Wedding Bell Blues

by Ruth Moose

  And she had sometime gotten into the Dixie Dew and stolen her wedding cake. I had baked five layers, iced them, had the whole kitchen at the Dixie Dew white with powdered sugar and every surface tacky as glue. Then I decorated. I made white icing roses, sixty of them. Now half of them were smeared across Reba’s face and hands and how many were on Verna’s quilt? I didn’t want to know. I only knew I wanted to reach over and shake Reba by her shoulders. But of course she had no idea all that had gone into that “good cake.” At least she was enjoying it.

  “Where? Where did you get that cake?” I asked.

  Ida Plum stepped closer to the bed. “I put that thing in the freezer yesterday. No sense wasting good cake and all that work. Somebody in Littleboro would be getting married sometime.”

  “You’re staying here?” I asked.

  Reba got back in bed, pulled up the quilt and said, “I like this bed. It’s soft and smells good.” She patted the covers with the hand that didn’t hold cake, then licked her fingers. Oh, Verna was going to have to have that quilt dry-cleaned of cake crumbs and icing.

  “Don’t you miss your tree?” Ida Plum asked.

  I knew she was thinking about sticky icing and maybe whatever else Reba might decide to deposit in this house. Whatever she did, she wouldn’t mess it up more than it was already.

  “Hearing the birds? Fresh morning air? Sunshine?” Ida Plum continued.

  “Birds on tee-vee,” Reba said and took another bite of her cake.

  Ida Plum and I looked at each other and shrugged. I was sure glad to be alive and aboveground. Which might be more than Mr. Butch Rigsbee was at the moment. Would Reba even know what I was talking about if I asked her? God, I wanted to say. God in the big white truck? Do you know where he is?

  I didn’t ask. She was hyped up on cake and I didn’t want to go prodding into her time in jail and the business on the picnic table. Let her enjoy just being alive.

  I knew I could bake more cakes. I could pipe more icing roses and decorate more wedding cakes unless Mrs. Lady Wrestler found me and hacked the daylights out of me with a chef’s knife or something. I put my arm around Ida Plum, said, “Let Reba eat cake. Let’s go.” And we did.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ida Plum and I sneaked in the back door at the Dixie Dew as quietly as we could, in case guests were in the dining room waiting for breakfast. I surely didn’t want to hear the sound of them banging spoons on my grandmother’s cherry table, chanting something like “Coffee. Coffee. Coffee.” Getting ready to riot. And I certainly wanted no dents in that table my grandmother had me polish a million times while I was growing up. No dents, please.

  All was quiet.

  We started stirring up muffin batter, grits for a soufflé and cracking eggs into a bowl. I remembered the first egg I ever cracked, Mama Alice at my elbow, and it went right into the kitchen drawer I’d forgotten to close. All over the flatware. One egg could surely make a lot of mess, I learned, as I cleaned it up and tried again, this time making sure the drawer was shut. Tight.

  Then, at the agreed-upon hour, I heard footsteps coming down the stairs: Mr. Fortune, Miss Isabella and that cute little Debbie Booth, all bouncy and excited.

  “Grits,” said Debbie, lifting the lid of the chafing dish. “God made grits for our Southern souls and palettes and anyone else who has the good sense to know good food.” She served herself a healthy portion. I got the feeling if she had been at her own house and cooking these grits in cream, she would have licked the spoon.

  They ate and praised and Mr. Fortune asked for seconds on the grits. “A kiss of garlic?” he asked, tasting.

  “A nice smack,” I said.

  “Red pepper? A generous sprinkle?”

  “You got it,” I said. “Eggs, milk and a ton of sharp cheese.”

  “And the grits,” Debbie Booth said. “Stone-ground of course. That’s the rock-bottom backbone. Everything else is superfluous.”

  I told Mr. Fortune about a fun documentary he could probably find somewhere online about “a grits tree,” an old black-and-white film. He made notes on the stiff white French cuffs of his green-and-white-checked shirt. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen French cuffs, not here in Littleboro. Not ever on Ben Johnson, my ex, who wouldn’t know a cuff of any sort if it didn’t come on a wool shirt from L.L.Bean. I could swoon over French cuffs and silver cuff links. I have a low swooning point.

