by Sharon Short
”Cherry,” I whispered, “this theatre is gonna get done in time.”
She half-snorted, half-laughed at me. “Haven’t you heard? Your Uncle Otis walked off the job today. He’s hot on the trail of another of his get-rich-quick schemes.”
Of course, if I’d been at the that day, I’d already have known this. Word travels fast in a small town. But I’d been at Stillwater happily unaware of anything going wrong.
What could Uncle Otis’s scheme be now, I wondered? Earlier in the year, he’d plunked a thousand bucks into shares in a self-cleaning port-o-potty start-up. When that went to pot, so to speak, Uncle Otis got hooked into condo time-share-selling in Florida, sure that he would be able to retire in style in the sunny South. The Toadfern clan had even had a going-away party for him. Two months later, he’d returned, swearing he would stick to the honest labor he knew best.
But now he was at it again. And I admit that I hoped whatever it was this time would take him out of town again, for Sally’s sake.
Sandy, who was sitting next to Cherry, turned and whispered to me, “Your Uncle Otis came into the restaurant first thing this morning, ordered up his coffee and grits—and then paid with a hundred dollar bill. Said he’d found himself a new way of making money and he sure wasn’t going to break his back in the remodeling business no more.”
I glanced nervously at Cletus up on the stage, rocking back and forth happily on his feet, just like a big kid. My stomach flip-flopped. Hadn’t he mentioned he knew my Uncle Otis? That they’d had many a fine discussion at the old theatre? Oh, Lord. Was it possible Cletus was behind whatever get-rich scheme my Uncle Otis was bragging about now?
Sandy turned back around, but Cherry whispered to me, “So it’s just Sally. Think she can handle this job and her bratty triplets?”
Then Cherry turned back, too. I was torn between wanting to whop her upside the head for calling my darling first-cousins-once-removed bratty, and wanting to go find Uncle Otis and whop him upside the head for abandoning his daughter—and embarrassing me.
Instead, I refocused on Trudy, who was saying, “I’m excited to announce that my dear Uncle Cletus, in honor of the newly renovated theatre, has rewritten the standard play, A Little Taste of Paradise, to more accurately reflect our charming—” again that sarcasm, again the teenaged twitters—”town’s history. I’m not sure what all is in the play, as Uncle Cletus has kept its content a secret, but he assures me that there will be parts for fresh new actors and actresses!”
At this, the teenagers cheered. And the adults gasped, then fell silent.
“I was nervous Uncle Cletus wouldn’t make it tonight, but I’m glad to see he’s here! Let’s hear it for Uncle Cletus!”
Scattered applause and exchanges of confused glances among the adults; more whooping from the kids. Alan’s face was now mottling from red to purple. Dinky, on the other hand, was examining his nails, and the man I guessed to be Todd had a bemused expression on his face.
Cletus went to the center of the stage. “Thank you, Trudy. I almost didn’t make it—somehow, my brother left without me.” I could hear where Trudy had learned her sarcasm. “But fortunately, Josie Toadfern gave me a ride to town!”
At that, everyone turned and looked at me. I slunk farther down in my seat. Oh, Lord. This was turning into a nightmare. My Uncle Otis had botched the renovation. The Breitenstraters—at least Cletus and Trudy—were taking over the one part of the Founder’s Day celebration that had been untouched by Breitenstrater self-promo ting, and they were thanking me for helping. At this rate, everyone would be buying washboards at flea markets and dragging their laundry down to the stream that feeds into Licking Creek Lake instead of visiting my .
‘As Mrs. Beavy can tell you,”—everyone looked at her now, and I saw poor Mrs. Beavy’s dandelion-puff of a head bobble in confusion—”I have been working long and hard on researching Paradise’s history, and I can tell you, the new play will be quite revealing, quite a shocker to everyone!”
Now Trudy took over again. “To give you a little taste of the new Paradise play,”—the teenagers chortled at her twist on the play’s title—”the play will be retitled . . . The Curse of Paradise!”
5
At that, a stunned silence fell over the crowd. Not even the teens made a peep.
The Curse of Paradise is another one of those Automatically Known things to the natives of a small town.
But as I’ve said before, in telling about a small town, some things just have to be explained.
