The Potluck Club

by Linda Evans Shepherd

  That was a lie. I was thinking about something. Something about the name Jewel . . . but God help me, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. You know, like when something’s on the tip of your tongue but it just won’t come out? That’s how it was, something on the tip of my brain, but it just wouldn’t . . . well, whatever. Somebody I knew named Jewel, but not from here. From where, then? And what woman around here could have farmed out a baby thirty-five years ago without me knowing about it?

  My inner struggle was interrupted by the sound of Vonnie’s car pulling up to the front of the house. “There’s Von,” I said, standing.

  The rest of the girls stood too, following me to the front door. When I opened it, it was apparent the weather had dropped a few more degrees. Vonnie was moving her stocky form uncharacteristically slowly up the walkway. Her face was downcast, keeping a watch on her tiny feet.

  I knew it! I thought. Something is wrong.

  It didn’t take long for us to find out what it was, either. As soon as Vonnie had dropped her cheesy corn bread onto my kitchen table—each one of us gathering around her—with the rest of the food that had grown to room temperature, she let out a pent-up sigh.

  “What is it, Von?” I asked.

  Her eyes filled with tears as she took in the lot of us, all gathered round the table, silent and waiting. “It’s Jan Moore,” she began.

  “What about Jan Moore?” Lizzie asked. “You know, I saw her in the Sew and Stitch not too long ago and thought she looked a little thin. Said she wasn’t sleeping well and thought it might be the change.”

  “The change in what?” Donna asked, which brought a chuckle from us more mature Potluckers.

  “The change of life, darlin’,” Lisa Leann said.

  I watched Vonnie swallow hard. “It’s not the change.” She took in another breath.

  “Well, for crying out loud, Vonnie. Spit it out,” I told her.

  “Jan Moore has inoperable cancer.”

  It seems to me that a good lifetime went by before anyone spoke—and that someone was our logical Lizzie Prattle. “Has she seen Doc Billings?”

  “She has. I put in a call to him myself. I feel sure he’ll talk to me about this.”

  “And?” Goldie asked.

  “And he hasn’t called me back yet. His wife said he went to Jackson Hole for a family wedding.”

  “Dorothy didn’t go with him?” Lisa Leann asked, leaving me to think, Well, who cares if Dorothy went with him or not?

  “Dorothy’s never much cared for his family,” Lizzie answered.

  There was another pause, still none of us moving, before Vonnie said, “Well, girls. Here’s what I do know: specifically, she has breast cancer.”

  “Breast cancer?” Goldie repeated. “But there’s so much hope for women with breast cancer.”

  Vonnie shook her head no. “Not in this case. The cancer began in the back of the breasts. She wouldn’t have felt anything during a regular self-exam. What happened is that it metastasized. Spread.”

  “Where?” Donna asked.

  “First to her lungs. Then to her liver and spleen.”

  “How much time are we talking about exactly?” Lisa Leann asked, taking a step closer to Vonnie.

  “Six months. Maybe less.”

  I took in what she said, nodding, thinking about my best friend, Ruth Ann, and how hard we’d prayed that she would beat cancer. But instead it had beat her, and beat her to death too. The pain of burying her, even after all these years, hadn’t so much as lessened by a smidgen.

  Leigh put a hand on my shoulder. “What are you thinking about, Aunt Evie?”

  I looked at my old friends as I answered. “Ruth Ann.”

  Lizzie and Goldie nodded at their own memories.

  Dear Lord, I prayed. Please tell me you’re kidding, ’cause I don’t think I can go through this again . . .

  Needless to say, the rest of our meeting was spent with us girls in a stunned position. The food got cold, and the Glade scented candle I’d lit earlier in the day burned down to the bottom of the wick, leaving nothing but a blackened ring at the bottom of the tiny glass bowl. Vonnie kept saying we needed to pray, but no one said anything, just nodded in agreement. Lisa Leann said she’d pray when she got home, and for the first time I actually found myself not being agitated at what was coming out of her mouth. I remembered that Jan felt responsible for Lisa Leann being there in the first place, and I thought, Well then, she certainly should pray. Strange as it sounds, it wasn’t a bitter thought but a comforting one.

