by Ashton Lee
A wave of laughter broke across the semicircle. “So I wanted to ask each of you to consider temporarily donating any comfortable seating you might have around the house or even in the attic. Anything will do. A couch you don’t use, maybe patio furniture that we could put out on the deck overlooking the lake because I know people will want to take in the view—you get the idea. Of course, it needs to be fairly presentable. We don’t need something that Fred Sanford would have sold in his junkyard. Just think of this as the Great Chair Emergency Roundup, and I’m sure the library gods will smile down upon us for it.”
“Well, we have a few things in the attic that might do,” Mamie Crumpton said, for once sounding a positive note.
“Yes,” Marydell added. “There’s a grand old sofa up there, and we could have our Jellica vacuum it good to get out all the dust mites. And there are a couple of easy chairs we haven’t used since Father died. Now, I wouldn’t say they were the latest style, but I can guarantee they’re both comfortable since Father and Mother would fall asleep reading in them all the time.”
“They’re butt-sprung,” Mamie said offhandedly.
Marydell’s jaw dropped. “My goodness, Mamie, was that necessary?”
“Now who’s being stuffy, Sister dear.”
Maura Beth stepped in as peacemaker once again. “I suspect it’s perfectly fine if no one has to break them in. I think the Crumpton family has us off to a very generous start. Anyone else want to offer something?”
Becca spoke up next. “We’ve got some lovely chair cushions that we could contribute, don’t we, Stout Fella?”
“Uh, well, if you say so. The only thing I’ve been keepin’ track of lately is how much money we’ve spent on baby furniture and stuff. Man, it’s an eye-opener what all this paraphernalia costs.”
“For heaven’s sake, Justin, the library doesn’t need cribs or basinets. This isn’t a day care center.” She paused as everyone snickered. “And we could also lend some of our patio furniture. When the weather’s nice, we have our coffee and biscuits out there every morning by the rose garden. Wouldn’t that work for your deck?”
“It would be perfect,” Maura Beth said.
Douglas raised his hand next. “Connie and I could spare a little divan in the guest bedroom upstairs that no one ever sits on. Honestly, I think it’s in showroom-new condition. Even dust won’t settle on it.”
“I think the reason nobody sits there is because I’ve put too many throw pillows on it. It’s all covered up. Tastefully, of course, but still covered up. I’ll be the first to admit that there is such a thing as overdecorating and going crazy with fabric swatches,” Connie added. “So, do you think you might be able to use some throw pillows, too, Maura Beth?”
“At this point I’m not turning anything down. It’s the comfort of the patrons that concerns me.”
After the input of a few more volunteers, Maura Beth relaxed just a tad bit. If they had to have an emergency move-in tomorrow evening, she knew everyone would pitch in and get the job done. Whatever else her Cherry Cola Book Club was, it had never failed to be supportive of what was best for Greater Cherico. As much as the new library would be, it was also part of her legacy to the little town.
4
Couches and Cushions and Chairs, Oh My!
Jellica Louisa Jones had been in the employ of the Crumpton family since she was sixteen, a period going on twenty-five years now. Before that, her mother, Surleen, had gathered up all the courage she could muster and just shown up one morning from the “shanty side of town,” asking if the family needed any extra help. On an impulse, she had carried a small bouquet of sunflowers she had stumbled upon and picked by the side of the road for what she hoped would be the job clencher. Flowers never hurt anybody or anything, she had reasoned.
“I need me some work bad to keep my family fed,” she had said, careful to keep herself calm and her dignity intact.
As it would happen, her ploy succeeded, and she had begun cooking and cleaning for Myrna and Winston Crumpton, parents of Mamie and Marydell—staying on for forty years until her death from natural causes. Both mother and daughter had made a specialty of tidying up the dark, magenta-drenched Victorian parlor with its ball-and-claw furniture in which Jellica was now standing; so it would probably have been a safe bet that the Jones women knew every nook and cranny of the Crumpton household on Perry Street.
