A Teeny Bit of Trouble

by Michael Lee West

  “Teeny Templeton, is that you?” a nasal-voiced woman asked. “This is Angie Trammel. Can you bake a cake for my daughter’s bachelorette party?”

  “How’d you know I was back in town?” I asked.

  “Mary Queen Lancaster mentioned it,” Angie said. “I desperately need a cake.”

  “I wish I could help, but my baking supplies are in Charleston. Besides, I only do basic layer cakes. Nothing fancy.”

  “Don’t be modest, Teeny. Mary Queen was singing your praises. Me and my daughter will be at your house in ten minutes.”

  “Sorry, I won’t be here,” I said, but she’d already hung up.

  Sir and I were on our way out the front door when the Trammels’ white Cadillac roared into my driveway. I reluctantly showed the ladies to the parlor, and Sir sniffed their heels as if they’d both stepped in doggie doo.

  They refused my offer of coffee.

  “I’m on a colon-cleansing diet,” Angie said. She was a middle-aged version of her daughter Suzy. Both women raked their red fingernails through shoulder-length black curls.

  “Oh, Mama, hush.” Suzy flapped her hand. The sun glanced off her rhinestone-studded t-shirt, sending a dazzle around the room. Sir pounced on the rug, trying to trap the light with his paws.

  “I’ll need more than a colon cleansing before Suzy’s wedding gets here,” Angie said, fanning herself. “The damn thing’s jinxed.”

  “Mama, quit exaggerating,” Suzy said. “Only two bad things have happened.”

  “Yes, but trouble comes in threes. I’m just waiting for the third one to show up.” Angie cupped her hand around her mouth and leaned toward me. “First, the groom’s blood pressure medicine took away his manhood—”

  “Mama!” Suzy cried.

  “Well, it’s the truth. How am I supposed to get a grandchild? Randy might as well be sterile. I could just cry.” Angie twisted one of her curls around her thumb and turned to me. “The second bad thing is so awful. Suzy’s wedding dress, a full-beaded gown, the most beautiful dress ever created, is being altered by Clair-Beth Butts.” Angie paused to load her lungs.

  I gave the mother/daughter pair an I’m-sorry-I’m-out-of-time smile and made a big show of checking my watch. “About the cake…”

  “It’s Kendall McCormack’s fault,” Angie launched back into her story. “If she hadn’t died, her cousin Clair-Beth could have finished altering Suzy’s wedding dress. But she hasn’t touched her needle. Said she just knew she’d nick her finger on every bead and cover the dress with hundreds of bloodred polka-dots.”

  Suzy’s hands fluttered like a bird. A bird that had just eaten some poisoned wedding cake. “Some people are saying Kendall was drunk. Others are saying it was an unfortunate accident. But she didn’t drink.”

  A prickle ran down my spine.

  “That’s true,” Angie said. “Kendall was allergic to alcohol. One sip of wine, and her face would turn pink as a baboon’s butt. She’d break out in hives, too. She couldn’t even get near cooking sherry.”

  “She wasn’t supposed to fornicate, either, but she did,” Suzy said.

  “I think Lester drove Kendall to the bottle.” Angie wrinkled her nose. “He was too old for her. It’s so sad about his wife. First, I heard she killed herself, and now they’re saying she might have been murdered. At least, that’s what I heard at the viewing. I was standing right by Lester when the Sweeney police showed up. Personally I think Lester killed Barb and made it look like suicide.”

  Suzy leaned forward. “Or maybe Norris did it.”

  I caught a breath, then slowly released it. Never mind that I shared their opinion; the Trammels were rumormongers, and they would repeat everything I said. But my desire to pump them for information was greater than my fear of slander.

  “Why would he murder her?” I asked.

  “Revenge.” Angie patted my hand. “Barb and Norris used to be lovers, you know.”

  I felt a buzzing in my throat, as if I’d swallowed a wasp. “Seriously?” I asked.

  “It was a scandal,” Angie said. “If you want the lowdown on Barb, talk to Emma Underwood. She used to be an art teacher. Now she’s got Alzheimer’s. Didn’t your mama take lessons from her? Lordy, Emma used to know all the gossip. And she was particularly interested in Barb Philpot.”

  “Visit Miss Emma early of a morning,” Suzy said. “Her memory is better before lunchtime.”

