I came up with an idea that I thought was brilliant. I told her I wanted her to sleep in one morning, and she seemed excited about it. After heaven knows how many years of having breakfast and lunch ready for everyone else, I wanted her to sleep and sleep, maybe even let me bring her breakfast in bed. She deserved much more than that, but it would be a start. She was the most admirable woman—make that person—I had ever met.
I could not begin to imagine what Glory had been thinking. I wanted to give the rat bastard Ray a piece of my mind, except men like him kinda scared me. Not because he was mean or anything, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that I had spent very little time in my life around men like him, real fathers. Men in charge, so sure of themselves, so certain of their place in the world. My world had been mostly comprised of women.
Still, I had a powerful urge to get right in his face and make him explain what on earth he was thinking to get involved with someone like Glory, however intriguing she might have been, when he was married to a woman as close to a saint as I ever hoped to encounter. So far, though, I hadn’t worked up the nerve.
“Eudora.”
I snapped out of my daydreaming at the sound of Lorena’s voice and realized that I was about to burn the okra again. I grabbed for the basket in which it was frying and yanked it toward me too quickly. Grease spattered on the front of the apron she had forced me to wear. It popped on the skin of my arm and on hers—
Hands as quick as her wits, Lorena snatched the basket at the same moment she pushed me aside to protect me.
“Come here.” I scrambled to see if she was hurt.
“Hush, child. I’m fine. Let me look at your arm.”
It stung only a little. I shrugged it off. “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to—” My voice trailed off as she competently emptied the basket in the trash and calmly started another batch, which pained me greatly, knowing just how much work preparing each one was.
“I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. I don’t know why I thought I could do this.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped. “You will do fine, just fine. Have some faith in yourself, Eudora.”
What I heard in her voice was a confidence I wished I could share, and also a little disappointment, like maybe she’d been looking forward to the treat of sleeping in. I looked at her and realized it must be hell to be the strongest person around, the Rock of Gibraltar for not only a family but a whole town.
I studied her hands, knuckles swollen with arthritis. I felt how much my own feet ached and thought about year after year of standing all day, only to have the man you loved rip away every last bit of comfort you had. A hard life is bearable when there’s love in it. Love softens the edges, takes you away for a bit.
“All right, I’ll do it. Soon, but not just yet.” There was no choice. I’d promised. I’d failed at too much, and I might screw this up, too, but I’d go down swinging.
Lorena ducked her head and busied herself with the next batch of okra. I looked over her head and noticed that Ray was focused on her with his forehead all wrinkled up. Then he darted a glance at me and surprised the living daylights out of me by giving me a nod, his expression conveying approval and maybe even some respect.
Never in a million years would I understand why he hadn’t taken steps to clear the air before they lost more precious time.
I would screw up my courage and ask him soon.
But for the moment, I had okra to fry.
The next day, I graduated to pie crust. In all my life, I never expected to love cooking, but under Lorena’s patient hands, I was actually becoming pretty decent at it. Imagine that.
It wasn’t as though I’d never cooked, I don’t mean that. When Sister was working to support us, I would come home from school and have something on the table when she arrived. It was a limited menu, though, learned from the Junior Cookbook handed out in the six weeks spent in my first fifth-grade class. I had three that year.
Best I recalled, Mama wasn’t big on cooking. We could seldom afford to eat out, but there were a lot of sandwiches and boxed five-for-a-dollar macaroni and cheeses. Iceberg lettuce with mayonnaise—only for us, it was store-brand Miracle Whip—on it. Every once in a while she’d splurge and mix ketchup and a little hot dog relish in it to make French dressing.
The next night, supper might be leftover French dressing scooped up with saltine crackers, and Mama would call it party dip.
