by Debra Dixon
I had run out of buttons to push.
“I said four bow-wows, dress ’em in red and yellow and add fries!” Spiva yelled as I hurried to follow her orders. Since my call to Julie, our interactions had been frosty at best.
“Mention the pie!” Mal, uptight as ever, yelled back from slicing the deliciously decadent chocolate meringues Rosie had delivered.
Spiva asked, then yelled back to me, like I was her lackey, “Four slices!”
The fry basket started beeping as I slid the tray loaded with everything I wanted but couldn’t eat to the family Spiva was serving.
“The drinks?” the man urged.
“Shoot!” I whispered under my breath, earning the evil eye from Mal, who’d given us a speech about what she demanded during our service at the snack bar. One thing she didn’t want any of was cursing, not that shoot was an actual curse word, but I guess it was too close for comfort in her mind.
I put ice into four cups, then pressed the nozzle for cola. As the first cup slowly filled, I thought about my other dilemma. The condo owners had countered my offer. I had until midnight tonight to respond.
“Can you put some grease in it?” Spiva yelled back to me, as several other workers followed the orders of Queen Bee Mal and delivered candy bars, chips, hamburgers and fries to the waiting customers.
I would have liked to have said, “No, I can’t because I have one nozzle,” but I’d stopped speaking to Spiva since her prediction I wouldn’t move out. Unfortunately, my silent treatment didn’t stop her from talking to me.
Mal, who was standing next to Rosie, looked over at me and sighed. “This is why we need to raise enough money for state-of-the-art equipment. If we only had a machine like the one you have in Mama’s, we could have filled twenty drinks in the time it’s taking Pearl to fill four measly cups.”
Way to give a woman donating tons o’ pie a guilt trip.
If I were Rosie, I would have called Mal on it, but Rosie only nodded.
I finished pouring the four drinks and handed them off to the man, his wife and two kids. “Sorry for the wait.”
A massive cheer went up from the stands, most likely Mossy Creekites because Harrington Academy wasn’t exactly a contender. The band played their first down song, and the crowd at the snack bar dispersed to watch the game.
“You should start filling the drink cups now that we have a break, so we don’t get bogged down again,” Spiva ordered me in the lull that followed.
I did it, not because she told me to, but because I didn’t like the stress of everyone waiting on me. Besides the soft drink station was relatively safe. I wasn’t tempted to snack on anything here.
Mal shook her head of beautifully highlighted and cut hair, then pulled her smart phone out of her giant designer suede organizer bag. “I’m off to check on the booster club raffle sales. I’ll be back.”
As she left the snack bar, her small hiney, covered in what most likely was two-hundred-dollar jeans, indicated to one and all that she rarely indulged in any high fat treats or, worse yet, she’d been gifted with a high metabolism. I hated people like her. I sighed loudly.
Rosie looked up from dumping more fries under the warming lights. “What’s wrong?”
“Events like this are hard for people like me. Everywhere I look there’s some other food item that would blow my whole week’s worth of hard work.”
Rosie cocked her head to the side. “So why tempt yourself?”
“Why, indeed?” I said and glared at my sister, who suddenly found something she needed to wipe off the counter in front of her.
Another roar erupted from the Mossy Creek side of the stadium.
Orville Gene Simple, decked out in his Mossy Creek green and gold flannel shirt and his signature John Deere gimmee cap stopped at the counter. “Ladies, our team is about to score, and I’d like two slices of pie in celebration.”
Rosie quickly plated them. “Gotta date?”
Who, but for divine intervention, would go out with a man who would’ve lost a battle of wits with a toad? Then again, maybe I shouldn’t be so critical. Bigelow County wasn’t exactly teeming with middle-aged single men interested in mature, literate, chubby women in their forties.
“Nah, they’re both for me,” he said. “That pie’s so good you can’t stop at one slice. You gotta have two.”
