by Amy Metz
Caledonia stood there, stunned. She realized she’d been dismissed. She looked around and saw all eyes on her, so she adjusted her purse on her shoulder, raised her chin, and returned the smile to her face before going to join her friend.
“What was all that about?” Paprika leaned toward her friend.
Before Caledonia could answer, Willa Jean was at their table. “I’m sure that’s nothing, honey,” she soothed. “They’re in here all the time.” She saw the expression on Caledonia’s face and realized how it sounded. “I mean, it’s a normal everyday occurrence, nothing clandestine or untoward.”
“Every day?” Caledonia said.
“Well, purt near.” Willa Jean swallowed visibly. “But I’m sure there’s nothing going on between the two. I mean, two bodies don’t come to the diner every day if they’re carrying on a romance.” She touched Caledonia’s arm and added, “Which I’m sure they’re not. They work nearby, so it’s natural they’d eat together.”
“Every day?” Caledonia repeated.
“Aw, shoot. I’m just making it worse. I’m gonna shut my mouth. You gals want some sweet tea?”
They nodded, and Willa Jean hurried off to get their tea.
“California, I’d slap the fire out of him if someone treated me that way, but I think Willa Jean’s right. If they were having an affair, they wouldn’t carry on in front of God and everyone. Besides, that woman can’t hold a candle to you. I shouldn’t talk poorly about anyone, but she’s awfully dowdy, don’t you think?”
“There are more ways than one to have an affair,” Caledonia said softly, looking over her shoulder and attempting to keep a smile on her face. Her teeth were clamped down so hard she was developing a headache. “Just seems to me a man’s wife should be his best friend, not another woman.”
“Here y’all go. One with and one without lemon.” Willa Jean set down the glasses of sweet tea. “This should cool ya right off.” She quickly added, “I mean on account of the heat. I didn’t mean because you might be mad.” Her eyes went from Paprika to Caledonia. “Oh, Lord. I keep sticking my foot in my mouth. I really don’t mean anything, Callie. You know me. My mama used to say I had an unfortunate way of phrasing things, and she was right.”
“Don’t worry about it, Alice.” Caledonia patted her arm. She’d chosen “Alice” for Willa Jean’s nickname after the TV show Alice about a waitress in a diner.
“What can I getcha?” she asked, pen at the ready.
Caledonia glanced toward her husband. “I’ll take a banana split.”
“For lunch?” Both women spoke at once in soprano tones.
“Yes. For lunch.” Caledonia’s tone suggested no argument.
Willa Jean’s eyes showed understanding. She regarded Paprika. “You too?”
“I can’t let her eat alone.” She nodded. “One for me too. Bring it on. I’ll just do fifty more crunches tonight.”
Phil and Dee Dee stood and walked toward the front of the diner. He gave a halfhearted wave to his wife as he passed by their booth.
Willa Jean started toward the kitchen but stopped briefly when she heard Caledonia call after her. “And two donuts, Alice.”
The waitress quickened her gait again and hollered, “Two houseboats and two life preservers.” Then more quietly she said, “A formidable pair.”
Clive heard her and asked, “Which ones? The food or the ladies?”
Willa Jean looked from the ladies back to Clive. “Both.”
Tess and Jack breezed into the diner, and Tess immediately saw Caledonia sitting in a back booth by herself. The southern heat and humidity had left Tess feeling like she was melting—hair, skin, and clothes. She felt like her whole body was merging into one big blob. Kind of the way Caledonia looked.
Tess turned to Jack. “Would you mind if I join Caledonia? She looks like she could use a friend.”
“Sure. You go ahead. I’ll sit here with the boys.”
Tess left Jack with Earl and Clive at the counter and headed for Caledonia’s booth. She hadn’t been paying attention to where she was going and accidentally ran into a chair on her way to see her friend.
“Did you know it’s the saddest people who usually smile the brightest?”
Caledonia jumped at the sound of Tess’s voice. She’d been staring into her glass of tea, deep in thought.
