by Webb, Peggy
The chances of Atlantis rising from the sea are better, but I don’t tell Uncle Charlie. Nor do I reveal that Lovie is not the one I’m meeting. Instead I kiss him on the cheek and tell him I’ll be here tomorrow in plenty of time to help handle the funeral crowd.
o0o
Remembering my nearly empty refrigerator, I stop by Kroger on the way home and pick up a twelve pack of Hershey’s bars, then eat two on my way back to Mooreville. It’s all Lovie’s fault if I get fat.
My drive home takes me past Gilvo Cemetery which is right on the side of Highway 178. I don’t know whether it’s coming fresh from seeing the murder victim all laid out on satin or whether it’s the way rain clouds scuttle across the moon and cast eerie shadows on the tombstones, but I get spooked.
Where is Lovie when I need her? For that matter, where is Elvis?
Back home, I hurry inside and lean down to hug my dog.
“I’ve missed you.” I bury my face in his fur. “Thank goodness, I can always count on you.”
He howls in a way that I swear sounds like the King singing “Steadfast, Loyal and True.”
“Thanks, Elvis. I needed that.”
I make sure the dog feeders and the water bowls are full, and then I change into a yellow sweat shirt with matching yellow striped pants. Stress might put me on an eating binge, but I never give up on fashion. I have an image to uphold.
It’s nearly nine by the time I reach my beauty shop. The lights from Fayrene’s convenience store across the street partially light my parking lot and cast shadows on the walls. The first thing I do when I get inside is switch on all the lights. I’ll admit it, I’m still spooked. Plus, I’m expecting company, and I don’t want her to think I’m not here.
I adjust the temperature on the sauna, not too hot, considering Leonora’s pregnancy. I’ll have to confess to a secret burst of envy. I expected to have a houseful of children with Jack, but he had other ideas, which is what split us up in the first place. If I keep dallying around trying to figure out if I want Jack, I’ll never have children. My eggs will be shriveled and my libido will be dead.
The thought is so depressing, I pour two glasses of Prohibition punch and down mine before Leonora even gets here. While I’m refilling my glass, she finally arrives, all out of breath.
“I’m sorry I’m late, Callie.”
“Don’t worry about it. Tonight we’re not going to watch the clock. We’re going to let our hair down and have some girl talk.”
I take the glasses into the sauna room, and then we undress and wrap ourselves in two fluffy towels. Pink, of course. I have them in every shade from royal rose to baby’s blush. In honor of Leonora’s condition, I have already laid out the baby’s blush.
When she comes out of the dressing room I ask her if she wants some Prohibition punch. I don’t know whether mothers-to-be can drink, or not. Personally, I would say no if I were ever so lucky as to be pregnant.
“That sounds good, Callie.”
We sink onto the benches in the sauna and are immediately surrounded by clouds of soothing steam. For a while we sip our drinks in silence, rolling our necks and stretching our legs and letting the heat unkink us. My personal philosophy is that talk is overrated. Sometimes more can be said with silence than with a thousand words. What I want my companionable silence to convey to Leonora is a sense of comfort, an atmosphere of safety, a place to relax and tell all.
Leonora makes a little moaning sound, which I mistake for relaxation until I look over and see tears streaming down her cheeks. I wait, letting her grieve in private.
Finally she pulls herself together and wipes her face on the edge of her towel. “I’m pregnant, Callie.”
Her confession is a stroke of good luck. I hadn’t expected to get to the heart of the matter so quickly. I don’t know why this surprises me. After all, I’ve been Mooreville’s Mother Confessor ever since I opened Hair. Net.
I scoot over so I can pat her hand. “Is there anything I can do to help you, Leonora.”
“Would you try talking some sense into Mother? She respects you, but she’s so mad at me she won’t even talk.”
“You didn’t do it by yourself. It takes two.”
“That’s what I told her. Jim Boy’s the father.”
“I’m so sorry, Leonora.”
“You and me, too. It’s bad enough that I went out with him after Trixie started dating him. She’ll never forgive me for this.”