Picturing two glistening slices of pie, I turned away and tried to focus on my task of filling cups with ice and soda before the next rush. I recalled how silky the chocolate filling had felt against my tongue, how sweetly the meringue had melted, the buttery flakiness of the crust.
Spiva’s voice carried, louder than usual, “Yeah, I remember you, Allen. How’s Bonnie?”
Guilt about the stupid guitar pick washed over me. Tonight was setting up to be sheer torture. Please, I prayed, for once, be prudent, Spiva.
Trying to be inconspicuous, I turned to see if Allen Singleton could still make my heart flutter with something besides guilt. I wasn’t listening to what he was saying to my sister. Who cared about Bonnie? I’d never truly forgiven her for snaking on my friend’s man—even if it happened a heck of a long time ago, and even if I’d had a secret crush on him myself.
I’m not going to lie. He looked good. A little gray, a little wrinkled, a little heavier, but still those warm brown eyes that caused me to swoon in high school made me a bit light-headed now.
Spiva shouted back to me. “You hear that, Pearl?” She wiggled her penciled-in eyebrows. “He’s divorced.”
“Sorry to hear that,” I mumbled, even though I wasn’t anything close to sorry, terrible as that sounds. Was it the universe’s way of paying him back for treating Maggie badly? If so, karma had taken its time. I faced my task once more as he ordered a hamburger, fries and drink combo. For one, I noted.
What if Spiva brought up the guitar pick? Maybe that’d be a good thing. He’d probably say, what are you talking about? And Spiva would see how silly she’d been—thinking I had committed some horrible crime.
“How about a slice of chocolate meringue pie with that?” Rosie asked.
Allen patted his sweater around what some people, not me, would call his belly. “Can’t. The fries are bad enough.”
Rosie walked over to the drink station and grabbed a cup. “Don’t you think that’s enough?”
“What?” I glanced down at the rows of soft drinks covering the table’s surface in front of me. “Yeah, sorry, I got distracted.”
Mal came back from her raffle check and hugged Allen. “So sorry to hear about you and Bonnie. You know my sister Swee’s still single if you’re looking.”
He laughed but didn’t latch onto the hook she was dangling. Spiva had her trademark peeved expression on her face. She was about to blurt out something. Please, Spiva, don’t tell him I’m single, too.
She didn’t. She did something far worse. “You know, Allen, I always thought the Chinaberry Charmers would have made it big.”
My heart sped like one of those high-speed trains they have in Europe.
“Not everyone does make it,” he said. “I think our luck turned for the worse when my favorite guitar pick went missing.”
My breath left me. I had stolen their mojo. I single-handedly destroyed the dreams of the Chinaberry Charmers. Not only was I a thief, I was wrong about the guitar pick being unimportant. And what was worse, Spiva was right. How she would lord it over me.
I looked at the delicious layers of meringue and rich chocolate filling trying to seduce me a table away. I’d drown my guilt in pie. No, I’d take a thin, thin sliver. I’d only have two bites, then I’d toss it. I put a buck fifty in the till and grabbed an extra large slice. As my former idol and my evil older sister chatted about high school and other things, I tuned out.
The first bite was sheer heaven. I moaned in e
cstasy. I took another and another and another bite.
“On second thought,” Allen said. “Maybe I will have a slice. Pearl seems to like it—a lot.”
Mortified, I stood there with a mouthful of pie, unable to swallow.
Spiva got that look in her eye. I wanted to shout “no” but couldn’t. “You know, Allen, Pearl will probably kill me for telling you this, but she mooned over you big time back when you were with the Charmers.”
Actually I was beyond wanting to kill her. I wanted to take myself out. And I would. As soon as snack bar duty was over, I was calling Julie and countering the owner’s counter offer.
Incapable of realizing that Allen wasn’t the least bit interested in me, Spiva continued singing my praises. All the while, the poor man looked like the proverbial deer stuck in the headlights.
“Maybe you should come by after the game. You and Pearl could get reacquainted.”
And I could come clean about the stupid guitar pick. I felt like my eyes must be popping out of my head, as if I were in a cartoon, which probably made this chubby cherub oh-so-attractive to newly single Allen.
