She leaned against Polly until Polly had to shift her weight so the two didn't fall over.
"I will make sure you are well taken care of," Polly said. "But maybe we start with dinner instead of drinking this evening. The food is already out on the counter."
"Party pooper." Beryl smooched Polly's cheek. "But I still love you."
Eliseo said something quietly to Sylvie and Beryl swooped in. "Are you making plans for later? Because a drunken Sylvie is a fun Sylvie."
"No," Sylvie said. "He asked me if I'd like him to take Jason out for dinner. And Eliseo, I already told Jason that I'd have dinner ready at home for him, Scar and Kent, but if you want to spend more time with them, it's fine with me. Thank you."
"Will you need help putting these boxes back into your car this evening, Mrs. Watson?" Eliseo asked.
"Heavens no," Beryl said. "If I'm too drunk to drive, I'm not taking them home and if I'm not too drunk to go home by myself, that's just too bad. I don't know what to do with it all anyway."
"We'll keep it here until you are ready to store it," Polly said.
"That might be a while. If I don't miss my guess, we're going to want some of these things for the sesquicentennial celebration this summer."
"Then I'll ask Jeff to put them in a safe place until the committee needs the information."
"But it's a jumble," Beryl protested.
Polly laughed. "What in the world do you want me to do with it, then?"
"Damn it girl," Beryl said. "I don't know. Just quit being so helpful."
Lydia handed Beryl a plate. "You need to eat something."
Beryl scowled. "No, I don't. You should have seen the food that Tallie made me eat today. She wouldn't let me leave Fort Dodge until I'd burst the seams of my pants. And I don't wear those damned skinny jeans either. I have plenty of room for these old chicken legs."
Tallie's eyes grew big as she looked around the room.
"I'm leaving now," Eliseo said as he made his way to the kitchen door. "If you need me, let me know."
"Run for your life," Polly said. "We'll try not to need you."
"Since the menfolk have gone, we might as well get this party started," Beryl said. "Last one to the table has to drink first and fast."
Nobody moved.
"I'm not kidding," she said. "Move it. Move it. Move it. Get your food on. We're not wasting time this evening. Too much to do." She gave Polly a push. "Go, go, go, go, go."
"What got into you?" Polly asked, allowing Beryl to push her toward the counter.
"I don't know," Beryl said. "It was a rough and weird day and I'm just thankful to be among friends."
The meal ended up being a much bigger deal than Polly had expected. Of course, Lydia had made fabulous chicken enchiladas, topped with melted cheesy goodness. She'd also brought a dish of Spanish rice and wasn't telling anyone what she'd ended up creating for dessert. Andy had made a Mexican corn salad with colorful bits of red onions, black beans, red and green peppers and then had sprinkled fresh basil leaves on top. She'd also brought a corn casserole, still hot from the oven. Tallie's queso dip and bowls of tortilla chips were moved from the counter to the table and Sylvie took a basket of sourdough rolls out of the warm oven.
They pushed all of the boxes and totes to the far end of the table and after everyone had taken a seat, Beryl stood up again, holding out her glass of wine. "A toast," she said. "To old friends and new, to memories we share, those we make, and stories we uncover."
"Hear, hear," the women said and tapped their glasses together before taking a drink.
The room grew quiet as they took their first bites of food.
Lydia was the first to speak. "I haven't had a chance to talk to you yet, Polly. How's your boy?"
"He hurts. When I found them last night, I was pretty scared for him." Then she laughed. "But you know me and blood. There doesn't have to be a lot of it to freak me out. And there was plenty."
"What in the hell?" Beryl asked.
"Heath was beat up by some boys last night. He was with his ..." Polly took a breath. "With a girl he knows, and apparently some boys were harassing her. He stepped in to stand up for the girl and they thrashed him. One of the boys cut his face and his arm; they kicked him and beat him. I can't believe he wasn't hurt worse than he was."
"And he doesn't know who did it?" Andy asked. "That's what Lydia said."
Polly shook her head. "He says he doesn't. But I don't believe him. We'll have further discussions about this when he's not quite so sorry-looking."
