She couldn’t face her friends or the gossipmongers in the dining room of the All-You-Can-Eat, so Barbara Jean slipped out the back door. In the alley behind the restaurant, she felt her stomach lurch and she had to bend over and gasp for air. When she got her nerves and her stomach calmed down, she walked around the block. Then she hurried over to the alley behind the next street, so she could enter Big Earl and Miss Thelma’s house from the back and not be seen by her friends at the restaurant. By the time Barbara Jean let herself into the back door of the house, she had started to feel a little bit better. She told herself that she had done the right thing for herself, and for Chick, too. This was the first step into a new and improved life, the life she deserved. But she hadn’t anticipated what that old comedian God had in mind for her.
Chapter 26
I never thought I’d live to see the day when Clarice walked out on Richmond. I’d thought of them as a couple since we were children and he would tease her by hurling walnuts at her and yelling “Time bomb!” as she ran away. They were lovers before any of us knew what lovers were. Now Clarice had gone and shocked me by moving to Leaning Tree. I couldn’t help but join the crowd who studied them like they were a couple of curiosities in a traveling freak show.
Many things were still the same. Clarice and Richmond got together each Sunday to attend morning services at Calvary Baptist. They still came to the All-You-Can-Eat and sat at their usual places at the table.
But Clarice had given up pretending to have a good time at Calvary. The hardcore, fire-and-brimstone services she once used as a yardstick to measure all other churches with—and find the others lacking—weren’t bringing her the same satisfaction anymore. She’d started complaining about how judgmental the congregation was encouraged to be—which, frankly, I’d always thought was one of the things she enjoyed most about the place. And she didn’t bother to hide her annoyance with Reverend Peterson, who had met with her twice already to remind her of her duties as a Christian wife and to express his disappointment at her “unfortunate recent behavior.” She had some especially harsh words for Calvary Baptist and her pastor after she opened the weekly bulletin at church and found her name on the prayer list alongside the names of misfits, troubled children, and other notorious backsliders from the congregation.
There were physical changes, too. I had called upon Barbara Jean’s old hairdressing skills one Saturday and had her shave what was left of my hair until it was just a bit of black and gray fluff clinging to my scalp. The second I vacated the makeshift barber chair we’d set up in my kitchen, Clarice hopped into it and ordered Barbara Jean to cut her hair almost as short. She claimed she did it because, after fifty years of dealing with heat, rollers, chemicals, and pins to keep her long hair perfectly styled, she wanted something that required less maintenance. But Barbara Jean and I both thought she did it to get back at Richmond for having her name put on the backsliders’ prayer list. She’d kept her hair long for years because he liked it that way. Now Clarice was determined to show him that she had laid claim to her own head in more ways than one.
I could tell that Clarice was filling at least some of her post-Richmond time with music. She had fallen back into her habit of humming quietly to herself and absentmindedly tapping out piano fingerings on whatever surface her hands happened to land on, a practice we’d teased her about back when we were young and she was still performing regularly. Clarice was more cheerful and more relaxed than I’d seen her in years, maybe ever.
Richmond changed even more than Clarice. Without his wife around to dress and tend to him, our stylish, pressed, and polished Richmond was revealed to be a color-blind man who clearly didn’t know how to operate a steam iron. Richmond, who had always been so easygoing and relaxed, now spent most of our Sunday suppers staring at Clarice and chewing on his lower lip. Depending on his mood, he either ate the most diabetic-friendly things on the buffet, showing his plate to Clarice for her approval, or he took heaping bowls of sweets from the dessert table and dug into them with a fury while glaring at her. But he couldn’t get a rise out of her. The most Clarice would say in response was “Try not to kill yourself. It might upset the kids.”
The biggest change, though, was that now it was Richmond, not Clarice, who presented a fantasy to the world about their relationship. He had spread the word that Clarice had rented Mama and Daddy’s old house in Leaning Tree because so many of her piano students lived in the new subdivisions over there. Everyone who knew them knew that she had moved out, but he insisted on repeating the fiction that Clarice went to her studio in Leaning Tree to practice and teach every day and then came back to him each night. I always thought I’d enjoy seeing Richmond get a good hard kick in the ass, but it was sad to see the mighty Richmond Baker reduced to spreading such tales.
