Temple Secrets: Southern Humorous Fiction: (New for 2015) For Lovers of Southern Authors and Southern Novels

by Susan Gabriel

  “Sit down, you two. Let me look at you,” Old Sally says.

  Queenie and Rose, though mature women, do as they are told. From the other end of the porch they pull up two rocking chairs that have seasoned to the color of the dunes. Meanwhile Old Sally sits and takes in every nuance of them, nodding as if taking an inventory of their every movement and emotion. It’s almost as if Old Sally is about to paint their portrait.

  “Yes, there’s still work to do,” Old Sally says, more to herself than to them. “But it’s nothing I can’t handle.” She smiles and rocks in her chair. “Would you girls like some lemonade and pound cake?” she asks.

  “We’ll get it, Mama,” Queenie says.

  Rose follows Queenie inside, noting how little the living room has changed with its one worn sofa and two side chairs. On the way to the kitchen, they walk down a hallway that contains a wall of family photos. As a girl, Rose stared at these photographs for huge stretches of time, as if the brown faces and bright smiles might reveal the secret of happiness to her. The pictures at her mother’s house weren’t photographs, but portraits of long-dead people with serious looks on their faces, as though interrupted from counting their money. She knows much less about Old Sally’s family.

  “I’d forgotten how powerful she is,” Rose says, once they are in the kitchen. “But in a good way,” she adds. Rose touches her check remembering Old Sally’s kiss.

  Queenie laughs. “Yes, Mama is a force to be reckoned with, that’s for sure,” she says.

  Old Sally’s attention is the opposite of anything Rose’s mother would have offered, even if she weren’t in a vegetative state. No judgment resides in Old Sally’s gaze, only love and concern. The mystery to Rose is how this love so freely given can feel, in some ways, more threatening than criticism.

  Old Sally’s kitchen is a celebration of primary colors, and is painted the color of lemonade. Ample windows overlook the dunes and coastal grasses. Treasures rest on the window sills: shells of all sizes, small pieces of driftwood that look like earthen sculptures, a variety of stones, as well as fossils of the most intricate creatures, their spirals imprinted in history. Her mother would never dream of bringing the outdoors inside, except for expensive flower arrangements. However, Rose wonders if her own desire to collect stones, fossils and bones at the ranch is Old Sally’s influence.

  Queenie uncovers the old cake tin that has been in Old Sally’s kitchen since Rose was a girl. She cuts three pieces of pound cake while Rose pours the lemonade. Slices of lemon twirl inside the glasses as she stirs the sugar in the bottom.

  “Homemade lemonade is a lost art,” Queenie says.

  “Old Sally is a lost art, too,” Rose says. “I don’t know anybody else like her.”

  Queenie agrees.

  When they return to the porch, Old Sally rocks her chair slowly, as if keeping time to the waves. Evening is coming on and a hint of coolness floats on the breeze. The three women eat cake, drink lemonade and watch the ocean like it might reveal its secrets at any moment. The water’s grayness extends to meet the evening sky. The sea churns up memories for Rose that she can almost taste. Old Sally always had a snack ready whenever she came home from school: oatmeal cookies, chocolate pudding, cheese and crackers. No matter where Rose returned from, the kitchen was always the first place she went. It never occurred to her to find her mother.

  Back then, Old Sally, Queenie and Violet were Rose’s life preservers in the choppy Temple seas. They were safe. They listened when she spoke and responded. They laughed, told stories and included her. Those moments in the kitchen taught Rose everything she knows about love and relationships.

  In contrast, Rose’s parents were Savannah society. Dressed in formal attire, they attended dinner parties and events full of people parading like show dogs to display their breeding. Ultimately, Rose decided that they were the poor ones, with their insincere friends and emotionally bankrupt marriages. Their children were commodities, possessions. Their value measured by their return on investment.

  Rose shudders with the awareness that her mother will never know who Rose really is. To her credit, she walked away from that world twenty-five years ago and hasn’t looked back. But what she also walked away from was Old Sally, Queenie and Violet. Now she realizes how big a loss that was.