The Curse of Paradise is only talked about among younger people, one generation whispering the tale down to the next, only to stop murmuring about it upon reaching adulthood. The “Curse” comes from an unknown source, so the story goes, but everyone believes something terrible must have happened early in our history, because despite our town’s name, it seems to have a lot of bad luck.
For example, a long time ago, Paradise was supposed to become the county seat, but that honor went to Masonville. And a century-and-a-half ago, the canal system was supposed to come through Paradise, but at the last minute, that also went to Masonville. Then, when trains came along, Masonville had the foresight to build a much larger depot, and Paradise didn’t, so Masonville got a lot more business.
Add to that the fact that Mason County East High School, which serves Paradise and a few other small towns and unincorporated townships, has never beaten Mason County West High School, which basically serves just Masonville, in football. Or soccer. Or volleyball. Or baseball. . . although it came close, in the game that everyone blamed Chucky/Charlemagne for losing.
So, for Trudy to announce that her Uncle Cletus had rewritten the annual play about the town’s history—and renamed it The Curse Of Paradise—was a shocking revelation.
“Enough!” Alan Breitenstrater bellowed, and charged to the middle of the stage.
”I apologize on behalf of my daughter for making a mess of this meeting. I had no idea she was coming. And I want to thank my fellow members of the Paradise Historical Society for letting me take advantage of this play meeting to call together members of the Chamber of Commerce and other town leaders. I know my secretary didn’t call you all until this afternoon—” Ah. That’s why I hadn’t heard about this. I was, blissfully, at Stillwater. For a second, my thoughts drifted back to Guy and Matilda Pumpkin—before my boyfriend started telling lies about his past and my town went cuckoo.
“I called our town leaders here tonight,” Alan was saying, “because I know there has been some concern of late that the July Fourth celebrations have become too ‘branded,’ if you will, by the Breitenstrater name, and thus the lack of interest.”
The crowd went very still and quiet. It was true, but no one was going to look Alan in the eye and agree—or even nod or murmur assent.
“I want you to know,” Alan went on, “that I have a plan in mind to change all that—but I can’t share the details yet. I would encourage everyone to attend the pie-eating contest a week from tomorrow, next Sunday, at 2:00 P.M., on the lawn of the Breitenstrater Pie Company. At that time I have a wonderful announcement to make that will certainly prove exciting for our celebration—as well as for the town of Paradise. Please be sure to be there. Encourage all of your employees and their families to come as well.”
Now, at that, a murmur went up.
“In the meantime, I would ask anyone with ideas about how to improve our play attendance to please speak up.”
“How about we give out free balloons? Kids love balloons,” someone said. “Or, urn, Breitenstrater mini-pies.”
“Maybe we could have first, second, and third prizes for the best floats,” someone else said. “The prizes could be Breitenstrater pies, of course.”
I resisted the temptation to roll my eyes. Here was Alan Breitenstrater offering us a golden opportunity to reclaim our celebration, and everyone was sucking up to him, anyway.
Cletus moved over by his brother. “I think my new play is quite sufficient to boost
attendance,” he announced. “I will have my own announcement at the pie-eating contest about some details of the play—which will really stun everyone with what they reveal about our town’s history—as well as information about auditions, and—”
“Cletus, just shut up!” Alan hollered. “You will do nothing of the kind!”
“You can’t tell me what to do!” Cletus hollered back.
“Really? Oh, I think I can—”
This was awful. The Breitenstrater brothers—middle-aged men—were about to have a fight befitting the sibling rivalry of twelve-year-olds, and no one was going to stop them.
But then several things happened that did, anyway.
Someone screamed. “Oh my Lord! A rat just ran over my foot!”
And Trudy, clutching her neck, screamed, “Slinky! Where’s Slinky! Everyone be careful—that’s not a rat!” Slinky was no longer attached to her neck. Or anywhere else on her person. The leash dangled down her back like some kind of weird braid, but there was no ferret hanging off the end.
That’s when we all saw Slinky skittering up the backstage tattered curtains. Trudy ran to the curtains and was just about to nab Slinky by her tail—but then my Uncle Otis parted the curtains and clomped to center stage. The clomping scared Slinky, who skittered the rest of the way up the curtain and disappeared into the rafters. Trudy screamed.
