The Beef Princess of Practical County

by Michelle Houts

  The kitchen itself was bustling with volunteers who'd already spent hours making huge pots of turkey noodle soup, piling sandwich bread high with turkey and roast beef, and pulling piping-hot pumpkin pies from enormous ovens. Though the meal lacked some of the trimmings of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner and it was served on paper plates with plastic forks, it was so feastlike and special that everyone who came felt important and satisfied.

  Mom greeted several friends and neighbors from back home. Karen Elliott from science class and her parents were there. I noticed two boys from school, too.

  “Ronnie, you and Dad go over and see if you can help in the back,” Mom directed. “Granddad and I will cut pies for a while. Libby, it looks like they need people to ladle out soup. Why don't you and Carol Ann go do that. And keep Frannie with you. She can, um …”

  Mom stopped and looked at Frannie, who had donned a black-and-white paper pilgrim hat she had no doubt made at preschool and stashed in the van for such an occasion as this. Frannie grinned.

  “I can carry the soup.”

  “No!” came a chorus of voices in perfect unison.

  “You, dear, can be a hopper,” Mom said, emphasizing the word hopper to clue Frannie in on the importance of the job. “You can go around this whole big room and ask our guests if they need anything, such as a fork or a napkin or another dinner roll.”

  Frannie's eyes went up into her head.

  “That's not a hopper, Mom. That's a waitress!”

  We all laughed and took our places as the line we'd seen outdoors began to stream into the large gymnasium turned dining room. Carol Ann and I were filling bowls of steaming turkey noodle soup as fast as folks were taking them. We would empty one large pot and Ronnie would be waiting behind us with the next.

  Frannie took her hopper-waitress role quite seriously, flitting around the room, her pilgrim hat bobbing up and down in the crowd. She wiped chairs and threw away paper plates when people left, to be ready for the next guest who would sit down. I watched her take the hand of one particularly frail older woman in a ratty brown coat and lead her to an empty seat. I was proud of Frannie. She was doing well and making very little noise at the same time.

  Carol Ann and I barely had time to talk as the seemingly endless line of people shuffled by. Some of the guests smiled and spoke, some offered words of gratitude, and some just gave an appreciative nod in our direction. One woman, a mom with four small children tagging along behind her, smiled and said nothing, but her eyes were quickly filling with tears as she took the soup and led her family to a table. I wondered where the young mother's parents were, and why those children didn't have aunts and uncles and grand-parents to care for them and their mom. It wasn't that there weren't poor folks back home; it was just that in Practical County, families took care of one another. In the city, everything seemed so different.

  After about two hours had passed, the soup kitchen manager came over to us.

  “You girls ready for a little break?” he asked.

  “Sure,” we both agreed. I was getting thirsty.

  “Well, some more girls just arrived, and I believe they're ready to get to work,” he said, motioning toward the door.

  I glanced toward the entrance of the gymnasium and my jaw nearly dropped into the ladle I was holding.

  “Carol Ann, look!”

  I nudged my friend, who gasped when she saw who was coming our way.

  “The Darlings?” she whispered. “In a soup kitchen?”

  I couldn't believe my eyes. Sure enough, there stood Precious, Lil, and Ohma, each one overdressed for the occasion and looking very out of place.

  They ambled over, staring as if they'd never seen a room full of hungry, homeless people. But then again, I was willing to bet that they never had seen a room full of hungry, homeless people.

  Carol Ann spoke first, keeping the sarcasm in her voice to a minimum.

  “Well, I see you came to help with Thanksgiving dinner. How nice of you girls!”

  “What are you doing here?” I added rather bluntly. I was intensely curious to find out what could possibly have brought the Darlings here, of all places.

  Lil tugged nervously at her miniskirt, her glittery nails sparkling.

  “It wasn't our idea,” she started. “We certainly—”

  She ended abruptly as her older sister's elbow jabbed her rib cage with such force that she teetered backward on her high heels.

