A Long Line of Cakes

by Deborah Wiles

  Cleebo offered to take the punch-bowl tablecloth to the Sunshine Laundry. His father handed him the tablecloth and the keys to the laundry. The Tolbert Twins migrated to their Aunt Phoebe and helped Gordon out of the barber chair. Gordon made a beeline for his mother, who scooped him up in her arms.

  Finesse sidled over to her uncle and looked at him expectantly. He would be the one to pull them together again.

  “We shall, of course, continue with our celebration,” Dr. Dan affirmed in a softly commanding voice. And, indeed, they did.

  People made their way to what was left on the party table. Some folks snacked and gossiped while others made a fresh batch of punch in the clean punch bowl.

  “Speech! Speech!” called the Mamas as everyone recovered their wits. “Speech!” called the All-Stars.

  Dr. Dan cleared his throat. Melba came back to herself. Finesse surveyed the damage. It would not be perfect, no, but it would be the symphony true. After the dazzle of day and all the clangor, there remains what is true, and what is important, and why they are all gathered to celebrate.

  Finesse wrapped an arm around the momentarily tenderized Melba Jane. “Mon petit chou,” she said.

  Melba laid her head on Finesse’s shoulder. “I still don’t know what that means,” she said, “but it’s a comfort.”

  “Yes,” said Finesse. “Yes, it is.”

  Phoebe Tolbert patted her hair, smiled, and opened her notebook.

  No one thought to look under the tall metal table for Parting “Pip” Schotz and Leo Meyer Lemon Cake. Mary Wilson’s billowy starched tablecloth reached the floor on either side of the table and made a comfortable temporary tent for them, a respite from all the chaos. The table was so high, they could both sit under it completely upright.

  They had clacked heads from either side of the table as they dived under the tablecloth to grab Hale-Bopp. Or was it Alice? In any case, they’d missed the dog and had instead knocked their noggins so hard they both saw stars. They sat down to get their vision back.

  While Dr. Dan spoke, and spoke, and while folks ate the delicious cake and drank up all the punch, and while Arlouin and Gordon cut, served, and stayed with the cake because all the other Cakes were gone, Leo and Pip sat under that same table. The sounds from above and around them were muted by the tablecloth. It was almost like being in an alternate universe, and ­certainly it was just like being in a hidden place, because they were hidden, even though they hadn’t planned it that way.

  As their vision cleared, each could see the other.

  “That was some knock!” said Leo Cake. He was as pale as a seashell and held his hands over his ears for some reason, as if the sound of the head-clack had been extra loud. His glasses were riding sideways on his face, and he didn’t seem to notice.

  “It was,” said Pip. He rubbed his old hands over his wrinkled brown face.

  Leo stuck out his hand. “I’m Leo Cake,” he said, beginning to recover.

  Pip took Leo’s hand. “I know who you are.”

  “Well, I’m sure you’ve heard of me, here in town,” said Leo. Now he noticed his glasses were cockeyed and he righted them.

  “Oh, I know you,” said Pip. “I know you and I remember you.”

  Leo startled. “You do?” The squeak in his voice made him sound like a six-year-old. He cleared his throat. “You do?”

  “Don’t you remember me?” Pip’s face was wide and open and calm, like a book.

  Leo Cake shoved his glasses up with both hands and stared at Parting Schotz. He shook his head. Yes. No. He didn’t remember.

  “Well, you were just a young’un,” said Pip. “How’s your daddy, Archibald?”

  “He isn’t,” said Leo, confused. “He left this earth twelve years ago. You knew him?”

  “I knew him.”

  Leo didn’t know what to say or even what to ask. He put his hand over the place where his skull had knocked into Pip’s. Maybe he was imagining this conversation. It was a hefty knock on the head, after all, and it hurt.

  “Wondered when you’d show up again,” was all Pip said, and then he was out from under the table and a commandeering presence in his shop.

  While most of Halleluia was patting itself back together at the barbershop, Ben, Emma, and Ruby were making a stellar getaway.

  “This way!” yelled Ruby, and her companions followed her without question. The adrenaline rush was terrific—it was as if they’d just escaped sure death, even though the worst thing that could possibly have happened would have been a bit of mopping.