  Donna left almost immediately. I guess because she’s so young and these kinds of things have to just settle on you gradual-like when you’re young. The good Lord knows it had to settle on me when Ruth Ann died. In fact, it’s still settling.

  Lizzie talked about getting some books for us to read on this kind of cancer. “And on grief, in case we need it,” she said, to which I said, “Well, of course we’re going to need it, Lizzie Prattle. From the looks of things we’re already grieving.”

  Leigh piped in, “From the looks of things you’ve already got Miss Jan buried. Whatever happened to faith?”

  And with that, Goldie burst into tears like the sky in a rain forest. She cried for a good half hour, but something told me it wasn’t just about Jan. Something told me it had to do with Coach Dippel.

  That man . . . At times he makes me glad I’m not married.

  When everyone finally left the house, I sat down on the living room sofa and just stared at nothing while Leigh began cleaning the kitchen. The scent of lemon dishwashing liquid crept into the room, becoming stronger with every whir-whir of the dishwasher. The smell mixed with that pumpkin-scented Glade candle, and the blending reminded me of Thanksgiving Day from years gone by and Mama and Peg and me standing in the kitchen, washing and drying dishes the old-fashioned way, by hand. We’d talk and talk, the three of us, about one thing and then another, our bellies stuffed full of Mama’s turkey and dressing, good vegetables, and lots of pie.

  That thought made me think of Mama’s recipe for broccoli casserole, which made me think of how much Ruth Ann loved that dish as good as anything my mama ever made. She’d sit at the kitchen table and literally scrape the cheesy crust right off the sides of the Corningware with a spoon until the dish hardly needed washing at all.

  “Done, Ruth Ann?” I’d ask, giving her a glare that read, You’re embarrassing me. We were, after all, still in high school, and it doesn’t take much to embarrass you when you’re in high school.

  But Mama would say, “Leave her alone, Evangeline.” And she’d walk over to Ruth Ann, give her back a rub, and say, “Honey, you just make yourself at home. I’m pleased as can be that you like my broccoli as much as you do, and it warms my heart to know you’re eating a green vegetable.” Mama then turned to me. “She’ll grow up healthy, Evangeline, eating broccoli like she does.”

  Now I’m left to wonder why all that broccoli didn’t keep Ruth Ann alive . . . and if Jan Moore has been eating well all these years, well, what does the surgeon general have to say about all this?

  “Aunt Evie?” Leigh’s quiet voice came from around the kitchen doorway. “I’m going to lie down for a while. Is that okay with you?”

  I nodded, looking over my shoulder to where she now stood. “I imagine you’re getting a little tired.”

  Leigh rubbed her swollen belly. “That I am. Maybe later you and I can go out to dinner. Want to?”

  I smiled weakly. “We’ll see.”

  Leigh nodded, then turned and headed up the stairs toward her room.

  I sat silent for a moment, returning to my reflections of the past. Ruth Ann, Ruth Ann . . . I thought heavily, then wondered for the millionth time since her death what she’d think if she knew Arnold had gotten married not even eight months after her death. “Don’t blame him, Evie,” she’d say. “He just can’t live without a woman tak–ing care of him. I understand that.” To which I’d say, “Why do you always make excuses for that man?”


  I remembered the evening Arnold had called me, talking first about how much he missed Ruth Ann and then, like a knife slipping through soft butter, asking me out for a date. I wondered what

  Ruth Ann would say to that, if I ever had the nerve to drive over to the cemetery and tell her.

  Of course I’d declined the offer, not only because Ruth Ann had been my dearest friend for life but also because I wouldn’t really know how to behave on a date, anyway. Sitting in my living room, in a house where I all but lived alone now, I frowned. What had it been about me that kept the boys from asking me out? I wondered. I’m not a half-bad-looking woman—as good looking as any woman around these parts, I’d say. Was it something in my character? Some wall I’d built around my heart that dared anyone to get close enough to even touch the stone-cold bricks? The questions disturbed me now as much as they’d ever done; not that I’d ever told a soul—not even Ruth Ann—how I felt about being alone.

