by Anne George
“Hot today, ladies,” he said pleasantly.
Mary Alice hopped out of the car, as much as two hundred and fifty pounds can hop, and said, “Put a scratch on my Jaguar and curses will rain on you and your progeny.”
The boy jumped back. “Ma’am?”
“Into perpetuity.” She started across the street.
“What’s that lady talking about?” the boy asked, handing me the parking ticket but keeping a wary eye on the figure dodging traffic.
“She just wants you to be careful with her car.”
“That’s not what she said.”
“It’s what she meant.” I gave him what I hoped was a reassuring smile and hurried after Mary Alice. Déjà vu all over again, I thought, jaywalking just as I had done the day before. She had already disappeared into the hospital as I started up the steps and nearly ran into a man who was coming out. “Sorry,” I said. And then we went through that embarrassing thing where each of you steps to the same side several times. The man looked familiar, but in a place as small as Birmingham you’re always running into people you’ve met.
“Sorry,” I said again, and this time we got by each other. Mary Alice was at the information desk and the lady there was confirming that Debbie was already in the emergency room.
“Down that long hall over yonder.” She pointed.
“We know,” we both said.
“She’s going to be all right, Sister,” I said as we hurried down the long hall. “Remember I did that with Freddie? The doctor put me to bed for a few days and I was fine. And now they’ve got all sorts of things to keep them from going into labor.”
“I hope so, Mouse.”
So did I. With all my heart.
Henry was sitting in the waiting room. He jumped up when he saw us. “They’ve taken her for a sonogram. She said she knew you’d be coming so I should wait for you.” Tears flooded his eyes. “She’s taking it real good. She’d already called the doctor when I got home, and he said it wasn’t all that unusual. She’s not bleeding much.”
“I did the same thing with Freddie, didn’t I, Sister? And he was a week late and weighed over eight pounds. Debbie’s going to be fine, Henry.”
Henry sat down and we sat on either side of him.
“You know,” he said, “all the way down here I kept thinking about how complicated women’s reproductive organs are. So easy for things to go awry it’s a wonder anybody gets born.”
Sister patted his hand, comforting him. “Men’s organs are complicated, too.” She paused. “All my husbands’ went awry at times. And you’re right. It doesn’t take much for it to happen.”
I hoped Henry would forget this conversation.
“How long has she been gone, honey?” I asked him.
“Just a few minutes. They said it would take about a half hour.”
“Then you know what I think I’ll do? I think I’ll go check on Meemaw Turkett.”
“If you see her, maybe you can bring up the subject of Chinese checkers,” Sister said.
“Those Chinese checkers are none of my business.”
“Of course they are. Especially now that we know Elizabeth Taylor is involved.”
Henry was so sunk in his worries, he didn’t seem to think this was a strange conversation. Or, truth to tell, he’d heard stranger from us.
“I’ll see what the checkerboard looks like.” This was as much promise as I was going to make.
Back to the information desk where I found out that Meemaw had been moved to a private room on the sixth floor. And sure, she could have visitors. Up to 611 where the door was slightly ajar. I knocked and opened it cautiously.
“Come in,” Meemaw said. “I’m awake.” She was propped up in bed watching an old movie on TV. She was still attached to an IV, but her color was good and she smiled when she saw me. “Sit down,” she said, pointing to the brown reclining chair by the window. “Howard just left.”
“You look like you’re feeling much better.”
“Honey, a dead dog would feel better than I felt yesterday. I almost cashed it in.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let you go out in the heat.”
“I should have had more sense. It’s not your fault.”
“Thanks. I want you to know Sunshine came by my house early this morning, actually in the middle of the night. She heard you were sick and wanted to know how you were.”
Meemaw looked pleased. “Tell me about her. Is my baby all right?”
“She’s fine. Said she was staying with a friend of Dwayne Parker’s.”
“That Dwayne. She hasn’t got a bit of business messing around with him.”