  No, thought Emma. The worst was the embarrassment, and her parents were facing that alone right now. She suddenly felt she should go back.

  But she didn’t. And neither did Ben or Ruby. The ­excitement of their escape propelled them, hearts racing, legs pumping, as they crossed Main Street with Ruby and darted down a dirt road that meandered away from town.

  “Come on!” Ruby yelled, way ahead of them.

  “Hey!” Ben yelled back. He didn’t like following this girl’s orders. Where were they going?

  The stitch in Emma’s side was awful and she yelled at Ruby to slow down. She was not a runner; she was a soup maker. A cake baker. An artist, if you believed Ruby Lavender. She wished she had her bike.

  Ruby slowed to a walk. “We’re safe now,” she said. “This house”—she pointed to the right as they walked past, panting—“belongs to the Tolbert Twins. And that one up there”—she waved a hand in the general direction of the next house while catching her breath—“that one belongs to Cleebo. They’re all up at Pip’s. No one will see us.”

  “We’re at the ball fields,” Ben observed, looking left and coming to a stop, “just coming to them from another direction.”

  “That’s right,” said Ruby. “And down there”—more ­waving as she stopped walking altogether—“is the Methodist church, the Baptist church, and the fire department. And all the dead Methodists and Baptists in the cemetery.”

  They were a good ways from Main Street now. There was plenty of vegetation along the road to hide their view of the back of Miss Mattie’s and the Cake Café and the ball fields and more, but they could hear the Cake boys along the sandy lane screaming with delight at washing the dogs—and watering themselves—with the hose at the back of Miss Mattie’s store, and the dogs barking at them in their play.

  Ruby looked squarely at Ben. “Don’t you need to go wash your dogs?”

  Ben shook his head. He really didn’t want to get doused with the hose right now, even though it was as hot as fluzions.

  “You should help them,” said Ruby. “Go on. We don’t need you.”

  I should help them, Ben thought. He always did. He knew he should go back to the barbershop and check on his parents and the cake, but he couldn’t face Finesse and her anger, so he stood where he was, silent. The dogs barked, the boys shouted, the heat waved.

  Ruby, now clearly irritated, interrupted Ben’s thoughts. “I’m on a top secret mission with Emma,” she stated flatly, “and no boys allowed.”

  “You are?” Ben asked. He had a headache. He could leave; it would be fine. He’d just go to House’s house. Wait, House was at the barbershop.

  “You are?” asked Emma. She moved into the shade of a giant privet hedge on the ball field side of the dirt road and squinted at Ruby in the bright-bright sun.

  “I’ve done my reconnaissance,” Ruby announced. She patted her front overalls pocket, where she’d stuck a stubby pencil and her notes. Notes that, miraculously, Hale-Bopp hadn’t eaten as they were wrangling the dogs out of Pip’s.

  “Oh!” said Emma. “That!” It seemed like forever ago that they’d talked about the garden plan. “Well …” she said, a little catch in her voice, “I told Ben about it.”

  “What?” Ruby spit.

  “About what?” asked Ben.

  “About the garden,” said Emma. “About staying here and not moving again.”

  “How could you!” bellowed Ruby.

  “W
e need Ben,” said Emma. “And there was no time to ask you before the party. I was going to tell you at the party, but then …”

  “I don’t have to help,” said Ben.

  “Yes, you do,” said Emma. “We need you!”

  “No, we don’t,” said Ruby. She was so angry she was almost in tears. She slapped at her overalls pocket. “This is all we need,” she said to Emma. She jerked a thumb at Ben and said, “We don’t need him.”

  Emma stared at Ruby, at her brother, and back to Ruby.

  Ruby pushed her unruly hair out of her face, pulled up her errant overalls strap, and gave Emma a serious make up your mind look. “We’ve got work to do,” she said, “even though you are a traitor. But that’s just the kind of friend I am, Emma. I don’t abandon my friends, even when they betray me.”

  Emma’s eyes filled with tears as she swallowed a mouthful of hot dust. “Coming?” shot Ruby. She turned on her heel and stalked down the dirt road toward the dead Methodists.

  “Wait!” Emma ran after Ruby and grabbed her by the arm. Ruby jerked her arm away and kept walking. Her flip-flops stirred up little dust storms behind each determined step.