  As night falls, Old Sally lights two large candles protected by hurricane globes. The quality of the light is intimate and warm. The floorboards of the porch creak with three melodies as the three women rock into the evening. Rose breathes deeply, filling her lungs for the first time in years. Her shoulders relax.

  “That be good, child, that be good,” Old Sally says. “This pain be over soon,” she adds. “Your mother be about to make her transition.” The reflection of candlelight dances across her face.

  Rose sighs. Her mother’s approaching death elicits only a vague sense of regret. After being sober for nearly two decades and having had what feels like a lifetime of psychotherapy, she has reached a point where she has made peace with her life. Nobody escapes unscathed. Some people have easier lives, some have harder. Rose takes life one day at a time, as the AA motto goes. The women sitting on the porch next to her played a profound role in her early life and for this she feels thankful.

  Waves surge and crash in the distance. Rose relaxes into her tiredness, embraced by sea breezes and the moonlit night. Candles flicker yet hold their light. Rose, Queenie and Old Sally don’t speak. It is as though their conversation is just below the surface, dipping and diving with the carefree motion of the dolphins often seen offshore.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Violet

  At least the phone calls have stopped, Violet thinks as she dusts the phone in the sunroom. For the last few hours, Violet was answering calls every ten minutes. At first she answered in the proper way with Temple Residence, and then later she started with: Just say what you need to say. Unfortunately, most of the calls involved people cussing her. All the calls were anonymous. Cowards all. Miss Temple would hate what people are saying about her. Who knew a bunch of old secrets could cause such a mess? And how in the world did someone get their hands on a book locked in a bank vault?

  After Violet returns to the kitchen she prepares a fresh cup of coffee and a bowl of strawberry shortcake for Lynette, the nurse upstairs. She cooks whenever she doesn’t know what else to do and with Miss Temple so gravely ill she is definitely at a loss. What will her job entail after Miss Temple dies? Will she even have a job?

  Violet hums, as she often does when the house is quiet. A tune comes to her from a long time ago. It has a melancholy tone, somehow linked to the past.

  Violet’s mother was a nurse, and something about the uniform always causes Violet to entertain the what if’s of life. What if her mother hadn’t died when her tire blew out on the island and she crashed into a three hundred year old live oak tree? What if she had grown up knowing her mother, instead of only seeing pictures of her? How might her life have been different? Unfortunately, she will never know. And the one ghost she would hope to see is totally absent.

  When Violet returns upstairs with shortcake, Lynette lifts a fork and takes a bite. “Oh my, this is wonderful.” She moans and takes two more bites. “The Temples are very lucky to have you,” she adds.

  At least for now, Violet thinks. Both turn to Miss Temple like she might have something to add to the conversation. But there is no movement, only the sound of the ventilator pushing air into her lungs.

  Earlier that evening, Queenie asked Violet to stay later than usual so she and Rose could pick up Old Sally and bring her back to the Temple house. Tonight is the night Jack teaches a class and the girls have basketball practice, so she can be flexible. Although it is nice to see Rose again, Violet wishes it were a happier reason for her to visit.

  Every family has broken places, but the Temples seem to have more than most.

  Violet has never known Miss Temple to be content, and because of this, Violet has sometimes felt more fortunate. She
pauses to assess the different vibrations in the room and thinks how interesting it is that someone unconscious can still radiate such a chaotic buzz.

  Miss Temple’s force is like static from a radio station not quite tuned in. It reminds her of that Peanuts character, Pigpen, who has a cloud of dirt that follows him everywhere he goes. Miss Temple is similar, except her cloud is chaos.

  Lynette finishes her shortcake and pats her vast stomach, complimenting Violet again. She walks over to the window, as though the view might aid her digestion.

  “Why are those people gathered in front of the house?” she asks Violet. “Two groups have come by in the last two hours.”

  Violet joins her at the window. “We’re on Savannah’s ghost tour,” she says. “The Temple house is the main event.”

