“Two of the ladies in my quilting class at Oak Terrace are on the Residents’ Board there. When Ramon and his class presented their project to the retirement home’s board but couldn’t find an adult sponsor, Thelma Rook volunteered me. I think she did it just to force me into wearing a dress.”
“Makes her a stronger woman than me,” Dove said.
“You’re one to throw stones,” I said, reaching down and pulling at the strap on her faded denim overalls. “Are you anywhere close to being through? My toes are waving the white flag here in these pumps.”
“Keep your britches on, I still got one little part left to do.” Dove stood up with a groan, tossed her waist-length white braid over her shoulder and turned sharp blue eyes on Elvia. “What did you do, dance with a gorilla in this thing?”
“Gilberto’s brother-in-law, Dwayne, from Tupelo,” Elvia said. “A reasonable facsimile.”
“I think I’ll rest my knees and have a piece of that peach cobbler I brought you.” Dove reached over and pinched my forearm. “Word to the wise, honeybun. If you want that man of yours to stay sniffing around, you best start keeping something more to eat in your icebox than Coca-Cola and Hostess Cup Cakes.”
“If he wants food, let him date a chef,” I said to her retreating back. She snorted in reply.
I kicked off my half-size-too-small satin pumps and sat on the bed, carefully avoiding the pins still holding part of the hem in place. “How’s the Mardi Gras festival coming along?”
Blind Harry’s, the combination bookstore and coffee house Elvia managed in downtown San Celina, had been chosen by the Chamber of Commerce as this year’s official Mardi Gras headquarters. She was in charge of the Mardi Gras Street Festival and Parade to be held a week from today. It was, according to our own San Celina Tribune, the most authentic Mardi Gras celebration in the United States outside the state of Louisiana itself. It was started fifteen years ago by a bunch of Louisiana natives transferred to the Central Coast by the various oil companies to work on the offshore drilling rigs. When the drilling stopped, many of the workers stayed, along with their festive and sometimes rowdy customs. They fit right in here in festival-loving San Celina County, where any excuse to “let the good times roll” was welcome.
“Everything’s on schedule so far,” she said. Elvia was in her element with a project like this. Nothing made her happier than being in charge. “It’s been more work than I anticipated, but the money we’ve taken in selling Carnival beads, trinkets and Mardi Gras masks has already made the books look better than the last five Februaries. That should upset Cameron a bit.” Her delicate red lips relaxed in a tiny satisfied smile. Cameron McGarry, the mysterious Scottish owner of Blind Harry’s, had originally intended the bookstore as a tax write-off to defray some of the profits of his three casinos in Reno. When Elvia took over the store five years ago, amidst all predictions to the contrary, she built the business into the most popular and profitable bookstore in three counties by adding a basement coffee house, special sections for mysteries, romance and science fiction and acquiring the largest commercial inventory of ranching and animal husbandry books in the state.
The phone on the nightstand rang. Elvia handed the receiver across the bed to me and stood up, pointing toward the kitchen.
“Save me some,” I said, my hand over the receiver.
“Benni?” The caller was female and distinctly aged.
“Yes?” I searched my brain trying to place a name to the semi-familiar voice. All fifteen women in my quilting class at Oak Terrace Retirement Home, a class sponsored by the Artists’ Co-op and a small city grant, had my phone numbers at home and at work. While working on the projects for the coming Spring Has Sprung boutique two months from now, they’d taken to using them indiscriminately.
“Miss Violet,” she said, her shaky voice sounding exasperated.
“Oh, yes, Miss Violet.” I made a face at myself in the mirror. “How are you?”
All the ladies in my group had asked me to call them by their first names, except Miss Rose Ann Violet, who wasn’t about to allow that sort of informality at this late date in her life.
“She said she was going to kill him.”
“What?”
“She used the ‘A’ word, the ‘B’ word and the ‘D’ word. Twice.”
I shifted the phone to my other ear, wondering if senility had finally become brave enough to move in on the indomitable Miss Violet. “What are you talking about?”