Like his attitude toward Clarice, Richmond’s feelings about me changed from week to week. He didn’t know whether he should blame me for Clarice leaving him and react with open hostility or see me as a way back into his wife’s good graces and ladle on the sweet talk. That week, as we sat waiting for Barbara Jean to arrive at the All-You-Can-Eat, he was being overly polite to me, inquiring about my health and complimenting a dress he must’ve seen a hundred times before. It all came across as awkward and forced. Poor Richmond didn’t wear desperation well.
I heard Clarice issue a groan and I looked over my shoulder to see her cousin walking across the street toward the restaurant in the company of Minnie McIntyre. Minnie was swallowed up by her new fortune-telling outfit, a dramatically oversized silver robe that billowed out around her in the breeze as she crossed the street. Veronica, all done up for church, moved alongside Minnie with her jerky half-running walk. Together they looked like a Fourth of July parade float and the local beauty queen who’d just fallen off of it.
They entered the restaurant and Minnie headed for her fortune-telling table. Veronica took a detour in our direction. She had her daughter’s wedding book under her arm. This was the “official wedding book.” Twice as thick as the duplicate book she had given to Clarice, it overflowed with bits of paper and cloth.
Veronica said to Clarice, “I’ve got all kinds of stuff to tell you as soon as my reading’s done.” She took two steps away and then hustled back. “Let me show you this one thing, though.”
She sat in Barbara Jean’s chair and then dropped the heavy book down on the table. It made a loud thud and caused the tableware to teeter so wildly that all of us had to grab our water glasses to steady them. She opened the wedding book and said, “I went to Madame Minnie and told her about the problems I was having over at First Baptist about the wedding. Can you believe that after all I’ve done for them they refused to let me release doves inside the chapel? I explained to them that the doves were from Boston and were sophisticated and all, and that these doves would just as soon die of embarrassment as make a mess. But they wouldn’t listen.
“Well, I talked to Madame Minnie about it and she told me to take a drive and the answer would come to me. I did what she said, and I found my answer at the corner of College Boulevard and Second Avenue. Here it is.” She tilted one end of the wedding book so we could all see a brochure she’d clipped in. On the cover of the brochure was a picture of a two-story white building whose entranceway was framed by several tall columns. Parked outside the building was a white carriage hitched to two white horses with white feathers attached to their heads. The caption beneath the picture read “Garden Hills Banquet Hall and Corporate Meetings Venue.”
Veronica said, “Isn’t it perfect? The inner courtyard can seat almost as many people as First Baptist. And we can have the ceremony, cocktails, sit-down dinner, and dancing all in the same place.”
“The courtyard? Isn’t that outside?” Clarice asked.
Veronica rolled her eyes and said, “Of course it is. That’s why it’s called a courtyard, Clarice.”
Clarice ignored the eye-rolling. “You want to have a wedding outdoors in southern Indiana? In July?”
/> Veronica said, “I have to have it outside. Truth is, the banquet hall wasn’t much happier about the doves than the church was. They were going to charge me an arm and a leg for a cleanup fee if I had the wedding inside. Not that money is an object, mind you. I consulted Madame Minnie about the weather and Charlemagne assured her it would be perfect. Also, the laser lights will look better outdoors.”
Clarice said, “It’s bad luck not to get married in a church.”
“No offense, cousin, but you had your wedding in a church and look where it got you,” Veronica replied.
Of its own free will, my hand started moving toward an overfilled glass of water that sat dangerously close to the edge of the table just to Veronica’s right. I was an inch away from accidentally tipping the glass into Veronica’s lap when Clarice grabbed ahold of my arm. She moved the water glass to a safer spot on the table and warned me with her eyes not to give in to immaturity again. Minnie approached the window table then, her silver robe rustling as she swept across the floor. Veronica said to her, “I’m sorry to keep you waiting, Madame Minnie. I just had to tell them about the exciting things happening with the wedding. It’s really all her doing,” she said, pointing at Minnie. “Everything is happening just like she foresaw it.”