  “Does she still live on St. James Square?” I asked, picturing the blue house on the corner of Louisiana and Juniper. Her backyard faced the O’Malleys’ pool and gazebo.

  “Yes.” Suzy thrust a thick pile of computer printouts into my hands. Each one showed a photograph of a risqué cake.

  “I like the one of the nude sunbathing couple,” she said, and handed me the instructions. “You’ll need to make the penis out of marzipan. I want a nice, big one on my cake.”

  “Eek,” Angie said. “I couldn’t eat a marzipan unmentionable. Why don’t you get Teeny to bake you a cute beach cake instead. She can put candied shells all over it.”

  “I want the penis cake,” Suzy said.

  “I can’t make that.” I shook my head. “I don’t have the training.”

  “It’s a freaking cake,” Suzy cried. “How much training do you need?”

  “It takes skill to make sugared genitalia.” I struggled to keep a straight face. “If you want a red velvet cake with cream cheese icing, I’m your girl. But when it comes to fondant body parts and flesh-toned icing, I’m sadly lacking.”

  I gave the Trammels the phone number of a Savannah cake lady. They reached for matching Louis Vuitton bags and left. I could already hear the little beep-beep from Angie’s cell phone as she punched in the number.

  Sir was staring at the floor, as if waiting for the sparkles to return. I wandered through the house, checking locks and pulling the window shades. After talking to the Trammels, I was even more convinced that Norris had worn that Bill Clinton mask. If Norris and Barb had been lovers, maybe they’d also sold body parts.

  But at least I wasn’t dealing with an unknown enemy. At least the enemy had a face and a name. Just knowing this made me feel calmer.

  The kitchen phone rang and I hesitated before picking it up. I wasn’t sure if I could take any more craziness. I answered with a curt hello.

  “Hey, girl,” Dot said. “Don’t bite off my head. I guess you heard about Kendall?”

  “Yes.”

  “I feel so bad that I didn’t help you.”

  “Forget it.”

  “You sound depressed. I know what’ll perk you up. Let’s go to the Tartan Hair Pub today. You can get a makeover. My treat. ”

  I lifted a hunk of frizz, tempted to accept her offer. “Thanks, but I’d better pass.”

  “Oh, come on. You’d be so cute if you thinned your hair a little. A new style will give you a new outlook. So will a pedicure. When’s the last time you had one?”

  I slipped my foot out of my boot and stared at my toes. “Never had one.”

  “Oh, my god. Are you freaking kidding me?” Dot cried. “How do you expect to hold on to Coop O’Malley with gross toenails? Meet me at the Tartan Hair Pub in ten minutes.”

  “Can’t. I’ve got to be somewhere.” But a pedicure did sound nice.

  “This is an emergency beauty intervention,” Dot said. “If you don’t show up, I’m coming to get you.”

  “I’ll be there.” I hung up. If Coop learned I hadn’t gone to the O’Malleys’, he’d be upset. But maybe improving my looks would improve his mood. No, I was just stalling. Because I didn’t want to stay with Irene.

  I unzipped my suitcase and dragged out my vocabulary book. Debacle. A catastrophe, fiasco, or calamity. I put Sir in the parlor with his toys and a water bowl.

  On my way out of the house, I grabbed a roll of Scotch tape. I locked up, then I climbed onto a wicker table and placed a strip of tape over the screen door. I patted it against the frame. If Norris tried to break in while I was gone, t
he tape would come loose. James Bond had used a hair in Dr. No, but he’d done that in a hotel room. Out on the porch, a gust of wind might dislodge the hair. A false alarm would feel like a real one, so I hoped the tape would stick.

  I wasn’t in a hurry to get a pedicure, so I knelt beside the porch and picked wild daisies. I felt a powerful longing to set them on Aunt Bluette’s grave.

  I pulled into Bonaventure Cemetery. Tourists milled around the tombstones, photographing the cherubs and old-timey monuments. Many of them dated back to the Revolutionary War and they were engraved with epitaphs from the Bible; but one tombstone always drew tourists.

  A lady in a red dress aimed her camera at a black granite marker. Carved into the stone was XAVIER ST. CLAIRE, PHILANDERER.

  I walked past the monument. In the distance, a hearse cruised through the narrow lane, followed by a row of cars with bright headlights. They were headed toward a maroon tent, where Vlado and Mr. Winky were setting up chairs.

