by Rhett DeVane
As the early morning mist cleared, the sun winked through the tips of the evergreens. The budding hardwoods were adorned in shades of lime green and glowed in the soft light of sunrise. Occasionally, the startled scrabbles of small rodents and lizards rustled the underbrush near the road. Dew-dipped spider webs glistened like garland between the weeds. I breathed deeply the mixed aroma of fertile wet earth and vegetation.
In the middle of the summer, this walk would not be tolerable. The heat would roll in visible waves from the dry, packed earth, and the humidity would slow all life to a sluggish crawl. July through September in North Florida could be enough to send a person packing in search of a cooler climate, but the remainder of the year was delightful. Winters were seldom harsh. I could only recall seeing snow once during childhood. Even then, the accumulation was less than an inch, and I had to gather the entire side yard to get enough snow to build a snowman a foot tall. January and February were the coldest months, affording the cozy luxury of a roaring fire built from hardwoods cut from the property, with creamy marshmallows cooked slowly on a straightened wire coat hanger over the glowing coals.
Jake was bustling around the kitchen when I returned. “I’m making Western omelets. Want one?” He broke an egg into a stainless mixing bowl.
“I’m not really hungry.”
Jake grinned. “You got it bad, sister-girl.” He grabbed a wire whisk and whipped the eggs and milk mixture to a bubbly froth.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I replied as I removed my boots.
“Oh, pu-leaze! You’ve got it so bad for Holston Lewis you can barely see straight!”
I stood with my hands on my hips. “For your information, I barely even know the man.”
“You’ve emailed him on a regular basis since my incident by the lake, and you practically killed yourself dashing for the phone whenever he called to ask me something for the book! Of course you know him! Your trouble is that you want to know him in the, as Piddie puts it, biblical sense.”
“I admit I’m attracted to him, Jake. That doesn’t mean he feels the same way. He only wrote to me for tidbits of information. I don’t have any reason to believe he feels anything toward me except friendship.”
Jake expertly flipped the omelet. As many times as I had tried the same trick, my omelets always turned into scrambled eggs instead of a perfect half-moon.
“Oh…he’s interested,” Jake said. “Trust me, I know an interested man when I see one.”
“Whatever happened to your big resolve to allow love to come into your life?”
Jake smirked. “One just can’t will Cupid to flit by, sister-girl. It’s not my turn yet. But, it is yours and Holston’s. This isn’t about me this time. Quit trying to distract me!”
I headed in the direction of my bedroom. “Love to stay and dissect my love life with you, but I need to shower. I have a client at 9.”
Jake swung his spatula in an arc. “Fine. Leave me to my solitude. Shammie and I will enjoy your part of breakfast.”
Shammie, curling in circles at his feet, yowled in agreement.
I parked Betty in my reserved space in the alley behind the Madhatter’s Sweet Shop and Massage Parlor. Though I had washed her the day before, Betty was covered with a thick greenish-yellow sheen of pollen. The new SUV owed her name to a long- time friend and client who had unfortunately lost an extended battle with pulmonary fibrosis the previous year. Betty had packed an amazing blend of fight and zeal for life in her petite frame. My new truck was honored to be her namesake.
Sally had been my first car, followed by Jenny, Miz Scarlet, Rosie, and Pearl. All of my vehicles, with the exception of a brief stay by Bonnie Blue, a subcompact traded after seeing a car like her nearly destroyed in a low-speed collision, had been longtime companions. Since I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving a beloved auto at the mercy of uncaring strangers, I traded quickly before I had a chance to get all fussed up over its fate. Pearl remained in the family. She was handy around the Hill for carrying supplies and firewood. Thanks to my parents’ estate, I was finally able to afford the insurance for two vehicles.
“Mornin’ Glory!” Stephanie called from behind the Sweetshop display case. “Your 9 o’clock just cancelled. I tried to reach you, but you’d left the Hill, and your cell phone wasn’t on.”
I helped myself to a cup of freshly brewed decaf. “That’s okay. I’m tired this morning, anyway. I’ll just clean the room and piddle around here. Holston’s coming at 1:00, and I’m slammed with clients all the way till after 5.”