  I answered my own question with a maybe so, then prepared myself to do what I always do when I’m upset: I clean something. Not that my house needed special attention, but somewhere between where I was this morning and where I was right now, I decided my life needed some restructuring, and that began with my closets.

  I started with the one in the guest room (Leigh was sleeping in her mother’s old room), which at one time had been my parents’ room and is now where I keep my off-season clothes. The closet is not an overly large one and the door is just a door, not one of those louvers like I’ve seen in some of the newer homes around here. I opened it and pushed it all the way to the wall, then began jerking hangers off the cedar bar that hung from end to end. I threw everything on the bed, separating the clothes into two piles, one to take to the church’s clothing pantry and the other to keep.

  My keeper pile was considerably shorter than my pantry pile. With my hands on my hips, I stood over the bed, wondering what in the world had happened to me in the years I’d been on this earth. As a child I had been a fun-loving girl. I dressed like all the other girls dressed. I did exciting things . . . sometimes. When had I become such a fuddy-duddy?

  I turned from the all-too-depressing sight and began pulling shoe boxes from the top shelf, peering into each one, then set–Shepherd_ ting them near the pantry pile. At this rate, by next spring I’d be barefoot and naked.

  I returned the few keeper items to the closet and then shut the door, all the while deciding to repeat my efforts in my bedroom closet, where my autumn and winter clothes were hanging. The results were the same—keeper pile slim, pantry pile high.

  By the time I finished, Leigh was standing just inside my room, looking fairly quizzical. “What in the world?” she asked, sounding remarkably like her mother.

  “I’ve decided I’m an old fuddy, and I need a new look, like you’ve been saying.”

  Leigh took tentative steps toward my bed piled high with clothes dating back two decades and more. “My goodness. What made you suddenly decide . . .”

  I began slipping fabric from hangers. “Do you know when I stopped living, Leigh?”

  “Stopped living?” Leigh began helping me in my ministrations. “Yes. Stopped living. I’ll tell you when. When Ruth Ann died, that’s when. There’s no reason, no reason on God’s green earth as to why I am like I am, except for one. When Ruth Ann died, I wished more than anything that I’d been buried with her. So I just quit living.”

  Leigh reached for the next garment on the pile. “What brought this on, Aunt Evie?”

  “I was just thinking, is all. I was just thinking that here we go again, now what with Jan Moore’s illness. And I was thinking how you got me to buy these new clothes the other day and how some of the girls commented on my new look, and I’m not a half-bad-looking woman, now am I?”

  Leigh burst out laughing.

  “Why shouldn’t Vernon Vesey want to take me to the movies?”

  Leigh’s eyes widened. “Sheriff Vesey has asked you out?”

  I clamped my mouth shut, then muttered, “Maybe.”

  She jumped up and down as much as a woman in her third trimester can do. “Oh, Aunt Evie! That’s awesome!”

  “Yeah, well. Whatever.”

  “You and Vernon Vesey. Who’d have ever thought?”

  I took on a stern look. “Plenty of people, I’ll have you know, Leigh Banks. For your information, yours is not the first generation to discover the opposite sex. I’ll have you know I lived through the sixties.”

  Leigh stopped in what she was doing, dropping an old orange taffeta dress to the bed. “You had sex with Vernon Vesey?” she asked, her voice in a whisper.

  My brow drew together. “I most certainly did not. I’ve never—I . . .” My words wouldn’t come easy. “But he did kiss me full on the lips when we were children.”

  Leigh’s lips turned upward. “Then what happened?”

  I went back to busying myself with the work on the bed. “Then Doreen Roberts happened, that’s what.”

  “And that was the totality of your experience with the opposite sex?” she asked, touching my arm with her tiny hand.

  I sent her a look that warned her to drop the subject, and she did, but not before adding, “I think the day Vernon Vesey dropped you may have been the day you died, Aunt Evie.” When I said nothing, she cleared her throat and added, her voice bold, “This calls for shopping, you know what I’m saying? Why don’t we invite Michelle and her mom to join us for a little shopping in Silverthorne next Saturday, followed by dinner?”

  I nodded. That sounded like a good idea to me, as good as any idea I’d heard all afternoon.