  “We certainly are happy to help wherever we can.”

  Precious finished her sister's sentence, flashing a smile so fake it looked like it might fall off and shatter on the wooden floor. Lil gave her sister a stupid look.

  “What about Mr.—”

  This time Precious nearly knocked Lil flat as she stepped in front of her.

  “Mr. What's-his-name from the soup kitchen wants us to take over here, so you two losers can go now,” she hissed.

  “Yeah, you two losers can go now,” Ohma grumbled. Her too-tight dress and too-small heels must have been getting to her.

  Carol Ann removed her apron and handed it to Precious.

  “Here.” She grinned. “You'll be needing this.”

  I passed my own apron off to Lil, who frowned, still rubbing her rib cage and looking baffled at her older sister.

  We got out of there as fast as we could and headed for the volunteers’ break room, where we could enjoy our own lunches.

  “That was really weird,” I said, crumbling saltines into my soup bowl.

  “No kidding!” Carol Ann agreed.

  “Can you imagine Precious Darling working on a holiday?”

  “Can you imagine any Darling working on any day?”

  Carol Ann had a point. There had to be some reason why the Darling trio was there. And it seemed that Lil might have been about to spill the beans before Precious had stepped in.

  After we finished eating, we decided we'd better return to our posts. If only we'd left a minute sooner, we might have been able to avoid what happened next. But we were too late to prevent the Thanksgiving mishap that would without a doubt be discussed in the Ryan household for years to come.

  It happened like this. Carol Ann and I stepped into the gymnasium just in time to see a black-and-white paper pilgrim hat disappear beneath a table. At the very same moment, I caught sight of Precious Darling, a tray of soup bowls balanced on one hand, turning on her high heels down the next aisle. One quick glance at Carol Ann and I knew that she and I were thinking the same thing. Frannie and Precious were on a collision course.

  Carol Ann and I both scrambled to prevent the inevitable. But when the pilgrim waitress-hopper popped out shouting “Happy Thanksgiving!” her tiny paper-covered head came up squarely on the bottom of Precious Darling's tray. The soup bowls, six of them in all, teetered on the tray, and Precious teetered on her spike-heeled shoes. The balancing act by Precious Darling was nothing less than miraculous, and by the time Carol Ann and I came to a screeching halt just inches in front of her, the tray and the bowls and even Precious had recovered from the jolt without a drop of soup spilled.

  A terrified Frannie ducked back under the table. Carol Ann and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. That was when I saw the look on Precious's face change from one of surprise to one of deceit.

  “Oh no!” she screamed feebly as she flipped the tray forward. All at once, six bowls of turkey noodle soup came flying at Carol Ann and me. In a split second, broth and noodles covered my sweater, my jeans, and my hair. I turned to Carol Ann. A noodle was sticking to one side of her shocked face.

  I stood there in stunned silence for a second, thinking that Precious could sink no lower, when I heard:

  “You stupid brat!” Precious yelled at Frannie. “You ran right into me!”

  Frannie, who had managed to avoid getting soaked with soup, began to sob. She was trying her best to apologize through her tears.

  “I'm sor … sor … sorry!” she wailed.

  How dare Precious blame Frannie for what ha
d happened! Precious had dumped that tray on purpose. I'd seen the whole thing.

  “No, no, Frannie,” I tried to console her as the broth trickled into my shoes. “It's not your fault, honey.”

  Frannie broke into a fresh round of sobs, and I stood up, trying to find words strong enough to express my disgust at Precious Darling. I was opening my mouth to let her have it when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  “My goodness, what a mess we have here,” Granddad said, holding out a damp rag and a stack of paper towels.

  “Why, thank you, Mr. Ryan,” Precious said sweetly, taking the paper towels from him. “Your granddaughter is quite the ornery one, isn't she?”

  She glanced at her feet and frowned.

  “Oh, look, I need to go clean off these leather shoes. It seems they got a bit of soup on them.”