“Hey,—” She hesitated. “Darnit, I still can’t figure out a nickname for you. Spice Girl just left. Would you care to join me?”
“If you need someone to talk to, I have big ears . . . ” Tess let her sentence trail off.
“You do not,” Caledonia began and then stopped when she caught Tess’s meaning. She smiled ruefully. “Oh.”
Tess rubbed her aching thigh. “I don’t want to pry, Cal, just know that I’d be glad to listen if you need someone.”
“Tess, you’re a peach. Actually, you just might be the very person I should be talking to.”
Tess raised her eyebrows.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Absolutely.”
“Is it true that your ex-husband was cheating on you during your marriage?”
Tess let out a whole-body sigh. “Yes, it is.” She searched her friend’s face and then added softly, “You don’t think Philetus is cheating on you, do you?”
Caledonia only nodded.
“Oh, Caledonia.” Tess gripped her friend’s hand. “I’m so sorry. Are you sure?”
“No. Just woman’s intuition.” Caledonia twisted her wedding ring on her finger while she talked. “He’s just so indifferent and distant. And lately he’s getting more and more text messages. At all hours of the day—and night. Something ain’t right.”
“Uh-oh.”
Caledonia gave a weak smile. “Yeah. Uh-oh.”
“Have you gone through the phase of buying lingerie and dressing seductively?”
She gasped. “That’s a phase?”
“For most of us, it is. We tend to think there’s something wrong with us. That we’re not attractive enough, that we should do more . . . be more.”
“I’ve been there, done that, honey.”
“Listen to me, Caledonia.” Tess leaned toward her, gripping both her hands. “You are a beautiful, intelligent, wonderful woman. Don’t let this man make you feel differently. You deserve to love and be loved. And if that’s missing from a marriage . . . what’s left? If you choose to look the other way, your soul will wither and die. Don’t. Do. It.”
Caledonia teared up.
“The children—”
“The children will understand,” Tess said. “If it were reversed, would you want your children to stay married and be miserable just to please you? Wouldn’t you want them to do whatever it took to be happy?”
“They won’t look at it that way. It will be my happiness at the cost of theirs.” Tears filled her eyes.
“So your happiness isn’t important?” Tess gently asked.
She shook her head. “Children don’t see their mothers as people. They’ll never understand.”
“Sometimes mothers don’t see themselves as people. You’ll have to help them understand.”
Caledonia stared out the window but said nothing.
Just then Louetta swept through the door, spotted the ladies, and went straight for them, shushing Clive and Earl on her way past them.
“Just the ladies I’ve been looking for. Do you know what the day after tomorrow is, Tessie?”
“Um . . . Sunday?”
“And a year to the day when I hired you.” She clapped her hands together in excitement. “I say that calls for a party.”
“Ooh . . . a rip-roaring shindig type party or a cotillion type?” Caledonia sat up, excitement brightening her face.
“Call it whatever you want, but Sunday night at the bookstore there will be food, drink, and much merriment. Bring anyone and everyone you want.” She spun on her Easy Riders and rushed to the front of the diner, stopping to invite Clive, Earl, Jack, Willa Jean, Slick, and
Junebug to the party before she hurried out the door.
“You know what this means, don’t you, Caledonia?”
“What?”
“It means we need to go shopping for something to wear to the party.”
Caledonia feigned seriousness. “I suppose it does. It’s the polite thing to do—be well-dressed.” The ladies laughed.
“My thought exactly.” Tess studied Caledonia’s face. “Cal, I have an idea. What if I play PI for a bit and follow Philetus? Maybe nothing’s going on at all. We can put your mind to rest.”
She held a fingernail to her teeth. “I think it would be good to know for sure.” She nodded once. “Okay. But on one condition.”
Tess cocked her head. “What’s that?”
“I play your wing man.”
A smile crept over Tess’s face. “Excellent idea.”
Caledonia looked triumphant. “I’ve got it. I know your nickname.” She pointed at Tess. “You’re gonna be my bodyguard. I can call you Betty; you can call me Al.” Caledonia sang the words in a bad version of Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al.”
