by Anna Castle
Burrie stepped aside to make room for him. He made a much better longhorn, having a substantial size advantage over the whip-thin former principal.
“Mooooo,” Jim murmured in my ear.
“Stop it,” I hissed. It was hard enough to keep the giggles at bay without sound effects.
“This’ll be nothing,” Jim whispered. “This guy is congenitally incapable of sticking to the topic at hand.”
“Howdy, everybody,” Ed said, hitching up his trousers. They sagged again at once. “The thing I want to say is that I been noticing that some people are back to letting their dogs run loose around the gazebo down there in Caine Park. They’re pooping all over the dang place.”
A bewildered silence met this interesting offering.
“That’s certainly a problem, Ed,” Burrie said, “but it’s hardly relevant to county history, is it?”
“It’s about our town.” He lowered his head and stuck out his chin, catching the longhorns exactly on either side of his ears. He looked like a steer who was about to charge. I gripped Jim’s leg in alarm. He swatted my hand away.
Burrie frowned. Ed looked ready to argue, but he was no match for a Daughter of the Republic of Texas. He muttered, “Somebody’s gotta do something about them dad-blamed dogs,” and lumbered back to his seat.
Burrie raised her eyes briefly to the ceiling, no doubt asking the Judge to lend her strength. Surveying the audience again, she asked, “Anyone else? Let’s make sure it’s about history this time.”
A hand went up.
“Deputy Finley?” Burrie said.
A thirty-something man in jeans and a denim shirt walked up to the podium. I leaned toward Jim and he obligingly whispered, “Mike Finley. Deputy, new since May. Sheriff’s cousin from down around Beaumont.”
He didn’t look a thing like our homely, redheaded sheriff. Deputy Finley was, to be precise, a stone fox. He looked like the movie version of a Texas deputy: tall and lean, with the lantern jaw and the cool gaze. His blond hair gleamed under the fluorescent lights. He was too tall for the horns to be level with his head, so they receded into the background.
“This isn’t exactly about the museum.” He looked at Burrie doubtfully. “But it is about history.”
“Let’s hear it.” She smiled encouragingly.
“Well, I was thinking we might could do some kind of historical reenactment. I’ve been a member of the Texas Republican Army for about five years and I’ve participated in reenactments of the Battle of San Jacinto. It’s a lot of fun. I’d bet real money folks’d have a grand old time and learn a lot about history to boot.”
Oohs and um-hums filled the air. It was a good idea. I was all in favor; reenactment was sure to provide some excellent photo ops.
“That is a fine idea.” Burrie beamed at him. A-plus for the deputy with the glossy hair.
Deputy Finley grinned with pleasure at his success, bobbing his head in short nods.
“Lord help us,” I murmured, “he’s got dimples.”
“Depiddy Dooright.” Jim’s nose sounded stuffed up. “Mark my words, Penny. He’s too good to be true.”
“Well,” Burrie said, “now we’re on the right track. Who’s next?”
Deputy Finley gave another round of nods and strode back to his seat. The next hand belonged to a blonde woman sitting next to him. As she stood up, I recognized her as Greg’s foot masseuse. What cyber-crime had condemned her to that dire punishment?
Chapter 8
“Principal Burrie, everybody.” The blonde woman took the podium without hesitation, flashing us all a big, shiny smile. She and Deputy Finley were both so good-looking, they made the rest of us look like Claymation figures: lumpy and earthen. She wasn’t tall enough for the longhorns to fit her ears. They looked more like a hat. A really cute hat. I wanted a pair for myself.
“For those of y’all that don’t remember me, I’m Krystle Cameron, Gene and Louanna’s daughter? I’ve been back from L.A. since July, working at the clinic part-time. Mom sprained her ankle getting out of the truck in her espadrilles, so she asked me to come in her place. Also, I’m looking for a thing. You know. To be, like, my thing that I do? My thing that makes me different? Mom thought this would be perfect, because we’re like this old Texas family and so getting into history would be like, you know, roots. And it’s a plus to be like regional or ethnic or whatever, with casting agents and producers and whoever.”