He glanced over at me, hemmed and hawed. “Well, maybe. I have—”
“Come on,” Spiva encouraged. “How’s having a coffee going to hurt? If you don’t get along, no harm, no foul.”
Allen took a sip of his soft drink. “Would you like to go to the Naked Bean after the game, Pearl?”
“You don’t have to do this,” I said as my sister pinched my forearm.
“Don’t be silly, I want to. See you after the game.”
With that, he walked off. He must know I stole the guitar pick, and he only agreed to go to confront me and lay all his disappointed dreams at my feet. But then why was he so reluctant? Because my pushy older sister forced him. He figured agreeing was the lesser of the evils.
I wanted the earth to swallow me whole.
Once he was out of earshot, I tapped Spiva on the shoulder.
She had the nerve to look surprised. “Is this going to be mime? ’Cause I wouldn’t want you to spoil your not-talking-to-your-sister record.”
“It’s behavior like this that makes living with you intolerable. Once again, you are trying to orchestrate my life. You need to butt out.”
Mal checked the time on her watch. “Leave it at the counter, ladies. It’s half-time, and we’re about to get slammed.”
Rosie sent me a look of sympathy. Mal snapped her fingers at me as hungry teens crowded the counters.
I’d hoped Spiva would leave me be, but since when had Spiva ever let a scab form? She kept picking and picking.
I brought her three bags of potato chips and three cokes for the giggling girls she was serving.
Instead of thanks, she said, “You think you don’t need me, but you do. Here’s your big opportunity to come clean about you know what.”
I walked back to my station to get drinks for Mal’s customer’s order.
Spiva passed me as she went to plate fries and a hotdog. “I’m afraid if I wasn’t around challenging you, you probably wouldn’t have the bookstore and you would have failed at your diet and exercise plan.”
“Excuse me?” I couldn’t help but be dumbfounded. She might have encouraged me to open the bookstore, but she’d been the biggest diet saboteur I’d ever seen.
Spiva stuck her chin out. “Where would be the challenge in following your plan if our cabinets were full of healthy foods? Where would be the challenge in life if you didn’t go for what you wanted—the bookstore, former crushes who are now single included, as well as fancy condos.”
“You’re attempting to justify your bad behavior.”
“No, this is really how I feel. If a place of your own is what you want, Pearl, then I’m happy for you. Buy that condo in Bigelow with my blessing.”
All the people standing in line at the counter grew quiet, their faces masks of shock and horror. Spiva paled as the repercussions of her big-mouthed blurting dawned on her.
Sorry,” she whispered.
“How could you?” I asked but didn’t receive an answer.
Rosie pressed her hand to her chest as if I’d stabbed her in the heart. “You’re moving to Bigelow?”
Before I could explain, Spiva jumped in. “She’s made an offer, but I don’t think that’s what Pearl wants deep down. Who in their right mind would want to move from Mossy Creek to Bigelow?”
Her need to defend my actions only made my situation worse.
“Are you moving the bookstore, too?” Mal asked, blinking, then texting someone with the news. “Because Swee might want your spot on the square.”
“I’m not moving Mossy Creek Books and Whatnots.”
Who knew how this information would be distorted by morning. I’d probably be tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail.
I, Pearl Quinlan, had been stood up. Not wanting to look at my wristwatch yet again, I wiped down the tables behind the counter. The game had ended twenty minutes ago with Mossy Creek triumphant. Allen Singleton had not come to the snack bar after the game as promised, and my prediction of this being one of the worst nights of my life had come true in more Technicolor glory than I could have imagined.
It’s one thing to be stood up as a teenager or young adult. It’s even more humiliating when you’re past your prime and your sister strong-arms some guy into agreeing to take you for coffee after a high school football game.