“I don’t think that’s quite the way the song goes, but okay. I’ll call you Al.” The women got up and headed for the cash register while dancing an imitation of the two-steps-kick-front, two-steps-kick-back dance that Paul Simon and Chevy Chase did in the music video. When they got to the cash register, Caledonia used the counter as a bongo drum, and Tess danced the hands-to-elbows dance from the video. The women sang like they didn’t have a care in the world.
Mama always said . . . Beware, some people will sell you a dream and deliver a nightmare.
Police officer Hank Beanblossom sat at the counter watching a newcomer two seats away as Tess and Caledonia danced like fools behind him. The new woman was attractive in a kooky sort of way. He’d seen her taking a picture of the front of the diner, so he thought she must be a tourist. Her cat-eye glasses were unique, to say the least. She had on way too much makeup for his liking, but there was something about her that he did like. Her magenta-colored Farrah Fawcett-style hair hung down over her eyes from bangs that started at the top of her head. The color was obviously fake; he wondered what shade her hair really was.
“Caledonia, I thought you were gonna take up residence in that booth,” Willa Jean said, as Caledonia used the counter as a bongo drum.
The women finally stopped dancing and carrying on. They collapsed into each other, giggling. “Yes, we have some shopping to do,” Caledonia said, pushing her hair off her forehead.
“Oooh, you going to Miss Penny’s? She’s got some new stuff in, you know.”
“That’s our next stop,” Tess said.
Hank turned his attention again to the woman two stools down. She was twirling her hair around her finger and reading something on her cell phone. He tried not to stare, but his eyes kept going back to her. Her lips were large and made her nose look too small for her face. Or were her lips too big for her face? Just as he was thinking Botox? she made eye contact with him. How can she see through that hair? he wondered. But it was long, beautiful hair. Probably soft.
“What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” He hoped his grin and uniform would show her she didn’t need to be afraid to talk to this stranger.
“Drinking coffee,” she said, looking into her coffee cup.
He laughed but immediately sobered when he saw her blank expression and realized she was serious. He tried again. “Are you new in town or just passing through? I saw you taking pictures, so I’d wager you’re visiting?”
She had a thick Southern accent. “Oh.” She giggled. “I get it. I guess I’m both. New and passing.” Was she playing shy or was she shy? Either way, she talked to her coffee cup instead of him. He couldn’t see much of her eyes because of her hair, but he liked what he saw for some strange reason.
“I could show you around if you’d like. How long you here for?”
“Just a day or two.” The woman’s attention returned to her phone, and she wouldn’t make eye contact with him.
“Where you staying?” Hank leaned forward, hoping to get her to look at him again.
“In a hotel.” She made the word “hotel” have three syllables.
Clive, sitting three stools down on the other side of Hank, spoke up. “You know what this is, Officer Beanblossom?”
“Oh boy, here it comes,” Hank said over his shoulder. “No, Clive. What is this?” He sat sideways on the stool so he was facing the woman and not the man who’d just spoken.
“It’s like a monkey trying to do math problems.”
“It ain’t gonna happen is what he means.” Earl joined the conversation.
“You know what, Clive?” Hank swiveled so he faced the two men. “The last time I saw a mouth big as yours, it had a hook in it.”
Hank glanced at the woman and thought he saw a hint of a smile as she took a drink of her coffee.
“Are y’all harassing my customers?” Junebug flicked a dishtowel over her shoulder and then turned to Hank with her hands on her hips. “Ain’t you on duty?”
“I’m on break, Mom. Don’t go getting your knickers in a knot. I’m just being friendly.”
“Ha! You’d have more manners if I were your ma. Finish your break, and go serve and protect. Leave my customers alone.” Junebug flicked the dishtowel at Hank and refilled the woman’s coffee. “You decide what you want, hon?”
The woman mumbled something and then Junebug turned, hollering, “Gimme Bossie on a board and fried breath.”
Hank smacked the counter. “Now how in the world you gonna fry air, Junebug?”