I didn’t have a reply for that so I told her about Haley’s wedding and about the lunch. What I really wanted to do was what Sister had suggested, ask her if she knew what those pebbles were that she and Sunshine had been playing Chinese checkers with. And I was about to get up the nerve to do it when Kerrigan walked in, beautiful in pale lavender walking shorts and a white sleeveless shirt.
“Guess what, Kerrigan,” Meemaw said. “Sunshine was at Patricia Anne’s house during the night.”
“You’re kidding. Tell me about it,” Kerrigan said.
Which I did, and which is why Henry and Mary Alice were gone from the emergency room when I got back.
“They’re up on fifth in maternity,” the nurse told me.
“Oh, God, she’s not—”
“She’s fine. They’re just monitoring her. Got her wired up to see if she has any contractions.”
I rushed back up to the fifth floor. Henry and Mary Alice were standing out in the hall.
“They ran us out,” she said when she saw me. “They’re hooking her up to all sorts of things.”
“Just precautionary,” Henry assured me. “The doctor says everything looks fine. He asked me if I wanted to know if it’s a boy or a girl.”
“Which is it?” Sister asked.
“I told him I didn’t want to know.”
“Are you crazy? Of course you do.”
“No, I don’t, Mary Alice.”
“Yes, you do. Where’s that doctor?” Sister stomped toward the nurses’ station.
Henry grinned at me. “It’s a boy. I bet Debbie her mother could find out in under two minutes.”
I looked at the nurse who seemed to be in charge, a Nurse Ratched lookalike who was already eyeing Sister coldly. “You may lose that bet.”
He didn’t, of course. Sister was back immediately.
“It’s a boy. I hope you don’t name him Philip. We’ve already got so many Philips, it’s confusing.”
Henry clasped his hands to his heart. “A boy!”
Sister looked pleased. “I knew you wanted to know.”
A nurse stuck her head out of Debbie’s door. “Mr. Lamont, you can come in now. Ladies, if you could wait for just a few minutes—”
“Why?” Mary Alice asked.
The nurse shut the door in her face.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go sit at the end of the hall.”
Mary Alice surprised me by following without complaint. “A boy,” she said. “A grandson.” We sat down. “You know, Mouse, I think being a man is so much easier than being a woman. Think of the decisions you don’t have to make.”
I could have asked what, but I didn’t. Instead, I told her that Meemaw seemed to be doing fine and that I had told her about Sunshine’s visit.
“The twins are going to be thrilled to have a little brother,” Sister said.
This woman had just learned she was going to have her first grandson. I might as well forget conversation. While she talked (“Boys’ clothes are cuter than they used to be, Mouse”), I gazed down at the traffic on Nineteenth. A dark-haired woman wearing lavender shorts and a white shirt crossed the street and got into a white van that pulled up beside her.
“I think I just saw Kerrigan leaving,” I said. “A white delivery van with writing on the side.”
“Even smocking,” Sist
er said. “They smock little boats and ducks on them.”
A tall, skinny young man came down the hall and introduced himself as Dr. Lanagan. “Everything looks good,” he explained. “We’re going to keep her here tonight and she may have to stay in bed for a few days, but I think that baby’s going to hang on just fine.”
“Can we go see her now?” Sister asked.
“Sure.” He patted each of us on the shoulder and loped off down the hall. Medical schools, I decided right then, should teach more patting. I felt better.
Henry was sitting by Debbie’s bed holding her hand. She saw us and began to cry.
“You see,” Sister told me. “I told you it’s easier being a man.”
Maybe so.
We didn’t stay long. Debbie and Henry needed to be alone. Even Sister realized that.
The boy at the valet parking booth rushed out to assure Mary Alice that her car was fine. Good as new. Right as rain. Slick as a whistle.
“My God,” she said as he ran to get it. “That boy needs to be on Ritalin.” When he drove up, she gave him a generous tip “to help with his medical expenses.”
“You know what?” I said as we pulled into the traffic. “When we went in the hospital, I almost bumped into a man who looked familiar. I just remembered who he is.”
