by Ashton Lee
As the latest deals from Harv Eucher’s Pre-Owned Vehicles held no interest for the ladies, they began their chatter once again.
“I know Becca has to be telling the truth about the high heat,” Miss Voncille commented. “I practically stew my okra on simmer in the pan. But then, I don’t mind the slime. I guess it’s an acquired taste.”
Connie was shaking her head and wagging a finger at the same time. “I never could get my Lindy to eat it. She always claimed it made her feel like she needed to clear her throat. But my little granddaughter, Melissa, just loves to eat it in gumbo. Of course, she doesn’t even know it’s in there mixed up with the rice and the onions and the chicken. She’s too distracted pushing her spoon around, and she says, ‘Gigi, I cain’t find the gum in here!’ So, I made up a cute little ditty for her, complete with cheerleader-type hand gestures—I forget the tune now—but the lyrics went: ‘Who took the gum outta the gumbo, hey? Who took the gum outta the gumbo, hey?’ Oh, she danced around and went wild!”
The ladies’ laughter erupted just as Harv Eucher’s revved-up blather about taking advantage of once-in-a-lifetime trade-ins finally came to an end, and Becca’s voice returned for some blessed relief.
“Welcome back to ‘Downsizing with Comfort Food’ on The Becca Broccoli Show. Next, we want to talk about using tomatoes and okra as a side dish or—as I most often prefer it—as a staple ingredient in my chicken or shrimp gumbo . . . ”
“There you go!” Connie exclaimed.
“. . . and it’s my suggestion that your pantry should never be without several jars of what I call my all-purpose gumbo base. Here in the middle of the summer with everything fresh and in season is when you should be putting up that gumbo mix for those cold weather evening suppers looming ahead . . .” Becca continued.
“I’m not a canner,” Connie admitted with a smirk. “I’m from the crowd that thinks Mason jars should be used to serve up humongous cocktails. Why, it’s all the rage at certain restaurants up in Nashville.”
The others nodded agreeably even as Becca rolled through her script. “. . . and another tip for lightening up that gumbo base would be to go with about half as much butter when you sauté. Keep your garlic and your salt and pepper for that all-important seasoning. Just take the plunge and use olive oil instead. It’s part of the Mediterranean diet that’s becoming increasingly popular everywhere. They say a little olive oil and an occasional glass of red wine does wonders for longevity . . . and maybe even your love life. Of course, for those of you out there who are teetotalers, just go with the olive oil and skip the wine . . .”
Miss Voncille leaned in and raised an eyebrow smartly. “I wonder how these instructions about substituting olive oil will go over with the devout butter believers. I know people from church potluck suppers who think ‘Thou Shalt Use Only Butter in Everything’ is the eleventh commandment.”
“My mother was one of them,” Connie added with a wink. “If she had a headache—she’d spread butter on a few aspirin and go about her business.”
The ladies couldn’t seem to help themselves from that point forward. Whatever Becca said, they had an aside or witticism ready, and they were somehow able to coordinate the two seamlessly in the manner of an old-fashioned television variety show act. It wasn’t criticism as much as it was a form of “dishing with the girls,” and it made the show’s precious minutes fly by with plenty of laughter in the air.
“. . . so be sure and tune in tomorrow at this same time, same station for another installment of The Becca Broccoli Show,” Becca was saying as the show’s closing theme came up.
Miss Voncille headed over and shut off the radio, leaned against the counter, and folded her arms. “Well, ladies, what did you think? My opinion is that it went very well, olive oil and all.”
Both Maura Beth and Connie agreed that the show had been a success, but then Maura Beth offered up a sheepish grin. “I also think we had a very good time cutting up the way we did. There were even moments when I felt like we were schoolgirls whispering behind the teacher’s back. I wonder if we would have said some of the things we said had Becca been here in person.”
“Oh, it was all in good fun,” Connie insisted. “I’m sure she wouldn’t have minded. I thought Becca’s program was full of wit, so it inspired us to react the same way.”