  “Let her go,” said Ben. “Some friend, Emma.”

  “We do need Ben!” Emma called after Ruby. “We need all the help we can get! A garden is a big thing! And Ben said he would help us.”

  “You didn’t say anything about ‘us,’ ” Ben pointed out.

  “Forget it!” shouted Ruby. “You’re Benedict Arnold! We had a secret!”

  “We still have a secret!” yelled Emma. “I promise! And Ben is trustworthy,” she yelled louder. “He won’t tell anyone anything you don’t want told. Ruby!”

  Ruby stopped and turned, not because she’d heard ­anything that had changed her mind, but because she was about to walk too far away to keep her friend, and she knew it. Angry as she was, she knew Emma was right that they were going to need help. And beyond that, she’d done all this reconnaissance!

  “Your brother is bossy,” Ruby called. She took some steps toward Emma and gestured in a wild way. “He’s always ordering everybody around.”

  “He doesn’t order me around!” said Emma. She took steps toward Ruby.

  “Not you. Your brothers,” said Ruby. “He’s a gang leader!”

  “We’re not a gang,” called Ben, irritated and hot and thirsty. In three long strides he was as close to Ruby as he wanted to be. Close enough that he didn’t have to shout.

  “I’m not your problem,” he said. “I’m going. You’re ­bossier than I’ll ever be!” He picked up a rock from the dirt road, silently named it Ruby, and threw it as far as he could.

  Emma thought fast. “What’s in the reconnaissance, Ruby? Where can we build a garden?”

  Ruby huffed at Emma. What kind of friend told secrets? What kind of friend insisted she include her meathead brother in their secret plans?

  “I’m sure we can find a way for all of us to work together,” Emma was saying. “Ben, please don’t go.”

  “Stop trying to make peace,” Ruby snapped. “I’m not a peaceful person. You forget, I’m not sweet.”

  Desperation claimed Emma. “I’m sorry I told Ben. I was trying to help us. I want our plan to work!” She shaded her eyes with both hands cupped at her eyebrows. “I don’t want to move. I want to stay here and have you as a friend forever. It’s important to me!”

  Ruby stared at this girl. She recognized her distress. She understood it. But she didn’t know what to say.

  A bank of thunderclouds gathering on the horizon blocked out some of the sun’s sharpness. Emma put down her cupped hands and continued. She didn’t have a choice now. She was committed.

  “I think I’m meant to stay here,” she said. “To live here, never move again. I can’t explain it. There was a thing that happened and I heard it and felt it, and I know it, I believe it, and I’m trying to make it happen, or help it happen, or … something.”

  Her heart beat so hard it hurt. Ruby could feel that hurt from where she was standing.

  “So I asked Ben to help us, too, and after we get the garden done, you never have to talk to Ben again if you don’t want to. Or me.”

  Ben wanted to hug his sister. She was brave. And now, he could see, she was right, too. It would be good to stay here, never move, grow up in a place where everybody knew you and you knew everybody. Even if he had to share the town with Ruby Lavender.

  He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked at the gathering storm clouds. “It’s gonna rain.”

  Ruby kicked at a rock on the dirt road with her flip-flopped foot. What to do? It was so hot. Cold water from the hose right now would feel so good. And she could spray Ben Cake with it for good measure. Maybe she should spray all of them.

  Finally she exhaled in a huge sigh. Which made Emma do the same. Relief!

  Then, without pulling her notes out of her pocket, Ruby spoke in a rush and kept her eyes on her dusty toes. “I consulted with my mama, and she says you build a garden where there’s sun and heat and water and compost, which is good dirt. All you really need’s a shovel. And some chickens!”

  Emma felt lightheaded, almost giddy. “Chickens?”

  “Chickens,” Ruby repeated. “They’ll peck up the ground for you in no time flat while they look for worms and bugs and scratch up the grass and … well … do other things.” She looked at Ben. “Unmentionables.”

  Ben rolled his eyes. Ruby rolled her eyes back at Ben. He was not cute.

  “We’ll need to run some chicken wire to keep them in the area we want dug up, but I can bring them over every day and let them hang out and do their work, and take them home again before dark. It’ll be like going on a field trip for them!”