Minnie pointed her nose toward the ceiling and said, “I am only partially of this earth. My true essence is already on the spirit plane.”
I was glad Mama wasn’t hovering around that day. I wouldn’t have been able to keep a straight face. Of course, Mama would have started cussing and carrying on as soon as she heard Veronica say “Madame Minnie.”
Veronica chimed in, “And get a load of this.” She opened the wedding book to a different page and pointed to a newspaper ad that she’d pasted inside. The ad was for a hypnotherapist in Louisville. “Madame Minnie has a friend who does hypnosis. I’ve been taking Sharon to see him and, let me tell you, it’s a miracle. She’s dropping pounds right and left. The hypnotist puts her in a recliner, lights some scented candles, whispers in her ear for a while, and she walks out terrified of starchy foods. That girl sees a crouton on top of her salad and she runs screaming from the room.” Veronica clapped her hands together and grinned so broadly that we saw every filling in her teeth. “Sharon can almost fit into the gown I picked out for her.”
Minnie took a bow to acknowledge her latest accomplishment. The bell on her turban rang, but it was drowned out by the sound of the bell over the doorway of the restaurant as Yvonne Wilson, one of Minnie’s longtime regulars, entered.
Yvonne was pregnant with her seventh child. Two of her older girls, both dusted in powdered sugar from chin to waist courtesy of the Donut Heaven treats they were eating, tagged along behind her. Yvonne had been one of Minnie’s fortune-telling customers for years and was one of the few who were dumb enough to actually heed her advice over the long haul. Minnie had told Yvonne a decade earlier that she would have a baby who was so beautiful and talented that he or she would make Yvonne and her boyfriend into showbiz millionaires. Yvonne foolishly believed Minnie and commenced to pop out baby after baby, waiting for the miraculous moneymaking child to arrive. With every birth she would run to Minnie and ask, “Is this the one?” Each time, Minnie would take her money and then tell her that Charlemagne said to try again. Now Yvonne had six homely, untalented children, and she still hadn’t figured out that Minnie was playing a mean-spirited trick on her.
Yvonne walked up to Minnie and, rubbing her belly, said, “I had a dream last night that this one was tap-dancing on the hood of a gold Rolls-Royce. I need a reading right away.”
Veronica said, “You go ahead, Yvonne, I’ve got some other things to show Clarice. I’ll get my reading after you.”
Yvonne thanked Veronica and ordered her daughters, whom she had optimistically named Star and Desiree, to sit quietly at a nearby table and wait for her. Then she followed Minnie to the crystal ball in the corner.
When they were gone, Veronica said, “Here’s the big news. Sharon’s going to be the first in town to have the Cloud Nine Wedding Package.” She opened the wedding book to the page with the banquet hall brochure. She removed the brochure from the book and showed us a picture on the back cover. It appeared to be a photograph of a huge pink marshmallow squeezing through a doorway.
“That’s the cloud,” Veronica said. “The party enters and leaves through a lavender-scented pink cloud. Everybody in New York is doing it.”
She shared more details about the Cloud Nine Wedding Package, dwelling particularly on its high cost. She told us how every aspect of the wedding had been timed to perfection. She peppered her conversation with catty little comments about Clarice’s daughter’s wedding that Clarice pretended not to notice.
I’d had just about enough of Veronica and was about to make another try at dumping the glass of water in her lap when Clarice spoke up during a brief pause in Veronica’s monologue. She glanced at her watch and said, “I wonder what’s keeping Barbara Jean.”
Veronica said, “I figured she must be sick. She didn’t come to church today.”
Clarice raised an eyebrow and looked in my direction. “Maybe she was just too tired to go today.”
