by Tonya Kappes
I dipped into the only open stall.
“No wonder,” I muttered, regarding why the stall was free. The thin plywood door barely hung on to a hinge by one little crooked nail and urine and toilet paper filled the bowl to the rim. And the smell—I put my hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t gag out loud. “Just get the dress on. Five thousand dollars.”
“Excuse me”—I held the feather skirt up to my waist so it wouldn’t drag on the dirty bathroom floor—“can you tie me up?” I asked a contestant who was not-so-patiently waiting in line for the wonky mirror.
“Suck in,” she demanded. Her red dress had a feathered skirt too, only hers was maybe an inch past her butt cheeks. Her thin legs looked like chicken legs.
I turned around and looked at the jammed-in girls. I busted out in a fit of laughter. Everyone turned around and looked at me.
“I’m sorry,” I busted out one more time. I pointed to several of the girls in front of me. “I’m sorry.” I tried to apologize for my behavior. “We look like a bunch of chickens in a coop. Eek.” My breath caught as the girl tugged the laces tighter.
“That will teach ya to call us chickens.” The girl shoved me forward and out the bathroom door.
“You won’t be getting the Miss Congeniality award,” I shouted over my shoulder after hearing a fit of laughter coming from the gaggle of women, not to mention Chicken Teater was right outside the door, laughing. “Oh shut up,” I grumbled. “I’m only doing this for you.”
“They are just like a fussy henhouse in there.” He smacked his hand on his knee.
“Enough of the chicken jokes.” I balled my fists and stormed off to find Marla Maria. The quicker I could get out of here, the better.
The fairgrounds had a few little kids’ rides, bringing back fond memories of how Mom, Dad and Granny would take Charlotte and me to the summer fairs to ride all the fun coasters until our stomachs gurgled from the twirling and eating super-sweet elephant ears.
Must get an elephant ear. My eyes followed my nose to the staple of fair food—funnel cakes. Why didn’t they have one of these food trailers at the Kentucky Cave Festival?
“I’ll have . . .” I scanned the handwritten menu taped to the glass window. “Oh my.” My mouth watered when I saw “deep-fried Twinkie.” “That!” I pointed to the sugary, artery-clogging treat.
“You’d better not let Marla Maria see that.” Chicken’s eyes lit up like a dark night sky full of stars.
“Are you taking pleasure in this?” I asked. I didn’t care if Marla Maria saw me eat the deep-fried goodness.
“What did you say?” The woman eyed me suspiciously with her hand out the window and my treat between her fingers.
“Nothing.” I took the corndog-like dessert, grabbed a couple of napkins and stuffed the edges in the top of the dress. I didn’t care if Marla Maria saw me eating it, but getting some on the dress was another issue.
Chicken and I walked to the arena where their owners were showing the chickens. Lady Cluckington wasn’t until after the Ms. Orloff beauty pageant. I hoped that by then I would have some more answers.
“Why is it that everything tastes better on a stick?” I leaned my body a little forward, just in case of an oil drip, and took a big bite.
“Wait!” The scream came from the top of the bleachers near the announcer’s booth. “Don’t you dare put that in your mouth!” The sun peeked out of the fluffy white clouds, putting Marla Maria in the spotlight. She handed the announcer something before she screamed, “Drop it!” She climbed down the bleachers with her finger in the air. “I said drop it!”
“Uh-oh,” Chicken warned. “I told you that you better be on the lookout for her.”
Marla Maria’s eyes stayed focused on mine. I took another bite, a little more dramatically this time. Marla Maria was seething. Her hands and talon-like claws were stretched out in front of her. Her scrawny legs were trying to work double-time to get to me faster than a snake.
Everyone fell silent. Not even a cluck could be heard. All eyes watched as Marla Maria bolted over to me and snatched the Twinkie right out of my hands.
“What do you think you are doing?” Marla Maria glared at me while she flung the Twinkie into the air. “You can NOT get bloated before a pageant. This is what I will be teaching at my school—nutrition!”
She turned on her heels, picked up the Twinkie off the ground, and stomped over to a barrel made into a makeshift trash can.