“Absolutely!” Miss Voncille exclaimed. “I’m sure that’s what Becca was going for—the humor angle to win everyone over to a slightly different point of view.” Then Miss Voncille headed over and dramatically plopped herself down in her seat, putting her hands on the table. “Ladies, I have to confess something to you. Of course, I did want you here for breakfast and Becca’s show, but I also had an ulterior motive. I thought maybe enjoying the show might bring us together even more than we already are, and I believe it certainly has with the way we’ve been laughing and talking. But there’s something else I had on my mind and, well . . . it’s just that . . .”
Maura Beth and Connie exchanged expectant glances, and Maura Beth finally said, “You’ve come this far, Miss Voncille. Follow through. What is it you wanted to tell us?”
“It’s my relationship with Locke Linwood,” she began, staring at her hands at first. Then she looked up and caught Maura Beth’s gaze. “It’s been so long since . . . well, you know what I’m trying to say, don’t you?”
Maura Beth reached over and patted her hand with a generous smile. “Since you’ve been with a man?”
Miss Voncille exhaled and briefly averted her eyes. “You librarians have good instincts. But, yes, that’s exactly what I wanted to discuss with both of you. Frank and I were intimate, but that was way back in 1967. It seemed so easy then. All you heard from the media was how free love was supposed to be, I mean. What a lie! I think love is the dearest thing in the world—in the old-fashioned business sense of that word. What a price you end up paying for it whether you get to keep it or lose it! But now here it is another century. How do I . . . get back in the saddle again after all this time? How do I . . . free myself?”
“Connie, you’re the married woman among us,” Maura Beth said. “Do you want to take this?”
Connie looked briefly uncomfortable but soon drew herself up and patted her big hair—the latter gesture a sure sign that she was ready to tackle anything. “Well, the first thing I’d have to ask you, Miss Voncille, is how far your relationship with Mr. Linwood has progressed. Could you share that with us?”
“It’s been very gentlemanly on his part so far, if you catch my drift,” she explained. “I’m always ready to go out when he arrives. He has reservations at The Twinkle or somewhere else for us, and we talk politely over our dinner and wine. Later, when he walks me to my door, there’s a gentle kiss on the cheek, and there are moments when it seems like something more should happen. But . . . it stops there. Or to be perfectly honest, I stop it there.”
“Then you’ve never asked him in—for a nightcap, as they say?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I—well, something tugs at me, and I end up thinking it would be disloyal to Frank.”
Connie grew pensive, touching an index finger to her lips. “And have you ever ended up at his house?”
“Oh, he says he’s not comfortable with that yet. But he insists he is trying his best to accept another woman being in the rooms he shared with his Pamela.”
“Well, he is a fairly recent widower,” Maura Beth put in. “Maybe it’s easier for him to hold on to his memories of his wife and settle for something platonic with you. And maybe that’s what he thinks you want—your memories of Frank and a gentlemanly escort.”
Miss Voncille looked overwhelmed, putting her fingers to her temples. “Yes, I think you ladies must be right. Neither one of us has been willing to . . . saddle up.”
“Do you think you could ever muster up the courage to let Mr. Linwood in for the . . . shank of the evening?” Connie proposed.
“That’s such a colorful way of putting
it,” Miss Voncille replied, clearly amused. “Reminds me of a big, juicy leg of lamb.” Then she grew more resolute, narrowing her eyes. “Maybe if I worked hard at it, I could try to let go. I keep a picture of Frank by the nightstand. It was taken just before he left for Vietnam. You can see the determination in his face, in the way his jaw was set, in the way he refused to smile and still looked contented with where he was about to go and what he was about to do. It’s intriguing the way the camera can sometimes capture your soul on film. But in any case, I suppose I should remove it if I invite Locke into my emerald green bedroom . . . and he actually accepts.”
“I would if I were in your shoes,” Connie offered. “If it gets that far, you need to give the man at least a fighting chance to compete with all those perfect romantic memories of yours.”
