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

by Susan Gabriel

  Despite the rain, there are smiles on the faces of several mourners. Do they think the Temple Book of Secrets is being buried with her mother? Along with a bucket of chicken, thanks to Queenie, Rose thinks. She resists smiling.

  A few minutes into the graveside service, a taxi arrives. In the distance, Rose’s daughter, Katie, gets out of the cab with another woman. They share a large rainbow pride umbrella as they approach. Rose smiles at the thought of her mother turning cartwheels in her grave as her lesbian granddaughter makes a flamboyant entrance.

  Rose and Queenie part to make room for the two women on the front row. Rose notes Edward’s instant disapproval as his glare now includes raised eyebrows. As the Kumbaya priest leads them in prayer, Katie leans into her and Rose pulls her close. The rain increases. Rose briefly greets Katie’s latest girlfriend, Angela, a woman Rose has never met and has actually heard very little about. Angela’s hair is short, almost shaved, and she appears to be ten years older than Katie, maybe more. Multiple piercings make Rose wonder if she wants to appear younger than she is. One piercing is on the side of her nose, another through her bottom lip and yet another through her tongue. Three holes on each ear are filled with silver studs. And these are only the ones Rose can see.

  How in the world did she get through airport security? Rose wonders.

  Wearing a tasteful gray dress, perhaps a little too short, Katie has even donned a bit of makeup for the occasion, making Rose think that perhaps she has some Temple blood in her after all.

  Her daughter looks like a Catholic school girl in comparison to Angela, who could just as easily be dressed for an equality rally in Washington, D.C. She wears black leggings and black loafers with a pink oxford shirt, shirttail out.

  She must be baking in this heat, Rose thinks. If her mother were still alive, she would write Angela a handwritten letter to educate her about proper funeral attire.

  Katie stands next to Rose, their shoulders touching. The four of them, including Queenie, now share the large colorful umbrella as the rain increases in intensity once again. All stare at the coffin posed in front of the family crypt.

  Through the years, Katie has asked very few questions about Rose’s mother, and Rose hasn’t volunteered the information. Twenty-five years before, Rose moved out West with Max and started a new life. Now that the reason for her staying away is gone, will she feel the need to visit more often? She hasn’t realized how much she missed Queenie and even the old house, as well as Old Sally and Violet. Not to mention the ocean and the moisture, intent on baptizing her at every opportunity, now with rain at her mother’s funeral. Maybe the question now is how she is going to go back to Wyoming.

  The various fragrances of the mourners have mellowed into a smell resembling an over-ripe banana wrapped in a magnolia blossom. As the misty rain continues to fall, the dry-eyed mourners now look a little bored. Violet stands at the back of the crowd in a red raincoat, her posture erect like a dancer. It feels generous of her to come to the funeral at all, given the stories Rose has heard about how difficult her mother was.

  By the time the priest has finished his remarks, the rain has grown in intensity to a mild tropical storm. The skies open up and produce raindrops the size of small tree frogs and just as hard to avoid. Black umbrellas spring open with a touch, one after another, as if choreographed for a Gene Kelly musical. Quick, awkward handshakes are exchanged as everyone disperses for their cars. The wind grabs at their umbrellas and creates a spattering of muffled expletives from the mourners. A loud rumble of thunder accelerates their departure, as if her mother is warning them that they haven’t heard the last from her.

  Rose and Queenie run for the black limo, followed by Katie and Angela. The four of them scramble into the back, laughing from the exhilaration of the run. They dry off as best they can with the box of pink tissues from Queenie’s handbag. Their funeral attire makes them look like water-logged crows. Formal introductions are made all the way around and they exchange damp handshakes. Rose has forgotten that Katie and Queenie have never met. It seems these two important women in her life should somehow already know each other.