“He ain’t gonna do no such thing, fool.” Junebug propped her hands on her hips. “He’s gonna fry some onion rings. Don’t you know anything? Now g’won about your business and leave my clientele be.”
Hank turned back to the tourist. “I apologize if I bothered you, ma’am. My name’s Hank Beanblossom.” He waited expectantly for her to give her name.
Finally she offered, “I’m Trixie.”
Skeeter Duke came into the diner, and Clive hollered out, “Officer, arrest this man for harassment. He won’t leave this pretty lady alone.”
“I’m just being neighborly, is all.” Hank stood with a scowl on his face and pulled his wallet from his back pocket. A second later, he laid a business card next to Trixie’s coffee cup. “Call me if you need anything while you’re in town. I’d be happy to help.” His voice was soft, and he tried to hide the hurt in it.
Trixie watched the officer through her hair as he paid his bill at the cash register. Her initial impression that he was good looking was confirmed. She’d done her best to ignore him but couldn’t help taking peeks through her bangs now.
The old men began arguing over what sounded like an upcoming town celebration. Something about a Founder’s Day. She listened as they talked about a kiddie tractor pull (a great idea according to Clive, but a terrible idea according to Earl), and a Hula-Hoop contest (which both men thought was a great idea), and the usual ideas of a cake walk, cake and pie bake-offs, and an ice cream social.
“I think we should have a strawberry shortcake booth,” declared Clive.
“What in the good world for?” Earl slammed his hand on the counter.
Clive reared back indignantly. “Because I love strawberry shortcake. Everybody loves strawberry shortcake.”
“I don’t. I think that’s a stupid idea. What’s the matter with you? You got Cheez Whiz for brains?”
“Earl, you’re in serious need of an attitude adjustment. You think anything that’s not your idea is stupid. You ought to open your horizons a little. Think outside the box. Goose Pimple Junction is tired of the ordinary.”
“Think outside the box, huh? Okay, how about a bubble gum contest then?”
“A what?” Clive shrieked.
“You heard me. The kids would love it. We could call it,” he fanned his hand in the air as if seeing the name in lights, ‘The Great Bubble Battle.
’”
“You know you got the mental agility of a soap dish?”
“Well, I don’t hear you coming up with any great ideas. The old ‘this is the way we’ve always done it’ attitude is for the uncreative. Those ideas are stale as yesterday’s bread.”
“You want a new idea? How about a basketball challenge? We could call it the ‘1st Annual Founder’s Day Shootout.’“
“Teams or two-on-two b-ball?”
“Either or.”
“Well now, that might not be such a bad idea. Say, what you got there?” He pointed at a magazine next to Clive’s plate.
“I’m thinking of ordering me one of these.” He held up the magazine, but Trixie couldn’t see what he was showing his friend. If you could call him that.
“A miniature bulldozer?” Earl screeched. “What in the world for? You can borrow my John Deere for anything you’d need that bulldozer for.”
“Not on your life. That mini-dozer could outpull a John Deere garden tractor any day of the week.” Clive poked a finger at his friend. “And twice on Monday.”
She finished her meal and got up to pay the bill. Her ears were hurting from listening to those two old men. A waitress with a beehive hairdo and a nametag of “Willa Jean” worked the register. “Your tab’s been settled, hon.”
“Excuse me?” She stared at the woman through strands of hair, stunned.
“Yeah. Hank Beanblossom took care of it.” When Trixie didn’t say anything, Willa Jean added, “You could do worse, you know.”
Trixie nodded, but she thought, This does not bode well. Am I ever gonna be able to fool anyone?
Mama always said . . . Always remember it’s better to arrive late than to arrive ugly.
Hank closed the bookstore door and stood on the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets. He walked to the corner of the block prepared to cross at the crosswalk, but when he glanced to his right, he saw Caledonia and Tess coming out of a dress shop down the block. He waved and walked toward them.
“You two getting ready for the big party?”
“We sure are. Prepare to be dazzled,” Caledonia said.