  I stopped in front of Aunt Bluette’s marker and set the wildflowers on the grassy mound. She’d thought up a special epitaph before she’d died. I ran my fingers over the rose granite, tracing the letters.

  STEP SOFTLY, AN AUNT LIES HERE.

  A shadow fell over the grass. I looked up. Son Finnegan smiled down at me. He wore sandals, cut-off jeans, and a Burberry shirt. He held a dozen yellow roses. “Well, if it isn’t the cute cemetery chick.”

  “Don’t you ever work?” I said.

  “Not if I can help it.” He grinned. “I’m not stalking you. I came to see Mama. She’s just over yonder.”

  We walked to Cissy Finnegan’s stone. It was black granite, heaped with ceramic frogs and angels. Son propped the roses against a smiling toad. “Can I buy you a latte?”

  At first, I thought he was talking to the frog, but then he looked up at me.

  “Quit trying to feed me.” I glanced past him. In the funeral procession, I saw Irene O’Malley’s red Eldorado.

  Now she would know I’d been in the graveyard with Son.

  He rose to his feet, the wind kicking up his ponytail. “Like it or not, Boots, we have unfinished business. If your aunt had shown you my letters, we might have ended up together.”

  “There’s a tiny hole in your logic,” I said. “If you loved me so much, you would have found a way to tell me. Other than letters.”

  “So much was happening in my life. I was in my last year of med school. I lived at the hospital. They owned my ass. And afterward, I did an internship in Boston. A five-year surgical residency in Los Angeles. A fellowship took two more years. Then I was putting soldiers’ faces back together.” He looked up at the sky. “I wasn’t a monk. I had lovers. But in my whole life I loved one woman. I’m looking at her right now.”

  Sweat trickled down my back, sliding just beneath my dress. “It’s too late, Son. I don’t want to be hurtful. But I’m in love with Coop.”

  “Big mistake. Because his mama is a cannibal. How can you love a man who takes marching orders from a female Jeffery Dahmer? Irene has ruined every relationship Cooter has ever had.”

  “That’s a lie. She had nothing to do with Coop’s divorce.”

  “I sat next to her at a cookout. She polished off a dozen baby back ribs. In between bites, she told me how she got rid of Ava—isn’t that the wife’s name? Then Irene started bitching about you.”

  A cramp flickered in my belly. “What did she say?”

  “Hurtful things.”

  I grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer. “Tell me.”

  “She called your hair a lethal weapon. I stood up for you. Then she asked if we’d dated. I denied it, of course. But I don’t think she believed me.”

  Great. Perfect. I was spending the night with a paranoid, burglar-hating, flesh-eating woman who knew all about me and Son.

  “It’ll never work out, Boots. You and Cooter are too different. The farmer’s daughter and the doctor’s son. You say tomato, he says tomahto.”

  I reached up to pat my bangs, and I shot him a bird that only he could see. Then I left.

  twenty

  Halfway to the hair salon, I burst into tears. I pulled the truck over to the side of the road; heat boiled through the window. It had been just this hot the summer Son Finnegan had worked at Templeton Orchard.

  I remembered the day Aunt Bluette’s sharp eyes had caught me chatting him up. “Back to work, Mr. Finnegan,” she’d said, a wobbly smile caught on her lips. She steered me into the house, and her smile morphed into something sharp and toothy.

  “Stay away from that boy.” She wagged her finger. “His daddy is in the penitentiary.”

  “At least he’s got a daddy,” I said. Then, spitefully, I added, “And a mama.”

  Aunt Bluette’s eyes filled, but the tears just stayed there, shimmering on the edges of her lashes. “I won’t let you date him. He’s trash. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes, and I don’t care.”

  “It’ll never work, Teeny,” Aunt Bluette said. “Your mama and Son’s mama hated each other. They wrangled over a man.”

  “I’m not my mama. And Son isn’t his father.”

  “I don’t want you to get hurt again.” Aunt Bluette blinked, and tears ran down her wrinkled face.

  I felt so ashamed that I’d sassed her. I hugged her as hard as I could. “Son won’t hurt me.”

  “There’s all kinds of hurts,” she said. “Just all kinds.”