Except it so happened that Jellica had never actually been in the sprawling attic before. How that could be was impossible to say, but nonetheless, there it was. And around four-thirty on the afternoon before the new library’s Grand Opening when she was ordered by Mamie Crumpton to venture “up there” and “retrieve Mother and Father’s easy chairs and that couch,” she had the backbone and good sense to balk. Her mother had often said to her over the years, “Don’t take no nonsense offa those people jes’ ’cause they have all that money to throw around the way they do. They’ll be judged like the rest of us when that time come. You cain’t guarantee a seat in Heaven with a wad a’ money.”
Taking her faith-driven mother’s advice to heart, Jellica faced Mamie Crumpton and made a ridiculous excuse of a bicep with her skinny brown arm. Then her long, narrow face with its high cheekbones from the touch of Native American in her genes took on a no-nonsense scowl.
“Now, Miz Mamie, do I look like one a’ them disgustin’ bodybuilders with all the veins you see on TV all the time? I weigh all a’ one hundred and fifteen pounds when I’m soakin’ wet right outta the bathtub. Mama Surleen always said I was the runt of the litter. Now, how’m I s’pose to drag heavy furniture like that down from up there all by myself? You don’t pay me near enough money to even try. I say no thank you to that. I know you know I need me some help and lots of it.” She pointed to the ceiling. “I go up there on my own, you be waitin’ for the thud when I drop dead.”
Mamie bristled at first, but the truth of the matter quickly dawned on her. “Hmmm . . . I guess I wasn’t thinking.”
“That happens quite a lot these days,” Marydell said, knowing full well she would draw her sister’s ire. She realized too late that it had been a mistake to let Mamie know about Maura Beth’s phone call in the first place.
“Don’t you start up with me, Sister dear. You have just gotten so out of control since you decided to become a lowly front desk clerk at the library. I shudder to think what Mother and Father would have said about you catering to whomever comes in off the street to order you around like a servant. ‘Get me that book off the shelf, find me this one, here’s my fine because this book is overdue.’ Why, the very idea of a Crumpton groveling and collecting petty cash like some dime-store clerk makes me ill. We don’t take orders from anyone in this family. We give them.”
Marydell completely ignored her and turned to Jellica, who was obviously trying to keep her temper in check. “Don’t worry, dear. I was way ahead of my sister on this one. I’ve got three strapping young men from out at the high school coming to pitch in and do the heavy lifting. Maura Beth’s husband, Jeremy, recruited them for me. I’ve already called them up, and they said they’d be right on over. That muscle power you need is on the way.”
Jellica raised an eyebrow, meticulously smoothed the apron of her maid’s uniform, and then exhaled noisily. “Amen to that!” Then the scowl on her face changed to puzzlement. “Tell me somethin’, though. Whadda y’all want that old furniture drug all the way down here for anyhow? It’s ’bout a thousand years old, I reckon. Maybe older than that. Prob’ly got the dust of the first day of creation still on it. No tellin’ what’ll fly out if you beat it long enough. You best take my advice and let that old thing lie in its grave.”
“I do not appreciate you saying awful things like that in front of me, Jellica. It was fine, expensive, serviceable furniture in its day. Mother and Father swore by it,” Mamie said, striking one of her patrician attitudes. “I’m quite sure I don’t need your opinion in the matter, or anything else when you come right down to it. I don’t
pay you to comment on the décor. You are here strictly to cook and clean and make the house presentable for guests.”
“Be that as it may,” Marydell added quickly before Jellica could really get her dander up, “I’ll remind you again that we’ve passed the deadline my boss set for emergency furniture for the new library. The new furniture simply hasn’t made it to Cherico yet, so naturally we’ve gone ahead and set our backup plan in motion. It’s just part of being a Cherry Cola Book Club member.”