“Casting agents?” I whispered to Jim.
He coughed a little and whispered back, “High school drama queen, moved to L.A. to become a star, gave up after eight years and now she’s home.”
I was impressed. It takes courage to chase a dream that impossible clear across the country.
“Yes, Krystle,” Burrie said, sounding a little crispy. Family history was more than just a ‘thing’ to her. “I think we understand. Of course you’re welcome to join us. Did you have an idea you wanted to share?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Krystle flashed another blinding smile. I smiled back. We all did; it was impossible not to. She spotted me and a small frown creased her brow. “My mom knew about the legacy, of course, since she’s on the board. She thinks we should do something to honor the women of Long County. So I was thinking, what about a fashion show?”
She held her hands out, palms up, hip cocked, waiting for the response. Was she demonstrating? Her costume was thoroughly modern: skinny jeans, Robin Hood boots, and a baby-blue mohair sweater.
“Hmm,” Burrie said. Her brow was creased, no doubt from the effort of thinking of a polite way to say What the flying fishflakes are you talking about?
Deputy Finley stood up and started to talk then sat down abruptly and raised his hand.
“Yes, Deputy Finley?” Burrie said.
“I think that’s a great idea.” The two beautiful people beamed at one another.
Jim whispered, “Across a crowded room, two blondes that think as one…”
I giggled.
Burrie glared us into silence.
“You mean historical costumes, right?” Deputy Finley asked Krystle.
She nodded energetically. “Uh-huh. You know, like pioneers and dance hall girls. I’d rather be a dance hall girl than a pioneer. I already have a bustier. And then we could do some twenties’ thing, like with flappers—”
He cut her off, but it didn’t seem rude. “Exactly. It fits in great with my reenactors idea. More’n half of that’s about getting the costumes right. And it’s not only men doing battles. Women were important, too.”
Marion’s hand shot up. She spoke without waiting to be called on. “They do living history exhibits at LBJ State Park and several other places around the state. They’re quite popular. It could bring in some tourist business, if we publicized it well. I think it’s a good idea.”
Burrie agreed. “I’ve been to the Sauer-Beckmann Farm, it’s most impressive. Thank you, Krystle, and be sure to give your mother our best wishes for a speedy recovery.” She glanced at the small gold watch on her wrist. “Very good, people. This is just what I was hoping for. Are there any other ideas?”
Mr. M. turned and grinned broadly at me. I shrugged and shook my head, puzzled. Was he going to introduce the website? I wasn’t supposed to know about it yet. He grinned again. “My turn,” he sang out. He leapt to his feet and took his place at the podium. He glanced behind him and then waggled his head a bit, as if fitting himself into the horns. I gave him a discreet thumbs-up to let him know that they looked good.
Mr. M. was the coolest old coot in the world. Having him for a next-door neighbor was the greatest stroke of luck. He had taught English at Lost Hat High School for a zillion years and retired a few years back. He wrote deeply poetic award-winning Western novels, which I was determined to read one of these days. He had a long gray ponytail, John Lennon spectacles, and one silver cowboy-boot earring.
A glint in the earring caught my eye. I leaned toward Jim and whispered, “Is that a real diamond?”
�
��So he says. Not bad for a retired schoolteacher, eh?”
Not bad at all. He must be quite the savvy investor.
“First,” Mr. M. said, “I’d like us to give Burrie and the Judge — may he rest in peace — another round of applause, for all the support they’ve given the Historical Society and Long County’s museum over the years.”
Everybody clapped, making it nice and loud. Burrie gazed at him with what looked like irritated tolerance. I got the feeling they had a history of their own.
“Next, I’d like to thank the folks who have moved to our community from outside, bringing their skills and their good ideas to revitalize our county and give us all something new to gossip about. Michael, Penny, Jim, Greg: I for one am glad to have you! And Krystle, welcome back. We’ve missed your fashion sense and your special way with the English language.”
Laughter, grumbles, and applause, in roughly equal parts.