I should have known. My first step down the path to spontaneity in January hadn’t exactly reinforced the desire to do it again. Under the influence of high fat hors d’oeuvres and Asti Spumante at the annual New Year’s Eve party, I stupidly blurted to the whole of Mossy Creek that I would lower my cholesterol by means of exercise and diet. I became a cause for the whole town of Mossy Creek, who wanted to see me succeed. My sister, in turn, upped the aggravation level close to unbearable. Not as unbearable as this, though.
“Pearl?” Spiva said, her voice timid and worried, nothing like her usual loud bossy tone.
I raised a hand. “I don’t want to hear it. I’m heading over to the hospital to check on Maggie.” Her water broke during half-time.
“But what if Allen comes by to get you?”
“He’s not coming. So stop trying to make me think he will.”
Spiva took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
She shrugged. “Everything, I guess.”
“Why don’t you list it, so I know that you know what you’ve done wrong?”
Spiva screwed up her face like she’d taken a sip of something sour. I thought she was going to refuse.
“Okay,” she said finally, then used her thumbs and fingers to count off her list. “I shouldn’t be so bossy. I shouldn’t twist attractive men’s arms into asking you out. I shouldn’t have gone snooping in your stuff.”
“And?” I prompted. “You can’t think that’s all.”
“I shouldn’t have mentioned you were moving to Bigelow in front of everyone at halftime. I didn’t mean to. It just came out. Even though I might have said I’m fine with you moving, I’m not. I had no idea everyone would grill you about your move.”
I mentally listed all the people who gave me grief in the hour left of the game after Spiva’s half-time disclosure. Ida, Ingrid, Jayne, Sandy, Katie Bell, Amos, Patty and Mac. The only friends who didn’t call me out for being Mossy Creek’s latest answer to Benedict Arnold were Maggie and Tag, who were understandably busy. On top of that, several contractors stopped by and offered to help us renovate the existing house. And a complete stranger, who apparently flips houses for a living, handed me a flier for a duplex he was getting ready to put on the market.
“See you later.” I grabbed my purse from under the counter.
“Do you forgive me?” sh
e asked. “I don’t know why I’ve become so obnoxious. I always saw myself as your protector, but now I’ve become a bully. I can’t say that I like it.”
“I don’t like it either. Maybe space is what we need.”
“Maybe,” Spiva agreed. “I think I’m going to start wearing a rubber band on my wrist and snap myself every time I feel the urge to boss you. You know, you still haven’t said you forgive me.”
“I will in time. I usually do.” I jangled my keys. “Don’t wait up. I’m not sure how long I’ll be.”
I walked to the parking lot and slid behind the wheel of my sensible compact. As I drove toward the hospital, I could only imagine the conversations going on about me. Yes, Pearl Quinlan—the woman who once passed out Bibles to spectators watching authorities pull Billy Paul Stancil from a well—was going to the dark side.
At the hospital entrance, I turned left and parked in the half full lot and wondered if Maggie was the kind of woman who hunkers down and gets her birthing done quickly. In the main lobby, I asked the lady at the information desk where I could locate labor and delivery. I followed her instructions and wound up in the fourth floor lounge.
Maggie’s friend and theater owner Anna Lavender was already there flipping through a magazine. She looked up when she heard me walking down the waxed faux wood floor. The waiting area was done up in a warm and inviting mountain lodge theme, not my style, but nice.
Anna smiled and patted the cushion next to her on the couch. “Hey, how was the game?”
“Thirty-eight to seven, Mossy Creek.” I sank into the high loft cushion. After the emotional upheaval, the rushing back and forth in the snack bar and a full day of work, I could fall asleep sitting right here. “How’s Maggie doing?” I asked, closing my eyes.
“Pretty well. Tag’s a little frazzled, but that’s to be expected. So when were you going to tell everyone you’re moving?”
My lids shot open. “You know, too?”
She lifted her cellular device. “We live in a modern age, Pearl. What’s the deal?”
“The deal is that I’ve had enough of Spiva. I found a beautiful condo. Unfortunately, it’s in Bigelow. That’s the only sticking point.”