While Jellica nodded approvingly, Mamie continued to try to pick a fight. “Sister dear, I just wish you wouldn’t refer to that Maura Beth as your boss. It makes you sound so . . . well, so working class, and the Crumpton family was one of the important founders of this town. We were practically the first family to build a house on Perry Street. We led the way, and the others just followed suit. The rest is history, of course. It became the street where everybody who was anybody wanted to set up residence. Sometimes I think you are dead set on throwing away our proud heritage like it was a leaf in the wind.”
Marydell folded her arms, shot Jellica a knowing glance, and stared down her sister. “For heaven’s sake, that’s such old, tired news. You’re stuck on one note. Why don’t you tell me something I don’t know for once? And, by the way, last time I looked, there was nothing in this big wide world wrong with doing an honest day’s work, is there, Jellica?”
“Not if you wanna put you some food on the table erry day,” she answered with a lopsided grin and a slight thrust forward of her neck, like a turtle briefly venturing out of its shell to take a look around. “Call me crazy, but I swear by it and so do all my chirren.”
Mamie threw up her hands with her nose pointed toward the elaborate frieze on the ceiling. “I absolutely give up. This is hopeless and the absolute end. You two have become so chummy of late, I can hardly tell who’s the help and who’s the master anymore. And besides that—”
Marydell interrupted, sounding completely incredulous. “Master?”
“Don’t you dare bandy words with me, Sister. Not at this late date. You know how I feel about everything under the sun. I can’t believe this is what our family has come to. I certainly never thought I’d see the day. Marydell, you are a disgrace to old Southern families everywhere.”
“Well, I just happen to think what I’m doing is a big breath of fresh air for us Crumptons.”
Mamie bristled. “If I could disown you, I would.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
At which point Mamie had apparently had enough, walking off mumbling something to herself.
Marydell and Jellica were chuckling together at Mamie’s exit, but then Marydell grew serious, bringing her hands together prayerfully. “You know, Jellica, you should come to the library sometime—maybe on your day off next week. I’ll be right there at the front desk to check out anything you find that you want to read. Are you much of a library user? I know I haven’t ever seen you there since I started working and annoying my sister no end.”
Jellica didn’t have to think twice. “Never been a library user in my life, to tell the truth. You know, my mama couldn’t use the library back in her day, so she never had anything good to say about it to me. She always told me the truth ’bout everything. ‘They don’t let us black folks get cards,’ she’d tell me. I guess I still got it in my head that things is still like that around Cherico. Sometimes, you gotta let go to keep from goin’ crazy. If you don’t mind my sayin’ so, that’s how I’ve kept this job all these years.”
“Well, things are not that way anymore, believe me. Haven’t been that way for a long, long time. You should even consider joining The Cherry Cola Book Club and bringing some of your good food with you at our next meeting. We’d love to have you. But even if you don’t do that, you should definitely come out to the lake tomorrow for the Grand Opening. Had you planned to?”
Jellica shook her head, saying nothing and waving Marydell off as if she were swatting at a gnat.
“No, really, you ought to. There’ll be some food tents and later on in the evening some fireworks and then a country music concert by Waddell Mack. Maybe you don’t care for country music, but the man single-handedly brought the new Spurs ’R’ Us cowboy boot plant to Cherico. I’ll give him a listen for that alone, and I’ll even help you get your first library card since that’s part of my job now. Come on, now, it’ll be a lot of fun, you’ll see. And you ought to bring your children out, too. They like to eat, don’t they?”
“Lord, you should see how much they like to eat. I keep thinkin’ my boys’ll stop growin’ one a’ these days and gi’ me a break. They both over six feet now and still in high school. All right, then, maybe I will come on out, Miz Marydell, and bring Carver and Narvelle, too. And maybe the three of us’ll even take a seat on that old couch from the attic.”
Marydell laughed. “If I don’t beat you to it. But don’t worry, I promise to scooch on over for all of you.”
“You been doin’ lotsa scoochin’ lately, if you ask me. It’s tickled me.”
