by Lisa Wingate
“Bob says it’s fine,” I told Donetta as I came back through the wall. She didn’t answer me, either, but just nodded, her attention fixed on the window. She was plotting her next move, too. Which made me wonder why I was the one going to Wal-Mart tomorrow, since I wasn’t plotting anything.
I knew what it must feel like to be one of the little wooden men on the chessboard when the old farts sit around in the afternoons. My job here was to do all the movin’, none of the thinkin’. If someone got knocked off the table and kicked in the dirt, it’d probably be me.
I was still thinking about paint when Donetta pushed away her coffee cup, clapped her hands, and hopped out of the chair. “Guess we better get on with exercise class.” She walked to the TV and turned on the VCR. “Y’all want Sweatin’ to the Oldies, Buns of Steel, or Yoga With Yahani today?”
“Yahani have bun of steel,” Lucy said without looking up. Given the choice, Lucy always picked Yoga With Yahani.
“Lucy!” Donetta gasped, as if she was consumed with utter mortification. Truth was, she was the one who bought Yoga With Yahani, and not because she thought three old ladies were gonna master yoga.
Lucy just shrugged and grinned, and they went on with a discussion about which tape to use.
I tuned it out and focused on my pecan pie. I was thinking about the mess in the rooms upstairs and getting more and more depressed, which made me want to eat. Pecan pie comforts a lot of hurts. Unfortunately, it won’t paint hotel rooms or move parade decorations and yard sale leftovers to the storage shed.
“Ima!” Donetta’s voice snapped me back to life, which was probably good because I could feel myself sinking deeper into a funk. “Come on. We’re doin’ Yoga With Yahani.”
Donetta had filled what used to be the back of the hotel lobby with secondhand fitness machines. At one time, she’d had visions of adding to the beauty shop income by opening a workout studio in the space that wasn’t needed for the beauty shop, but so far the class had only grown to three—four, if you included Yahani.
I thought about making an excuse and going back over to the café, but I knew if I did, Donetta would be on me again about how I was letting myself go since Jack died. She’d start handing me books about depression, and calling me over for the Dr. Phil show, and making excuses to invite me to supper with her and her husband, Ronald, so I wouldn’t be home alone all evening.
“All right, sweats on, then Yoga With Yahani,” Donetta said, and disappeared into the bathroom, where she kept her exercise clothes. Lucy headed for the storage closet to change, and I got my exercise suit from behind the old hotel desk, then went to the bathroom out back in the auto shop so I could change and use the restroom, which at my age is pretty much an essential precaution before vigorous movement.
“Hey there, Imagene.” Donetta’s brother, Frank, peeked from under the hood of a car as I came out in the ugly purple sweat suit one of the kids gave me for Christmas. “Got yer new windshield ready to put in this afternoon, then I’ll pull yer car around front.”
“Thanks, Frank,” I said. As usual, he was looking out for me. Frank and I go back a long way.
“Put-put-put y-y-you up another buz-buzzard.” Doyle was hanging around the back of the shop by the domino table. “Sure ya don-don-don’t want credit for the urr-raccoon, too?” He pointed to the chalkboard, where another stick buzzard had been added beside my name.
“No, that’s all right. I didn’t kill the raccoon. It was dead before I got there.”
“B-b-buzzard b-b-bait,” Doyle joked, and Frank laughed as I headed back into the beauty shop. When I got there, Donetta was just inserting Yoga With Yahani. Lucy and I moved into position and we started our deep breathing.
We’d moved through a couple of stretches and were working our way into downward dog when the door opened.
“Be there in a minute,” Donetta called, keeping her eyes closed so as to stay focused. Once she starts yoga class, she don’t quit for anything. Folks around town know that, and usually take a seat at the front to wait.
I glanced under my armpit, and that young out-of-towner who’d had the haircut earlier was just rounding the cash register counter. He stopped midstride, looking no small bit embarrassed. I could imagine the view from where he was—one big behind and two bony ones in old sweat suits with granny panties hanging out the top.
“Uhhh …” He cleared his throat, trying to wipe away a grin. “I can come back later.”
Donetta opened her eyes and gaped at him upside down. “No, that’s all right.” Walking her hands backward so that she looked like a frog on stilts, she snapped up quicker than I’d have thought was possible.