Stephanie cocked her head. “You’ve been tired a lot here lately. Look a little pale, too. Maybe you should take a few days off and rest.”
“I think it’s all the manual labor catching up with me. I feel okay, for the most part. I actually went for a long walk this morning!”
“Now, I am worried about you!” Stephanie squirted the glass enclosure with cleaner and polished the display case until it sparkled. “Hey, it’s past the busy part of the morning. Why don’t you let me practice my foot reflexology on you? I’m sure Jake can hold down the fort for an hour.”
Jake came through the delivery entrance of the Dragonfly Florist and called out, “Mornin’ Glory!” We immediately drafted him to watch the Sweetshop.
From the viewpoint of a massage-therapy client, I studied the room. Jake’s abstract forest mural continued upward to meet a painted ceiling filled with fluffy white clouds and a crystal blue sky. A few V-shaped slashes of color provided the illusion of high-flying birds of prey circling lazily above.
The acrylic sheepskin table cover under the sheets was gently warmed from below by an electric mattress pad. I allowed myself to sink into the soft sheets as the tension melted from my sore muscles. Stephanie tapped gently on the door, then entered after I responded. For the next hour, she rubbed and worked the pressure points on both feet. Other than a couple of times when she hit a sore spot, I drifted off, waking myself with an embarrassing snort.
“Boy, a couple of those pressure points were awfully tender,” I said.
She consulted the brightly colored foot-and-hand chart hanging behind the door. “Those are the points for the colon…see?” She pointed to an area near the heel on both feet.
I shrugged. “Can’t imagine why.”
The reflexology session left me calm and mildly euphoric. I drifted aimlessly around the shop, plucking dead leaves from the potted plants.
Jake handed me a freshly brewed cup of coffee. “Here, sister-girl. You’d better hit the high-tess before your handsome client arrives. At this rate, you’ll fall asleep on the poor man.”
Holston appeared at 12:45, cleanly shaven and freshly laundered.
“Is he a hunk, or what?” Stephanie mumbled to me as he stepped through the door.
Holston completed a brief medical-history intake form, and I led him into the therapy room.
“You can go to your level of comfort as far as clothing, Holston. Some people prefer to keep their underclothes on. Except for the part I am working on at the time, you’ll be completely covered by the sheet. I’d like for you to be face up, tucked between the covers. I’ll give you a bit to get settled in.”
After a few minutes, I knocked for permission, then entered the room. “What type of music would you like? Classical? Piano? Guitar?”
“Your choice,” he replied.
“In that case, I’ll play my favorite acoustic fingerstyle guitar artist, Bill Mize.”
I slipped a CD into the player. “Have you had a massage before?” I asked as I warmed the lotion in my hands.
“Only once. I felt totally beaten up afterwards. I never tried it again.”
“I’ll try to make this more relaxing for you. Feel free to speak up if you want me to modify my pressure. Otherwise, I will honor the silence of the massage treatment and allow you to tune in to your body.”
When I touched Holston’s face, a spark of heat traveled through my hands. The hair on my forearms stood up as I felt a warm
flush radiate through my body.
Get a grip, Hattie! Time to turn on the professional mind. Let the other feelings go.
The session followed my favorite sequence. I began with a facial and scalp massage, followed by neck, hands, forearms, upper arms, and shoulders. I then moved down to work the anterior portion of both legs. I spent ten minutes on the feet, working in a brief foot-reflexology session.
After positioning the U-shaped face cradle at the head of the table, I held the sheets for Holston to flip over onto his stomach. I proceeded to massage the posterior of both legs, the entire back, posterior neck, and buttocks.
The full-hour massage session was a combination of Swedish strokes with exotic sounding names such as effleurage (long fluid strokes) and petrissage (kneading), percussion, and deeper neuromuscular friction techniques designed to manipulate the muscles at their attachment sites. The session ended with a gentle rocking motion of the entire body.
“Did you kill him?” Jake asked when I came out. “I think you killed him, Hattie!”
“Hush, Jake. He’ll be out in a minute. As hard as he’s worked on that house lately, he may have fallen asleep. It sometimes takes a few minutes to get yourself together after a massage session. You know that.”