"Do you think it was those boys he got in trouble with last summer?" Sylvie asked.
"I hope not." Polly's shoulders slumped. 'I'd hate to think that he'd started up with them again and was lying to me. That would destroy everything we've been building. I don't want to start all over again."
"Don't worry until you know for sure," Lydia said. "Your imagination will create much worse scenarios than reality will deliver. He's trying really hard to be part of your family. Hold on to that."
Polly nodded and sighed.
"Is Henry staying with him tonight?" Sylvie asked. "I thought I saw his truck leave."
"He's in Ames tonight with Nate Mikkels watching Hayden play ball."
Andy's eyes grew wide. "I can't believe you aren't upstairs hovering over him. I would be."
Polly looked around the table and gulped. "Should I be? Am I a terrible mom? Rebecca and Andrew are with him. He took a painkiller before I came downstairs and I figure he'd sleep most of the evening."
"Leave her alone," Lydia said, scowling at Andy. "You're just fine. You aren't the hovering kind of a mama and that's okay. You're close enough to take care of any problem that comes up and we all know that Rebecca adores him and will do any hovering that needs to be done."
"I've felt a little guilty about it," Polly said. "Henry told me not to worry and I really wanted to be here with you tonight."
"You shouldn't worry at all," Lydia said.
Polly relaxed. Lydia was her stabilizing force. Most of the time she felt confident in the decisions she made regarding Rebecca and Heath, but when something fell apart, Polly couldn't help but wonder if she'd missed something and it was really her fault.
"Enough," Beryl said. "This isn't helping her."
"What about you?" Lydia asked. "How was your day?"
"Oh lawd," Beryl said, fanning herself. "I'z plum wore out from all the excitement."
They looked at Tallie, who glanced at the ceiling.
"What happened?" Sylvie asked.
Andy smiled. "I'll bet they got lost."
Tallie burst out laughing.
"That's a yes," Andy said.
"So lost," Tallie agreed. "We were all over the place."
"But that was after we went to Aunt Mildred's house and were treated like twelve-year-old reprobates," Beryl said. "You wouldn't have known that I was a sixty-year-old woman who spent my entire adult life earning my own way. Oh no, she was dreadfully afraid that I might wrinkle one of her precious pages of information. And Tallie wasn't any safer. Because, you know, she's from New Mexico where all of those hippies live."
Tallie laughed. "She isn't wrong."
"But the old biddy insinuated that you all sit around smoking peyote in sweat lodges," Beryl said. She stood up. "I'm opening another bottle. Tell me I'm not drinking alone."
"Did you get any interesting information?" Lydia asked.
"I think so," Beryl said. "We have a lot of family tree charts. She traced as much as possible of all three brothers. Even Tallie's dad is listed." She brought a fresh bottle from the cooler. "We'll have to dig into it. Of course," she said, rolling her eyes, "we need to make copies first. Wouldn't want to damage her precious papers."
Tallie put her hand up. "I can do that after we eat while you look at some of the other things Beryl has."
"I found some interesting things at the library," Andy said. "The Carters claimed a lot of land around the area when they got here in the eighteen-sixties.
And this morning I stopped at both of the banks to see which one might have been here the longest."
"It was the County Bank," Beryl said.
Andy looked at her and stuck her tongue out. "Yes it was. It was founded as the Bellingwood National Bank in 1867 by Cyrus Carter, Hiram Bell, Philip Downs, Leonard Adams, Howard Roberts and Caleb Stone." She had ticked them off with her fingers. "Whew, I made myself memorize those names."
"Is it the same building?" Beryl asked.
Andy shook her head. "No. Don't you remember back when we were kids? The bank was on the corner downtown and then they put up this new building so it would be more modern. They put that drive-through in, too."
Beryl poured another glass of wine. "Don't mind me. I'm not paying attention."
"Don't you get too messed up," Polly said. "We have a lot of work ahead of us tonight and I'm not going to do your work for you while you're sprawled across the papers all passed out and stuff."