So when I learned to make exotic fare like Vienna sausage wrapped in a canned biscuit, I thought I was pretty hot stuff. To say nothing of the one year I got to be in Camp Fire Girls for an entire semester and learned how to make a complete meal in tinfoil. Sliced potatoes, carrots and onion over a hamburger patty, salted and peppered, then tucked tight in foil and cooked in the oven as a substitute for coals . . . I thought I was Betty Crocker her own self.
I couldn’t resist sometimes, though, a little experimenting. The time I added Velveeta was not my most sterling success.
But Sister didn’t complain. And she’d always thank me, however awful the results might be. I understood, however, that we didn’t have enough money to be wasting food, so my era of experimentation died young. Best to stick with the tried and true, even if we ate a lot of the same thing over and over.
On Sundays when Sister didn’t have to work, we had a ritual. Most mornings, Sister was up before me. I usually had to get myself off to school and take care of myself afterward until she got home. I knew not to answer the door, and we seldom had the money for a phone, so she didn’t have to tell me not to let callers know that I was home alone.
But Sundays, Sister slept in whenever possible. And when I heard her stir, I had my specialty ready for the oven.
Cinnamon toast, with sugar as thick on top as I could mound, lots of bright yellow oleomargarine smeared beneath, completely covering the bread. It was so sweet your teeth would ache as you bit into it, hissing and doing that pant where you’re trying to rescue your scorched tongue. There is nothing that burns quite like hot sugar.
But boy, it was good.
I’d bring it to Sister in bed, along with coffee I’d learned to brew just the way she liked it. She’d let me have some, too, though mine was mostly milk. I’d perch cross-legged on the bed beside her, and we’d talk and talk, all the words we’d had to store up during the week because she was so tired by the time she made it home, and she still had to check my homework. Then it was time for bed because I had to be rested for school the next day.
But on Sundays over cinnamon toast was Dream Time, saved for talk of all we would do one day, where we would go and what we would see. That’s where I learned about New Mexico and Pueblo Indians and told her I wanted to see Scotland. Where we planned out the house we would own and the car that would be new, the rich food we’d eat and the clothes we’d drop to the floor for the maids to pick up.
I understood why the work week was different, but sometimes, in the middle of the night, I’d just go sit on the floor beside her bed and stare at her, trying to see into her mind and hear all that had happened to her that day.
Sister never talked about her problems, not until I was grown, and even then not much, but I could see them on her face. I never forgot what she’d given up not to leave me, and I tried to make it up to her every which way I could.
In the end, of course, she left, anyway. And I deserved my fate for the peace I had robbed her of in those last weeks.
I will make it up to you when I find you, Sister, I swear it.
Please let me find you.
“Eudora!”
I snapped to and realized that Lorena was shaking her head at me. “You are such a dreamer, child. What’s going on in that head of yours?”
Dreamer? Me? I hadn’t dared to dream since the last time I’d shared cinnamon toast with Sister, a stupid impulse I was positive would bring her back from the grave she was rapidly approaching.
My toast burned her tongue. I don’t know how to quit remembering that.
�
��What is it, Eudora?” Lorena asked softly. “What’s wrong?”
I swallowed hard and reminded myself not to discuss the past with her. There was nothing to be gained by it.
Her work worn hands rested on mine. “The piecrust will get tough if it’s rolled out too much.” Her voice was unbearably gentle. I wanted to lap her up like cream, to bathe in how she had warmed up to me. Been so kind. “Jeremy is so lucky,” I blurted. “If I had a grandmother, I’d want her to be just like you.”
She was startled. “Well.” She cleared her throat. “Well, now.” She patted my hands, and I wanted to turn them over and weave our fingers together and hold on.
Something sad slipped over her face, just for a second. “Let’s cut this one up, dust the strips with sugar and cinnamon and bake on a cookie sheet for a treat, shall we? Then we’ll start on the next one, and you’ll get it just right, I’m certain.”
I hesitated before the lifeline I wanted so badly to grab. Cinnamon and sugar and a second chance . . . how could that not be a sign?
But I didn’t quite see how it was going to get me to Sister.