“And you don’t necessarily have to go out of your way to explain the significance of all the potted palms, either,” Maura Beth added. “Just go ahead and let him think you’ve gone a little mad. Lots of women have decorating fetishes. For instance, I’ve gone a bit crazy in my little apartment with a dozen shades of purple. But in any case, it’s better than having Mr. Linwood be reminded of Frank everywhere he turns. It could definitely put a damper on things.”
Miss Voncille clasped her hands together with an excitement in her voice that made her sound and seem much younger than her years. “Having girlfriends to talk to after all these years is so much fun. So much better than walking around this empty house talking to my palms while I water them. Therefore, I’ve decided to try and saddle up after our big Mockingbird to-do at the library is over.”
“How brave of you!” Connie exclaimed. “And I’m so glad we could help out.” Then she turned her head to the side, frowning in contemplation. “Ladies, I’ve just thought of something brilliant. Why should you be the only one with an escort at these literary outings, Miss Voncille? I need to get Douglas out of that damned boat of his and doing something interesting with me for a change. After all, this is my hard-earned retirement, too. So, I’m going to insist that he come to the Mockingbird potluck and book review. If he refuses to go along with such a simple and reasonable request, then I’ll refuse to clean his unending stringers of fish. Now that’ll put the fear of God in him!”
“Sounds good to me!” Miss Voncille replied. “And you know what else would be lots of fun? Getting Becca to bring her Stout Fella to the meeting. I think we’d all like to meet him since we’ve heard so much about him. Maura Beth, this would be a surefire way to grow our numbers!”
“Yes, it would,” she answered, smiling broadly. “And growing our numbers is the most important thing we can do with this little club of ours. In fact, it’s crucial. I only wish I had someone to bring.”
Connie then gave Maura Beth one of her famous friendly nudges. “Oh, don’t worry. Mr. Right will come along when you least expect it. I met Douglas at a charity auction, and we were bidding for the same piece of antique furniture. Well, he had quite a bankroll from being a successful trial lawyer, so he outbid me and I lost the sideboard. But it was only a temporary defeat because I liked the fact that he had the good taste to spend his money on such fine things. I thought he just might be a keeper, so I snared him in my web, and when I unraveled that big cocoon, the sideboard tumbled out with him, of course. It’s sitting in our dining room out at the lake right this minute, and every time I use it for entertaining, I’m reminded of the crusty old adage, ‘To the victor belongs the spoils.’ ”
“Then it’s all decided,” Maura Beth said. “I’ll call up Becca and tell her to work on her Stout Fella, Connie will work on Douglas, and Miss Voncille, you’ll show up with Locke Linwood in tow as usual.”
Miss Voncille was almost giggling. “Oh, I’m so excited. I never thought I’d let myself feel this way again, and here I am actually considering inviting Locke into my jungle lair. But more as soft, sweet Melanie.”
“Men like to think of themselves as the hunters in the game of love,” Connie added, lifting her chin with an air of superiority. “But more often than not, it’s we women who do the trapping.”
7
The Perfect Man
Renette Posey was knocking insistently on Maura Beth’s office door. “Gregory Peck has just arrived!” she announced with great enthusiasm, sticking her head in with a girlish smile. It was the good news they had both been anxiously awaiting.
Maura Beth shot up from her chair and clapped half a dozen times in rapid succession. “Well, where is he? I want to get my hot little hands on him right this instant!”
“You and me both!” Renette twisted her head around, looking back briefly. “Here comes the UPS guy in his cute brown shorts with the tubes. Wow! Just under the wire, huh?”
Indeed, it definitely fell into the category of close calls. Here it was the morning of the Mockingbird meeting, and the movie poster blow-ups of Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch were just now showing up. This, despite a guarantee from the online company that they would be shipped to The Cherico Library in two to three business days. But more than a week had passed, and there were no posters in sight. Maura Beth hated fooling with tracking numbers, but her sterling organizational skills and note-taking had paid off handsomely for her this time around. The tubes, it turned out, had been mistakenly bundled off to a library in Jericho, Missouri, thus creating the nerve-wracking delay. Murphy’s Law, Maura Beth figured.