"Can I at least drink until I'm finished complaining about nasty Aunt Mildred?" Beryl asked.
Polly laughed. "How old is that woman anyway?"
"The old biddy is close to ninety. I can't believe she's still hanging on. This one is too mean to die." Beryl snickered and then laughed because she'd snorted. "If God's waiting for her to get nice before she shows up at the pearly gates, it's a good thing he has eternity. Knowing her, she'll bounce back and forth between heaven and hell, because I think she's meaner than the devil."
"Beryl," Lydia said, using her best mother-voice.
"You don't know her. I think even you would want to trip her as she walked past you."
"She's your family."
"Yeah. Like we all don't have family members that we'd rather not claim. Don't give me that. She's a mean, dried-up old bitch who hasn't had the sense to just die."
"Beryl Watson!" Lydia said. "Stop it."
"But I'm not ready to stop it. I had to voluntarily spend time with that old witch today. I put on my best smile and my nicest, kindest face and walked into her lair. If she'd been a dragon, I'd be dragon kibble by now. Trust me." Beryl looked at Tallie. "Help me out, here. You met the woman. She's awful, right?"
"She was pretty acerbic," Tallie said.
"See. Asher. Asker. Asser. Oh whatever the hell word she used," Beryl said. "Aunt Mildred is mean. So there."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Happy to clean up, Lydia and Sylvie insisted that the others dig into the boxes while they worked. Tallie offered to take the papers from Beryl's Aunt Mildred into the office and make copies, assuring Polly that she was familiar with the machine.
"Before we start," Andy said, "we should make a plan."
"Here she goes," Beryl moaned. "I haven't even lifted the top off the first box and she's ready to put labels on it. Tell me you didn't bring your label maker. That would just be embarrassing." Beryl huffed. "I'd be embarrassed for you."
Andy grinned at her friend. "You can get all huffy if you like, but these papers and pictures are too important to leave unorganized. I have felt tip pens, file folders and blank labels. We might as well make some sense of things now. Remember, only touch things once if you want to be efficient."
Beryl tapped the top of the box three times and smirked. "I'm going to need more wine for this."
"It seems to me," Andy said loudly as Beryl walked to the cooler, "that we should set up stations for different decades. If there is really over a hundred years’ worth of information, we could be overwhelmed by data from the mid-twentieth century. We don't need that tonight, but it might be important another time." She opened the plastic carryall tote she'd brought in and took out a stack of three-by-five cards and a roll of tape. “I've already written out the decades on these. If you don't mind, I'll tape them up around the room. We can sort to that level first."
Beryl waggled her hand at Andy. "Do whatever you want. I'm digging for gold."
"Where do you want to begin?" Polly asked Beryl.
"I have absolutely no idea," Beryl whispered. "I'm so overwhelmed by this, I want to cry. If Andy weren't here to take care of me, I'd just pitch it all in the trash bin."
"Top box it is, then," Polly said, choking back laughter.
"What?" Andy asked from across the room.
"We're just trying to figure out if the boxes have any order to them. I remember my granddad and Aunt Evaline packing these boxes up," Beryl said. "I was young, but they were trying to organize their memories. Uncle Jessup had died. Yeah," she said. "It was right after his funeral. They didn't want any more memories to escape, so they sat down and wrote names on pictures and put notes in books and things. Poor Melvin. He's the oldest. Granddad sat him down and told him that he would have to take care of these things; they'd be important someday."
She scowled. "I don't know if Melvin ever moved the boxes, though. They were stuck in the back of Mom and Dad's closet. After they moved into town and he took their home, he probably never looked at them again. His poor stupid kids don't know what kind of heritage they have because he never talked about it."
"You mean a bank robber and gambler?" Tallie asked as she came over to the table.
Beryl chuckled. "Well, yeah."
"Look at this," Tallie said and put a slip of paper down in front of Beryl.
"What is it?"
"It wasn't there earlier today when your Aunt Mildred packed up these boxes."
Beryl picked the paper up, turned it upside down and then back up, flipped it around and pursed her lips. "This notepaper is from my desk, but it's not my handwriting. How did it get in there?"