  Angela’s streaked eye-liner adds to the crow effect. Katie dabs at Angela’s rogue eye-liner, a gesture that reveals a level of intimacy that surprises Rose. She thinks back to an earlier girlfriend also named Angela, when Katie was a freshman at Smith. While home for Christmas during her freshman year, Katie announced over eggnog that she had fallen in love with her roommate—the first Angela—who at the time of the announcement was sitting in Rose and Max’s living room. Rose and Max tried not to overreact. It was Smith, after all, and this could possibly be a four-year phase. But the phase did not end after Katie graduated. After many hours of discussion about the matter, Rose and Max came to one simple conclusion: they loved Katie and wanted her to be happy and would stand by her no matter what the world thought of her lifestyle choice.

  Now that Rose is getting a better look at her, the current Angela looks at least forty. According to Katie, Angela is a writer of feminist fiction and has won a Lambda Literary Award, an award Rose is embarrassed to say she has never heard of.

  “Who was that man standing next to the priest?” Katie says. “He looked familiar.”

  “That was your Uncle Edward,” Rose says. “You met him once when you were very young. He had a layover in Denver and we drove over to meet him for coffee.”

  “Oh,” Katie says, as if discovering long lost relatives is a normal occurrence.

  “We’ve never been close,” Rose says. “He’s six years older than me.”

  A new tattoo peaks from underneath the cuff of Katie’s sheer gray blouse as she reaches to hold Angela’s hand. It is a thin vine of roses around her wrist.

  “What is it with young people and their tattoos these days?” Rose asks, ready to change the subject. Her relationship with Edward is too complicated to explain on an empty stomach.

  Katie pulls up the sleeve of her blouse to show her latest prize. Katie collects tattoos like charms on a charm bracelet. They all have meaning to her. Rose tries not to reveal her worry that when Katie is elderly and getting sponge baths in the nursing home she might regret having a skull and crossbones tattoo at the base of her spine.

  “They don’t mind if you have those at work?” Rose asks.

  Right out of college, Katie, somehow miraculously, acquired a job in Chicago working for Harpo, Inc.

  “No, Mom, they encourage self-expression,” Katie says. “And they’re not called tattoos anymore. They’re called body art. You should see Angela’s.”

  Her daughter’s new girlfriend’s tattoos don’t rank high on her list of must-sees. Yet Rose smiles and nods as though she will schedule it on her calendar. Angela looks at Rose like she’s seeing straight through to her thoughts. They exchange a moment of understanding, both agreeing to suspend judgments during this initial meeting.

  When they leave the cemetery the protesters are still there, their signs now smeared with rain. To distract herself, Rose contemplates what symbol she might imprint on her aging body. Given her name, a rose would be the most obvious, although when it comes to flowers she actually prefers lilies to roses.

  “Is this your first time visiting Savannah, Angela?” Rose asks, all the while thinking, it can never be said that I don’t make an effort.

  “It’s my first time anywhere in the South, actually,” Angela says. “It’s, uh, interesting,” she adds, as though searching for something nice to say and coming up empty.

  Will Rose’s birthplace ever outgrow its stereotypes? Northerners often make conclusions without ever spending time here.

  Katie has a new girlfriend every six months. At this point, Rose tries to not get too attached to them, especially the ones she likes, because those are usually the ones that come and go the fastest.

  “It’s my first time in the South, too, Mom,” Katie says.

  Rose turns to face her. “Of course you’ve been here before, sweetheart,” she says. Th
en she thinks back to their infrequent family vacations. Yosemite one year, the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, then for Katie’s graduation from high school, Santa Fe. “On second thought, I guess you haven’t,” Rose adds.

  Katie gives Rose a look like the word duh should be tattooed on Rose’s forehead.

  “Well, you’re in for a treat, too,” Rose says to Katie, patting her on the knee. If she doesn’t get food soon, her social skills may deteriorate even more.

  When they return to the Temple house, an elaborate buffet has been set up in the dining room. Violet has pulled off what Rose could never have managed. Even Rose’s mother would find little to complain about given the grandeur of the presentation—a spread that has Rose salivating like one of Pavlov’s famous dogs.