“Drives my sister crazy,” Marydell said out of the side of her mouth. “Which makes it all worth it.”
Jellica was all smiles. “Wusht Mama Surleen coudda lived to see this that just played out right here in the parlor. She woudda got such a kick outta it all. I don’t think she woudda stopped laughin’.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
Jellica patted her employer on the shoulder. “Yes, indeedy. Mama Surleen used t’say all the time that if you waited long enough, you’d see just about errything that go around, come around.”
* * *
Becca had been trying desperately to remember ever since she’d gotten the call from Maura Beth to execute the emergency furniture plan, but she was drawing a blank. “Justin, what on earth could I have done with them?” She continued to wring her hands over it all, but he didn’t have the answer, either. His job was to sell houses to other people, not keep up with the whereabouts of the decorative items of his own. That was women’s work.
“Beats me,” he told her, standing in the middle of the master bedroom in their lavishly furnished, white-columned mansion outside Cherico. The manse in the country, they sometimes called it. “Are you sure you didn’t give ’em away to the Salvation Army or something like that? You’re always doin’ things on impulse and then later on, you wanna take ’em back.”
She gave him a derisive glance, moved away from him, and plopped down on the edge of their antique four-poster bed. “Justin, please. They were wedding gifts from Mama. I would never have done something like that with them. The monarch butterflies in the design were to die for. Those chair cushions were my favorites until I decided to change the color scheme from royal blue to aqua. They’d come in handy now and make it more comfortable for people who have to sit in those folding chairs that Maura Beth is stuck with until the new furniture finally arrives. I’m just trying to help her out as much as I can.”
“And you’ve checked every closet and the attic?”
“Yes.”
He couldn’t help himself. “Then I guess we have one a’ those paranormal experiences goin’ on in this house. We should sell tickets, or notify one a’ those TV shows that chase after ghosts and always claim to have captured them on film.” He made a low-pitched, spooky noise and screwed up his face.
“You’re no help at all.” She wagged a finger at him halfheartedly. “This isn’t funny, and I’m not going to rest until we find them.”
He trudged over and sat beside her, putting his muscular, ex-quarterback arm around her shoulder in his most protective of gestures. “Please, hon. We’ve gotten too little sleep as it is with Markie. Now we’re gonna stay up half the night lookin’ for those cushions?”
The mention of their six-month-old son softened Becca’s attitude. At the moment, their pride and joy was “down,” and she was thankful for that. Those “baby breathers” were few and far between. Even though she and her Stout Fella had taken turns
with the bottles and changing diapers in liberated millennium fashion, it had been a while since either of them had gotten a decent night’s sleep. Perhaps she wasn’t thinking clearly these days as a result. “I know I sound unreasonable, but I just don’t want to disappoint Maura Beth.”
“Hon, we’re letting her use all our patio furniture for the deck. Isn’t that enough for you?”
“But that cast iron is even harder than the folding chairs. I was just thinking those cushions would be the perfect touch for people’s bottoms.”
“Nah. Your cookbook signing will bring in plenty a’ people, and they’ll all be standing around in line for you. They won’t even be worried about the chairs. No telling how many fans you still have from your radio days. Nobody in this town can say you’re not contributing.”
Becca bit her lip, clearly unsatisfied. Her attention to detail, always a source of pride for her during the long run of her radio show, had soared to new heights since becoming a mother. She was determined to become the best mother ever after waiting so long to have her first child. “Let’s just make the rounds of the closets one more time. This is an enormous house. Maybe I overlooked something. I’m good at putting things away in safe places and then forgetting where those places are.”
“You should never do that without telling me. I’m your backup, hon.”
“Maybe there are some things I’d like to keep hidden from you. That’s a woman’s prerogative.”
Justin snorted. “You know good and well you’d throw a fit if I tried to keep something from you. Women!”
“Don’t say something sexist like that to me, Justin Brachle. After all, I am the mother of your child,” she said, playing at chastising him.