  Later that evening, at Leigh’s insistence, I brought out an old box of photographs and my high school and college yearbooks. We sat at the dining room table, laughing at the old black-and-whites of Peg and me, Mama and Daddy. One year, when Peg and I were young teens, we’d gone to the West Coast and vacationed at the beach. Leigh got a particular kick out of seeing her mother and me wearing our quite fashionable (at the time) bathing suits and of Mama wearing an oversized straw sunhat. I explained some of the shenanigans I’d managed to get into during my college years, pointing to photographs of my schoolmates and telling her the stories behind each one.

  I pointed to a photo on the left side of the book. “That was Rebekah Noble. She was so pretty. She and I used to go skiing nearly every time we had a spare minute to do so. She loved Breckenridge.” I tapped my finger on the photo for emphasis. “She ended up in ministry, as a missionary, to be exact. Over somewhere in Africa or the Middle East. I can’t remember exactly. We corresponded for a while and then . . . well, time has a way of separating people you never thought you’d be separated from.”

  Leigh “mmm’d” an agreement, then jutted her neck a bit, leaning closer to the right side of the book. She pointed to one of the many pictures and said, “Isn’t that Vonnie?”

  I leaned closer. “Where?”

  “There. Sitting on the bench with the hottie.”

  “The what?”

  “There. Right there, Aunt Evie.”

  I leaned closer still. “Oh yes. That’s Vonnie.”

  “Who’s she with?”

  “Hmm? Oh, I don’t think she’s with anybody—” I stopped short, knowing my words didn’t match the photo on the glossy page.

  Leigh laughed. “You don’t think so? They look awfully cozy sitting there, you know what I’m saying? And he’s a hottie.”

  I furrowed my brow. “Why do you keep saying that, Leigh Banks? What does that mean exactly?”

  Leigh gave me a quick hug. “It means he’s handsome, Aunt Evie.”

  I looked back at the picture. “He is a nice-looking boy. But, I don’t think . . . hmmm.”

  “Hmmm?” Leigh’s eyes twinkled.

  I shook my head as though I were trying to rattle something loose. “What is it? I remember him . . . something . . .”

  Our church’s “death patrol” leader is a gal named Sharon Kanaly. She’s about fifty-five y
ears old—give or take a year—and is frail and tall and married to Curtis Kanaly, the local coroner/postal worker. Curtis is the guy you call should you have the unfortunate luck to have someone die while in your home, and Sharon is the one who calls everyone on what she calls her prayer chain when you’re sick, dying, or already dead. Sharon started her chain years ago after she tried to become a part of the Potluck Club and we wouldn’t let her in. It wasn’t because none of us like her—though few of us do—but because Sharon has a way of putting a damper on the most positive of times and turning the simplest things into catastrophes.

  Take, for instance, the day Clarice Stephens took sick and went home from her job at the drugstore. Clarice had never so much as missed a day of work in her life, that much is true, and when she came down with what we all thought was some twenty-four-hour flu bug and couldn’t stand up straight, she went home at 4:30 from her usual 8:30 to 5:00 shift. At 4:30 she was only a half an hour short, mind you. She hadn’t gotten in her driveway good but what Sharon was calling everyone on her prayer chain, saying Clarice had that year’s deadly virus from some foreign country as yet unknown.

  Turned out Clarice had a light case of vertigo. Doc Billings cleaned her ears out good and gave her some medicine, and she was good as new in no time, ringing up Midol for the young girls in town and Preparation H for those of us who’d heard it was good for removing wrinkles from around your eyes, as well as other things.

  All this to say it was no real surprise the morning after our Potluck Club meeting that Sharon was ringing her hands and pacing back and forth in front of the church, looking more like death than Jan Moore ever could. I’d hardly slept all night and didn’t look much better. Not only was I wrung out from the club being at my house, but also—of course—there was the news about Jan, not to mention that the cleaning out of my closets had left me more than a little drained. It wasn’t just clothes I was choosing to get rid of but rather what felt like a lifetime of wrong thinking. Naturally, today I had nothing to wear except something dated, but I knew next week would be different. Next week there would be a whole new Evangeline Benson, at least on the outside. I’d still be the same on the inside, somewhat angry with God and willing to bet that after he took Jan Moore from us, I’d be even more so.