Cutting Loose in Paradise

by Mary Jane Ryals

  Madonna got herself a beer from the fridge, held it up, and said, “You’re right, Rue. This is the best cure for a hangover.” She settled down on the sofa next to Grandma, and they watched the starting lineup get introduced.

  “Your grandmother—she enjoys watching near blood sport, kids bashing their heads together for entertainment,” Laura said as she set the table with forks and napkins with care. “It’s because of the name Seminole.”

  “The only place where her home nation has any national attention,” I said, shrugging. “I admit it, I can scream for the Noles myself. Something in us loves this crap.”

  Of course Grandma didn’t hear a bit of this, nodding her head to what was within her range of hearing, the pre-game bands playing. Taylor took Grandma her coffee while Daisy played solitaire at the dining table.

  I clumped downstairs to see how the beer turkey experiment was going.

  “The worst haircut I’ve ever seen is on that old Fletch Lutz,” said Daddy. “That has to be the ugliest—why would anybody want a cut that makes them look like they been wrestling with a razor?”

  “I seen a fellow over in Seattle had a jar head cut like that, only he’d colored it like a rainbow,” Madonna’s boyfriend Mickey said. Mickey was a homeboy out-of-work fisherman who was now working on the BP trucks in Mississippi.

  “Hey, is that the guy who holds up the John three-sixteen sign at all the Seahawks games?” Randy said. They hadn’t even noticed that I’d entered their conversation. The women were talking about football and beer, and the men were talking haircuts.

  “Sounds like a hairdo I’d enjoy creating,” I said. “Did you know if you stretched out a head of hair over time, what we grow in a lifetime would extend from Chicago to New York? So how’s the cooking going, guys?”

  “Should be ready in about thirty minutes, I’d say,” said Randy.

  “That’s if it don’t explode before that,” Mickey said.

  “Oh, no,” Daddy said. “Never seen it do that. Seen it blow up fat as a puffer fish, but not go boom, kablooey.”

  Randy gave me a smile. I stood enjoying the smoky smell and felt a hand on my neck, gentle, natural, and surprising as a dragonfly landing on your arm. It was Randy. I hadn’t expected that. My stomach flipped violently. I wasn’t ready to feel things like this, but I liked it. I froze, not knowing what to do. The talk shifted to the weather. I stood quietly, Randy’s warm hand on my neck. Dad either hadn’t noticed or pretended not to. As Randy began talking about the hurricane that hit when we were in high school, he started describing everyone leaving town at the same time. The line of cars, headed north on the highway, something never seen in St. Annes, aimed towards higher ground north. Randy moved his hand away from my neck to demonstrate how far out the long line of cars extended. It felt a little like relief. I headed back in. “Half an hour, then,” I said.

  THE APARTMENT FILLED with the scent of blueberries bubbling and nutty squash toasting, the fire smell of grilled turkey. Randy had carved the bird. The beer turkey had turned out okay. The game had hit halftime, so we consumed. At first everyone sat quietly and ate and raved about the food. Then Laura began talking about the story she was on.

  “I didn’t realize how close Magnolia Gardens was,” Laura said, “to the Magnolia River. It’s only quarter of a mile as a crow flies through those woods.”

  “And five minutes to walk through that dense woods. I used to hunt there in the fall,” Dad said.

  “Did you know about the septic problems?” Laura said.

  “Yep. Only three feet at most down to the aquifer,” Dad said. “And no paved roads. During Katrina, homeowners couldn’t get out. It’s so close to sea level. That, and the roads were under water. But it was the only place a lot of folks around here could afford to buy a house.”

  “Well, it’s incredibly dirty for the river, too,” Laura said. “Nutrients just flood in there.”

  “What’s she saying?” Grandma Happy said.

  “Septic tanks are dangerous,” Taylor shouted for her to hear. “When they fill up, there’s no earth for them to perk through to clean up the water. Learned about it in science class last year.”

  “It’ll kill you,” Grandma Happy said. “Any fool knows that.”

  “It’s expensive to get new septic systems, too,” Laura said. “Like ten thousand a pop. And the pollution you can’t see. It runs underground.”

