For a stunned moment, he had no idea what had happened, other than that he was no longer playing the harmonica. Then he looked down and saw his harmonica on the ground, next to the softball. He glanced toward Jessie, who had already started walking toward the umpire.
“BALL!” she hollered. “I NEED ANOTHER BALL!”
Neither she nor Arthur had noticed that everyone was on their feet cheering. If the game had ended right then and there, it would forever go down as one of Partonville’s most repeated stories. No, nobody would have cared if the game ended—except Jessie, who had fire in her eyes and determination in her pursed lips.
“GET READY!” she bellowed to Shelby. “This one’s coming down the pike!” She pitched six strikes in a row, both batters going down swinging. The next batter hit a blooper to right field that should have been an easy out, but the right fielder was still recovering from a knee replacement and couldn’t make it to the ball in time to make the play. Jessie spit, for the fourth time in the game.
Arthur was now sitting on the ground next to Dorothy. He figured, as mad as Jessie undoubtedly was at him, if he could remain anywhere within her vision, she’d really fire ’em in there. Although he was clearly embarrassed and a bit angry, he was more proud of his wife’s aim and much better natured about the incident than anyone expected him to be.
With the runner on first base, Jessie fired one in there, all right, but it was close to being a wild pitch. The batter reached way out and tipped it, laying it down just inside the first-base line for a fair ball. Shelby tossed her mask over her head and scrambled to retrieve it, accidentally kicking the ball forward instead. By the time she picked it up, the runner had made it to first and the first-base runner to second. She strode out to the pitcher’s mound, hoping to settle both of them down.
“Okay, kiddo,” Jessie said. “We got that out of our system. Now let’s get the batter out. And don’t let him scare you. He’s big, but he’s blind as a bat. He’ll swing at anything,” which is just what he did. In three pitches the side was retired, and the Wild Musketeers prepared to bat.
First up was the third baseman. Although he usually went down swinging at anything, his odd, choppy swipe quite a sight to behold, in a miraculous moment his reactions and his arthritis worked together and locked him up long enough to watch four pitches go by for a base on balls. Obviously, Reggie’s arm was getting tired. Who wouldn’t understand, though—Reggie was seventy-six if he was a day. The Pirates’ catcher called to his bench for someone to take the drink bottle out to the mound so Reggie could wet his whistle. Although the Musketeers’ bench jokingly objected on the grounds he wasn’t really thirsty but just old and tired, they didn’t object diligently enough to disallow the pause, and neither did the umpire. After a few swigs, play resumed.
Next, the right fielder for the Musketeers limped toward the batter’s box, having strained her back bending over to pick a dandelion during warm-up in the second inning. “Just do what you can,” Shelby kindly said to her as the pained woman grunted when she bent over to pick up the bat.
“To heck with what you can!” Jessie said. “Get in there and do what you HAVE to! There’s plenty of aspirin at the drugstore for later.” Sheila grinned a kind of hopeless grin and stepped up to the plate. As luck would have it—at least for the good of the game, although not necessarily for the good of Sheila—she was hit by the first pitch, being too stiff to back out of the box quickly enough. The crowd went wild as she limped to first base, favoring her injured side, even though the ball had actually only clipped her finger.
“Runners at first and second,” Reggie hollered from the mound to his players, turning 360 degrees and repeating it three times for those whose hearing and eyesight might be missing this little detail. All that turning and yelling seemed to liven him up a bit, and he struck out the next two batters.
“Two down, two on, tie score,” Harold said over the loudspeaker. “It just doesn’t get much better than this! Hang on to your hats, everybody. Mugsy Landers is stepping up to bat.”
Jessie took her time getting to the plate, playing a bit of a mental game with Reggie. She swung twice to limber, then stepped into the box, then held up her arm to indicate she was backing out again. She bent from the waist to the right and then to the left, slowly stretching. Finally, she stepped into the box for good, only settling into a motionless stance after she’d shuffled the dirt out from under each foot, as though digging herself a stabilizing trench.