  They cleared out for the day. Miss Isabella and Debbie headed to a luncheon at our Honorable Ms. Mayor Moss’s mansion, to which I was invited, too. Why, I didn’t know, just as a committee person I guess, but of course I’d go. One must socialize when the rich extend to all us lowlies an invitation. Mr. Fortune said he was off for his daily run, then errands and a late-night pickup at the Raleigh-Durham airport. Maybe our “mystery guest”? He had never given me any information, not name, or gender. Our mystery guest was still a big mystery.

  Ida Plum and I cleared up, cleaned up and washed up. I reminded her Robert Redford was still missing and I dreaded going by to check on Verna. He was the first thing Verna would ask about. It seemed such a small thing, and I’d tried. I’d truly tried. But he was still out there somewhere. Still missing.

  “I’ve got a feeling he’ll turn up where you least expect,” Ida Plum said in such an offhand way I didn’t know whether she knew something I didn’t or was trying to cheer me up. Either way, I didn’t feel much better.

  The practical side of me knew rabbits were not as resourceful as cats. They don’t find mice or lizards as my cat Sherman would have done and make meals of them in order to survive. And water? He could be dehydrated. Cats can jump up and help themselves to water in somebody’s birdbath. I didn’t see rabbits doing that kind of high hopping. I was getting more afraid I’d find his little “fur suit,” as Miss Tempie had once described her dead poodle, Harold, the dog she buried in her family plot in the Littleboro Cemetery. I wanted Robert Redford to still be hopping around in his little fur suit.

  I also knew I couldn’t go to a pet shop, buy a big white rabbit and try to tell Verna I’d found Robert Redford. Besides, I’d never find one the age and size of R.R. in a pet shop, which made me wonder exactly how old R.R. was. I had no idea how long Verna had been cohabiting with him in that hoarder house. Maybe the rabbit would be so glad to be out of it, he’d run and keep running. Or hopping. Hippity-hopping like the Easter Bunny, with his red leash flopping behind him.

  When the Sunday edition of The Pilot newspaper came, Ida Plum and I sat down to share it. I get my subscription by mail and though it comes on Monday, a day late, I always feel The Pilot keeps me up-to-date on what I need to know. I usually read the books section first. Faye Dasen has been the book person forever. I love her book news and reviews, but today a small item on the front page nearly leaped off at me. I had read it online, but somehow until I saw it in black-and-white it didn’t seem true. Here it was on the page.

  “Mystery Man Found in Littleboro,” I read, then read it aloud to Ida Plum. “An unidentified man found unconscious on a picnic table in Littleboro was taken to Moore County Medical, where he remains in critical condition.” On down in the paragraph was a description of his red beard, his tattoos and a plea that anyone missing a family member or with information should contact Ossie DelGardo in Littleboro. The newspaper account had little more information than the online version.

  “He’s still alive,” I said. “Either Reba didn’t kill him or I must have saved him. Or kept him semi-alive until the MedAlert guys got there.”

  “Will wonders never cease?” Ida Plum said.

  At eleven o’clock, freshly showered and dressed, I left for my command appearance at Mayor Moss’s big luncheon. Two big events in two days were almost too much opulence. Littleboro wasn’t used to such “goings-on.” Me neither.

  Ida Plum was on the front porch with a broom knocking down spiderwebs. “They appear every night and every day I knock them down,” she said. Sherman scooted under a boxwood every time
she raised the broom, peeked out, ducked back under.

  “Don’t say anything I wouldn’t,” Ida Plum said. “And don’t do anything to get yourself on the front page of The Mess or The Pilot.” She laughed. Around here gossip would give you the latest good and bad—mostly bad—news. Nothing like somebody gone wrong or doing wrong to set the tongues in Littleboro flapping at both ends. But it was only hearsay—until you read it in The Mess. Once something was in print, whether it was the rumor or the actual deed, now it was set in stone. The Mess only came out once a week but everybody already knew most of what would be in it. Black-and-white print told it all. Sacred as the Bible. If you said, “I read it in The Mess,” it was a fact.

  Our mayor was celebrating the Green Bean Festival by giving a kickoff luncheon. Mama Alice and I always used the word “dinner” for the meal you ate at noon. Supper was the meal you ate late in the evening, close to night. Luncheon was for those who had nothing to do but go to one, like hoity-toity big-city people. I was curious as to who would show up. Committee people, volunteers who would scurry around like noises in the night so they could get admission to all the goings-on for free.