“Let’s pull them out right away and see what we’ve actually got,” Maura Beth instructed, after the UPS man had apologized profusely for the mistake and left quickly. “There were supposed to be three different poses.”
Renette began tugging at the tape on one of the tubes, while Maura Beth sat behind her desk and took a pair of scissors to another. A few minutes later, all three black-and-white posters had been retrieved and unfurled. Though the order had gone astray, it was otherwise accurate: There was one pose of Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch in a dramatic courtroom scene; another of him as Atticus with Jem and Scout in her overalls standing in front of the little cottage they all called home; and a third of Peck as himself receiving the Oscar for his performance in To Kill a Mockingbird. Maura Beth was certain that these stills would create an ambience similar to the one the Gone with the Wind posters had.
“We’ll back these with cardboard like we did for the other ones, and no one will be the wiser that they practically traveled all over the country before getting here,” Maura Beth added with a sigh of relief. “I want everything to go smoothly this evening. With the two extra men showing up, Councilman Sparks will see that we’re building up the club, and we can’t be ignored.”
“If you have enough food, I’ll be happy to show up myself,” Renette offered. “I had to read To Kill a Mockingbird my senior year in high school, and I still remember it pretty well. Even got an ‘A’ on my book report. I especially liked the part about the giant ham with the hole in it that saved the little girl’s life.”
Maura Beth looked especially pleased at the suggestion. “Well, we won’t have ham on the menu, but please come, Renette. I know we’ll have more than enough to eat.”
Then Maura Beth reviewed the menu sitting on her desk. For this second meeting of The Cherry Cola Book Club, Becca would be bringing her healthful version of chicken gumbo with tomatoes and okra; inspired by one of her latest shows, Connie would be throwing together a fresh golden bantam corn and red pepper salad; Miss Voncille was going to bake her delicious biscuits and offer her green-pepper jelly on the side; by popular demand, Maura Beth herself would repeat her chocolate, cherry cola sheet cake; and finally, honorary member Periwinkle had generously agreed to supply another gratis item from The Twinkle—specifically, her knockout tomato aspics with the cream-cheese centers.
“I know a lot of people think men will eat anything you put in front of them, but I’ve found that they can sometimes be hard to please,” Maura Beth explained. “I think we’ll have a good variety on hand tonight, though, and I bet Stout Fella will lead the way.”
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Renette seemed about to say something several times and finally got it out. “Should I bring a little dish, too? I could . . . thaw something?”
“Just bring yourself, sweetie. I expect a lively and unforgettable debate this evening.”
Inside their opulent mansion out in the country, Becca and her Stout Fella were having heated words in their powder blue master bedroom suite around six-thirty that evening. She was applying the finishing touches to her face at her vanity, while he was pacing around the shag carpet in his bare feet, still half-dressed and mumbling things under his breath.
“This is a very important business meeting, Becca,” he was saying, refusing to look her straight in the eye as he fumbled with his shirt buttons. “I can’t help it if it came up at the last second. I’ve been trying to pin down Winston Barkeley for the last coupla months, and he wants to get together at The Twinkle tonight while he’s in town. Maybe I can even close the deal. This is a premium piece of land for my next plat out at the lake, and it’s going to be really high-end.”
“As if there are a bunch of paupers out there now,” she replied, briefly eyeing the touch of rouge she had just applied to her right cheekbone. “Sometimes I think all this conspicuous success is the worst possible thing that could have happened to you—Justin Rawlings Brachle. What more do you have to prove to the world?”
He snickered while pulling on his wide-load pants in front of their full-length mirror. “Hey, whatever I need to and with no apologies. There’s more to life than winning a football scholarship, you know. Besides, you married me for richer or poorer, and I don’t see you turning your back on the richer part.”
“Oh, I’ve done my share as Becca Broccoli. You know as well as I do that I could go it alone if I had to. Not that I want to, of course.” She caught her agitated husband’s reflection in the vanity mirror as she carefully applied lip gloss, and his steady transformation into Stout Fella came sharply into focus.