“Let ’im have it with both barrels, woman!” Arthur was standing, too nervous to sit. Upon hearing his words, Jessie grinned from ear to ear and spit over her left shoulder, twice. The pitch, which was low and away and exactly where she liked them, had her name written all over it. She swung for all she was worth and nailed it clear over the second basewoman’s head.
The runner on second base took off, chugging toward third, but Sheila, who was staring at her finger to see if it was swelling and who now also had a full-fledged back spasm going, could barely get started for second. Jessie was jogging toward her yelling, “MOVE! MOVE!” In the meantime, the ball had finally been retrieved by the Pirates’ right fielder, who threw it to the second basewoman, who, being a substitute, wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do with it, so she threw it to the first person she looked at, who happened to be the third baseman—whose upcoming cataract surgery hadn’t taken place yet, so he didn’t see it coming until it rolled through his legs. The base runner coming from second was so winded that even though the third baseman was off the bag to retrieve the rolling ball, he stopped on third to catch his breath.
“RUN!” Musketeers fans screamed. “RUN!” Jessie hollered as she began to move toward second, one linear foot behind the woman whose spasm had just released enough to get off first base. And although he was still so winded he could barely breathe, let alone break into a sprint, finally the winning run left third base and headed toward home plate, plodding along one foot in front of the other.
The Pirates’ third baseman had by now picked up the ball and got ready to toss it toward home, where the Pirates’ catcher was waiting to tag out the runner. But as fate would have it, the dirt Jessie had kicked up planting her feet before she batted suddenly ignited the catcher’s allergies, and a sneezing fit ensued that lasted just long enough for the winning run, huffing and puffing all the way, to cross the plate while the catcher ACHOOed with her eyes closed.
“Now, wasn’t THAT worth the drive, Mom?” Josh asked his mother while they were cheering and jumping up and down. But Katie never even heard him. She was too busy watching Arthur throw his arms around Jessie. And then, for the briefest of moments, Arthur kissed his wife—his cantankerous, hardheaded, spittin’ and winnin’ wife—full on the lips, right in front of everybody. It was yet another first for the books.
21
Dorothy and May Belle sat at May Belle’s kitchen table polishing off the last of the ham sandwiches that May Belle had whipped up for them. Earl ate faster than anyone else Dorothy knew (although Arthur ran a close second), and as soon as he had finished and the ladies had begun to settle into lengthy conversation, he’d cleared his plate and glass to the sink, then gone out to the backyard to get their lawn-mower and walk it the couple of blocks to Dorothy’s. She would hire him as her steady groundskeeper, she had told him. He asked daily, sometimes more than once, if it was time to mow again until he nearly wore May Belle out with the question. Finally Dorothy explained to him that it wouldn’t be time to mow again until she told him it was. “Now, honey, listen to me. You shouldn’t fret, because I won’t forget. Oh, MY! And I’m a poet and don’t know it!” She’d broken out in hearty laughter after tickling herself with that one. Earl just studied her, subtle humor nearly always escaping him. Nevertheless, he understood from past experience that Dorothy would keep her word. As soon as he’d finished his sandwich, Dorothy had told him that today was the day, and off he’d gone.
“I’ll tell you what I miss the most, May Belle, and you�
�re a dear friend to even ask, considering all I’ve left behind lately. Why, we might just need another pitcher of iced tea before I even reach the end of my list!”
“Never you worry about running out of iced tea. You know me—I’ve always got an extra pitcher in the refrigerator. Earl and I go through it like water this time of year.” May Belle’s house had never been air-conditioned. “What’s the point of shooting cold air into a kitchen that’s always got the oven running?” she would ask in sincerity. Although there were many who would argue the point, as their area of the country fairly well sweltered with heat and humidity come mid-to late summer, Dorothy wasn’t one of them. She just nodded her head in agreement, knowing that in all the livelong days she’d known May Belle, she hadn’t been one to be bothered by the heat—not even when everyone else thought they were surely melting. No matter what the thermometer said, May Belle would fire up her oven and bake all day if she got a hankering or someone was in need of refreshments. “The good Lord’s given me very few gifts, but baking is one of them. Please let me use it!” she’d say time and again when folks hesitated to ask her to contribute a pie or plate of cookies when she’d barely put her hot pads away from her last bout. “It gives me such joy to measure and stir, test and serve. Such joy!”