  I saw her join her sisters, and the three of them disappeared laughing into the kitchen.

  Carol Ann and I cleaned up the floor and the tables. Slowly, after what seemed like a very long minute of stunned silence, the hum of voices and clanking of metal chairs returned.

  Mom took an unusually quiet Frannie to help pass out sandwiches, and Carol Ann and I finally went to the bathroom to try our best to clean ourselves up. The warm soup had cooled into a pale yellow scum that clung to our arms and faces. Bending over the sink, we used soap and paper towels to rinse off. With no change of clothes, we peeled off our sweaters and discovered that our T-shirts had been spared the worst of the mess. We used water and the bathroom's hand dryers to take some of the soup out of our hair.

  As we stood picking noodles out of each other's hair, Carol Ann burst into laughter.

  “It's not funny,” I told her, still fuming. “Didn't you see how Precious tipped that tray on purpose?”

  “I know.” Carol Ann grinned. “But I can't help it. I never thought I'd come here on Thanksgiving Day and pick noodles out of your hair.”

  I smiled. Carol Ann always had a way of making any situation a little lighter.

  “No kidding. I just hope we don't meet a hungry dog in the parking lot,” I added.

  Carol Ann and I giggled at the thought. From somewhere in the bathroom, I thought I heard a familiar grunt.

  “Shhh.” I motioned to Carol Ann. A pair of chubbytoed feet under the last stall belonged without doubt to Ohma Darling. Without another word, we left the restroom.

  “Great,” Carol Ann said sarcastically as we returned to the kitchen to see what we could do to help. “We've got the oldest Darling throwing food at us and the youngest spying on us.”

  Back in the kitchen, we were relieved to find that the Darlings were nowhere in sight.

  But Karen Elliott was there, and she smiled when she saw us coming.

  “Wow, that was some show!” She grinned.

  “Oh, there was a lot of acting going on, that's for sure,” I told her.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  Carol Ann filled Karen in on how Precious had spilled the tray on purpose.

  “Only she would have the nerve to do something so mean,” said Karen, shaking her head.

  “Still, I feel partly responsible,” I told her as I dipped the ladle into the steaming pot. “My mom told me to keep Frannie with me, and I completely forgot about her when Carol Ann and I took our break.”

  “Well, those Darlings have been trouble for years. At least someone is finally catching on to their deceitfulness,” Karen said.

  “Catching on?” Carol Ann repeated.

  Karen looked around, then said in a hushed voice, “They are here today doing mandatory community service. You don't think they'd spend a single day in a soup kitchen unless they had to, do you?”

  “Of course not, but why?” I asked. “What did they do?”

  “Well”—Karen, who was soft-spoken anyway, was nearly whispering—“I heard that they got caught cheating.”

  “All of them? At once?” Carol Ann nearly shrieked.

  “Shhh!” Karen continued. “I guess what happened is that Ohma turned in a history paper that Lil had turned in a few years ago. And when Principal Gregory checked into it, it was the same paper Precious had turned in the year be-fore.”

  “No way! Only the Darlings would be arrogant enough to think a trick like that would actually work.” Carol Ann rolled her eyes.

  My hardworking best friend was particularly disgusted by cheating. Her own flawless academic record was something she had earned, and it burned her that some people tried to achieve the same dishonestly.

  We stayed there dishing out soup with Karen until evening, when the last family was served. We saw the Dar-ling sisters once more, each with a broom in her hand and no sign of the smugness from earlier in the day.

  It was just as we were leaving, heading back to the van in the parking lot, when Ronnie noticed Mr. Gregory, the principal of Nowhere High School.

  “Ronald Ryan!” Mr. Gregory beamed at the sight of one of his favorite graduates. “How's Purdue treating you?”

  “Real fine, sir. I'm spending the holiday weekend with my family.”

  They shook hands like two businessmen.

  “Nice to see you, young man.”

  Mr. Gregory nodded to my parents and Granddad, and they stood chatting for a few minutes.

