“Most of ‘em are going to think that you’re one lucky woman winning the state lottery like that. The rest of ‘em are going to hit you up for a loan the minute they see you. This area ain’t exactly rolling in money.”
“I know,” she said. “People are gonna act weird around me when the news gets out ain’t they.”
“People already act weird around you,” I pointed out. “It’ll be okay. They’ll still be happy for you.”
Actually, I had my doubts. Some people can be kinda sharp when it comes to other people having good fortune. It’s like they get mad it didn’t happy to them.
The one thing I know about Lula Faye is that she was ashamed of her mama and embarrassed by her daddy, and she spent most of her life trying to prove to people that she was better than them. I guess she thought she had to save the reputation of the family or something all by herself. What she didn’t seem to ever appreciate was the fact that people don’t really care all that much what other people do or don’t do. At least not any more. Not after a steady diet of some of them reality TV shows where a girl tries to figure out which one of eight possible baby daddies is the real daddy and then it turns out a couple of them baby-daddies have been sweet on the girl’s mama. After watching a few of them kinds of shows, a regular person’s dirty laundry just don’t amount to much anymore.
Like I said, sometimes I watch a little too much TV.
Besides, Lula Faye’s mama and the postman set up to housekeeping down in Frankfort and got married and acted like they had right good sense after they got the running around part out of their system. Before he died, Lula Faye’s daddy was telling people that Aunt Belle leaving him was one of the best things ever happened to him. Of course, he was a lot heavier by that time, and he did die of that coronary. Probably from all the casseroles and homemade pies he was forever getting left in his fridge. From what I heard, he got to leaving his door unlocked because he didn’t want to keep the food from showing up.
I always wondered why them women didn’t give up after a while, but I guess they figured they’d all invested way too much Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup making them casseroles to stop. The way I remembered it, he outlived most of the front runners.
“So—what are you going to do?” I asked.
Lula Faye had begun to get some of her spunk back. I noticed she was sitting up a lot straighter instead of all slumped over the table. It’s amazing what some sweet tea and a pickle loaf sandwich can do for a body, especially if there’s someone sitting across from you who ain’t judging the fact that you played the lottery. After all, everyone’s got something they ain’t too proud of. If they say they don’t, they’re lying. Even the Holy Book says that.
“What am I going to do?” She lifted her chin and crunched into a potato chip. I’d dumped a bag of them into a bowl to round the meal out. “I’m going to turn in this ticket to the lottery people, that’s what I’m going to do.”
“What are you going to do with the money?” I asked.
“I figure that out later,” Lula Faye said. “But I got me some ideas.”
The problem with winning the lottery is that you can’t keep it a secret no matter what. That means everybody and his brother knows you got money. I never thought much about it before, but when you win the kind of money that Lula Faye won, the news reporters try to find out everything they can about you.
There weren’t much dirt they could dig up about Lula Faye. Of course some of the news people interviewed some local friends of hers asking what kind of a person she was. I thought I noticed a bit of hesitation from some of her church members before they told the reporters that she was a wonderful, God-fearing woman. Salt of the earth, they said. It was like it took a beat for everyone to work out in their minds that it was okay to tell maybe a little white lie in order to keep outsiders from knowing church business.
The fact was—and I knew it—that Lula Faye had been a thorn in everyone’s side for a whole lot of years, and they were being awful nice in spite of it. Sometimes people can surprise you in a good way. Or maybe they thought some of Lula Faye’s money might come their way if they were nice.
I was a little worried when I saw on the news that they’d manage to corner Preacher Roy Abernathy outside the church one evening when he was mulching the flower beds.
“What do you think about your parishioner winning the lottery?” The blow-dried blonde girl had a microphone in her hand and a too-serious expression on her face. “Do you expect her to give some of her winnings to the church?”
There ain’t much for our local news people to work with sometimes in our neck of the woods and the local news channels were milking Lula Faye’s good fortune for all it was worth.
The blonde girl stretched out her hand with the microphone to catch what Preacher Roy might say. He stood up, dusted the dirt off his knees and hands and said, “No. I don’t.”
“But she’s a member of your church,” the newsgirl argued. “Certainly the church could use a portion of her winnings.”
I didn’t know Preacher Roy all that well and I scooted forward in my seat to hear what the man would say.
“What Lula Faye does with her money is her own business. Not mine. And certainly not yours.”
Well, the news girl kinda jerked back when he said that. She probably wished she could re-wind the tape—but the interview was live, so she felt like she had to justify herself with a follow-up question.
“But most churches have needs,” she said. “Doesn’t yours need a new roof or something?”
Preacher Roy glanced up at the white framed church with its pretty steeple. “This church building is a hundred and seventy years old. It survived one tornado, a fire that took part of the back end, and the Civil War. The foundation is still sound, there’s no termite damage, and that roof does not leak. If it did, I would repair it myself. But if it were to burn to the ground tomorrow the church would still stand.”