Now it was her turn to serve Dorothy another tall glass of iced tea, but not before wrestling with one of her stubborn metal ice cube trays, then using her old claw-tonged server to plop a half-dozen cubes into Dorothy’s glass. As for May Belle, she liked her “iced” tea room temperature.
“Here’s what I miss, friend. I miss the feel of the earth under my feet, May Belle. And even when I was in my bedroom on the second floor of the farm, I knew my house was resting on its richness. I miss the stars that don’t show up in town around the streetlights. I miss the smell of hay and the view from my favorite spot and the rustle of pigeons when the big door is opened. I miss the creaking sound of my stairs when I walked up to my office, and the rattle of gravel on The Tank’s undercarriage as I headed for home. I miss watching Sheba’s tongue flapping in the breeze in my rearview mirror. I miss driving. The independence of going where and when I want. As fast as I want.” The women sat staring at each other, then May Belle nodded her head up and down in acknowledgment of Dorothy’s statement.
“Yes, Dorothy, I imagine you do. Although I never did find it necessary to drive, I always knew you liked driving, whether you had anyplace to go or not. You liked driving just to be driving, about the same way I like watching teaspoons full of cookie dough spread on the cookie sheet in the oven. Or the smell of peach juice on my fingers when I quarter them for a pie. Or the steam rising up out of a pan of homemade chicken and noodles when I lift the lid.”
Dorothy stared hard at her friend and tears welled in her eyes. “You know one of the things I’ve always liked best about you, May Belle?”
“What’s that, dear?”
“Your way with words.”
“Oh, Dorothy,” May Belle said, covering her mouth with her hand. “What on earth do you mean? Why, I can’t even as much as spell.”
“I mean the way you so quickly bring all the bigness of life into the smallest details. The way your words have always been a balm to my soul. Your words, your friendship…” A tear trickled out of Dorothy’s right eye and rolled down her cheek.
“My double fudge brownies?” May Belle asked, lightening the moment.
“And them, too. The fact of the matter is, I like you. I imagine it’s been way too long since I told you that I just plain old like you. I simply cannot imagine my life without the good company and friendship of you and Earl.” Dorothy reached across the table and picked up May Belle’s plump hand and drew it to her own cheek. “Thank you, May Belle, for putting up with me. I know sometimes I’m a pistol, but never once have you given me cause to worry I might lose our friendship, even when I’ve behaved badly.”
“Dorothy Wetstra! When have you behaved badly?” May Belle rubbed her index finger against Dorothy’s wrinkled cheek to wipe a tear away while Dorothy continued to hold her hand to her face. “Okay, sometimes you may have borderline been a bit frisky, but…” May Belle snickered, as did Dorothy.
“I mean it, May Belle. Your loyalty and honesty have helped sustain me during some of my hardest times. If it hadn’t been for you, I don’t know what I’d have done when I lost Henry and Caroline Ann. What I’d have done when Vinnie moved away. What I’d have done when I’ve had all those leftovers without you to come for smorgasbord night.” Again they chuckled, falling into the familiar pattern of their friendship that mixed meaning with levity.
May Belle sighed when Dorothy set her hand back on the table, allowing her to now swipe at her own nose, prompted into running by her own tears. “Well, since we’re having true confessions here, I guess it’s my turn now.” May Belle placed her hands on top of Dorothy’s, which now rested on the table, fingers folded together. “You, Dorothy Jean Wetstra, have blessed me in uncountable ways. I reckon my life would have been downright boring without your lively presence in it. Earl and I have about the truest friend one could have. Thank you from both of us, our Dearest Dorothy, for not only shuttling us from here to there ever since Homer died, but for always being so happy to see both of us. You know, although everyone in Partonville accepts Earl, not everybody treats him the same. Oh, it’s not that they’re not good to him, but you, Dorothy, have always treated him like an equal.”
“And why wouldn’t I?” she asked, incredulous.