Lucy braced one hand on her knee and one on the floor, got her balance, then hauled herself to her feet with a muffled groan. I collapsed onto all fours, baby-crawled my way to the exercise bike, and used the seat to pull myself up. We stood staring at the boy, Donetta and I straightening our sweat suits and Lucy fluffing her hair.
“Well, how do, Carter,” Donetta said, like she’d known him all her life. She ushered him back toward the cash register. “You’re back awful soon. Did I forget to give you your change or somethin’? I been known to do that sometimes. I get to talkin’ to folks and I’ll tell you what, I just forget what I’m supposed to be doin’. My daddy always said I could talk the beans right off the bush and into the basket.”
Carter laughed. “Well, that’d save a lot of work, wouldn’t it?” He gave Donetta a wide, slow smile that was dazzling against his tanned skin.
Donetta blushed, then giggled like a teenage girl. “Well, yes. Yes, I guess that’s true, isn’t it? What can I do for you, Carter?” She spoke in a smooth, soft voice that wasn’t hers at all. She sounded like the pastor’s wife on the Sunday morning preachin’ show, all sweetness and light.
Carter surveyed the room, pausing to nod at Lucy and me. “Afternoon, ladies,” he said. Lucy giggled and I felt a little flutter of color rise into my cheeks. Mercy, that boy did have the prettiest blue eyes. I wondered if he was a movie star, one of those sweet-talking types who rolled into town with a big smile and mysterious ways.
He turned his attention back to Donetta. “Actually, I need to rent a hotel room.” He motioned over his shoulder toward Donetta’s front window. “I noticed it says hotel.”
“Oh … well …” Donetta hesitated, no doubt hating to tell him she didn’t have any rooms to rent and he’d have to stay in Austin or Waco. So far today, we’d already rented five more rooms than we actually had.
Which brought up the question of why all of a sudden everyone was interested in a hotel that had been closed for years due to lack of business.
“For how many days?” Donetta asked.
Lucy and I looked at each other with our mouths hanging open.
“Donetta,” I said, “you don’t have …”
Swatting a hand behind her back, Donetta shifted so that her shoulder was to us.
Carter chewed the side of his lip, thinking. “Through the weekend. Maybe through Monday.”
“Well, let me see …” Donetta pulled out her date book and made a show of scanning through it, which was silly, considering there was nothing in there but beauty appointments. “I think we can handle that.”
“Donetta …” I gasped, and Donetta shot me the hush up or else look, then slid around the counter, keeping her hand on the boy like she thought he might make a run for it.
Beside me, Lucy started rubbing the locket with the baby hair as Donetta reached for the ring of skeleton keys that opened the hotel doors. “Forty … ummm … five. Forty-five dollars a night, plus tax. That sound all right? There’s coffee and sweet rolls here by seven in the morning, and we got an exercise room. You’re welcome to use it any time.”
“Sounds great.”
“Wonderful!” Donetta purred like a cat being scratched behind the ears. She held up the keys. “Now, this one opens the back door in the alley, in case we’re gone for the night when you come back. Then, the o
ther one—this old timey key here, it’s for your room door. Upstairs, down at the end of the hall to the left, number 2. The bathroom for that one’s across the hall. I hope that’s okay.”
Carter held out his hand, and the keys dropped into his palm.
“Sounds fine. I’ll try not to be too much trouble.” He winked at Donetta, and she turned pink as a baby’s bottom.
“Oh, you’re no trouble,” she said as he turned toward the door.
“Just make yourself at home. We have exercise class here at three every afternoon—no charge for hotel guests.”
Carter tucked the keys into his pocket, then hooked his thumb on the rim. “I’ll give that some thought.” He grinned at Lucy and me as he headed toward the door. Maybe he’d just had a flash of the three of us with our rear ends in the air. “I’m not sure I can keep up.”
As soon as he was gone, I lit into Donetta. “Donetta Bradford, what in the world has gotten into you? This morning you rent five hotel rooms you don’t have and now you’ve rented six? You just gave that boy the keys to the Beulah room. You can’t rent him the Beulah room.” I pointed toward the back stairway that led to one end of the upstairs hall. “This morning you rented the Beulah room to that gal with the fancy suit. The one who wasn’t particular, remember? And by the way, I think she is … particular, I mean, but even if she ain’t, don’t you think she’s gonna mind having some strange man in her room?”