The roar of a motorcycle, not to mention the flashing lights, announced the entrance of Sugar Wayne.
“Great. What is he doing here?” Marla Maria propped her fists on her waist, shifting her hips to the right.
“Yee-haw!” Chicken jumped around. “Now Lady Cluckington has a chance to win.”
“Did you honestly think I wasn’t going to find you?” Sugar Wayne’s hair was especially black today. Nothing was dripping—yet. “It’s only the biggest day in Lady’s career!”
“I can handle it, Sugar Wayne.” Marla Maria grabbed me by the wrist and flung me around. “Come on. The pageant is almost ready to start, and you are contestant number one.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Sugar walked behind us. Too close. “I’m going to finish what my best friend asked me to do, and you and that girl in the pink chicken costume won’t stop me.”
“Go away, Sugar!” Marla Maria squeezed my arm when I tried to turn around.
She practically dragged me. Sugar was on our heels.
“I was hoping you would forget after all of these years.” Marla Maria jabbed back to Sugar.
“I haven’t forgotten anything. Especially today.” His twenty-seven-inch-long legs could barely keep up with us.
“That’s right, Sugar. You keep at her!” Chicken ran along between Marla Maria and Sugar.
“What is so significant about today?” I stopped and jerked my arm away from Marla’s claws.
“Do I know you?” Sugar panted and planted his hands on his knees trying to catch his breath. He tried to look at me and I tried not to look at him because the exercise he got from trying to keep up with Marla Maria had made him sweat. Which meant his hair was dripping.
“Nope.” I shook the blond hair. Thankfully, it was a great disguise since I had no plans of telling Marla Maria how or why I knew Sugar Wayne.
“Today is the big day Chicken had been waiting for.” Marla Maria dug her nails into Sugar’s bicep, causing him to wince. “Four years and you aren’t going to stop me.”
“You are such a . . .” Sugar bit his lip. “Where is Lady Cluckington? I don’t have time to worry with you. I have to get her ready.”
Marla Maria put her hand out, spreading her fingers, her bright red fingernails jutting out like daggers. Her eyelashes lowered, creating a dark shadow on her cheek. Her voice was low, eerie: “You will not go near Lady Cluckington. She is my responsibility.” Slowly she fisted her hand and leaving her pointer finger out she poked Sugar Wayne’s chest. “Do you read me loud and clear?”
“Are you warning me?” Sugar puffed his chest out like a Banty rooster. Chicken stood between them with his mouth hanging open. “Are you trying to threaten me?” Sugar moved around in a circle. “I need a police officer.” He turned to Marla Maria, whose finger was still pointed directly at Sugar. He smacked it away. “Chicken might have been scared of you. But I am not. Did you kill my friend?”
Sugar stepped forward and came nose to breast with Marla Maria, only his eyes were pointing straight up to Marla Maria’s eyes, not caring about her boobs, which was probably a first for him.
“Oh crap,” Chicken warned. Marla Maria was visibly getting madder by the second. “I wish Sugar was the Betweener. He doesn’t mess around.”
I shot him a look that should have sent him back to the great beyond, or wherever he came from, or needed to get to. Unfortunately, the glare didn�
�t work. He was still standing there, taking a lot of pleasure in his buddy standing up for him.
“Police officer!” Sugar Wayne shouted into the crowd of people who were walking by to get in the arena to see the pageant. Some had chickens, roosters, and other types of fowl on leashes. The damndest thing I had ever seen. “We have a murderer here!” He pointed to Marla Maria.
“I’m not going to stand here and be ruined by a low-life realtor who can’t seem to stop his fake hair from dripping.” Marla’s sneer turned into an evil grin. There was a little too much pleasure in her face. “If you think I killed Chicken . . .” She stepped forward and bent down to get on his level. Through her perfectly gritted teeth, she said, “Prove it. Do you think a cop is going to believe you or me?” She straightened her shoulders. She grabbed me by the wrist. “Come on.” She jerked me when she started to walk. “We don’t have time for such lowlifes.”