“Who?” Sister turned the air conditioner on high. “Lord, this car’s hot.”
“That guy from the antique shop.”
“What guy?”
“When you were trying on dresses and I saw Sunshine. Remember I went in the stores up to the corner to see where she had been? One of them was the antique store. That’s the guy.”
“So?”
I hate it when people say “So?” like that.
“So, nothing, I reckon. Only maybe he was driving a white van and picked up Kerrigan.”
“Maybe he was just visiting a sick relative.”
“I guess so.”
“Or he could even be one of Kerrigan’s boyfriends, for all we know. Hand me the phone. I’m going to call Ray.”
I handed her the phone reluctantly. To me, driving and talking on the phone are things that are best not done together. Mary Alice disagrees.
“Hey, honey,” she said, almost running a red light, would have if I hadn’t screamed. “Your sister’s going to be okay. They’re keeping her overnight, but she’s not showing signs of going into labor.” A pause. “He is?” She looked at me. “He does?” She held the phone against her chest and said, “The sheriff’s at my house. He wants to talk to us.”
“To me?”
“Ray says both of us.”
I looked at my watch.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Patricia Anne. Fred’s still stuffed with salmon. Probably asleep or watching a ball game.”
I knew she was right.
“Okay,” I agreed.
“It’ll take your mind off Haley. You need to get the wedding cake to put in your freezer, too.”
Actually my mind hadn’t been on Haley until she reminded me.
Some of the sprinklers had already come on as we drove through Mary Alice’s neighborhood. From the top of the mountain we could see thunderclouds pushing in from the west, though. That was what was needed to break the heat.
Sheriff Reuse was standing on the porch at Sister’s house as we drove up.
“Been out to let up my windows,” he said. “It’s gonna storm in a little while.”
He looked nice today. He was wearing light gray chinos, a faded blue chambray shirt, and Docksiders without socks. He looked like he’d stepped straight from a Lands’ End catalog. Not bad. Not bad at all.
“You look spiffy,” Mary Alice acknowledged.
“I’ve got a date. When Ray told me what had happened, I figured I’d better come by here first, though.”
“Is Ray in the sunroom?”
The sheriff nodded and held the door open for us.
“He told you about the pearls?” I asked.
“He sure did. Smuggling’s a federal offense, of course, but I want to get all the facts straight before I notify the authorities. Make sure that’s what we’re dealing with.”
We walked down the hall toward the sunroom. Ray stuck his head out of the kitchen and asked if we wanted something to drink. Both of us wanted a big glass of water.
“Okay,” Sheriff Reuse said, “let’s sit at the game table. I can write better there.”
Ray brought us our water and we sat down. I was in the chair facing west. The storm clouds suddenly blocked out the sun.
The sheriff got out his notepad and pen. “How many pearls would you ladies say you saw?”
“I didn’t see any,” Mary Alice said.
I tried to picture the Chinese checker board. “Eight. Maybe nine.”
“On the table in Meemaw’s trailer.”
“Yes. In the commotion, one ended up in my pocket. I thought it was just a pebble.”
“They had to come back from Bora Bora with Sunshine,” Ray said. “But they could have been planted on her.”
“I’ll bet Buck Owens did it,” Mary Alice said. “What do you know about him, Ray?”
“I don’t think Buck would have done it, Mama.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Sunshine supposedly won this trip on Wheel of Fortune. I’ve never seen them give away a trip to Bora Bora.”
“And Patricia Anne and Fred watch Wheel of Fortune every night,” Sister said.
The sheriff made a note. “That’ll be easy to check.”
“And if she didn’t,” I continued, “then whoever sent her is in on the caper.”
“The caper?” Sister murmured.
“Well, you know what I mean.”
“All right.” The sheriff seemed surprisingly agreeable. “Who could have sent her?”
“Eddie? Howard? Kerrigan? The man in the antique store?”
“What man in the antique store?” he asked.