The young news girl was puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“The church is not a building.” He picked up a rake that was leaning against the outside of the building. “The gospel has survived without lottery money for over two thousand years and it can last a few more. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
He turned his back on the reporter and began to rake the mulch smooth. His craggy face had never cracked a smile the whole interview. It struck me that this was one preacher who was real serious about his faith. I was a little surprised the channel allowed that interview to stand, but there weren’t much they could do about it. It being a live broadcast and all.
It made me feel like if it weren’t for the fact that Lula Faye went there, and the fact that I was sort of a Methodist (now that we’ve become a community church, so to speak, I’m not real sure what to call myself.) I wouldn’t mind hearing that man preach some time. One thing for sure, he weren’t trying to win any popularity contests with that news channel. I figured that would be the last time they’d ask him for any kind of interview.
Some of the people of Lula Faye’s church were thrilled for her and some of the younger people started talking about playing the lottery their own selves seeing as how Lula Faye was a rich woman now and all. Older members of the church weren’t real happy about that and pointed out that gambling was a sin—even if you did win fifty-two million dollars. This hurt Lula Faye’s feelings and she stopped playing the organ for them. Quite a few men started coming around and asking her out. Men who had steered clear of her before. I guess most of them thought they could put up with a little bossiness out of her if it meant getting to buy a new bass boat or fancy RV, but Lula Faye was not interested in any of them.
Then some of our relatives on the Sizemore side started coming around asking for financial help. It’s amazing how the smell of money can draw people to you. Like flies to honey, Lula Faye said. She was a little put out with them.
There were also some strange letters from people. Some were so strange that Lula Faye got a company to come and put
a security system in. She made the mistake of buying a fancy car, and then worried about parking it where people might hurt it. When it did get a scratch, she was pretty sure it was deliberate. People around here can be as good as gold to you when you’re down and out, but there’s some who can get awful mean if they think someone is getting above themselves.
At least Lula Faye didn’t build herself a big new house or anything. She actually had some common sense about that. Said since it was just her, she didn’t need some mansion to live in.
Of course, with Lula Faye being rich and everything, Marva, the church secretary, started to relax about hanging onto her job. She was pretty sure Lula Faye didn’t want it anymore and she was right.
Lula Faye tried her best to act like nothing had changed, at least for a while she did, but the fact was things had changed. She felt funny at church, and she felt funny going to the grocery store, and she felt funny every time she tried to talk to people who knew her. She said they didn’t seem to know what to say to her. Except for them who had big plans for her money. She told me that she’d never realized how many relatives she had before. Cousins were suddenly coming out of the woodwork.
Lula Faye had always been bossy, but she really did have a good heart. She had spent most of her life trying to live down what her mama did, and what her daddy had turned into, and it was like she had created a bunch of self-imposed rules to live by and the only problem she had was trying to make everyone else live by them, too. Suddenly, having her whole life turned upside down with that big bunch of money and no rule book attached to it to tell her what to do, threw her way off-kilter.
The worst thing was, Lula Faye had no earthly idea how to continue to be a good Baptist and still keep her lottery money intact. People at her church started talking about what they’d do if they were her and how Lula Faye could support mission work for an entire third world country if she wanted to.
The problem was, Lula Faye didn’t want to support mission work for an entire third world country. Lula Faye decided that what she really wanted to do was have some fun for a change and that’s when the real trouble began—for both of us.
She wanted someone to go have fun with her and for some reason she decided she wanted me to be her traveling partner. There’s some around here who would be thrilled with the idea, but I was the worst choice she could have made.
“I’ve decided I got to get out of here for a while,” Lula Faye said, about a month into her being a rich woman. “I need to take a vacation and clear my head, and you’re coming with me, Doreen.”
“Me?”
“Yes. You ain’t got anything else you gotta do.”
I told you before--nothing good ever comes from me leaving home. After that church camp business, I’d made a serious vow to myself that I’d never set foot outside of Greenup County, Kentucky again. Ever.
“Nope,” I said. “You’re gonna have to find yourself another girl. I like it here at home just fine.”
“I’ll pay,” Lula Faye said. “It won’t cost you a cent.”
“Nope.” I had made my decision and I crossed my arms across my chest to emphasize the fact that I felt real strong about it. I didn’t want to go with her and that was that.
One of the nicer things about getting old is you know what you want to do and what you don’t want to do. And I knew the one thing on earth I had no intention of ever doing was setting foot outside of my home town ever again—except for maybe going over the Ohio river to Portsmouth every now and then to see my eye doctor or shop at Walmart.
But one of the bad things about dealing with relatives is that they know your weaknesses, all of them, and Lula Faye knew mine. We’d spent too many hours sitting on the banks of the Ohio River together.
“I bet I know how to get you to go with me.” Lula Faye said, in a kind of sing-song like a little girl would use.
“Ain’t happening,” I said.
But I was wrong and Lula Faye was right. She did know how to get me out of Greenup County. I just didn’t know it yet.
There’s pretty much only one thing I ever really wanted to do that I ain’t done yet. Every now and then one of them nice old paddle boats come down the river looking like some sort of fancy wedding cake and playing that big ole calliope. People stand at the boat’s railing and wave at us a’sittin’ there on the river bank. I’d always wished I could be one of them people waving at us and Lula Faye knew it.