“Oralee Reid,” she said. “And Brady O’Hara. Of course, I’m not surprised it has come to this. Poker is the devil’s own game. After Hattie told us everything, he turned mean as a snake and never could be trusted. We had to watch him every minute. Nickels or M&M’s. Doesn’t matter to them.”
“Excuse me?” It wasn’t the first time one of my ladies had strung together a group of sentences that didn’t quite fit with each other. Many of them were at Oak Terrace because of slight strokes, not just old age.
“Haven’t you been listening, Benni Harper? My goodness, you haven’t changed much, have you?”
She reprimanded me like my fourth-grade teacher, which was entirely natural, because she had been. Besides me, there were forty-two years of San Celina’s most upstanding citizens who had felt the sting of her tart voice and the humiliation of having their name scrawled in chalk on the comer of her clean blackboard. She didn’t teach everyone in San Celina the intricacies of fractions and the history of California missions, but there were enough of her alumnae around to swing a vote if they were so inclined.
“I am too listening,” I said, my tone reverting to a childish grumble. I cleared my throat and attempted a more adult tone. “I’m sure Oralee was kidding.”
“I think not. She swore on King Enoch’s head.”
“Really?” That shed an entirely different light on the matter. Oralee did not toss King Enoch’s name about frivolously. He’d been her prize Black Angus bull, the core of her herd for years. About six months ago, he broke out of his pasture and was trotting across the highway, equipment waving in the breeze, heading toward a bunch of unsuspecting heifers, when he was struck and killed by a one-ton Ford pickup hauling five-strand barbed-wire fencing. The rancher driving the truck came through without a scratch, but a lot of people believe the shock of King Enoch’s untimely death brought on Oralee’s stroke and her subsequent stay at Oak Terrace.
“I think we should inform the authorities,” Miss Violet said. “Isn’t your new beau connected with the police department in some way?”
“In some way,” I said vaguely, hoping she wouldn’t remember how. “What exactly is the problem between her and Mr. O’Hara?”
Miss Violet sighed. “Oralee said that he’s been cheating at poker for the last two months. They play for nickels. Or M&M’s.”
Well, that explained the earlier comment. The temptation was too great for me. “Plain or peanut?”
She sighed again. Louder this time. “Albenia Louise Harper, are you taking me seriously?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. When Miss Violet used your full given name, it was time to stop joking. “I’m sorry. Can’t you speak to Mr. Montrose about it? As manager of Oak Terrace, it seems to me he should be the one to straighten this out.”
“That man!” Her voice grew as shrill as a parakeet’s. “All he’s concerned about is how many sugar packets we’re using in our cereal every morning. He’s absolutely no help whatsoever. He thinks he’s going to save himself watching those horses. Why, we told him he was going to have to pay. Did he really think he would get off scot-free? You know, he never was dependable. Oralee should have known that, but a body can’t tell her anything.”
I didn’t even attempt to figure that whole story out. “What exactly would you like me to do?” I asked with as patient and pleasant a tone as I could manage.
“Speak to Oralee,” she said. “For some incomprehensible reason, she listens to you. Some control must be gained over that temper of hers or I shall be forced to officially pla
ce a request for a more agreeable room companion.” Her voice lowered. “She smokes cigars, you know. In the bathroom at night. She thinks I don’t know, but I do. Papa always said I had the nose of a bloodhound.”
Miss Violet and Oralee shared a room in one of Oak Terrace’s ambulatory wings, where the criteria for matching roommates was, at best, hit or miss. In their case, it was as unlikely a pairing as Minnie Pearl and Ma Barker. Miss Violet’s frantic whispered voice interrupted an amusing picture of Oralee puffing away on an old stogie.
“Oh, my goodness. Guess who just walked into the room?”
I heard a muted grappling for the phone. Oralee’s coarse, burnt-grass voice bellowed through the telephone line. “Who is this?” It was a voice used to pinballing orders across hills dotted with thick-trunked oaks to men reluctant to oblige the instructions of a woman, even if she did own the ranch.
“Hi, Oralee. It’s Benni Harper. Miss Violet has just been telling me—”
“I heard what Little Miss Rosy-Posy-Pudd’n ‘n’-Pie was tellin’ you. Did she mention that O’Hara is a scum-bellied, cactus-mouthed, card-cheatin’ son-of-a-biscuit?” Only the slight slur at the end of her words gave away that she’d suffered a stroke to her left side.