“I know if he’s not madly in love with you after one of your fabulous massages, he’s Mississippi mud inside!”
I shushed him when the pocket door to the therapy room creaked open.
Holston had the dreamy bemused expression of a person high on endorphins, nature’s own pleasure/pain relief chemicals released during massage.
“How do you feel?” I asked.
“Uh…good. You know…” He studied his reflection in the wicker-trimmed mirror by the door. “I look like the victim of a night at a bad drive-in movie.”
“I know what you mean, honey,” Jake said as he waltzed back to the florist side of the shop.
After he paid for the session, Holston started toward the door.
“See you at Evelyn and Joe’s tonight!” Jake called to him.
Holston waved. “Yeah…right…”
Jake cocked his head. “That must have been one hell of a massage!”
I pulled a pair of imaginary six shooters from a gun belt, spun them in the air, fired, then blew the end of the barrels before twirling them back into the holster. “I’m good at my job.”
Excerpt from Max the Madhatter’s notebook, February 14, 1958
The Chief sings all the time. When he’s not busy giving Nurse Marion a hard time. Today, special for Valentine’s, he sang all the love songs he knew. For hours. I don’t know much about it. I haven’t been in love.
Chapter Nineteen
PARTY AT EVELYN’S
“Oww! Aretha! Time to crank her up!” Jake reached over and bumped the volume. Betty’s sound system blared. “This girl Betty sure has one sweet stereo system!” He gyrated in the passenger seat.
I courteously waited until the DJ chattered at the end of the song before reaching over to lower the volume. “You have any idea what this dinner party’s for?”
Jake smoothed the sides of his heavily-gelled hair in the illuminated mirror behind the sun visor on his side of the SUV. “No clue. I have a sneaking suspicion Evelyn’s redecorated, though. She ordered a special arrangement of exotic tropical flowers for a centerpiece.”
“The marine theme’s history?”
Jake shrugged his shoulders. “I do believe. She always went for the subdued natural flora during that phase. I hardly think yellow, scarlet, and hot pink would blend.”
“She’s incredible.”
Jake shifted to face me. “Did you know that the last time her son and daughter-in-law visited from Cleveland with the kids, she redid the entire house in art deco just for their visit?”
“I can’t believe how much fun I’ve missed the past few years by limiting my trips into town whenever I visited Mama and Daddy on the Hill.”
“Your cousin’s gone through at least five decorating themes since I’ve been back home! Heaven knows how many before that! She keeps me artistically challenged to find compatible floral accompaniment.”
“And she seems to do it all on a shoestring budget.”
“I’m tellin’ ya, sister-girl, the woman is channeling Martha Stewart…without the back-up staff, of course.”
The entrance to Evelyn and Joe’s house was lined with flaming wicker tiki torches. A distinctive Caribbean beat flowed from the open windows.
“Of course! It’s Carmen Miranda and the whole tropical thing!” Jake said. “That explains the tiny paper umbrellas Piddie had me order.”
Since we were attending a special dinner party, we shunned the side door in favor of the brightly lit front entrance. Aunt Piddie answered the door in her motorized wheel chair.
She said in a sultry voice, “Welcome to the islands.”
Aunt Piddie’s hair was a volcanic monument to the wonders of hair spray. Mandy’s recent semi-permanent color had imparted a vibrant light blue sheen to her curled mountain of locks. Each level supported miniature paper umbrellas in bright tropical fruit-drink hues. A Batik print moo-moo flowed around her in delicate folds. For the crowning touch, she wore a series of silk flower leis around her neck.
“Aloha! Or whatever they say in the islands…” She motioned for us to bend low enough to slip a silk lei around our necks. “Okay, I’ve done my part! Everyone’s in the kitchen.” She backed the electric wheel chair expertly and wheeled off toward the rear of the house.
Evelyn’s living room had morphed into an island retreat complete with wicker accessories, colored accent lights, and tall silk palm trees and birds of paradise. A multi-hued room-sized rug splashed color over the hardwood floor. Two of the walls were painted a bright purple shade to match the rug.