  I had dressed in my “glad rags,” as Mama Alice would have called my polished cotton print shirtwaist dress that was old, old and soft, but not faded. Polished cotton never faded, plus this dress had been in the back of my closet since who knew when. Years maybe. This one didn’t match my tablecloths and tearoom valances. It had a black background with red peonies in bloom and sweet pea tendrils. I thought it somehow said “luncheon.”

  “Do I look okay?” I asked Ida Plum as I turned around for her inspection.

  “You’re not going to win any fashion parades,” she said. “But looks like you got everything sufficiently covered.”

  I laughed and headed for Lady Bug.

  Chapter Twenty

  I wasn’t late, but the parking area at the Honorable Calista Moss’s estate was almost full. I squeezed in next to her huge white barn that she restored, where we’d had the trashion show. That barn was fancy enough for somebody to live in. A couple of somebodies.

  Ida Plum, when she heard about the luncheon, shook her head as if to say, What will Littleboro come to next? Putting on the dog?

  Today as I had driven up that hill with the lush lawn, big magnolia trees and the old Little house looming at the top, I couldn’t help but remember Miss Tempie’s house that was in ruins, the kudzu claiming it more every day, every inch, on the adjoining hill. One old Southern mansion going down to sticks and bricks, another, Mayor Moss’s, getting new life by the dollar. Or many dollars. Mucho dollars.

  Mayor Moss met us at the door, dressed in yellow linen with a matching hat and shoes. Where did one find yellow shoes? She looked like a human daffodil. She even wore a bright-green, yellow-and-blue printed scarf, which I am sure was hand painted, a one of a kind. She led us through the living room with rugs that had pile so lush and deep I felt I was sinking up to my ankles or needed oars to row my way across.

  The dining-room table was set for twenty-two. I counted ten on each side, one at each end. The table glowed with gold-rimmed china and matching gold place settings. A long centerpiece of stargazer lilies, red gerbera daisies and cymbidium orchids told me the Betts Brothers florists had outdone themselves. This Green Bean Festival was providing some revenue for local businesses. Maybe our mayor was on to something after all.

  There were place cards! Oh, the elegance. I was seated between Debbie Booth and Pastor Pittman. Somehow I couldn’t seem to get away from the man. And what did he ever have to do with the arts and this festival?

  “I’m doing the invocation,” he leaned over and whispered. “Before the cook-off, bake-off, do-off thing.”

  Yes, I thought, all that green bean stuff needs to be blessed. Even blessed twice. Three times. You couldn’t bless green beans too much to suit me. Maybe it would help.

  Across from me were people I didn’t know, but Her Honor Moss went around with one-sentence introductions: so-and-so from the newspaper (a man I’d never heard of, could he be the mysterious columnist, Pearl Buttons?), so-and-so from the school board, so-and-so from the arts council, some city council somebody, a music teacher, a dance teacher, a local watercolorist, me and Pastor Pittman, Miss Isabella, Debbie Booth and others, until there were twenty of us. Plus two. Calista Moss sat at the head of this very elegant table glowing under one of the chandeliers, each of which with enough crystal drops for a rain shower. The other end of the table was empty. She explained, “Mr. Moss may join us.” She pursed her lips. “Or he may not.”

  Her husband must truly be a real mystery man. I don’t think anybody had ever seen him. He certainly didn’t show up at the famous trashion show. Unless that had been the male voice I had overhead outside the kitchen window. Maybe Littleboro had a male Emily Dickinson?

  Before we lifted a soup spoon, the Honorable Miz Mayor read a poem as a blessing, something about moon and stars.

  I looked at Pastor Pittman, who shrugged his shoulders.

  The poem rhymed in places. Mayor Moss didn’t say who wrote it. Didn’t sound like anything Emily Dickinson wrote, not even slant rhyme. I hadn’t lived with Ben Johnson all those years not to know a poem or two when I heard or saw it. He ate, slept and breathed poetry, just couldn’t write any worth a darn.