For a moment, I sympathized with Miss Violet. I’d been on the thrashing end of this voice myself more than once. Eighteen years ago, when I was sixteen, to earn the down payment for my first car, I worked weekends for Oralee as a nightrider checking pregnant cows. She made it clear from the beginning she thought I was a snot-nosed kid with a smartass attitude she was only hiring out of respect for my daddy. She watched me like a savage old prairie falcon from underneath her stained and battered Resistol cowboy hat until I proved to her I knew the proper way to search for cows isolating themselves in preparation for birth, how to monitor their breathing and use my flashlight to check their sad, dark eyes for signs of trouble. She helped me pull more than one calf, her tanned, sun-leathered lips turning up in a rare smile while we watched the cow lick and lick its calf until the spindly legged baby stumbled up for its first milk. Twice when I pulled with her, we lost calves. Once, both the cow and calf. Each time, after a prolonged cussing fit, she didn’t speak for the rest of the night. Then she fixed me warm almond milk and cinnamon toast in her old kitchen before I rode my paint horse, Zelda, home. I loved Oralee like she was one of my own relatives, but I didn’t envy Miss Violet her roommate.
“Yes, ma’am, she did mention Mr. O’Hara once or twice in her conversation,” I said. “Look, I’ll talk to him myself about it tonight. I’m sure it’s all just a misunderstanding.”
“Bull paducah,” Oralee replied. “Brady O’Hara is evil and a crook besides, plain and simple. Always has been, always will be. Thinks that store-bought-oleo tongue and devil smile of his can get him out of anything. You just better call the cops and have him hauled off to the clinker before I kick that Irish butt of his all the way to Tucson.”
“C’mon, Oralee, the police?”
“Bet you know that number by heart.” A harsh noise came over the line—somewhere between a cough and a squawk. If I didn’t know better, I’d have sworn it was a laugh. “We’ll make that young crossbred stud of yours earn his keep by doing something besides sitting there on his sweet little ass”—I heard a noisy struggle through the phone—“Ouch! Don’t you pinch me, old woman. Oh, for pity’s sake—fanny—looking pretty.”
“I’ll talk to Gabe about it as soon as I see him,” I said, stifling my laugh. It would only spur her on. “I’ll see what he can do. Are you ready for the prom?”
“Waste of time. I’m eighty-two. Don’t got much to waste.”
“You have to go. It’s the quilting class’s project. And you are the president.”
“Only because Mittie Barntower bit the big one and you all elected the only other person who has half her marbles around here.”
“Oralee,” I said with mock sternness. That comment probably earned her another black mark on Miss Violet’s mental blackboard. “Look, I have to go. Dove needs to finish fixing the hem on my dress. I’ll see you tonight.”
“Okay,” she said, reluctantly. “You tell Dove ‘hey’ for me and thank her for that deer jerky she sent by Mac. It sure hit the spot. And don’t you be forgetting to talk to that cop of yours, hear me?”
“I won’t. I’m sure he can work something out with you two.”
“Well, I expect results or there’ll be you-know-what-hot-spot to pay.” Her voice became muffled when she turned away from the phone. “That make you happy, Miss Priss?”
“Oralee,” I said in a loud voice. “Try and behave.”
“’Bout as much chance of that as a coyote at a jackrabbit convention.”
“Spare me the Western homilies. And wear a dress tonight. If I have to, so do you.”
“When a bull fills a milk bucket,” she said cheerfully and hung up.
I was standing in front of the mirror, studying the ridiculous-looking dress, envying the freedom from vanity people Oralee’s age had, when Dove and Elvia walked back into the room. Elvia settled back down on the bed, a china-blue bowl of peach cobbler in her hands.
“Who were you yelling at?” Dove asked.
“Oralee Reid. And I wasn’t yelling. I was just trying to get her attention.”
“What’d that cranky old biddy want?” Dove asked, an indulgent smile on her face. Dove was one of the few people who never let Oralee get under her skin, probably because she gave as good as she got.