I explained; the sheriff took notes.
“They all did it,” Sister said.
Lord, we were back to that again.
“Did you find any connection between Dudley Cross and the Turketts?” Ray asked.
“Not so far. It would help if Sunshine would show up.”
“She’s scared,” Sister said.
“She shouldn’t be scared to come to me.” Ray’s voice was slightly bitter for the first time.
Thunder rumbled. We all looked up. Rain was advancing down the valley.
The sheriff turned back to his notepad. “About your fall, Mrs. Hollowell.”
“I think I know who put the turkey there. I think it was Dwayne Parker. It was a childish warning, and Sunshine seemed startled when I told her about it. So did Meemaw.”
“Maybe it wasn’t a warning,” Ray said. “Maybe somebody, maybe Dwayne, was trying to tell us something.”
The rain suddenly lashed against the window. Sister, who had been more subdued than usual, put her hands palms-down on the table. “Jed Reuse,” she said to the sheriff, “you want to sit around here on your butt and have us solve your crimes? Okay, I’ll solve this one for you.
“Kerrigan Dabbs and Buck Owens have got a pearl-smuggling ring going. They’re using my baby boy’s boat to get the pearls which may get him in a lot of trouble, and they’re using my baby boy’s wife to bring them back into this country.”
The sheriff smiled. “You just may be right.” He put his notepad back in his pocket. “Guess I’d better make some phone calls.” He paused. “Okay, Ray? You want to add anything else?”
“I’ve got nothing else to tell you, Sheriff. Call.”
The sheriff went into the kitchen.
“What authorities is he talking about?” Sister asked.
“The FBI, I guess,” Ray said. He drummed his fingers against the table.
His mother reached over and stopped him. “That’s a terrible habit. Makes people think you’re nervous.”
“I am nervous,” Ray admitted. But he stopped the drumming.
“He’s too nice a guy. I bought his boat in a fair transaction, and he’s been my dive master for three years with no complaints. He’s just a good old country boy, Aunt Pat.”
“Who happens to dive a lot in Bora Bora.”
“It’s his job.” But Ray began to drum his fingers again.
From the kitchen we could hear the sheriff talking. In a few minutes he came back into the sunroom.
“Did you call the FBI?” Mary Alice asked.
“I got their office. Somebody’s supposed to call me in a little while. I gave them my page number because I’ve got a lady waiting on me to take her to the movies.”
“The FBI,” Mary Alice mused. “Do you know when I was married to Will Alec—or Philip”—she stopped to think and then shrugged—“anyway, we went to an inaugural ball and I danced with J. Edgar Hoover in an orange dress.”
“J. Edgar Hoover was wearing an orange dress?” Ray asked.
“Not at an inaugural ball, son. I was. Orange knit. Looked good, too.” She frowned. “I remember I thought he was Broderick Crawford at the time, and that he wasn’t much of a dancer. Will Alec told me later it was J. Edgar Hoover.”
“I read in his biography that he was a wonderful dancer,” I said.
Sister thought about this. “Well, maybe it was Broderick Crawford. Couldn’t even two-step. Just sort of shifted from one foot to the other.”
“I hate it when men dance like that,” I said. “Lazy dancing.”
The sheriff cleared his throat. “I’d appreciate it if y’all would stick around. Somebody may call you in a little while.”
I looked at my watch. “I’ve got to get home, but I’ll stick around there.”
“Fine. You need a ride? I’m going right by your house.”
“I remember Edward G. Robinson was at the same party, but it couldn’t have been him,” Sister mused. “He was too short. Even in those elevator shoes.”
“Thanks,” I told the sheriff. “I’d love a ride.”
Eighteen
The streets had been so hot they steamed as the rain hit them. We drove through little pockets of fog on the way to my house. By the time the sheriff dropped me off, the heaviest rain was over. A typical Birmingham summer thunderstorm. But it had cooled everything down, washed the pollution from the air, and given the trees a good drink of water.