Still, for the moment, it was enough. I smiled at her and headed for the cookie sheet.
And resolved not to wish for more.
Mah dawgs is tired.
There was a neighbor man once, an old fellow who would say that when he shuffled down the block after getting off the bus. I wasn’t clear where he worked—our stay in that neighborhood was even shorter than usual, and it was before Mama died, so I was real young—but that expression tickled me so much that it was still the first thing that popped to mind when my feet hurt.
As they did at that moment. Worse than ever before, even at Fat Elvis. The very idea of crossing the distance between the store and the RV was enough to make me weep.
“Hey, Red, whatcha up to?” Val sauntered near, his hair slicked back from the shower, his clothes obviously fresh. He had taken to spending the entire day with Ray and Jeremy and Tommy, working in the garage, yet to look at him now, he might have been lolling on a beach.
“Trying to get the strength to lay down and die,” I answered.
“Whoa, you’re not sick, are you?” Then he shook his head. “What am I thinking? You’ve been on your feet all day. Poor baby.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“I was hoping . . . ” His gaze swerved away, which surprised me, as Val was seldom hesitant.
“What?”
He shrugged. “I thought maybe you’d be a little itchy for some entertainment by now.”
“What kind?” One could say I had my share of entertainment, between feuding but lusty seniors, lovelorn pregnant rebels and sword-wielding gun dealers. Still . . .
“Wondered if you might want to shoot some pool. Looking at you, though, I probably know the answer.”
“Is there a way to shoot pool lying down?”
“Well, now, let me think . . . ” He scratched his chin. Then grinned. “Nope. But would you want to come with me and just have a drink?” There was an eagerness to him that was at odds with his usual blasé air.
“I wish I could, but—” I lifted my hands. I thought if I didn’t sit down in the next five minutes, I would weep.
“No big deal.”
But I had the sense that it really was. “Maybe if I could just rest a little.”
Val brightened in a boyish expression I had not seen from him before. I got a sudden vision of a younger, idealistic Val.
Except he’d never had that chance, had he?
I touched his forearm. “Let me just—” But I had been standing still too long, and when I stepped forward, a little moan escaped me.
“Hey, you’re in real pain, aren’t you?”
“I’m fine. Really.” I tried to draw myself straight. Concentrated on negotiating the next few yards with some semblance of grace.
But the next thing I knew, I was being swept off my feet.
Literally.
“Val, I’m huge. You can’t carry me.”
“You’re not wrong. You are an armload of woman, that’s for sure, Red.” He was carrying me, though, and he could move surprisingly well for not being that much taller.
“Put me down, Val.” This was embarrassing, even to one who’d long ago accepted that she would never be petite.
“We’re almost there.”
I kept waiting for him to stagger. “Your back will never be the same.”
He chuckled. “Hey, I probably won’t sue you for the cost of the surgery. Maybe.”
I scrambled to get down. “Stop it. Go away.”
He maintained his grip. Guffawed. His fingers were like iron. He leaned in, opened the door and called out, “Alex? You here?”
Only silence greeted us. He stepped inside and towed me along.
I used my free hand and shoved against his shoulder. Hard. “Get out of here. Let me go.”
Mirth was still alive in his features. “Red, you’re taking this too personally.” He got me to the tiny sofa. “Sit down.”
When he released me, I flopped on the sofa and crossed my arms. “I’m here now. Thank you.” I glared for emphasis. “Get lost.”
“Nope. I’m on a mission of mercy, and you’re not going to talk me out of it.”
Talk him out of it? I was going to shove him down the steps if he didn’t scram.
He dropped to his haunches before me, taking off one of my shoes and lifting that foot into his lap. His hands were warm and his fingers strong as he began to massage.
The urge I had to kick him subsided as my eyes rolled back in my head and my bones turned to jelly.
I was going down fast. Too fast. “No.” I sat up quickly.
“What the hell, Red? I’m trying to help you.”