“I’ll show you!” Sugar Wayne screamed, rolling up on his toes and screaming threats to Marla Maria through the crowd.
Marla Maria was firing mad. She blurted out all sorts of things about Sugar and how he had been a big problem in her marriage. She didn’t know what Chicken had agreed to with Sugar because Chicken had agreed to do so many things with all sorts of people. God knows what he promised them. “That is why I’m getting this damn pageant over with and holding on to my property. I held up my end of the agreement.” Marla Maria spouted.
“Agreement? What did your agreement say?” I asked.
She abruptly stopped, but I kept going. Her claws dug deeper into my skin as I chugged forward.
“Ouch!” I tried to jerk away. She wasn’t letting go. She dragged me behind one of the food trailers out of the way of everyone. “Let go of me.” I tried to jerk again.
“You listen to me, you little tart.” Marla Maria pulled me closer to her. Suddenly her beauty-queen status was turning more into the evil queen. “You heard me back there. I’m not sure what you are up to, but I know damn good and well you are snooping around—you and that hunk of a man of yours. Oh”—she pointed a finger at me—“I tried my hardest to come on to him, so you better watch yourself.”
With a hard jerk, I got my arm free. There were marks where her nails had dug into my skin.
“As for Chicken,” she shoved my shoulder causing me to lose my footing and fall onto the grassy surface of the fairgrounds. “you let the dead rest. Do I make myself clear?”
I nodded and jumped up. Fear knotted in my stomach.
“I’m going to open my school with or without anyone’s help.” She put her high-heeled shoe on my thigh, leaving a dirt stain on my dress.
I gulped. It was the same dirt stain I had found in Granny’s kitchen.
“As a matter of fact, after we leave here, I’m going to meet a contractor to build my studio on Chicken’s damn land. I don’t give a shit who knows about the agreement. I’m going through with my end of the deal.” She put her hand out to help me up.
“I don’t know what you are talking about.” I helped myself up and pretended not to understand, for the safety of my life. “What agreement? Who knows what?”
“Don’t play dumb with me.” She glared. “Not even looking good will help me to like you more.”
“Let me help you.” I decided to play her game. “Maybe I can get the inside scoop from Jack Henry.”
Her facial features slowly softened. She rubbed her chin.
“Welcome to the annual Ms. Orloff Beauty Pageant. Not only is the Ms. Orloff title very important today, but today is the long-awaited pageant for the amazing Orloffs themselves,” the announcer blared over the intercom. “All of the Orloff hens that will be here have been going through extensive grooming, training and vigorous activities over the past five years just to be shown today.” Applause echoed throughout the fairgrounds. “The winner will move on to the National Orloff Chicken Championship that is held every five years. Now, who is ready for some lovely women?”
Marla Maria darted her head around the food trailer to see what was going on.
“I might just take you up on that. But the one thing you need to know is that I didn’t kill Chicken. I was going to divorce him because of that damn chicken and because he spent too much time with Sugar.” She talked so fast it was hard to keep up. “He even tried to set Sugar and me up when I first met him. The nerve. Didn’t that man know I adored him? After I told him I was leaving, he told me about the land he had bought and was going to build me a fancy beauty studio, but we had to get through with this last competition in four years. This is it.”
I tried to follow her as closely as I could, but her words began to blur with the crowd screaming and the announcer going over the contest rules.
“He told me he had a trusted advisor with the particulars that would contact me after this event in the case something happened to him.” She looked around the food stand again. “That stupid Sugar Wayne was helping him show Lady Cluckington and he has some sort of sick obsession seeing Chicken’s dream come true.”
“That’s because he is a true friend.” Chicken spat in the ground. He wasn’t buying into her I loved him so much speech.
“Our first contestant is the lovely Emma Lee Raines, all the way from Sleepy Hollow, Kentucky.” The announcer said my name over the intercom. “Come on out, Ms. Raines.”
“Hurry! We are late!” Marla Maria shoved me out from behind the food trailer.
I ran like a chicken with my head cut off, darting in and out of the crowd in the pink dress. Pink feathers were flying.