“Some just have a harder time than others.”
The distant sound of a lawnmower started up in the background. “Well, I guess my faithful groundskeeper is fast at work!”
“That’s what I’m talking about, Dorothy. Earl isn’t just mowing your lawn—you’ve honored him with a title.” May Belle choked out the last word, then tears began to just pour out of her eyes. “My Earl, a groundskeeper!”
By the time the two women stopped blubbering, each had blown her nose no less than twice. “Aren’t we a sight?” Dorothy asked as they looked into each other’s reddened eyes.
“Let’s get to something happier,” May Belle said. “Let’s talk about what you don’t miss so far, even though you’ve only been here a few days now.”
“Let’s see. I don’t miss fretting about how inconvenient it’s been for so many people to have to come out to the farm to handle all I’ve grown too old to handle. I don’t miss worrying what’s going to happen to the farm when I die. I don’t for a moment miss that! I tell you, it gives me more peace than you can imagine just knowing my affairs are in order.” May Belle shook her head up and down, and a far-away look flashed across her face. Dorothy knew May Belle worried what would become of Earl when she passed. There’d never been a scrap of extra money, and she had no idea how Earl would ever survive another’s supervision or even if anyone would take him, other than the county home.
“But let’s move on to what I’ve gained,” Dorothy said. “I’ve gained the security of neighbors close by, especially you and Earl. I’ve gained a ham sandwich just for walking two blocks. I’ve gained a fire engine red ceiling and the perkiest kitchen I’ve ever seen! And May Belle, for the first time in my life I’ve gained the chance to decorate a place myself. I’m beginning to think that red ceiling is only the beginning!”
“You mentioned that before, Dorothy. And here I thought you were kidding about wanting that red ceiling! I have to say, it kind of makes me feel like I’m walking into a cottage. I liked it much better than I thought I would when I heard you talking about it. Have you got any other plans?”
“I think I’m gonna take me a walk to Swappin’ Sam’s.”
Swappin’ Sam’s was on the outskirts of town and was a combination salvage and antiques place that overall appeared more like a junkyard. Sam had officially received more than his share of complaints over the years about the condition of his establishment. Nevertheless, if you couldn’t find it anyplace else, whatever it was, odds were—eve
n if you might have been one to complain about his place—you’d find yourself there one day. If you had enough time and patience, you could likely find your it at Sam’s, and most who’d lived in the area for more than a decade had, at least once if not more often.
Occasionally when Dorothy’d been out bombing around in The Tank, she would drop in just for the conversation. Sam Vitner had more stories than anyone else she’d ever heard, and he just loved telling them. “Sam, you missed your calling. You should have gone on the circuit and made your living as a storyteller,” Dorothy had told him one fine, crisp afternoon last fall.
“Dorothy, why do you reckon people buy this old stuff? Because it’s that special? Nope. They buy it because I tell them the stories. The story sells the product. Story sells anything, in fact.”
And by golly, he was right. The last time she’d been there, she’d seen some dandy, intricately carved dining room table legs, and Sam had told her their story. They’d been the legs on the dining room table that used to sit in the governor’s mansion in Louisiana—before the fire, so he explained. With great animation, Sam acted out how one Christmas season the maid had left a hand-dipped beeswax candle burning in the center of that shiny table. She had surrounded it with pinecones and bits of fresh holly, fragrant cloves and dried acorns. Wouldn’t you know there was a meteor shower that very evening and everyone convened to the backyard to watch, forgetting about the candle. The next thing they knew, the table was on fire, and by the time they put it out, the only things left were the legs. “As the story goes,” Sam said, “‘You don’t have a leg left to stand on’ is certainly a saying that doesn’t ring true this evening, now does it?’ the governor joked as they stood gathered around remnants of smoke, staring at the legs that were still standing because of their stabilizing cross members.” What governor, what year and how Sam had come by the legs were facts that were suspiciously never offered. But the story…ahhh, the story…Dorothy hadn’t forgotten, so, of course, neither had she forgotten the legs.
Dearest Dorothy, Slow Down, You're Wearing Us Out! Page 18