said in my harshest tone, “that one day that dog is going to get us killed.”

  “Don’t be silly, Trinket,” she replied calmly. “It wasn’t her fault that beast charged us. I hope it wasn’t rabid. My poor precious was just terrified.”

  I turned back around and stared out the windshield for the next five miles, stewing over the insanity that always seems to accompany Bitty and her familiar.

  Rayna didn’t say a word until we were back on Highway 5 and headed to Ashland. Then she just asked if we wanted to stop and get a Coke. We stopped at the Citgo gas station/deli at the curve of Highway 5 and Ripley Avenue, then headed back up Highway 4 toward Holly Springs. I took some satisfaction in the stares Bitty had gotten in the gas station that smelled like fried chicken and coffee. Dust coated her navy skirt and jacket, and her beautiful stilettos looked like they’d been dragged through a dust bin as well; I had found it amusing that she saw someone she knew from one of her endless social clubs. Bitty hadn’t acted as if she was aware she looked like we’d dragged her behind the car, but smiled pleasantly at the woman and promised to include her name on the committee for the preservation of wildflowers along the highways.

  A part of me had to admire her aplomb in the face of what was for her, social disaster. It would take more than a little dust and bedraggled appearance to daunt our heroine, it seemed. If not for the fact I was still so blamed irritated at her for insisting upon carting her dog around with her everywhere, I might have appreciated her talent for stomping through a fertilizer farm and still come out smelling like a rose.

  As usual, it didn’t take long for my irritation to evaporate. By the time we hit the Holly Springs town limits all I felt was exhaustion.

  When we got to Delta Inn, Rayna politely asked if we wanted to come inside. I was quite grateful that Bitty didn’t want to, since all I wanted was to go home and feed critters, then sit in front of the TV and pretend everything was rosy.

  Since my car was at Bitty’s, I rode back with her in the BMW. It still smelled new. I held Chitling in my lap rather than force her into a doggy car seat in the back; it was only a couple of blocks. I was exhausted, and I imagined Bitty had to be just as tired. It’d been a long day as far as activity, even though it was only mid-afternoon.

  “I’m not cut out for this,” I said gloomily. “All I want to do is go home and go to bed. I don’t have the least inclination to do one more minute’s research into whoever killed Billy Joe, Abby, or J.R. Ewing.”

  “J.R.? There’s a blast from the past,” said Bitty. “Dallas used to be my favorite guilty pleasure. A lovely prime-time soap opera. Now TV has grungy people wearing scraggly clothes trying to out-bitch each other on some remote island, or people with two left feet trying to win a dance contest. Whatever happened to real TV?”

  We lamented the state of lame broadcasts the rest of the way to her house. My car was parked in front, and when I got out of Bitty’s snazzy little sports car I wondered if I’d make it all the way to the front curb without falling down. Apparently Bitty noticed.

  “Trinket, you look too exhausted to go anywhere right now. Come on in the house, and we’ll have some hot tea or Irish coffee.”

  “I’ll take the tea. I don’t want to risk a ride with Officer Farrell. He isn’t so pleased with me since finding Daddy’s John Deere on the court house lawn. Did you talk to the police about that yet?”

  Trotting toward the house on those beautiful, expensive stilts she insists upon wearing, she waggled a hand over her shoulder at me. “Just come inside, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  That didn’t bode well. Of course, Jackson Lee wasn’t back yet, and she could be waiting for his return to go in and tackle the police, but she shouldn’t wait too long. Farrell had looked pretty serious when he said she needed to come in to talk to them.

  Bitty forgot I’d made her set the alarm before we left, so when it began making that loud beeping sound that meant sirens and lights would start going crazy, Chitling would bark, and the police would show up, I got to it just in time to punch in her code. She was busy unwrapping the pug and setting her on the floor and didn’t even notice. She’d have noticed if it’d gone off. It had to be the loudest alarm I’d ever heard.