Chapter 20
Once I was onstage, the announcer started reading off my stats, like my height, weight, talent and occupation. Things I didn’t have a clue how he knew. I didn’t care. I was here to do my job as a Betweener and get Chicken to the other side.
My mind was boggled with all the information Marla Maria had spit at me right before I took the stage. The pageant lights hung down from the open metal building, shining directly on me. It was hard to see out into the crowd. But I could make out Chicken and Marla Maria, who must have gone back and gotten Lady Cluckington out of her cage, because Lady was neatly tucked in Marla’s lap.
Chicken paid no attention to me as I walked down the runway, showing off my ballet chicken-feathered dress, doing my best princess wave. Marla Maria kept putting her hands up to her face and pointing to her lips as she mouthed smile.
“The lovely Ms. Emma Lee Raines is going to be singing for us tonight.” The announcer pointed to the guy in the audio/visual booth.
“I . . .” A small childlike voice came out of me. I had made no preparation to sing. As a matter of fact, Marla Maria and I had only discussed it earlier and then I didn’t think she was serious.
Like slow motion, I watched the audiovisual guy take the VHS and put it in the old VHS tape player.
“Stop!” I screamed and put my hand out when I realized it was Chicken’s home footage tape I had taken earlier from Marla Maria’s cabinet. She must have thought it was my talent tape when she saw it in my bag.
It was too late. The video played a scene from the life of Marla Maria and Chicken Teater’s home life.
“What the hell?” Marla Maria held tight to Lady Cluckington when she stood up. “Stop that tape right this instant!” Marla Maria stomped her heeled feet.
The video guy kept pushing buttons, but the video wouldn’t stop. He said something about it being old. But Marla Maria wasn’t going to have any part of it. She stomped over to the audiovisual booth. She held Lady tight to her chest with one hand while she pushed buttons with the other.
In the meantime, Chicken was arguing with Marla Maria on the tape about the beauty pageant. Marla Maria was in perfect position for the camera angle when she shouted at Chicken, “That pageant is stupid. Raising Orloff hens is stupid. If you want to hang around stupid and ignorant people all of your life, fine
with me! I want a divorce!”
The crowd fell silent. Marla Maria jerked the old VHS player causing the wiring to pull out of the electrical socket. Sparks flew everywhere.
The microphone stand was in front of me and the crowd stared at me.
“Old McDonald had a farm,” I sang out, “E-I-E-I-O. And on his farm he had a chicken. E-I-E-I-O.” I gestured for the crowd to sing along. “With a . . .” I put my hand up to my ear. Reluctantly the crowd sang cluck, cluck here and a cluck, cluck there.
The videotape machine must’ve been on the same circuit as one of the spotlights, because one of the two lights were out, allowing me to see Marla Maria being dragged out from underneath the metal building. At first I thought it might have been one of the Orloff pageant committee members dragging her out, but it wasn’t. It was Sugar Wayne. He had Marla Maria in one hand and Lady in the other.
I jumped off the stage, running as fast as I could to see what he was doing. But I lost them in the crowd. I made it to the parking lot to see if they were there. There was a cloud of dust leaving the parking lot and turning left onto the main road. It was Chicken’s red Cadillac.
Chapter 21
Wait!” I screamed, running after Marla Maria with my arms flapping above my head. “Wait for me!”
I flipped off the stupid heels, which I should have probably done hours ago, and patted around for my cell phone while continuing to run on the hard gravel road.
“Ouch, ouch, ouch.” My feet stung under me. “Damn.” I stopped when I got to the road and realized I was still in the stupid dress with no pockets, and no cell phone. Not that my cell was charged up anyway.
“Hop in.” The old beat-up Chevy pulled over and the driver rolled down the window. “If you want to follow her, I said to hop in.”
“What the hell is that low-life no-good sonofabitch doing in my truck?” Chicken Teater stood in front of his old Chevy with his arms out as if the driver could see him.
“You . . .” I swallowed hard. “You are Marla Maria’s neighbor.”