“Now, on to the fresh idea. You all know that we’ve got a photographer in our town, Miss Penelope Trigg, great-niece of the late and much lamented Sophia Ernst. You probably know that Penny takes a great portrait, but you may not know that she is also a talented fine artist and very knowledgeable about the history of photography.”
Jim nudged me with his elbow. I shaped my mouth into a grin. On the one hand, I was still proud of that thesis. On the other, he was making me sound like an egghead, which was bad for business and also not at all me.
Mr. M. continued. “She did her honor’s thesis for the bachelor’s of fine arts degree — at the University of Texas at Austin, my alma mater, I might add—”
The coffee urn at the back of the room suddenly let loose a mighty series of chuffs and burbles, ending in a long, drawn-out sigh. The aroma of percolated coffee drifted toward us. People stirred in their seats.
“Penny’s honor’s thesis,” Mr. Muelenbach said, raising his voice to compete with thoughts of hot coffee and cookies, “was about Mark Klett, one of America’s foremost photographers, and his famous Rephotographic Survey Project, in which he revisited scenes in the West that were first photographed in the late nineteenth century.”
Burrie, who was apparently still smarting from the crack about welcoming outsiders, took a step toward the podium and made a small let-me-interrupt noise. Mr. M. waved her away. He bent over the podium, elbows akimbo, and peered at each member of the audience, an impish grin on his face.
“What, you may ask, has that got to do with Long County?”
“I do ask,” one of the seniors in the front said.
Mr. M’s grin widened. “Thank you, Willie. I’ll tell you. I think it would be interesting to do a rephotographic project right here in Long County. We’ll exhume whatever archival records we can find and attempt to reproduce the scene and setting as it appears today.”
“In English!” someone said.
“I’m just trying to give your vocabularies a little workout. They need exercise, too, you know.” He chuckled at his own joke and then held up his hands in surrender. “OK, OK. It’s simple: we find all the old photographs we can get our hands on, the older the better. We pick out the best ones. Then Penny will go out and stand in the same spot and re-shoot the same picture. Then we pair them up, old and new, and put them together in an exhibit. Call it, I don’t know, something like ‘Long County: Then and Now.’ That’s it in a nutshell. What do y’all think?”
“I like it,” Jim called out. Then he sneezed and we waited while he dug a tissue out of his pocket to blow his nose. “I volunteer to dig through the newspaper archives.”
“I like it, too,” Marion said. She and Mr. M must have cooked this up together. I had to admit, it was a great idea. It would have been greater if they’d given me a clue ahead of time.
Krystle’s hand went up and Mr. M gave her the floor. “Do you want, like, old family albums?”
“Yes, Krystle, that’s exactly what we want,” he said. “Especially your family. The Camerons are about the oldest family in Long County, I believe.”
Burrie cleared her throat meaningfully.
Mr. M turned to Burrie with a broad smile. “Except for the Burwells, of course. Our First Family. Or rather Second: I think the Espinozas were here first.”
Burrie’s eyes shot flaming arrows at Mr. M. He grinned back; he’d ruffled her feathers with that Second Family crack on purpose. She sidled closer, forcing him to give way, but not by much. They stood side by side, each gripping an edge of the podium, neither willing to cede the stage.
Burrie said, “I think it’s—”
“Were there any other ideas before we break for coffee?” Mr. M galloped right over her, like one of the heroes in his novels.
At this point, we were all ready to be done. Three whole ideas was enough intellectual labor for one winter evening. We needed sugar and caffeine to restore our strength.
But one more hand went up. This time it was Greg.
“Damn,” Jim whispered. “This won’t be—” He sneezed and then sneezed again. And then again. I gave him three gesundheits. He thanked me by shaking his head. “Need water. Gotta take my Bennies.”
“Your what?”
He showed me a box of Benadryl that he was clutching underneath a wad of tissues.
I was about to murmur something sympathetic when I heard Greg say, “—and Penny and Jim can work with me to provide the content.”
Burrie was looking at us with a gleam in her eye. She knew we’d just gotten payback for all the whispering.