I gave a Reader’s Digest version of the incident.
“Well, it’s a real shame she’s having a hard time adjusting to Oak Terrace, but poor Mac didn’t have any choice. Even though her stroke was a small one, she was getting to where she couldn’t run that ranch. And she refused to move in with him. One time he came to visit her and all the burners on the stove was going full blast while she was out in the barn repairing a hay crib. About scared him to death.” Dove picked up the apple-shaped pincushion from the dresser, her face pensive. “I really feel for her. Leaving your home is hard.”
“I know,” I said, remembering the slow, satisfying tempo of ranch life—how Jack and I would lie in bed and laugh at the scratching of the squirrels playing tag on our wood-shingled roof, the new-fabric smell of fresh hay, the clump of his heavy work boots hitting the wooden service porch floor at the end of the day.
“Still having trouble sleeping?” Dove asked, reaching over and brushing my curly bangs out of my eyes.
I turned my head and didn’t answer. Jack’s death wasn’t something I felt the need to talk about anymore. You get to the point where it seems as if everything that could be said, has been. What no one ever told you, and maybe couldn’t, was how much grief was like one of those long, slow illnesses where bad and good days were as unpredictable as a pull on a slot machine. Just when you thought you had it licked, when you weren’t paying attention, some memory hit you right between the eyes and your senses throbbed with the loss, leaving you trembling with an emotion not unlike fear.
But the good days were finally beginning to outnumber the bad. Having Gabe in my life helped. He had an arrogantly zany twist to his personality that could make me laugh sometimes when nothing else could. On good days, I could almost forget how Jack died, lying in a ditch, killed by alcohol and stupidity. Instead, I liked imagining him with my mother, who died when I was six, both of them sitting together on a long white front porch somewhere, shelling peas and watching over me. Oh, I had sleepless nights, but it was the still-unaccustomed city noises as well as getting used to sleeping alone that kept me punching channels into the early morning, cruising the cable stations from The Donna Reed Show to old Gary Cooper movies. I understood what Oralee was feeling. Losing a way of life is a lot like losing someone you love.
“Change isn’t ever easy,” Dove said softly. “Human beings are surely fond of what they already know. But the good Lord helps us adjust.” She gave me a gentle push between the shoulder blades. “Now, you hop b
ack up on those phone books and let’s get this done. I got to get back to the ranch and cook your daddy’s dinner. And don’t you worry none about Oralee Reid. She’ll be just fine. That woman is pure seasoned oak.”
“Speaking of Oralee, how’s the church liking Mac?” I asked. Oralee’s grandson, MacKenzie Reid, had just been called as minister a month ago to the First Baptist Church over by Cal Poly University. It was a radical move for the conservative four-hundred-member church where I’d been baptized and married, then cried at both my mother’s and husband’s funerals. They were hoping, I’d heard through the grapevine, since I hadn’t been the most regular attender lately, to attract a younger crowd into the aging congregation. Mac Reid was a hometown boy, just turned forty, and widowed five years ago when his young wife died of a brain tumor. He was a big man, ruggedly handsome and too charismatic for his own good. He and my Uncle Arnie, both six years my senior, had been best friends in high school. They used to tease me until I screamed, causing Dove to march them out to the barn to shovel manure. In the seventies, Mac played a pretty mean defensive tackle for Baylor University, and right before graduating, shocked everyone when he received and accepted a higher calling than even the NFL. Definitely not your typical Baptist minister.
“He’s good,” Dove said, bending down and going to work on the rest of the hem. “Which you’d know if you darkened the church’s door more than once every three months.” I didn’t answer. “Talks real loud,” she continued. “Keeps most folks awake, even that lazy back-row bunch.”
“I always thought it was funny that Oralee’s grandson became a minister,” Elvia said, setting the blue bowl down on my nightstand.
“Probably a reverse kind of rebellion. You know kids,” I said in a pointed tone. “When you push them one way, they tend to go the other.” Dove just grunted.
“Is he living out at the ranch?” Elvia asked.
“Nope,” Dove said. “Oralee doesn’t know it yet, but he’s put the place up for sale. He’s got power of attorney since his dad died.”
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