  “And it’s the hydrilla that’s the indicator,” Randy added. “Eventually, the nutrient level could kill the whole of animal and plant life in the springs and river.” Everybody looked at him. He shrugged. “I’ve been studying it.”

  “White men making money, killing theyselves,” Grandma Happy said. “Old story. Turn up that TV, Taylor, the game’s back on.” Taylor shook his head and rolled his eyes at me. Then he raised the TV volume and pulled up a rocker for Grandma right in front of the TV so she could watch.

  “So folks in that huge neighborhood just repair their old septic tanks, or get their brother-in-law to. Then the tank keeps leaking nitrates into the aquifer,” Laura said. “It’s not regulated.”

  “You should see these catfish we found while I was working for BP, you know, on Dauphine Island out there off Louisiana,” Mickey piped up. “Catfish with burns on their heads and bodies. Big ole holes in their heads. It’s weird. And nobody knows if it’s the oil or the dispersants or what causing it. Downright freaky-looking.”

  Everybody got quiet again, grim looks on their faces. The media had been speculating that it could be a decade before the Gulf came back.

  “What used to worry me at the gunpowder plant,” Dad said, “was how close we were to the St. Annes.”

  “Exactly,” Laura said, “those rivers are sitting only a few miles from the plant and from our sewage. This was never meant to happen.” She shook her head.

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “Safety-wise, Magnolia Gardens should never have been built without a sewage system down this way. And then there’s Tallahassee’s runoff and sewage and the fertilizers they were using on the spray field farm,” she explained. “I’m trying to get a story out of all this, but it’s not easy. Information is so tough to pull out of officials.”

  “Stay on this, Laura,” Randy said, suddenly banging his fist on the table. He jutted his neck out. “It’s important.” We had all weathered a very bad storm with this unstoppable petrol heaving up out of the bottom of the deep ocean. But we were spent by it.

  “Since when are you a political activist, Randy?” I joked.

  “Since it affects me,” he said. “Directly.” A tangible pall hovered over us all. Then Randy got up and went to the buffet. “This squash casserole is the best thing I ever tasted.”

  “Old Indian recipe,” Grandma Happy piped up. Daisy, Taylor, and Daddy got up to heap more food on their plates and began commenting on how good this and that was. It was as if we all needed to lighten up.

  “Mama, are we going to die?” Daisy said loudly.

  “Not for a long time if you got any Indian genes,” Grandma Happy said. Everybody chuckled, and Daisy skipped to the living room to ask her grandmother how she made her skirt with so many layers of triangles. The party reignited.

  We stuffed ourselves with blueberry pie and real whipped cream, as if it were our last dessert on earth. “I’ll give free haircuts to anyone who will help out with the cleanup,” I announced.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, LaRue. We’ll all pay regular prices for haircuts,” Madonna said. So I cut hair all afternoon and into the evening. Not only Randy, but Dad, Mickey. A few locals stopped by to say hello when they saw Dad’s truck, Randy’s car, and Mickey’s Jeep, and they sat down for cuts, too. I ended up with cash enough for the mortgages for another month, since everyone paid so well. This Thanksgiving, we took what luck we could get.

  As usual, it rained Thanksgiving night. We needed it, so no one complained.

  I WAS ASLEEP, or in that near asleep state where you’re finall
y gone and you don’t even know you’re gone and then something jolts you awake. The letter. I’d totally forgotten about the letter from Trina to ECOL. The contents sat safely in my underwear drawer. The clock beside my bed said 12:53 a.m. The world was hushed. The wind had calmed down, the bars mellowed. I could even hear the Gulf’s waves in the distance. Daisy was asleep, and I’d allowed Taylor to stay out until two with Stephie.

  I turned on the bedside light, got up, and found the letter. The rain had brought in a cold front that felt like a possible freeze. I shivered and slid under the covers to read.

  The envelope felt rich and linenlike in my hands. It was taped shut, so Trina had probably not made a decision about not sending it right away. The business letter was typed and signed on paper with a logo that said, “Trina Lutz, Accountant.”