Mr. M saved us. He shook his head at me and Jim in mild admonishment, smiled, and said, “Sounds like a good plan, Greg: to create a website for the museum and put the ‘Then and Now’ exhibit online, along with photographs and descriptions of the reenactors, when they get something reenacted.”
I nodded. Jim said, “You bet.”
Things were looking up. Doing a museum website with Jim would be a blast. We could fix things so that we only communicated with Greg by email. And I could put my own name on it, at least for the photographs, which would be good for business. It occurred to me that I might even be able talk to Jim about the blackmail thing. He was a journalist, he wouldn’t be too shocked. Then I wouldn’t be dealing with it alone anymore.
The last dregs of fear drained away. I felt like Brer Rabbit after getting himself thrown into the briar patch. Being blackmailed wasn’t so bad after all.
Chapter 9
“I’d say we’ve earned our cookies tonight,” Burrie said. “Shall we adjourn?”
Chairs scraped on the concrete floor as people got up. Jim and I were first into the snack zone.
Some health-conscious person, whose name was probably Marion Albrecht, had brought little bottles of juice and set them in a bowl of ice. Jim grabbed one and twisted it open to wash down his Benadryl.
I fixed myself a cup of coffee. We started opening the plastic containers and unwrapping covered plates to see what sorts of treats our fellow historians had provided. It was a pretty good haul: oatmeal cookies studded with raisins, sugar-dusted spice balls, and the ever-popular chocolate chips. Greg’s hot pink torpedoes stood out from the handmade goodies like a Klingon in a ballet.
“Pfeffernüsse!” I said, making a little pile of the dark round cookies on a napkin.
“Gesundheit,” Jim said. That was too lame for a laugh, so I stuck my tongue out at him.
The rest of the group drifted over, lining up for coffee, reaching for cookies and napkins. The pink cakes were passed over by one and all, although every now and then someone would lift the lid of the box to peek inside.
I stood at the end of the table, chewing spicy cookies, waiting for Mr. M. to get his coffee. I wondered if it was too soon to ask whether I might get paid for some of this fun new work. I half-listened to the conversations around me while I ran through the options for doing online photo galleries. Marion appeared at my side and sniffed at my choice of snacks. “You should have juice instead of coffee at this hour.” She spotted the neon blue box on the table and ba
rked, “What are those doing here?”
Greg was pouring a truckload of sugar into a coffee cup. “I brought them. I thought a change of pace would be welcome.”
A woman standing nearby sniffed and said, “Potluck means homemade.”
Greg narrowed his eyes at her and she scurried away.
My eyes followed her. Maybe I should introduce myself. She could be an ally. On the other hand, what would I say? Pardon me, but are you by any chance being blackmailed by our Internet service provider?
“I don’t know,” Jim said, oblivious to the tiny drama that had just unfolded. “Give the people a choice: radioactive pink cake-like substance or wholesome snacks made from actual food.”
“Har-de-har-har,” Greg said.
That was pretty devastating; I wasn’t sure Jim could defend himself from such a powerful verbal challenge. Greg reached past him and snagged a cake out of the box. He held it up, rotating it so we could see it from all sides. “These things are like power bars for geeks.”
“Oh, yeah? Then I guess I’d better have one, since I’ve been volunteered for the geek brigade.” Jim snatched the cake out of Greg’s hand. He put his apple juice on the table and started to open the wrapper. It wasn’t easy to break the plastic without squashing the cake.
“Don’t eat that thing!” Burrie scolded.
“It’ll rot your teeth on the spot,” Marion chimed in. “Have a nice oatmeal cookie instead.”
“No way,” Jim said. “I’m gonna get me some of that geek power.” He got the wrapper off and ate half the cake in one bite. He made a face. “Weird. Squooshy.” He studied the interior of the cake and shook his head. “Nah.” He folded the plastic over the unwanted half and tucked it into a spot at the back of the refreshment table. He looked at his fingers. “Now I’ve got pink stuff all over me.”
He reached toward Greg as if he were going to wipe his sticky fingers on the beautiful Nordic sweater. Greg flinched back. “Get those things away from me.”