“In time, she will.”
That I can offer such sage advice on a sore subject is a testament to my objectivity and self-control. I can see how time will heal the wound between Trixie and Leonora. But between Lovie and me? Never!
“By the time he and Trixie got engaged, I was so madly in love with him, nothing could have made me leave. When I got pregnant, I thought he’d break up with her, and we would be a family.”
Her naive viewpoint about men makes me feel sixty years older than Leonora instead of five (six, if you want to get picky). The last thing a man responds to is the feeling of entrapment. Maybe they’ll be noble and right-thinking with wives, but with casual flings? Never!
Leonora sips her wine, then leans her head against the wall of the sauna and closes her eyes. Time is running out. With the temperature at 170 degrees (I have a dry sauna, and not a steam room), you can only stay inside eight to ten minutes.
“But he decided to go through with the wedding?” I ask, nudging her back to the subject.
“He laughed at me, said he wasn’t about to be trapped. I was so furious I could have killed him.” Leonora claps her hand over her mouth, then reaches for my hands. “But I didn’t, Callie. Honest, I didn’t.”
Is she telling the truth? Without my sidekick in crime, it’s all up to me to find out.
“It would certainly be understandable if you did.” The look she gives me says, you don’t believe me. “I’m not saying you did, I’m just saying that under the circumstances even a judge would understand.”
Leonora clutches her stomach. “I feel faint.”
“Let’s get out. You’ve been in here too long.”
“No, no. There’s something else I need to talk to you about, Callie. You wait right here. I’ll just race to the refrigerator and get a bottle of water.”
“There’s plenty. You know where it is.”
While she’s gone, I sip my wine and speculate about her next revelation. Would it be a confession of murder in the heat of passion? Did she do it alone, or did somebody else help her? Was Alice Ann the accomplice? She swore to Jack that she was just talking to Jim Boy at Booger Bill’s. She’d probably been trying to convince him to marry Leonora and give his child a name. Alice Ann likes everything to be in order. But is she capable of being an accessory to murder?
I think I hear voices, but when you’re in the sauna it’s hard to tell.
“Leonora?”
I call her name a couple of times. She’s been gone an awfully long time for somebody who just wants a drink of water. I decide I’d better go and check on her. Besides, I’ve already been in the sauna five minutes. I pushed the door, but it’s wedged shut.
“Leonora!” I shove and bang and shout, but there is no response….and no way out. Has someone come into the shop and murdered her? Is the intruder planning to murder me, too?
The answer to that question is a definite yes. Five more minutes and I’ll start to sweat to death. In a couple of hours, I’ll faint. In the morning my customers will find me dead from dehydration.
“Leonora! Help! I’m locked in the sauna!”
Where is she when I need her? Probably lying in front of the refrigerator with the cord of my curling iron wrapped around her neck.
I search around for something to break the door down, but all I have are two half-empty glasses of Prohibition punch and a pink towel. Neither of them would qualify as a weapon, unless, of course, you’re in the bedroom with the heartthrob of your choice facing an evening of fun and games. Instead, I’m locked in my very o
wn sauna facing death.
I remove my towel, place it against the glass then kick as hard as I can. Nothing. It would take an elephant wielding a sledge hammer to get through the door. Or Lovie with a baseball bat.
In a brilliant burst of hindsight, I realize Lovie would never betray me. There has to be a logical reason she went to see Jack and an equally logical one that she didn’t tell me before the fact.
I’m beginning to sweat profusely. I purposely don’t look at my Timex watch because I don’t want to know how long I have before I die. I don’t put on the towel, either. It’s getting so hot in here I’d remove all my body hair if I could.
Figuring I might as well make good use of the wine, I sit back on the bench then drink all of mine and Leonora’s, too.
“What a way to die.”
The sound of my voice makes me feel a little better, so I quote part of Juliet’s death scene. I’m not Uncle Charlie’s niece for nothing.
“‘Farewell. God knows when we shall meet again. A faint cold fear thrills through my veins that almost freezes up the heat of life.’”