  The date in the center of the page was October 18th. The letter said:

  To the Partners of Ecological Corporation of Living Well:

  I am currently collecting and separating the receipts, expenses and resource data back up results for the year in order to begin reporting the tax files for the coming year.

  As you know, this past summer I submitted to you a letter detailing that I had discovered that the entire data results for the environmental study pertaining to Cases C-522387 and V-384021 properties had gone missing. They were replaced, but with numbers that are false.

  As a professional accountant, I must warn you that if these files do not have the correct data, it is my ethical duty to go to the proper authorities to report this incorrect material.

  Sincerely

  Ms. Trina Lutz

  Lutz Accounting

  cc: Preston Edwards

  It was all in code, numbers and letters that meant nothing to me. I reached for the cell phone to text Jackson, so he’d see it in the morning. Instead, there was a message from the school principal, left Wednesday before the close of the day. “Now what?” I thought. I hadn’t checked the cell for twenty-four hours.

  I’d have to call Jackson in the morning. Jackson had done cop duty all weekend, or I’d have invited him to the Thanksgiving dinner. This reminded me of Randy’s hand on my neck. The shadows on my bedroom wall made huge hands waving like claws. It was only the palm outside moving in the night wind.

  CHAPTER 20

  FRIDAY, I threw on jeans and added a nice sweater for Southern politeness, left Taylor with Daisy, and drove up to Wellborn. I couldn’t call the principal at school to see what was up, probably with Taylor. School was closed down for the holidays.

  The sky was a gray blanket without sun. I wended through the narrow streets of the black section of town, coming from the island side this time, and parked on the corner of the block where Mrs. Parsons’ house sat. The walk proved pleasant on the tree-lined street. Folks sat by the windows staring out, wondering what this stranger had in mind to do in their neighborhood.

  When I got to Mrs. Parsons’ gate, I stood and watched her for a minute. She must have been about seventy-five or so, and she wore a cornflower-blue housedress and a wide-brimmed hat with a blue ribbon. She was stooped with her back to me on her knees digging in the garden. She had dug holes and was placing marigolds into the ground, then covering them with dirt. She then doused them with water. I hoped she didn’t mind that I opened the gate and walked up the path. She sat back on her heels and turned around looking at me that way older people do—no fear, no resentment, not even much curiosity.

  “Sturdy bug repellants,” she said, pointing to the marigolds with her trowel. “They give you color even though summer’s gone. I’ll have to cover them once the next frost comes, crazy weather. They’re all fragile that way.”

  “Yes, they are,” I said. “Your whole yard is beautiful. I live on St. Annes Island where it’s sometimes hard to work a garden or grow flowers. Except for a few places. But I’m a block from the water.”

  “I like having a variety. I change it up all the time, too,” she said. Then she gave me the once over. “You know, lily-of-the-Nile will do right fine in the sun. Maybe hibiscus.” She was pointing with her trowel. “Nice purple color, the lilies. An orange hibiscus mixed in would be nice. I love flowers. And you know lantana grows like a weed in the sun. You’ll get a passel of butterflies if you have lantana around. And lilies, they’re easy anywhere. Not just at funerals.”

  “Well, thanks,” I said. “I’ll try to remember all that when I start working on the family place. Don’t seem to have much time right now.”

  “Chrysanthemums,” she said, wiping her brow. “Easy to grow.” She held up her hand. “Help me up, will you, baby?” I took her hand and put my other hand on her other elbow.

  “Did you donate those to the florist shop for the arrangement you sent Trina Lutz?” I asked. I winced at my bad segue.

  “Oh, heavens no. I let the florist do all that. Did you see that, then? I liked it. Silver. A color she liked all her life. Poor thing,” she said, shaking her head, brushing off her dress.

  Then she looked up at me with eyes slightly narrowed, showing interest.

  “So you knew Mrs. Lutz,” she said. “You her secretary or something?”

  “No, ma’am, not secretary,” I said. “I was a friend of hers. My kids haven’t really had a grandmother. My mom died when I was born. So Trina kind of took it upon herself to spoil mine rotten,” I said, smiling. “It’s funny she never talked about you.”