  Every afternoon, Son and I waited until Aunt Bluette drove to town, then we met in the hayloft. What I felt for him was sweet and tender, just like the last peach of summer. And I wasn’t giving him up.

  Dot Agnew was home from college that summer, and she devised a plan for Son and me to meet. “Tell your aunt that you’re going on a church retreat with me,” Dot said. “Then you and Son can have two whole days together.”

  For the first time in my life, I lied to Aunt Bluette. I added it to my annual tally, then I packed a bag and ran off to Hilton Head with Son. We got a room at the Seaside, a blue building with white Adirondack chairs out front. We didn’t put on our suits, just ran down to the beach. It was a blazing hot afternoon. Old ladies sat beneath striped umbrellas. Babies played in tide pools. Son pulled me to the edge of the water. He kneeled in the sand and drew a giant T + S.

  He got to his feet, his green plaid shirt filling with wind, and clasped my hands. “I love you, Teeny.”

  “Love you, too.”

  “I’m gonna marry you someday. Will you wait for me?” His wet hand slid down my cheek and caught in my hair. The surf rushed between our feet and swept over the T + S, scrubbing out the letters. I leaped onto his shoulders and he spun me around. He carried me back to the hotel, pausing every two seconds to kiss me.

  Cissy Finnegan stood outside our door, flanked by Son’s tattooed brothers. Aunt Bluette and the Baptist preacher were behind them. All the breath left my body, as if a fist had slammed into my chest.

  “You little fucker,” Cissy yelled. She flew at Son, slapping his face and arms.

  “How dare you run off with Ruby Ann’s daughter!”

  Thwack, thwack, thwack.

  “You ain’t messing up your doctoring career.”

  Aunt Bluette pulled me away from Son. He tried to run to me, but his brothers held him back. Cissy spat on the floor.

  “Damn Templetons,” she said.

  Aunt Bluette and the preacher dragged me to his Buick. I was crying so hard, my nose was running. I felt a cool hand against my shoulder.

  “I’m so sorry, Teeny,” Aunt Bluette said. “But you’ll thank me someday. When you find true love, you’ll thank me.”

  The preacher didn’t drive back to Bonaventure. They went south, past Savannah, down I-95 toward St. Mary’s. During the ferry ride to Chamor Island, I slumped on a bench, sobbing, while they discussed corn bread.

  “Bacon grease is the secret ingredient,” Aunt Bluette said.

  “Jalapeños change the flavor entirely,” the preacher said.
/>   “So do chives,” she said.

  “There’s hundreds of recipes,” the preacher said. “Hundreds of ingredients. No need to get stuck on one.”

  I realized they weren’t talking about the versatility of cornmeal. This was a food parable, and they were telling me that I’d find love again. All kinds of love.

  I spent a month in Aunt Bunny’s cottage, and when I returned to Bonaventure, Son was gone.

  * * *

  A giant neon clover sat on the roof of the Tartan Hair Pub. The parking lot was empty except for a gold Corvette, which I assumed belonged to Dot.

  I got out of the truck. The shop’s interior was done up in green plaid and Irish bric-a-brac—leprechauns, pipes, and clover. Green mirrors and chairs lined both walls. A row of hairdryers sat in the middle of the aisle. Four sinks were in an alcove. At the last sink, Dot’s long legs jutted out of a plastic cape that was printed with shamrocks.

  She lifted her head and waved. “Mr. Sheehan, just give Teeny the works.”

  Mr. Sheehan was in his sixties and wore a tight, hunter green bodysuit. He put a finger to his lips and walked around me, his shoes clicking on the tile floor. “Define works.”

  “I just want a pedicure,” I said.

  “You need highlights. Straightening. Maybe lowlights…” His voice trailed off, then he shook his head. “No, highlights won’t show up in that bush.”

  He lifted a clump of my hair. “Are you part Aborigine?”

  I shrugged. Honestly, I didn’t know. My daddy could have been anyone.

  Twenty minutes later, Dot was getting a comb-out, but I was sitting in Mr. Sheehan’s chair, my scalp burning from the straightening solution. I gritted my teeth and took a hit of Ventolin.

  “The smell is formaldehyde, doll,” Mr. Sheehan said. “Years ago, funeral homes used it to embalm people. But it got outlawed.”

  It was against the law to put formaldehyde into a dead person but not on my hair? “How much longer?” I asked.