My Uncle Otis just stood in the middle of the stage, a confused, dirty mess. Even the red, white, and blue U.S. flag motif bandana tied over his head had dirt on it. There were twigs and leaves stuck in the fringe of long, gray hair that hung down from underneath his bandana and in his bushy gray beard.
My Uncle Otis stared out, blinking, at the crowd. Then he grinned and flashed a peace sign at his fellow Paradisites. “Hey. Just here to get my tools. Go easy, good buddies.” And then picked up a toolbox that was sitting on the right side of the stage, and clomped backstage, from whence he came.
And Slinky, now somewhere up in the rafters, gave a loud “Skreeee!”—think nails on a chalkboard, pitched two octaves higher—that sent everyone shrieking and running. Except me. I said a silent word of thanks for the ferret of the opera.
My goal was to get to the green room upstairs and collect the costumes and go home. At least that way the night wouldn’t be a complete waste.
I was stopped twice on my way to the green room.
Once was by Trudy, who was sobbing, her black makeup streaking down her face. “Josie Toadfern,” she wailed, “this is all your uncle’s fault! And your fault, too! You’d better make him find Slinky!”
That wasn’t entirely fair—the ferret had gnawed its way to freedom before Uncle Otis arrived on stage—but I reckoned the child just needed someone to blame for her woes, and my uncle and I were safe choices. She ran over to Charlemagne, who held her tightly while she sobbed. I didn’t think it was the right time to point out that she’d taken advantage of my sponsorship.
Then, just as I got to the auditorium door, Alan Breitenstrater himself stopped me. He grabbed me by the arm, pulled me toward him, and hissed in my ear, “Josie Toadfern, I don’t know why my daughter has befriended you, or just what she and her uncle have cooked up with this play, but you’d better convince her and Cletus not to have an audition or pass out those scripts, or there will be no fireworks display.”
I jerked away from him. “That would be up to Cletus,” I snapped.
Alan just smiled at me—not a nice smile. “Who do you think funds Cletus’s little fireworks business? Me, of course. Cletus likes to play at managing his business—but God knows he couldn’t run a lemonade stand. But if I tell him to withdraw the fireworks or else I’ll shut down his precious little Fireworks Barn, he’ll do it. No fireworks display for Paradise—and I’ll make sure the town blames you.”
I gave Alan my hardest look. He didn’t even wince. Just kept grinning.
I walked away from him, going to the narrow staircase tucked on one side of the lobby, and walked slowly up the stairs to the second-story storage and green room. I wanted to run, but I could feel Alan still staring and grinning at me, and I wasn’t about to give him that satisfaction.
I thought I was going to find refuge in the green room. I was wrong.
Sitting on the end of a cracked, brown vinyl couch was my cousin Sally. She was sobbing.
I looked around the room, a jumbled disorder of boxes and props—even a brass birdcage—and a few old bureaus with mirrors over them used for the actors and actresses to apply makeup, although truth be told, most of them applied their makeup and put on their costumes before coming to the theatre. I couldn’t blame them. The place was not only a mess, it smelled of mildew. This year, the smell was overpowering. I guessed there’d been a leak somewhere in here. I glanced at the closet where the costumes were kept. Nah, they were okay, I told myself. I’d personally made sure they were stored in heavy-duty garment bags.
No one else was up here, just Sally Toadfern (she’d taken back her maiden name since her divorce from Waylon Hinckie), crying, sitting on the end of the couch with the feet missing, which made it look as though the couch was trying to dump her out. Or as if she was too big for the couch. Sally’s a big girl, it’s true—nearly six feet tall, and wide shoulders that were the envy of our high school football team’s linebackers, and naturally blond curly hair that was the envy of our cheerleaders. Sally’s nearly two full years younger than me—but she’s always been bigger and tougher and prettier than me. And in school, she used to tease me whenever she got a chance, holding me down and tickling me until I saw stars and gasped for mercy. Unless, of course, she was giving me “swirlies”—dunking me in the toilet in the boy’s bathroom and flushing.