  “It's good to see you folks here. I know this has been a family tradition for the Ryans for years.”

  My parents and Mr. Gregory exchanged a few more words and then he excused himself. As we pulled out of the parking lot, I saw three very tired-looking Darlings getting into Mr. Gregory's car. What Karen had heard was true.

  On the way home, while Frannie slept and Mom popped in a Christmas CD (right after Thanksgiving, Mom always broke out the carols), I replayed the whole soup catastrophe in my head again, thinking of Precious's shocked face when her whole tray tottered and then the calculating look that spread across it the moment she decided to dump the tray anyway. I thought of the way she had blamed poor Frannie, and I wished I had hauled off and hit her. Well, not really, I guess. But it sure didn't seem fair that she and her sisters had gone to Indianapolis because they were caught cheating and Carol Ann and I were the ones who left smelling like turkey.

  If the Ryan family Thanksgiving lacked something in the tradition department, Christmas more than made up for it. The entire month of December absolutely dripped with holiday cheer, Mom made sure of that.

  On Christmas morning, Mom was practically goofy with excitement. She was temporarily free from the real estate business, which pretty much came to a halt every December. Who wants to buy or sell a house in the middle of the holidays?

  Ronnie was home again. After Thanksgiving he had returned to school to take first-semester finals, and now he would be at Ryansmeade until the first of the year. I had so much I wanted to ask him about the calves. I was sure he'd agree that Piggy was just about perfect.

  Earlier, Dad, Granddad, and Ronnie had gone out to the pasture to check the cattle. I was itching to go along, but Dad said Mom would need my help in the kitchen. He was right, of course: there was a huge dinner to prepare, and Frannie's assistance could only marginally be considered help. Still, I would have liked to join the guys outdoors.

  The kitchen was festive, dressed in its holiday décor. Holly garland with tiny red plastic berries was strung over the top of the cabinets. It mingled with tiny white twinkle lights, making the room sparkle. A rosy-cheeked Santa stood in the corner by the back door, ready to greet visitors with a hearty “Ho ho ho.” The CD player on the counter belted out one holiday classic after another.

  In the dining room, the Christmas village that Mom had collected since she and Dad got married was spread out in front of the window, complete with fake snow and real lights in the miniature lampposts. I could spend hours staring at it, my eyes following the snowy sidewalks to one tiny building after another.

  Then there was the table. Three hundred and sixty-four days a year, our dining table looked plain, almost primitive with its long benches.
But on Christmas Day, Mom turned it into something from a fancy-living magazine. Grandma's bone china was the center of each place at the table, framed by silver that actually had to be polished, and topped off with linen napkins tied with huge silver bows. Mom always sighed when she set out Grandma's china. Grandma had been gone for years. I don't remember much about her at all, except that she smelled like dime-store perfume and she always had gum in her purse. All of the fancy china looked perfect on Mom's cranberry-red tablecloth. It almost looked too pretty to touch.

  Frannie was busy making name cards for each place at the table.

  “How do you spell ‘Esmerelda Emily’?”

  Mom had allowed Frannie to set two places at a small table in the corner of the dining room for the grandchildren. I didn't have a clue why Mom encouraged Frannie's non-sense.

  “Sound it out, Frannie,” I told her.

  “Libby, hel-lo! I'm four!” came Frannie's emphatic reply.

  “And what a precocious four you are,” I said with a smile. “Sound it out.”

  I heard a disgusted grunt from Frannie's direction.

  With the roast out of the oven, Mom popped in her golden corn pudding, sticky sweet potatoes, and the clover-leaf rolls that had been rising all morning. By the time the men came in, the house smelled like the finest restaurant in Indiana. I pulled the beaters out of the fluffy mashed potatoes, ran my finger along their sides, and tasted the warm, creamy goodness when Mom wasn't looking. Then I plopped a large pat of butter into the middle of the potatoes and watched it melt almost instantly until it looked like an enormous egg, sunny-side up.