  Fresh, local seafood is the fare of the day. Mounds of raw shrimp and oysters on the half-shell sit next to steaming seafood casseroles and luscious fruit plates, without a single serving of an exotic meat in sight.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Queenie

  White people sure do know how to suck the life out of a funeral, Queenie thinks.

  She looks around at the elaborate reception. She has never seen this many white people wearing this much black and sipping this much booze. Most of them are hypocrites, as it is. They hated Iris, especially after those secrets started to leak. Queenie still has no idea how those forbidden tidbits got in the newspaper in the first place. If they were meant to hurt Iris only, then she thought they would have stopped since Iris is obviously no longer around. But even this morning, the day of Iris’s funeral, there was a secret in the newspaper about a Savannah banker in the 1890s who bought his mistress a hotel in Paris where she lived with their illegitimate son.

  Queenie sighs, feeling tired in her bones. Dealing with the secrets scandal and now Iris’s death has been harder than she realized. Not to mention that burials and receptions were never intended to be this dreary. When people die on her Gullah side of the family it’s sad, of course, but also a celebration. They wear clothes with some color to them. At funerals they tell stories, dance and clap. Queenie taps her foot as if hearing a song coming on. But even her foot knows better than to rock a boat with this much money in it.

  Queenie thinks back to Iris’s gravesite service—an event duller than dirt despite the fact that more than one attendee probably wanted to search the casket to see if Iris was taking that stupid book with her. A few rioters might have made the event more interesting, but they were kept at the gate. She wonders if they’ll show up here now that the rain has stopped.

  In the Gullah tradition, cemeteries are sacred ground. Often they enclose a grave with a small fence to protect the soul of the person who died, and they adorn the graves with conch shells to ward off evil spirits. On the tombstone they leave a jar of water for thirst, a bag of rice for hunger, a candle and matches for light, and a collection of herbs and roots in case any spells need to be created in the afterlife.

  None of that happened at the Temple mausoleum. If Queenie had thrown a conch shell across Iris’s grave, it would have hit a dozen millionaires before it hit the ground. She rolls her eyes with the thought.

  All that matters in this grand send-off is that all the right people attend. All the right food is served. All the right things are said. And an enormous amount of alcohol is consumed. Meanwhile, not a single story surfaces that might shake the body with laughter to release some of the boredom.

  “Violet has outdone herself on the reception.” Rose says to Queenie.

  Queenie agrees. Violet is a gem.

  However, since they returned to the house, Rose—usually uninterested in food—has been on a mission to divide and conquer the huge amount of seafood on the dining room table. An impressive pile of shrimp carcasses rest on her plate as she goes in to load up on scallops, and then moves into the corner of the room to feast on them.

  Katie stands next to her mother and nudges her girlfriend who watches as if witnessing a lioness devour a gazelle.

  “You look surprised by your mother’s appetite,” Queenie says to Katie.

  “For sure,” Katie says. “At home she usually nibbles.”

  “There’s probably a lot you don’t know about your mother,” Queenie says.

  “You’ve got that right,” Katie says. “I feel like I just found out that she’s been in a witness protection program for the last twenty-five years.”

  Queenie laughs, thinking: Finally, some life is coming to this wake.

  Katie leans close to Queenie and whispers, “No wonder she’s watched the movie Steel Magnolias over a dozen times.”

  A cackle comes out of Queenie that she has been holding in for hours. The crowd turns to look. Angela, no stranger to serious looks, turns to Katie.

  “I can’t believe the accents around here,” Angela says. She gives Queenie an awkward smile, as though realizing that Queenie is one of these people, too. “I want to use this experience in my next novel,” she continues. “Maybe a storyline about a transgendered southern belle.”

  That should go over well, Queenie thinks, not really sure what ‘transgendered’ means. It sounds complicated.

  Angela excuses herself and goes into the foyer where she stands behind a prominent couple from Savannah and pulls a notepad from her back pocket to take notes. She should get an earful about Savannah’s secrets.

  “So your mother never told you about any of this?” Queenie asks Katie.