  “Where are we going to put this chicken summer camp?” asked Ben.

  “Well, there’s sun and heat and compost—and a shovel!—in the alley between Miss Mattie’s store and the Cake Café, and that’s convenient for us. We can build the garden along the far side of the sandy lane, near the ball field, I figure parallel with the third-base line. I was going to take you there, but we can’t go over there to plan it with the gang outside washing the dogs, using the hose we need for water. I mapped this all out in my notes.”

  “You can’t build a garden there,” said Ben.

  “And why not?” Ruby held her head up and flared her nostrils on purpose.

  “Because we play ball over there, and the gang will trample any garden you make! Not on purpose, but … we play ball there!”

  “Fine!” spouted Ruby. “I didn’t say I had it thought through. I just said I knew what we needed and where to find it!”

  Darker clouds from the direction of Bay Springs were behind the thunderheads that slid across the sparkling sun and blocked the harshest rays. They put the ground in shadow and brought a breeze with them. It helped to soothe tempers.

  “What about seeds?” asked Emma in her most helpful, peaceful voice.

  “We need those, too,” said Ruby. “Miss Mattie has them at the store, or we can get some from Mama in her garden. She saves seeds.”

  “Why are we keeping it a secret?” asked Ben. “And how do we keep it a secret if it’s on the third-base line, anyway? Are you just going to have it magically pop up out of nowhere one morning?”

  Ruby had a headache now, too. “You’re impossible,” she said. Obviously, this boy knew nothing about the difference between secretly planning and publicly doing.

  “I know a better place,” said Ben. Obviously, this girl was a screwball.

  “Okay, hotshot,” snapped Ruby. “Where is it? You’re hired.”

  Emma exhaled. She didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath.

  Ben knew exactly what to do. “Follow me.”

  “See? We do need him,” Emma said, coaxing Ruby to come with them.

  Ruby made a growling sound. She did not like following a boy’s orders, and besides, this boy was impossible.

  But Ben Cake was not impossible, no mo
re than Ruby Lavender was a screwball, no more than Emma Lane Cake was Benedict Arnold.

  They walked down the dirt road past the churches and took the left fork past Halleluia School and walked to where the road hugged the piney woods.

  There, Ben walked right off the road and into the thick green forest. He disappeared among the pines.

  special edition compiled and reported by Phoebe “Scoop” Tolbert

  Well! Angel in My Pocket notwithstanding in this town (I am referring to the end of that movie when everything in the town works out fine), we had a doozy of a disaster at the Dr. Dan Deavers Going-Away Soiree yesterday! This reporter got multiple scoops, in fact so many while sitting in Lamar Lackey’s Barber Chair at Schotz’s Barbershop (the scene of the crime … er … soiree), she must write this as a numbered list in order to get this to the paper by deadline.

  And I have such short space this week! Note to Aurora County News publisher/editor Plas Johnson: MORE SPACE IS NEEDED TO TELL OUR COMPELLING TOWN STORIES! (Readers, please write in with your support.)

  But I digress. Herewith and hereto:

  1.Frances Schotz is a decorator and soiree planner extraordinaire. It is not her fault that all her stellar planning was sabotaged by wild animals.

  2.Dr. Dan’s speech was … long. Ahem. It included an oration—a declamation, really—about the events leading to his coma on the (so-so) soap opera Each Life Daily Turns, and after all that haranguing, he still would not tell us whodunnit.

  3.Jerome Fountainbleu arrived late, looking morose. The rumor (substantiated) is, customers say his pies from the Cakes suddenly aren’t quite the same as those made by Misanthrope Watkins. Diners are commenting privately. I know.

  4.Misanthrope Watkins, formerly pie maker for the Pine View, recently retired, recently seen in the back kitchen at the Cake Café, was also present. She was seen conferring with Arlouin Cake, at length and with great intensity. This reporter shooed Agnes Fellows over to hear what was being said, but forgot how deaf poor Agnes is.

  5.Parting Schotz, known colloquially, locally, as Pip, was missing for an ice age and then ­suddenly popped out—literally! like a Pop-Tart!—from under the party table (an embalming table on loan from Snowberger’s) and proceeded to act as if that was not an unusual act.