“I can’t wait to see the dinnerware!” Jake said.
Bobby, Leigh, Joe, Evelyn, and Piddie were grouped around the island counter in the center of the kitchen sipping pina coladas from plastic pineapple mugs with green straws.
“Good!” Evelyn hugged Jake and me. “Now, we’re just missing Holston.”
Jake grinned. “If he comes. Hattie gave him a massage today and he looked like he was ready to hibernate until this time next year when he left the shop.”
The group laughed and nodded. I’d worked numerous times on each of them in the past couple of years.
“Maybe you should’ve waited until after my dinner party to give him a massage,” Evelyn said.
Jake threw his arm around Evelyn’s shoulder. “So, sugar, what’s this party all about? Hmmm? We know one reason is to exhibit your fabulous new island décor, but what’s the other one?”
“Actually, she’s throwing this party at my request,” Bobby answered, “and…you’ll find out soon enough.”
Evelyn held out her arms. “Let’s all go to the living room and visit until Holston arrives.”
I followed closely behind Aunt Piddie. “You know anything?” I whispered in her ear.
She whispered back, “I think Bobby and Leigh are going to announce their engagement.”
Several minutes passed before the doorbell chimed. Piddie swept forward to go through her island-airport-greeting routine for Holston. He chuckled as Piddie slipped the yellow lei over his head, then he bent to kiss her on one heavily rouged cheek.
“Lordy, boy! If I wasn’t so damn old, you’d be in a heap of trouble!”
Holston held her chin delicately in his cupped hands. “You’re not old, Miz Piddie Longman. You just got here before I did, that’s all.”
It was the only time I’d ever seen Piddie blush.
Holston glanced in my direction as he stepped into the room. He held my gaze long enough to make the sip of coconut-pineapple punch I’d just swallowed burn in my throat. He quickly looked away and greeted the remainder of the group.
Evelyn admired Holston’s attire. “Why, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you had ESPN! You’re dressed just perfectly for our party t
heme.” She twirled a piece of her light brown hair like a flirtatious teenager.
ESP…N? I shot an amused glance toward Jake.
Holston wore a tropical-weight tan sports coat with khaki pants, and a tasteful Hawaiian print shirt open at the neck. He could’ve stepped straight out of the old ’80s television series, Miami Vice, except that Holston, unlike the show’s star, Don Johnson, was clean-shaven.
Joe clapped Holston on the shoulder. “C’mon back, Holston. I’ll buy you a drink at the Tiki bar. We got whatever you want…beer…something sweet and tropical…or something with more of a kick.”
Holston followed Joe into the kitchen.
“God Almighty,” Piddie said. “Did you see the way he looked at you, Hattie?”
“He’s just being nice, Pid. I really don’t think he’s interested in me. Look at him. He could have any woman he wanted!”
Piddie’s coral lips turned downward. “Don’t underestimate yourself! He’ll come around. I chased your uncle Carlton for nearly a year before he caught me!”
Evelyn served dinner promptly at 8:00. Fresh fruit salad with vanilla yogurt dressing on ceramic pineapple plates was followed by cold butternut squash soup in coconut cups. The main course, Hawaiian baked chicken with wild rice, was presented with green beans almandine and Aunt Piddie’s cathead biscuits.
“We went round-and-round about the biscuits,” Piddie said. “Evelyn insisted they didn’t eat cathead biscuits on the islands! I told her they probably just ate the cats instead!”
Evelyn snorted. “Mama! I think that’s a horrible thing to say! They don’t eat cats in the Caribbean!’
Piddie flipped one hand in the air. “Whatever…anyway, I got to make the biscuits.”
“And we’re glad you did,” Holston said. “These are as wonderful as the first time I tasted them a couple of years ago!”
Piddie giggled. “Oh, you do go on so!”
Evelyn’s crowning glory was a ten-layered buttery tropical cake.
Aunt Piddie complimented her in a round-about way. “I’ve told Evelyn all along. If you’re not a natural-born cook, stick to the recipes like white on rice! You can’t go wrong that-away. Looks like she finally took my advice to heart.”