“Keep your hands to yourself. I know all about you smooth operators.”
Once again, however, Val was not what I expected. He settled himself on the floor, Indian style, and cocked his head.
With a grin as wide as Texas on that face. “Do tell,” he said. “I can’t recall a woman ever refusing a massage from me before.” He leaned forward, his voice lowering as if sharing a confidence. “You really should have waited just a little longer, Red. You didn’t get a representative sample of the goods.” His eyebrows waggled.
He was enjoying himself so much that I was finding it difficult to hold onto my outrage. Val was nothing if not a charming devil. “So you say.” I shrugged elaborately, getting into the spirit of things. “Men tend to exaggerate their prowess often, in my experience.” Which was, of course, more limited than I would ever confess to a rake like Valentine Bonham.
The fire of competition sparked in his eyes. “Oh, Red.” His voice was syrupy with fake pity. “Red, Red, Red.” He uncoiled with a lithe grace that—okay, sue me—had my attention.
Through, Eudora. Through. With. Men. Remember?
“Stay right there.” One long finger pointed straight at me. “You’ve challenged my manhood, my honor and—” It was clear that he was getting a real kick out of this. “My skill at making a woman feel—” A look that could only be called smoldering, even though I knew it was fake “—verrry relaxed. So we will have ourselves a little wager.”
I hauled myself straighter.
“Unh-unh-unh,” he chided. “Put your feet back up and chill. It’s a harmless bet. If I make you feel . . . recharged—” That eyebrow waggle again, so dang cocky. “Then you come play pool with me.”
“And if you don’t?” I asked.
“But I will, so it’s moot. And you win, either way.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Even if I fail, you can’t possibly feel worse than you do now, and I promise you will feel much better.”
“You’re very sure of yourself.”
“Hey, what can I say? I’m gifted.” His expression was unrepentantly bursting with ego and good cheer. “Lie back, mademoiselle, and prepare to be astonished.” He swept me a bow that would have done a courtier
proud. Then he started rummaging through the cabinets, whistling.
The aggravating thing was, he was probably right. I didn’t see how I could lose. I lay back on the too-short sofa as if I was Cleopatra awaiting her servants.
Except for one niggling thought. When, exactly, had the asp shown up in the story?
So there I was, hovering just inside the door of the Rough and Ready, but all I was ready for was to rabbit.
All because Val challenged me to spend an evening having fun. Won a wager by reducing me to the approximate texture of overcooked pasta after he finished with my feet. Of course, then I napped for an hour. He must really have wanted some company to have waited for me.
“You played pool before?” he asked, leaning close.
“No. Yeah.” I frowned. “Well, sort of.”
“Care to translate?”
But I was busy scanning the room and bracing myself.
“Red?”
“Wha—” My eyes focused on him at last. “Oh. Um, the guy I, um, left had a pool table. He showed me a little.” Mostly about what two people could do on green felt besides shoot pool.
“Come on.” He grasped my arm and towed me behind him.
“Hey, Val. Wanna play some cards?” Carl Vincent, whom I’d met at the café.
“You go ahead.” I slipped from Val’s hold and slid a glance toward the door.
“Fun, Red. It won’t hurt you, I swear it.” He shook his head at Carl. “Not tonight, friend.”
Carl visibly wilted. “I—you said I could have another chance to win back my money. Darlene is pretty hacked off about me losing the trailer payment.”
My jaw dropped. “You let him gamble away his house payment?”
“Like I could stop him,” Val muttered.
“You go give him another chance, Valentine.”
“I brought you here so you could relax, Red. Have some fun.”
“How could I possibly enjoy myself, knowing that Carl can’t make his mortgage? Do you know how far along his wife is?” I bunched my fists on my hips.
“All right, all right. But what are you going to do in the meantime?”
What if his commitment to going straight was wavering? “Why, I’m going to play, too, of course.”
The Goddess of Fried Okra Page 16