  While Bitty fussed over her furry little child, I put on the kettle to make hot tea. It had just begun to whistle when my cell phone rang. I barely heard it since Bitty’s grumpy gremlin was demanding an early dinner, and Bitty was asking her what she wanted. I rolled my eyes as I pulled my phone out of my purse.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” Rayna said before I even got out my “hello,” “but Mira Waller was seen sneaking into Buck Prentiss’s house last night.”

  I was immediately intrigued. While I like to pretend on occasion that I don’t indulge in such awful things as gossip, I am my mother’s daughter. My mother won’t admit it either, but we both enjoy a juicy tidbit of news about friends, family, and especially people we don’t like very well. It’s one of my biggest flaws. Fortunately, it’s also one of Bitty’s.

  Even though she was busy tying a bib on her gargoyle, Bitty suddenly sensed a change in the air, and her head turned, her eyes gleamed, and she gave me a look that obviously said, “What?” I just smiled and continued listening to Rayna’s report.

  “Gaynelle saw her park her rented car down the street, then walk up to the house Buck is renting. Well,” Rayna continued a little breathlessly, “Mira had on a hooded coat pulled all tight around her, but you know how Gaynelle is—after thirty years of teaching no one gets much by her, and she knew who it was because Mira wore the same shoes she’d had on earlier during the shoot. Gaynelle just happened to see them filming that scene. Apparently the shoes are pretty noticeable. Anyway, the front porch light was off, and she ran up the steps, and he opened the door real quick like he was expecting her, and the next thing you knew, the front room light went off, and the upstairs light came on.”

  I had to put my finger in my other ear because Bitty had started asking me who, what, and where in a very demanding tone.

  “Where was Gaynelle that she could stand there that long and watch?” I wanted to know, trying to visualize the street and houses. The trouble with being gone from my hometown so long was that people don’t always stay in the same places, and you have to relearn everything.

  “Oh, she was visiting old Mrs. Clark. She goes once a week, takes homemade goodies and a stack of tabloids. Mrs. Clark has been just drooling over all the celebrities in and out, and she has a ringside seat for Buck Prentiss’s activities. Apparently he has some loud parties as well as some discreet moments. Who would have thought it—Mira and Buck?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t have guessed it, that’s for sure,” I said. “I can’t believe she did that.”

  “What?” Bitty asked for like the tenth time. “Who are you talking about? What did they do? What did Gaynell
e see that we want to know about? Talk to me!”

  The last was a rather testy demand.

  I gave in and eased her inquiring mind. “Mira Waller snuck into Buck Prentiss’s house last night, and they turned off the lights almost immediately.”

  Bitty’s beady little blue eyes gleamed. “No,” she breathed. “Why, that sneaky little cat.”

  “Talk about life imitating art,” I said. “Lovers on and off the screen. That’s so Brad and Angelina.”

  “Oh, you never did get over him leaving Jennifer Aniston,” said Bitty. “Movie stars do that all the time. Look at Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.”

  “What amazes me,” I said to both Bitty and Rayna at the same time, “is that Brad Pitt couldn’t have found anyone more the opposite of his wholesome little wife, but now that they’re together Angelina’s become Earth mother to a half dozen children. I wonder what Buck and Mira will do. It should be interesting.”

  “They’re both young and single,” said Rayna, “so it really doesn’t matter what they do. They’re consenting adults. Or at least, I think Mira is an adult. She’s playing a fourteen-year-old, and when she’s in costume and on the set, she really looks it.”

  “Well, Buck doesn’t look young and innocent, even in makeup. Of course, I guess he’s not supposed to be since Billy Joe was so much older than Susana at the time.” I had to slap at Bitty’s hand when she tried to take away my phone. “Hold on there, lady. I’ll let you talk to her in just a minute.”

  When Bitty narrowed her eyes at me, I decided I’d teased her enough. “Hold on, Rayna. Bitty’s just dying to talk to you,” I said, and then Bitty had my phone in her hand and pressed to her ear and started firing questions at Rayna. I rubbed my ear where her fingernail had scratched me getting the phone away. “Trim your claws, Cat Woman,” I muttered.