  “Ghost tour?” Lynette says. “Oh my. I had no idea.” She glances around the room like she’s searching for evidence.

  Violet doesn’t mention that the secrets in the newspaper have caused the groups of tourists and gawkers to swell to three or four times their usual numbers. While Miss Temple has always craved attention, she would not be pleased with this level of scrutiny.

  “Every night around dusk, tour guides show up with their groups to watch the house for signs of the ghostly Temples,” Violet says.

  In Violet’s experience, this is exactly when apparitions go away. Ghosts never show themselves when people want them to.

  Lynette’s eyes widen. “You really have ghosts?” she asks.

  “We have our fair share,” Violet says, though in truth the Temple house probably has more than their fair share.

  “How do you know?” Lynette asks, looking uneasy.

  “Footsteps on stairways,” Violet begins. “Things moved an inch or two from their original positions. Blasts of cold air sending shivers up your spine when entering certain rooms. Things that can just as easily be attributed to an overactive imagination, if not for the sensations that accompany them.”

  Lynette’s eyes have changed from full moons to crescents, as if squinting might reveal the hidden entities in the room.

  “Miss Temple’s dead husband, Oscar, likes to rattle bottles at the bar in his study,” Violet begins again. “Her mother always brings a camphor smell when she’s around and often lingers in the upstairs bedroom that was hers. Miss Temple’s father prefers to communicate by heavy footsteps on the stairway, like he’s just home from one of his business trips. Or he’ll come into the kitchen to look for my grandmother who used to work here.”

  Lynette’s white face turns even whiter.

  I shouldn’t enjoy shocking people this much, Violet thinks.

  Yet she has to admit, as the mother of teenagers and the wife of a busy husband, she doesn’t always have the gift of a captive audience.

  When the doorbell rings, Lynette jumps as if goosed by Oscar himself. Before excusing herself to get the door, Violet reassures Lynette that everything is fine. On her way downstairs, she glances at her watch long enough to wonder who would be visiting after nine o’clock.

  Violet opens the door and a very-much-alive Edward Temple brushes past her, entering with so much authority that Violet is surprised that he even rang in the first place.

  I prefer spirits to men like Edward any day, she thinks.

  “I want to see my mother,” Edward Temple says.

  “Weren’t you just here this afternoon?” Violet asks, wondering what Edward is up to now.

  “Did you see this?” Edward asks. He holds a placard he found in front of the gate that has a big red X over a photograph of Miss Temple taken at a fundraiser.

  “No I didn’t,” Violet says, although she and Queenie have been busy for days taking down dozens of signs with even stronger sentiments.

  Edward towers over her and has a habit of always standing too close. Although Violet hasn’t seen him in several years, he looks the same, except his dark hair has begun to gray. He wears a look of superiority he’s had since adolescence. His gray suit—probably worth six months of Violet’s salary—is accessorized with a charcoal gray shirt and a tie that matches to perfection.

  Edward twists a large gold ring on his right hand that contains a red stone.

  He cools his gruffness and flashes a smile that Violet believes is intended to charm her. Instead, it makes her more uneasy.

  “I just thought I’d give the old broad a proper send off,” Edward says, as if crassness is the only language she might understand. “Bet you’ll be glad when she finally kicks off.”

  Violet debates whether to tell him that nobody should talk about their mother this way. From her perspective, people are fortunate to have mothers at all, even if that mother is Miss Temple.

  When Violet doesn’t respond, Edward rolls his eyes and adds a smirk at the end, as though to say, we can play it that way if you want. He isn’t usually this crass and she wonders if he is worried about the Temple Book of Secrets going public.

  Edward steps into the living room and glances around as if taking a mental inventory of the antiques in the room. Inheritance, in families like these, means a great deal. But he isn’t giving any clues as to what he might be scheming.

  “The old place hasn’t changed much. It still has as much charm as a funeral parlor.” Edward smiles and twists his ring again.

  Is he nervous? Violet wonders if he might lose his fortune if all these threatened lawsuits come to pass.