  There was an awkward moment. Was this a blessing, a prayer? No, it was a poem so everyone applauded. Then we started on our first course: a murky-colored sort of pale green soup that looked cool and tasty. Perky-faced Johnny-jump-ups floated in the cold soup. Who of us present would lift the little flowers to their lips and eat one? I took a bite, looked around. Everyone else was spooning soup. No one tasted a flower but me.

  The purple and yellow flower was crisp and had a bit of a bite like black pepper. I liked it, but then I’d grown up sucking the honey from honeysuckle blooms, chewing sour grass in spring, breaking open maypops that grew on wild passionflower vines. I ate the seeds. Mama Alice taught me which wild plants are edible. Sometimes she even fried daylily blooms, squash and pumpkin blossoms. I liked adventurous eating.

  The waitress in black slacks and black T-shirt, sporting pecs big as kettlebells, had her back to me. Didn’t look like any waitress I’d ever seen, but she wore a white apron and little lace cap as she went around the table serving cornbread sticks with silver tongs from a large silver basket. Pats of butter in the shape of daisies had already been placed on individual bread plates. I bet if there had been a butter mold in the shape of green beans, the mayor would have it to carry out the motif.

  When the waitress walked past me, I saw her face. That bleached-out hair, those snarling lips—none other than Mrs. Butch Rigsbee. Oh my God. In the flesh. In person. Here in this house! I wanted to duck down, get under the table. I had seen her photograph in his wallet and I knew it was her. But she had not seen me up close.

  “Oops.” The server dropped a corn stick in Debbie Booth’s lap. “Hope it wasn’t hot.” She laughed, a high horsey laugh, stepped back and clapped her hands. Didn’t even apologize.

  Had it been meant for me? A small, innocuous gesture to remind me I was under threat? Or was I getting paranoid? I still suspected some weird woman was on the loose in Littleboro and had her eyes on me. Would anyone actually drop a hot corn stick on purpose? Maybe she was just clumsy or simply an inexperienced waitperson.

  Debbie quickly picked up the corn stick, tossed it back and forth between her hands, then blew on it to cool. “Not too hot now,” she said and buttered it. “Just right.” Perfect manners. Our Debbie rose above the situation. That’s what Mama Alice would have called it.

  Mayor Moss frowned, waved her hand to dismiss the waitress from the room. “New,” she said to the rest of us. “Her first event. She’s a friend of my chef. Just showed up unexpectedly and he insisted I put her to work.”

  The waitress, aka Mrs. Butch Rigsbee, leaned around the passage to the butler’s pantry, stuck her tongue out and mouthed, “I’ve got
my eyes on you.” Did she mean me? Or did she think Debbie was me?

  Her Honor didn’t see the rude gesture or maybe she chose to ignore it. Her Honor was gracious. My grandmother would have applauded her, too, that she knew how to manage gracefully a sticky situation.

  There was a silence in the room loud enough to reach the ceiling. We all held our breath waiting for what might happen next. That’s when I thought I saw something move in the centerpiece. Something was in the lilies. The lilies moved. Something alive was in and among the centerpiece.

  Two bright little dots of black eyes looked up at me.

  Had an anole gotten in with the greenery? But these eyes were bigger, farther apart. Not an anole. At the Dixie Dew, Sherman brought the little green lizards inside regularly and alive. He was a hunter, but not too much of a killer. If I couldn’t catch the anoles and put them back outside, Sherman managed to eat them one body part at a time, sometimes leaving the tails. Picky eater.

  The mayor kept eating her soup and so did the rest of us. Cool and tasty. Good soup.

  The little black dotted eyes in the flower centerpiece moved, disappeared, appeared again.

  Did no one but me see them? I didn’t want to say anything and cause any sort of commotion, like everyone screaming, jumping up and running from the room. All because of a lizard? Or it could be a snake. All I had seen were eyes and a wiggle in the flowers.

  We ate amid companionable chitchat: the weather first and foremost, the festival, the trashion show, who had been where, doing what with whom. The corn sticks had gone back to the kitchen and our little butter flowers got softer and wider on the plates.

  I smelled some sort of chicken dish coming after the soup and thought to myself, Please don’t let the vegetable be green beans. Spinach, I can love. The ubiquitous broccoli lightly steamed. Anything but green beans. Knowing the mayor, and in keeping with the theme, she’d probably planned them first. I hoped dessert was going to be something gooey and chocolate. Please let it be chocolate.