"I don't know," Tallie said with a shrug. "I have no idea what those numbers mean either."
Polly chuckled. "A series of numbers. Television investigators would tell us that if it isn't a phone number it's probably latitude and longitude."
"Ah ha," Beryl said. "The secret location of the gold treasure."
Tallie produced a sheaf of papers. "Or it could be page numbers. Your aunt numbered each page in her chart and that note was tucked inside the cover."
Beryl gave her a sideways look. "You're a party pooper. Okay. Let's look through these pages and see what we can find." Then she slapped her hand down on the table. "But who in the heck went through this..." She stopped. "Ohhh. Well, damn it all to hell."
"What?" Lydia asked.
"Nothing," Beryl said. Her hands curled into fists, crumpling the paper between her fingers. She took a deep breath, looked at what she had done and slowly unclenched her fingers, dropping the paper back onto the table. With deliberate movements, she smoothed it out and handed it to Polly. "Why don't you go through these. I need to step out and regain my composure. I'll be back." Beryl grabbed up her purse and walked out to the garage.
"What was that all about?" Sylvie asked.
Polly shook her head. "Why don't you all start on the boxes and I'll sort through these pages."
"I'm going back to the copy machine," Tallie said. She chuckled. "Aunt Mildred didn't know about all of these boxes of history. She would have been apoplectic if she thought Beryl was holding out on her."
"Are you composed?" Andy asked.
Polly looked up to see Beryl stalk back in, her face red and frustration washing across her.
"What's up?" Polly asked.
"My composure has left the building," Beryl said.
"Literally?"
"Literally. No answer." She looked at her watch. "It's not even nine o'clock." Beryl's eyes grew big. "The kittens!"
Andy shook her head. "What about the kittens? They're fine. You leave them alone all the time."
"Not when it's the first week after they had surgery." Beryl stamped around the prep table. "I can't believe this. What is going on in my world? I'm a good person."
Polly put the papers down on the table and stood up. She took Beryl's arm and led her out of the kitchen. "We'll be right back," she said over her shoulder.
She opened the door to the auditorium and flipped a light on. "What's going on?"
"That man was supposed to watch the kittens tonight for me. He's not answering his cell or the house phone. And Polly, he's the only person other than me who had access to the things I brought back from Aunt Mildred's house. He's involved in all of this. I just know it." Beryl kicked at the wall. "I'm an idiot."
"Who is he?" Polly asked.
"I'm so embarrassed I don't want to tell you. I should have known he was up to something. Nobody that nice just drops into my life." She sagged against the wall that she'd just kicked. "After all of these years, I just wanted somebody to treat me like family. That's all. Just one person."
"Oh honey," Polly said. She reached over and took Beryl's hand. "Tell me what happened."
"I don't know where to begin."
"Do you really not want to tell Lydia and Andy about this?"
Beryl snarled. "They already think I'm a pathetic old fool. They have their perfect lives with their kids and grandkids. They will never understand what it's like to be on the outside looking in and wondering why nobody loves you."
Polly couldn't help it as tears filled her eyes. "Oh Beryl, but the thing is, we love you so much."
"It doesn't matter to me most of the time," Beryl said, "But sometimes it's hard to accept that my own family doesn't have time for me unless I'm doing something for them. And even then, as soon as they get what they want from me, they're off and running away."
"Beryl?"
They turned around to see Lydia standing in the doorway.
"Don't come in here," Beryl said. "I don't want you to hear all of this."
"I'm going to hear all of this whether you tell me now or you tell me later," Lydia said. "Let's just get it out now."
"You'll use this against me someday when you think I'm not doing what I should be doing."
"Come on, Beryl. You know that isn't true."
"No I don't," Beryl said with a pout.
Lydia closed the distance and pulled Beryl into a tight hug. The older woman sobbed and sobbed on Lydia's shoulder.
"That happens a lot to you, doesn't it," Polly said.
"What does, dear?"
"People cry on you."
Unexpected Riches (Bellingwood Book 13) Page 17