  “Oh, I knew she grew up in Georgia,” Katie says. “But I thought her folks were probably rednecks or moonshiners or something. It never crossed my mind that they would be Ted Turner with old money and extra flash.”

  Queenie laughs again and then hushes herself when the mayor shoots her a dirty look. “We all have our secrets,” she whispers to Katie, wondering if the current mayor also has connections to the mafia like the one revealed in Iris’s book.

  “Are you two talking about me?” Rose skewers a scallop, dips it in a crater of Violet’s homemade tartar sauce and swallows it in one gulp.

  “Absolutely,” Queenie says.

  Violet brings another serving bowl full of large, de-veined shrimp and Rose’s eyes widen, as if intrigued by the challenge.

  “People must tell you that you look just like your mom,” Violet says to Katie.

  “All the time,” Katie says. “I’m okay with it. Or course I would have preferred voluptuous, instead of tall, lean and flat-chested.” Katie rolls her eyes and Queenie can see the family resemblance there, too. Violet returns to the kitchen.

  “Do you want some seafood?” Queenie asks, noticing that Katie hasn’t eaten anything.

  “I’m a vegetarian,” Katie says. “Vegan, actually, I don’t eat seafood.”

  “Oh,” Queenie says. “Violet can make you a cheese sandwich if you’d like.”

  “No, that’s okay,” Katie says, after a slight hesitation. “There’s plenty of good stuff here.”

  Katie picks up a strawberry along with several pieces of cantaloupe and eats it, as if to appease Queenie.

  Queenie isn’t sure what a vegan is, either, and wonders if it has anything to do with being gay. Katie is the first lesbian she has ever met, and Angela is the second.

  Live and let live is my philosophy, Queenie decides. She knows what it’s like to be judged. Plus Oprah loves the gays.

  Queenie excuses herself and goes into the kitchen. “You’ve outdone yourself, Vi,” she says.

  Violet thanks her but looks tired.

  “Do you need any help?” Queenie asks. She’s asked this question a dozen times today. But even as a little girl, Violet wasn’t the type to ask for help.

  “Not really,” Violet says, loading the dishwasher. “I think I’ve got everything under control.”

  Queenie steps into the laundry room off the kitchen and takes an empty laundry detergent box off the top shelf to retrieve a hidden pack of cigarettes and a pack of kitchen matches from inside. She slips them into her dress pocket.

  “C
ome get me if you need anything,” she tells Violet. “I’m going to step into the garden for a minute.”

  Queenie smokes only on rare occasions, usually after Iris has trampled on her last nerve. This is definitely something Oprah would never do. But today, for some reason, she feels like she could smoke an entire carton. After lighting the cigarette, she blows out the match and waves the smoke away.

  Although most of Savannah was waiting on Iris to die, it still seems strange to have her demanding half-sister finally gone. Managing Iris was a full-time job. Now, she needs to decide what to do with the rest of her life. All she knows how to do, really, is take care of people. She also knows Rose will be leaving again and who knows how long she will stay gone this time.

  However, now that Iris is gone, Queenie is free to visit Rose. She also wants to try to convince Old Sally to move in with her here in the Temple house when it passes to Queenie, as Iris said it would.

  But death has a way of reshuffling the card deck in unexpected ways, Queenie thinks. Nothing is set in stone. Except maybe Iris.

  The rain has stopped and mist rises from the pathway in the garden. Water drips from the leaves of the live oak and magnolia trees as steady as if it were still raining. Queenie stands near the fountain in a sunny spot to avoid the droplets that can drench someone in seconds. The stone face at the center of the fountain glares at Queenie to reprimand her for smoking.

  “Mind your own business,” she says and flicks ash at him.

  At least the protestors have left them alone for now. She never imagined they would show up at the cemetery. Seems like people would have better things to do than stand in the rain and watch a hearse pass by.

  From the far corner of the garden, Katie’s girlfriend approaches. Water droplets christen her pink shirt like polka-dots. Queenie searches her memory for the woman’s name. Alice? Abigail? Oh, yes, Angela, she determines.