Of course, I also knew that wishing to go on one of them trips down the Ohio River was about like wishing on the moon. People like me don’t go making trips that costs what them riverboat cabins cost. Shoot—if I ate nothing but peanut butter and white bread for a year I couldn’t afford to go on no trip like that.
The other problem was, Lula Faye had already booked us a room on the Mississippi Queen Riverboat. It was coming down the river in two days, she said, and she’d found out about it and decided to treat me to the one trip I’d longed to go on forever.
I don’t know why the idea of floating down the river had always held such appeal for me, but it did. Maybe it was reading Huckleberry Finn when I was a girl and day dreaming about building a raft and going off for an adventure. Or maybe it was knowing that them cabins were something so luxurious I might never see anything like them in this lifetime.
Once she told me she’d already plunked down the money for the reservations, I was a gonner. I uncrossed my arms and nodded my head and said, yes. I’d love to go for a ride on the Mississippi Queen.
We didn’t have far to go to board. The riverboat was making a stopover at Portsmouth and she had made arrangements for it to let us on.
I think Lula Faye was trying to be kind to me, or maybe she was just being selfish and dragging me along for the company. I don’t know. It don’t matter anyhow. The fact was that here I had the opportunity to float down the river on that beautiful paddle wheeler and I could hardly stand myself I was so excited.
There was a problem, though. I’m no clothes horse and I didn’t have nothing in my closet fit to wear for something like that. I really didn’t.
People in South Shore are used to me. They are so used to seeing me around town they’d be shocked if I ever walked down the street in anything except one of my house dresses, ankle socks and tennis shoes. As long as I was clean and modest, I didn’t much care what people thought. In most cases, I already knew enough about them and their families to not be particularly impressed with anything they might or might not think about me. When you’re talking to someone and can remember the day in first grade when they suddenly had a puddle around their desk and trying to pretend it weren’t theirs, it’s hard not to feel pretty at ease around them even if they are driving a shiny new truck or are running for county sheriff.
Problem was, I didn’t know anybody that was going to be on that fancy paddle wheeler except Lula Faye. I figured they’d all take one look at me and think I didn’t know how to dress myself. Which weren’t exactly true, but when you’re living on nothing but Social Security a body sometimes has to choose between dressing good and eating good. I usually chose to eat, which meant I needed to go shopping in the worst way before we took off.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Lula Faye scoffed. “Just bring your undies and toothbrush and we’ll buy you some nice clothes after we get on the boat.”
I hated to tell her, but my undies weren’t nothing to brag about, either.
So, before I hardly knew what was happening, Lula Faye had one of her neighbors drive us over to Portsmouth, and the next thing I knew, we were standing there waiting for the boat to dock. I had a lot of thoughts racing through my head while I waited. Like what on earth was I doing, me a seventy-two year old woman, gallivanting off on some wild adventure with my cousin who was nearly as old as me and both of us probably needing to have better sense.
And then, suddenly, while I was debating about maybe just changing my mind and walking back across the bridge—I heard the sound of a giant calliope a’dancing on the wind, and
then the Mississippi Queen paddle boat came around the river bend. I felt like I was suddenly about ten years old and could hardly get my breath for wanting to be on that big, beautiful, thing so bad.
Lula Faye must have felt me stiffen beside her with anticipation. I saw her look at me with this smirk of satisfaction on her face.
“You glad I invited you now?” she asked.
I had to swallow before I could speak. “It’s a pretty boat.”
“Yes,” she said. “Now promise me you’ll relax and enjoy yourself.”
Well I knew I could promise to enjoy myself, but relax? I didn’t think that was going to happen.
We were the only passengers getting on at Portsmouth and Lula Faye had to make arrangements to have that happen. Most boardings took place in Memphis or Cincinnati or some other big town. Portsmouth was hardly a dot on the map, but enough money can get a person nearly anything—and even though it had only been a month, Lula Faye had already figured that out.
You’d a thought we were royalty, the way the crew made over us as they led us on board. Me in my church dress and tennis shoes thanking people for every little thing, and Lula Faye acting like she had been born to being treated like she was something special. It occurred to me that if Lula Faye asked for the crusts to be cut off her sandwiches for the rest of her life, it was probably going to happen.
It was nine o’clock in the morning when the boat got there, and it was already a hot day in July. I felt like I was living a dream as I walked up the plank.
I told you that boat looked like a fancy decorated wedding cake, and it did. Every level had a big porch with rocking chairs. One of the staff, a nice boy with a thick accent from Memphis, led us to our cabins. We passed by lots of people enjoying theirselves by a’rocking and looking out at the river. I felt like I needed to pinch myself to see if it was all real.
The room he led me to was about the same size as my bedroom at home—which is to say tiny. But it was beautiful and elegant. Even had a flat-screen TV. Prettiest room I’d ever seen. The bed looked so fluffy I had to sit down on it the minute the crew boy left and closed the door.
Murder On the Mississippi Queen Page 3