But that particular Shakespearean speech fails to comfort me. At least Juliet died for love. But what am I dying for? Meddling.
Still, I’m not going to just sit here and die in silence. Maybe if I yell loud enough, somebody in Fayrene’s parking lot will hear me. Leaving a trail of sweat to the sauna door, I bang and shout at the top of my lungs.
Suddenly the door bursts open and I catapult into the arms of Jack Jones. Wouldn’t you know it? Here is my big scene, and I look like chicken, plucked and parboiled.
I say the first brilliant thing that came to my mind.
“Hi .”
He doesn’t even reply. He’s too busy grabbing my towel and covering me up.
“Where’s Lovie?” I ask, which is my second clever statement of the evening. If there’s anything a man hates more than being trapped, it’s a jealous woman.
“Callie, can you stand up?” Before I could say yea or nay, he releases his hold and leaves me hanging onto a soggy towel and what’s left of my dignity.
“I sure could use a glass of water.”
“I’ll be right back. Don’t you go anywhere.”
Even if I want to streak to my truck in a wet towel and leave him to figure things out for himself, my legs won’t cooperate. I sink onto my love seat, too wrung out to even push my sweat-drenched hair out of my face.
Jack comes back and kneels in front of me with a glass of water.
“Here you go. Are you all right, Callie?”
I down the whole glass with one long, cool swig.
“I think so,” I tell him, which is the truth. Already I’m beginning to feel more like myself. “How’d you find me, anyhow?”
“Let’s just say I was passing through. Now, can you tell me what happened?”
“Leonora and I were relaxing in the sauna.”
“Wait a minute. Do you always open your sauna to your customers at this time of night?”
“No, but these are unusual circumstances.”
“Where’s Leonora?”
“She left, and then somehow I got stuck in here.”
“That’s how.” He nods to an overturned chair. “It was wedged underneath the doorknob. What were the two of you talking about?”
“Girl talk.”
“Are you sure about that?” Jack has this way of looking at you when he thinks you’re lying: he stares straight into your eyes until you can’t stand it anymore and start babbling the truth.
I’m not about to let him intimidate me. Furthermore, I’m not about to be the first one to look away.
“Positive.” I view myself as being cautious instead of uncooperative. I don’t want to point a finger till I have all the facts.
“Callie, I don’t think you should go back to your house alone tonight.”
“Are you proposing something kinky? If you are, I’ve got to brush my hair and put on some Jungle Gardenia.”
“I’d hold you to that if you weren’t drunk.”
“Since when?”
“Since I saw that nearly empty pitcher of Prohibition punch.”
“Guilty as charged.” I give him a smart salute that topples me from the love seat and straight into his arms. I’m ashamed to admit, I make no effort to untangle myself.
“I’m taking you home, Cal.”
If he’d said that two weeks ago, before we ever argued over the Blue Christmas caper, I’d be on my way home with him so fast it would make his head swim. As it is, I’m not about to get back together with him just because he thinks I can’t take care of myself. This is too little, too late.
“In your dreams.” I stalk into the dressing room. It’s an exit fit for a queen until I lurch into the door. If I were Lovie, I’d say a word that would peel paint.
Jack’s waiting for me when I come out, leaning against the sauna looking like a man who can never be manipulated. But I’m not above trying.
“You can leave now, Jack.”
“I’m driving you to Ruby Nell’s.”
“In your dreams.” I wobble to the love seat and plop my sassy self down. “I’m waiting for somebody more interesting.”
“Like hell, you are!”
He scoops me up and carries me to his Jag. Before I can decide whether to act like Jane to his Tarzan or Br’er Rabbit being tossed into the briar patch, he sets me on the front seat.
“I can take are of myself,” I tell him.
Leaning two inches from my face, he says, “See that you do, Callie.”
I sit on my side of the car acting as if I don’t even see him sitting over there looking like something good to eat.
All in all, it has been a traumatic day. The minute I get inside Mama’s house, I vanish to my old bedroom and watch until his car pulls out of her driveway. Then I let my messy hair down and have a good cry.