“It depend on the man,” Lucy interjected, and both Donetta and I gave her dirty looks. Lucy shrugged and wandered off to the storage closet to change back to her regular clothes, since exercise time was over now.
Jerking her chin down, Donetta rolled her eyes up at me so they were white on the bottom and half covered with fake eyelashes on the top. When she did that, she looked like something out of a late-night horror movie. “The Beulah room’s a suite.”
“I don’t think she’s gonna want to share a suite with some man she don’t know, either.” The conversation was starting to spin off into an argument.
“It depend on the man,” Lucy called from the closet.
Pulling the junk box from under the counter, Donetta fished out a skeleton key, shook it in my face, and grinned. “That’s why I’m headed up right now to lock the door between the two rooms. The lady left without ever seeing the place, said she’d be back later. She’ll never know the difference. She don’t need a whole suite anyhow. Just think, GiGi, six hotel rooms rented all at once. It’s just like the old days. In the morning, I’m gonna make some of my special pecan rolls and bring them in hot.” She trotted off toward the back hall, just as happy as a cow in clover.
I stood there watching her go, my gut churning up what was left of my pie and coffee. Them two young folks had no idea what they were in for.
Good as Donetta’s pecan rolls were, they weren’t near enough to make up for an entire night in the Beulah room.
Chapter 5
Mandalay Florentino
My afternoon in Daily, Texas, was like a field trip to the set of Niceville. The storm clouds moved away and the sun came out, giving downtown a Disney World feel—a little too clean, the people militantly friendly in the grocery store, and the surreal atmosphere of the little variety shop on the corner of Second and Main, the Buy-n-Bye convenience store, the feed mill across the road with its granary silos casting long, thin shadows over Main Street. That would be a problem if we shot late in the day. In the afternoon light, the thick strips of shade looked like giant prison bars.
Then again, maybe that was an angle for the Amber segment—beautiful, talented young woman escapes the lack of opportunity in a small town, the stigmas of poverty and a difficult home life, leaves the confines of Niceville and breaks out into … into what, exactly? The wild rush of LA? The grit, the smog, the tabloids, the inherent dangers of the Hollywood Brat Pack, fast cars, instant fame, days and nights lived at light speed?
The truth was that LA was no place for little girls from Niceville. Even when you’ve lived there all your life, it’s unpredictable at best. The city still surprises you. Hollywood had changed since my mother’s days as a bit player in movies and TV shows, mostly westerns because she knew how to ride a horse. At one time, that was a marketable skill, so even though she hated horses, she took lessons and learned what to do. Ironically, she and my father were now semiretired to Sonoma Beach, where they lived across from a huge horseshowing facility, in a house that my father, as usual, had purchased during a foreclosure sale at the courthouse. Mother complained that the horsey odor of this particular locale made her allergies act up.
If she caught a whiff of the feed mill in Daily, Texas, she’d probably pass out. The breeze spun momentarily in my direction, surrounding me with what smelled like a combination of Cheerios, rotten trash, old grease, and molasses.
All scents aside, though, the place was down home and oldfashioned, a relic of bygone days when country life centered around farming—just the sort of Amber Anderson Americana that might be perfect for a passing shot, maybe a thirty-second interview spot to be cut into Amber’s location piece… .
Picture leathery-skinned man in front of mill building, one hand hooked in overalls, other hand wrapped around hoe or plow handle, maybe a basket of fresh eggs. Shoot low angle, get the towers overhead with the faded lettering, Wool, Mohair, Cotton, Feed & Seed. Farmer man says something like, “Yep, we always support our own here in Daily, Texas. We’re behind Amber all the way. That poor little gal’s had a tough life, but she’s a fighter and this is the land of opportunity. God bless Amber Anderson, and God bless America!”
I crossed the street to see what the front of the building looked like, and an old man waved at me from the porch of the feed mill. He was perfect for my imaginary shot—overalls and all. I watched with idle curiosity as he parked a dolly of heavy-looking grain bags on the loading dock, then began picking up the sacks and heaving them to a young African-American man standing in the bed of a pickup truck.
“You home helpin’ your Grandpa Harve over spring break, Otis Charles?” the older man asked between throws.