Veronica shrugged and said, “I see Madame Minnie is finishing up. I’d better get going. I’ll call you tonight, Clarice.” Veronica left us and trotted across the room to where Yvonne Wilson was thanking Minnie and corralling her daughters.
Clarice said, “How Veronica can waste her money on such idiocy is a mystery to me.”
From across the room Minnie yelled, “I heard that, Clarice!”
That old woman’s good hearing never ceased to amaze me.
Fifteen minutes later, Barbara Jean still hadn’t appeared. Clarice and I debated whether we should go over to her house and see how she was doing—I was for, Clarice was against. I had just about talked Clarice into getting a quick bite from the buffet and then walking over to Barbara Jean’s when we looked out the window and saw her car pulling up on the other side of the street.
The Mercedes crawled slowly into a parking space, thumping the curb repeatedly as she backed up, drove forward, backed up, drove forward in a vain attempt to straighten out the car in a space that could have fit four vehicles of its size. She stopped with the front passenger side tire up on the curb. Barbara Jean sat there for a long while, looking straight ahead. We watched her, wondering what was going on. Then we saw her slump forward until her forehead came to a rest on the steering wheel.
Clarice and I both got up and went out, running across the street to the car. Clarice got there first and opened the driver’s-side door. I went around to the other side and climbed in.
Barbara Jean was weeping and rolling her forehead back and forth on the top edge of the steering wheel. She asked, “How could this happen? How did I end up like this?” But she didn’t seem to be addressing anyone in particular. When she looked up at me her lovely, exotic eyes were bloodshot and her breath had the sweet, grassy odor of whiskey, something I’d never known her to drink.
It was a raw, early spring day and there were just a few people out on the street, but they were beginning to look in our direction. We were also attracting attention from the All-You-Can-Eat across the way. Clarice shut the driver’s-side door of the car and came around to my side. She leaned down and whispered in my ear, “Odette, she’s wet herself.”
I looked over and saw that, sure enough, the pale green of Barbara Jean’s skirt was stained dark with urine from her waist nearly to her knees. I took the keys from the ignition and told Clarice to stay with Barbara Jean. Then I went back to the restaurant to tell James what was happening. I handed off her keys to him and asked him to deal with her car. I went back outside and pulled our car up between Barbara Jean’s Mercedes and the All-You-Can-Eat’s windows so Clarice and I could transfer her to my car out of eyeshot of the restaurant’s curious patrons. Once we got Barbara Jean into the backseat of my Honda, Clarice and I drove her back to her house, cleaned her up, and then put
her to bed.
We waited four hours for Barbara Jean to wake up. Clarice and I spent the time chatting about Richmond, the garden at the house in Leaning Tree, the music she was playing now that her piano technique was back, my chemo—everything but what had happened earlier across the street from the All-You-Can-Eat.
When Barbara Jean came down from her room, Clarice headed into the kitchen and began to search through the refrigerator for something to fix for dinner. As Clarice boiled up noodles, she settled into some familiar, comfortable denial. She said, “Barbara Jean, you’re going to be just fine. You just have to make sure you get enough rest and enough to eat. It’s a nutrition issue, mostly.”
I wanted to join in and make the same excuses we had always made rather than deal with what was staring us in the face. But things had changed now. I was a sick woman who saw ghosts. I didn’t have the strength or inclination to lie anymore.
I said, “Stop it, Clarice. We’ve all gotta put an end to this right here and now.”
I turned to Barbara Jean, who sat across from me on a chrome-and-leather stool at the butcher-block kitchen island. “Barbara Jean, earlier today you got drunk and got behind the wheel of your car. You could’ve killed somebody. You could’ve killed a child.” Both Clarice and Barbara Jean gasped when I said that. And, looking back, I suppose that it was just about the meanest thing I could’ve said. But I was on a roll and I wasn’t going to let politeness interfere with what I had to say, what I should have said so many years earlier.
“You drove drunk and you pissed on yourself in public, Barbara Jean. There’s no way to pass that off as anything but what it is.
The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat Page 21