Elvis’ Opinion #5 on Lonely Hearts, Big Secrets and the Dating Game
The minute my radar ears pick up the sound of Jack’s sporty Jaguar, I know something’s cooking. I trot my portly but handsome self over to the window, and play good watchdog by letting out a howl. That dumb spaniel never even lifts his head. Listen, if it weren’t for me, somebody could rob Callie blind and get clean away.
Jack parks in the spot Callie uses then stalks into the house.
“That woman is going to drive me crazy.”
It doesn’t take a trained search and rescue dog to figure out what’s going on. Callie’s scent is all over my human daddy. Plus, being the super-smart canine I am, I can read body language better than the experts. My human mom got his goat again, and she’s under his skin to stay.
He strides in to the kitchen and drags a carton of eggs out of the refrigerator. Seeing an omelet in the making, I strike a handsome pose and perform a little shake, rattle and roll that sets my dog tags dancing.
“Elvis, if it weren’t for you, I’d leave Mooreville and never look back.” He begins to crack eggs with a vengeance. “If it weren’t for Charlie, I’d forget about catching the real killer. Let her spend a night or two behind bars. It might do her some good.”
Jack beats the eggs into submission, and before you can say, Merry Christmas, he puts a little something good in my dog dish then sits at the table to scarf down an omelet bigger than Texas.
“Doesn’t she know better than to bumble around in a case with a killer on the loose? What if he decides Cal knows more than she does? She’s leaving herself wide open as a target.”
I prance over and put my head on his knee so he can scratch behind my ears. Nobody does this like Jack. I get that good feeling I used to have when I was turning out hit records.
“Come on, boy.” He heads toward the back yard and I trot along beside him. “Who needs a woman?”
He heads to the gazebo and even lifts me up so I won’t have to climb those wretched steps on these short but powerful legs. Then he pulls a harmonica out of his pocket and we get a duet going, just us boys,
hanging out together in the back yard.
If that mythic beagle babe is hanging out at the truck stop, I hope she hears. I have quite a voice, even if I do say so myself.
Chapter Eight
Bobby Pins, Girl Talk and Bad Advice
There’s nothing like a crisis to bring out the best in Mama. After I finish my cry, she leads me into the den and hands me a cup of tea laced with Jack Daniels.
“I’m out of Prohibition punch, but this will do,” she says. “Drink it all.”
She’s got mascara smudged under her naked eyes, a smear of Pond’s Cold Cream on her cheek, and lipstick on her bottom lip but not her upper. Her hair is in tight little pin curls, and the bobby pins are sticking out through her hair net. She looks like a cross between a raccoon and a porcupine.
“Mama, you’re going to ruin your hair.”
“For Pete’s sake, Callie. You tend to your own little red wagon and let me tend to mine.”
“My wagon’s in the ditch.”
I wilt into the platform rocker, and take a big slurp of Mama’s liquored-up tea.
“I knew it!” she says.
“Knew what?”
“Bobby predicted you were in danger from a dark eyed stranger.”
“Holy cow, Mama! Bobby always predicts danger from a dark-eyed stranger.”
“Ha!”
“What does ha mean, Mama. It’s not even a word.”
“It means you don’t know everything you think you know.”
“I’m too tired for this. I’m going to bed.”
“Carolina, if you don’t tell me what happened this instant, I won’t sleep a wink. You don’t want that on your conscience.”
As grateful as I am for the comfort of home and Mama, I’m not about to tell her I’ve nearly been sweated to death.
“I had a falling-out with Lovie.”
“Did she throw a pot of water at you?”
“Oh…this.” I pat my hair. “I went to my sauna after I left the funeral home, and I guess I stayed too long.”
“What happened with Lovie?”
I tell her a shorthand version of Lovie sneaking behind my back to visit Jack, though even in the telling, I hear how foolish this sounds. The fact is, I’ve let the stress of being a murder suspect get the best of me, and if I don’t get my act together, I’m going to lose my best friend.