Otis Charles nodded, swiping a muscular arm across his forehead. “Yes, sir, I am. Pay’s not the best, but the food doesn’t get any better anywhere.”
The feed store man rested against his dolly, catching his breath. “Don’t look like you’re missin’ too many meals down there at UT, son. How’s off season goin’?”
“Pretty good.” Otis Charles jumped onto the dock in one quick, fluid leap. “Vince Gibson’s graduating, so next year I got a good shot at starting running back.”
“You always been better than Vince Gibson anyway, O.C. Vince Gibson didn’t spend his summertimes shovelin’ rolled oats and cotton seed hulls.” The feed store man gave Otis Charles an approving nod.
“True enough,” O.C. agreed.
“You keepin’ your grades good down there? Not falling into liquor and wild women, are ya?”
Otis Charles grinned, his dark eyes catching the uneven light. “No, sir. Gotta have the grades to get into the MBA program, so I can come home and run the feed mill. You’re gettin’ too old for this, right?”
The miller laughed. “You’re a good kid, O.C.”
Chuckling under his breath, O.C. grabbed one of the remaining sacks and tossed it into the truck like a paperweight. “I got this, Mr. O’Donnell.”
Mr. O’Donnell rested a foot on the dolly wheel, holding it in place. His gaze circled vaguely in my direction, then returned to O.C. “Sure wish we still had Amber Anderson around. That girl wasn’t big as a minute, but she could heft a sack of feed. She’d help get your order loaded.”
Otis Charles nodded, tossing in the last sack. “Amber always did keep this old place in line. Every time I see her on TV, all I can think about is her knockin’ me over and stealing my ribbon calf right out from under me in the Reunion Days calf scramble when I was seven years old. I was so mad I grabbed that ribbon outta her hand, and she wrestled me for it, too. Next thing I knew,
my granny was coming over the arena fence. She pretty near jerked my ear clean off and made me give that ribbon back and tell Amber I was sorry. I didn’t even get to stay for the carnival rides—Granny just marched me to the car, wearin’ me out all the way, Amber followin’ behind us, trying to hand that ribbon back, crying and saying, ‘It’s all right, Miss Beedie, it’s all right. He got it fair and square.’ I reckon she thought my granny was gonna tear me in half, the way she lit me up going across that parking lot.”
Shaking his head, Otis Charles closed the tailgate. “Once we got in the car, Granny just looked at me and said, ‘O.C., you oughta be ashamed. You know the Andersons need to win that calf a lot more than you do.’ That was pretty much all it took. You know Grandma Beedie. You don’t respect her opinion, she’ll smack some respect into you.”
“Yes, she will,” Mr. O’Donnell agreed. “You tell Miss Beedie I said hi.”
“I’ll do that.”
Stepping back with the dolly as Otis Charles drove away, Mr. O’Donnell waved at me. “Afternoon, ma’am.”
“Afternoon,” I said. Watching him disappear into the mill, I imagined Amber growing up in this place. Daily, Texas, a little Utopia where boys learned the lessons of humanity and charity early, black and white loaded feed in perfect harmony, and grandmothers commanded respect, one way or the other.
I had the fleeting thought that if Amber didn’t make it into the Final Showdown—the point at which the two remaining performers were essentially guaranteed fame, recording contracts, and lucrative endorsement offers—she would probably come back here, hang out at the Dairy Queen, heft a few bags of corn and oats, get married, raise kids and take them to the Reunion Days calf scramble (whatever that was), and make a life. A nice, quiet little life. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
The thought haunted me as I continued my tour of town. Over the next hour or so, my trip through the dry goods store, Barlinger’s Hardware, the Dairy Queen, and the little native limestone Daily Baptist Church on the corner of Second and B streets began to develop a theme. Wherever I went, I overheard mini-trivia discussions about the life and times of Amber Anderson. She had worked at the dry goods store, the feed mill, and the Dairy Queen, where she was the best fry cook they ever had but no good at running the cash register. She’d given her first singing performance at the Daily Baptist Church during vacation Bible school, which, by the way, had gotten her involved in church and probably saved her, considering that, after the tragic deaths of her parents in an auto accident, she had no guidance at home except for her old grandfather, who drank too much and was not a churchgoer, and thus unprepared to see to the spiritual needs of a little girl.