  She tries to remember the last time Edward visited. It was probably Mother’s Day, three or four years ago. Before that he came more often. Now he’s here for his third visit of the day. A record by any means.

  While Violet stands in the center of the large Oriental rug in the hallway, Edward surveys his father’s study and then walks into the dining room. On the dining room table are a stack of photographs Rose brought of her ranch in Wyoming. He picks them up and studies each photograph, as if to assess the ranch’s net worth.

  “Surely you realize she’s shown up again just in time to cash in,” he says.

  “That doesn’t sound like Rose,” Violet says.

  “She’s not who you think she is,” Edward says, his tone soft now, as if this softness might convince Violet of its truth. “She’s taking advantage of the situation.”

  “Not everyone is like you, Edward,” Violet says.

  “Have you forgotten who you’re talking to?” he asks.

  She has never had much patience with him, or anyone who looks at her like a landowner overlooking his property. This is exactly why she will never let her daughters do domestic work.

  “You’re not my boss, Edward, Miss Temple is.”

  “At least for now,” Edward says with a grin.

  It occurs to Violet that if Edward inherits the Temple mansion after his mother dies, she’ll for sure be looking for a new job.

  Seconds later, he moans, bends over and holds his stomach.

  “Damn ulcers,” he says. He takes a bottle of antacid tablets from his jacket pocket and pops two into his mouth. He crunches them while Violet waits. She seems to always be waiting these days, and she’s not sure for what.

  “Tell Rose I know what she’s up to,” Edward begins again. “And tell her she won’t get away with it. She gave up her right to any Temple money when she moved to that Godforsaken place.” He tosses the photographs back on the table before going into the sun room. Then he opens a drawer to the wicker table Miss Temple uses as a desk and shuffles through his mother’s papers, as if looking for something he’s lost.

  “I don’t think you should be doing that,” Violet says.

  “Who’s going to stop me?” Edward asks. “You?” He winks at her.

  A cold chill ignites a memory that haunts Violet as surely as the Temple ghosts. At fourteen, she was making a little money helping her grandmother during one of the Temple’s charity events. Edward was home from college and she had stepped outside to take a break from serving. It was hot and the peepers were croaking their little hearts out in the fountain on t
he other side of the garden. She didn’t even realize Edward was there until he grabbed her and pulled her into the garden shed. When she screamed, he covered her mouth and she bit him hard, until she tasted his blood in her mouth. Edward pushed her aside and cussed her all the way to the kitchen.

  Violet inhales sharply and reminds herself that the event was twenty years ago.

  “What is it?” he asks, stepping back into the foyer.

  “Ghosts,” Violet says. She forces herself to look him in the eye. She will bite him again if she needs to. All the way to the bone.

  “Call an exterminator,” Edward says with a laugh. He goes into the study that was his father’s office. She can hear him going through the desk drawers and wonders if she should tell Queenie.

  That night, twenty years ago, was the first time Violet realized the role women in her family played with the Temples. Edward acted entitled to her and seemed surprised when she fought back. In a way, it was like they were both actors playing the roles their ancestors played.

  Right after, her grandmother had known what happened without Violet saying a word. She’s always been like that. She knows things without being told. That night her grandmother doctored the bite on Edward’s hand and used an ointment that she laced with chili pepper. Edward’s scream was just as loud as Violet’s had been in the garden shed. He left Violet alone after that. She always wondered if her grandmother put one of her spells on him to keep him away. If so, she hopes the spell is still working.

  Clearly agitated, Edward returns to the foyer. Whatever he is looking for, he hasn’t found. He smells of expensive musky cologne. Has he forgotten about his mother’s aversion to scents? Or perhaps he doesn’t care.

  “I guess I’ve put off seeing her as long as I can,” Edward says. He makes a grimace that seems almost boyish.

  Edward follows Violet upstairs and they enter Miss Temple’s bedroom.

  “Well hello, Mother, how are you feeling today?” he asks cheerfully.