  “Oh, no, I wasn’t her nursemaid, baby. I was the woman who raised up her boy,” she said, slowly walking up the stairs. “Can I get you a glass of water?”

  “No—I mean, yes, ma’am, that would be nice,” I said. Old-time women, black or white, liked to be ma’amed. It showed decent manners. And I didn’t want her to disappear into the house without discovering more.

  “Come on up here,” she said, pointing to the rocking chairs on the porch. She had a high wooden porch painted gray and three rocking chairs with fading green and black paint. “I’ll fetch us some water. I am nearly dying of thirst.” She came back outside and sat.

  “So you raised up that child who later drowned?” I said. “That must have been hard for Trina.” I pulled my jacket snug as she set water down on a TV tray between us.

  “Oh, no. Not that one,” she said, then took a long drink of water. “The older one. I reared that white boy right here in this house. Only saw Trina on the weekends. It’s a shame what that father talked her into. Having someone else raise up that child as if it wasn’t hers.” She took a long drink of water and held onto the glass.

  “Oh, the older one,” I said, as if I knew. “I didn’t know him. What was his name again?”

  “Preston,” she said. “Preston Edwards. She gave him her family name. Kind of cold out here.” We were both huddled in our rockers, shivering. “I’m gonna make us tea. You sit tight.”

  She went back inside, which gave me time to rock and think and rub my arms and legs warmer. Where had I seen that name Preston Edwards? It was the cc: on Trina’s letter to ECOL. Preston Edwards. Would this guy have killed his mother? For money? To hide something?

  “Put you a teaspoon of sugar,” she said, handing me a cup.

  “Thank you, ma’am. Would you like me to turn on this space heater and put it right on you? I’m not so cold myself,” I lied. I didn’t want her to go inside, so before she had a chance to say anything, I angled the heater at her and clicked it on.

  “Thank you, dear,” she said, sitting back, sipping now on her tea.

  “Nice heater. Those big metal ones do the trick.” I took a sip of tea, putting the cup under my chin, steam rising and warming my neck.

  “Got it on sale,” she said. “Up in Tallahassee. Only twenty-five dollars. I think it was on sale when we were having that heat wave back in May before the oil spill. People aren’t thinking about heaters and heat waves at the same time,” she said, chuckling. She stared out at the ball field across from her house. She turned with wide serious eyes now. “So how’s things down St. Annes way, what w
ith the spill and all?”

  I told her how tough times were down on the water. Fishermen out of work. “Fish seem okay, but folks don’t trust the water. The fishermen who have work are over in Mississippi and Louisiana helping with the cleanup.”

  “Nasty stuff,” she said. “Don’t know why they build stuff if they don’t know how it’s gonna do, if it’s gonna blow up or something.” She shook her head.

  “So, Miss Parsons, why did you raise him up, Preston?” I said. “I am not just nosey. I really—it’s important for me to know.”

  “Important, is it?” she said, looking across the street again, but beyond to the graveyard. “Don’t know why it should be. All the past now. She’s dead now, poor lady.” She looked down at her garden. “Yeah, I reckon I taught Preston pretty good. He runs a whole funeral business now. He comes around and sees me every Saturday.”

  The one at the funeral home, the director who covered up the means of death? The way he was behaving, so casual? I leaned in to her without thinking. It couldn’t be him, I thought.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I’m sure you’re proud of him. Do you think of him as your own?”

  “Sure do,” she said. “And he calls me Mama. Now his real mama’s gone, I’m all he got. She paid me good the first five years of her boy’s life.” She looked at me. “Paid me to take care of him. Well, I loved that boy so much, I said, ‘Don’t be paying me no more for this child, you hear? This is the Lord’s blessing on me.’ But she insisted. Wanted him to have the best. And we did. We had a good life together.”

  “You say he runs a funeral parlor?” I said.

  “Yeah, the one that buried Trina,” she said. “Edwards & Parsons Funeral Home. He named it that after his two mamas.”

  Suddenly pieces were fitting together: the photo of a young Trina with a boy I recognized, the fellow at the funeral home who hovered over me with the slicked back hair who must have known I’d seen Trina’s stitched-up neck.