Now, though, Sally looked downright pitiful. She’d lost too much weight. Her dusty face was streaked from tears. Her shoulders were bony under her thin T-shirt (from Bar-None out on the corner of two state routes, over by String-town, a bar owned by her ex-mama-in-law, and from where a year ago her ex-husband went riding off into the sunset, so to speak, with a redhead named Tikkie, leaving Sally in charge of their triplets, Harry, Larry, and Barry, who just turned four.)
Sally had her work boot-clad feet propped up on a cooler. She stared at me a long moment, lowered her feet, opened the cooler, pulled out a bottle of beer, twisted off the top with her teeth, spit the top back in the cooler, kicked shut the lid, repropped her feet, and took a long swig. Dear Lord, Sally could intimidate me even when she wasn’t trying to.
Then she looked at me and sniffled. “If you tell any of those old biddies out there that I’m having a beer, so help me, I’ll whack myself clean dead with this bottle. Let Waylon figure out what to do with our three rug rats. Not that he cares. Never calls.” She took another swig.
I sat down on the opposite end of the couch, slowly, lest by plunking down extra hard I would send her springing off the end of the couch and flying across the room. Not that it wasn’t tempting, given all the times she’d tortured me.
“Sally,” I said. “Why don’t you just take a deep breath and tell me all what’s going on with you and Uncle Otis. The outside looks so nice. But someone said Uncle Otis quit because he found himself another way to make easier money?”
Sally sniffled again. “You know my daddy. He’s always looking for some get-rich-quick scheme. Usually he brags about whatever it is. But this time, he says it’s hush-hush, top secret.”
“Is he into something with Cletus Breitenstrater?”
Sally thought a moment. “Maybe. He hasn’t said that. But he has mentioned talking to Cletus Breitenstrater. And once Cletus called over to the bar, asking for Daddy.” She chortled. “Coulda knocked me over with a spoon. Breitenstraters aren’t the kind of company Daddy usually keeps.” She shook her head, a gesture of amazement at her daddy’s ways. “All he’ll tell me is that he’s got a lot quicker way for him to make money than his renovations and carpentry business—and that soon he’ll have enough money to give me to put a down payment on the Bar-None.” She
paused, sniffled.
I lifted my eyebrows. “Bar-None is for sale? And you want to buy it? I thought you wanted to do renovating work?”
“Bubbles wants to retire. She’s spitting-nails mad at Waylon for running off from her grandbabies, and she’s offering me the place at a rock-bottom price. I could manage the place from noon to eight, make enough to keep us in food and clothes, and hire a babysitter for the evenings. Bubbles says she’ll babysit until five, but she’s gotta draw the line somewhere. It sounded like such a good deal to me. I could still do renovating every now and then, too.
‘And the pay I was gonna split with Daddy on this job would have given me enough to swing the down payment. But Bubbles won’t wait forever. I’ve only got until mid-July to come up with the money—then she’ll sell to whoever wants the place. And there’s no way that whatever Daddy’s gotten into is gonna pan out—his schemes never do. And there’s also no way that I’m gonna get this done by myself in two weeks.”
She sniffled. I reminded myself of the humiliation of getting dunked in the boys’ bathroom toilets. She sniffled again. I sighed, told myself, you’re a fool, Josie Toadfern, told myself I’d regret it, then said the words anyway. “Listen, Sally, I’m going to help you out.”
“How? You think you can talk some sense into my daddy?”
No one could talk sense into Otis Toadfern. But I knew better than to point that out to Sally. She—and her two brothers and three sisters—were the only ones she’d ever let get away with bad-mouthing her daddy, no matter how true what they said might be. That’s just the way of kin.
I glanced over at the closet of costumes. They’d have to wait. They were fine in there, anyway, I told myself.
“I have a different idea,” I said. “I’m going to help you finish this job.”
”You? What do you know about renovating work?”
“Nothing,” I admitted. “But I spent a summer once at a church camp over in Appalachia where we worked on fixing up people’s homes. I didn’t have any problem taking directions then—” and, I gulped, wondering just what damage Sally could do to me with a ball-peen hammer if I made one mistake too many, “and I won’t have any problems taking directions from you now. C’mon, you know we can get this done together.” I said that last sentence in my best cheerleader voice—a challenge, given I’d failed the high school cheerleader tryouts three years in a row.