“That’s right, hunny,” Mary Bennett drawled. “And ever since we’ve been wearing this big hair and calling ourselves Tammy, we’ve been as happy as pigs in the sunshine. Nobody should be more giddy than you, because you, lucky girl, get to be Tammy and have this amazing hair all the time!”
“I love being Tammy,” Patsy said, with such a vigorous hair toss I was surprised she didn’t get whiplash. “Tammy isn’t just a name, and it’s not a wig and sunglasses, it’s a state of mind.”
I decided Patsy’s simple statement would define our group from that moment on.
“So, how about it, Tammy?” I said, brushing some excess bangs from my face. My entire head was sweating profusely from the wig. “You wanna come play with us?”
Chapter
4
Don’t get me wrong,” Mary Bennett said. “I like driving around getting honked at by total strangers, but there needs to be more to our organization than that.”
We were all plopped down in beanbags in Mary Bennett’s enormous rec room discussing the purpose of the Tammy Club. They had a Ping-Pong table, bumper pool, and a lit-up Elvis pinball machine. The pine-paneled walls were covered with posters of Tom Jones, who was Mary Bennett’s current heartthrob.
“Are you saying the Tammys should plan to be more civic-minded?” Patsy asked, sliding out a pencil from behind her ear. She’d taken on the role of club secretary. “Maybe we should raise money for charity by holding bake sales or car washes.”
“No!” was the very vocal and very unanimous answer from the rest of us.
“I think Mary Bennett means we should come up with other stuff we’d like to do together—you know—‘activities,’” I said.
“Right,” Mary Bennett said. “So long as those ‘activities’ are fun. That should be our official club motto: ‘If it ain’t fun, we ain’t doin’ it.’ Sound good to you?”
“Perfect!” Gerald said, and the rest of us murmured our agreement. Patsy recorded the motto in her spiral notebook.
“Suggestions, anyone?” I asked.
“Well, I can think of one thing in particular, but we’d have to ship in a few extra fellows,” Mary Bennett said with a grin. “Unless Geraldine thinks he’s up to the job.”
“I’d have to eat my Wheaties before the meetings,” Gerald giggled.
“Polka’s fun,” Patsy offered.
“Good suggestion, Swiss Miss,” Mary Bennett said. “I’m particularly fond of strip poker.”
Patsy frowned. “I didn’t say poker, I said—”
“Food,” Tammy said softly.
“That’s the best idea yet,” Mary Bennett said, lighting a cigarette. “We should open and close all meetings with the appropriate snack foods.”
“Do your parents let you smoke?” Tammy asked with wide eyes.
“Parent,” Mary Bennett said, tapping an ash. “All I have is my daddy, and he’s hardly ever home. That’s why we should have all our meetings here. The housekeeper’s off on Saturdays, and we’ll have the whole joint to ourselves.”
“Far out,” Gerald said.
“I was thinking out loud when I mentioned food,” Tammy said, rubbing her stomach. “Y’all picked me up before I had lunch.”
“Well, food is a helluva thought,” I said, feeling my own stomach rumble. “We should each bring something to eat at our meetings. I’m partial to anything fried.”
“I’ll bring something sweet,” Tammy said, licking her lips.
“I’ll do salty,” Mary Bennett said, and then she pointed a finger at Patsy. “Don’t you be coming ’round here with those smelly little fish, Swiss Miss. Now, lemme think. We’ve got sweet, salty, and fried. Why do I feel like an important food group is missing?”
“Au gratin,” I said.
“Egg-zactly!” Mary Bennett said. “Patsy, that is perfect for you—you are now in charge of all cheese-related foods.”
“And I’ll bring kosher,” Gerald said with a nod.
“I hope that’s some kind of sausage,” Mary Bennett said.
“Kosher refers to Jewish dietary laws,” Patsy explained. “That means Gerald can’t eat anything with pork.”
“Oh, hunny,” Mary Bennett said, patting his leg sympathetically. “You really ought to convert to Baptist. We don’t allow drinkin’ or dancin’, but we sho’nuff do like to eat us some pig.”
Our Tammy Club meetings fell into familiar patterns. First we’d eat, and then we’d loll about planning what we were going to do the rest of the day. Shopping, swimming (in Mary Bennett’s heated pool), gossiping, watching old movies, and cruising around town were some of our favorite pastimes. A Pageant Party was a must whenever a beauty pageant was on TV—Miss America, Miss Mississippi, or our favorite, Miss Hospitality. This was our favorite because instead of the fairly degrading “talent” competition in the other pageants, aspiring Miss Hospitalities had to dress as something representing the major industry in the county they were representing. So it was not unusual to see nearly grown-up women who clearly should have had more pride, if not sense, dressed as bolls of cotton, reclining chairs, or small aircraft. We’d call an emergency Tammy Club meeting so we could watch the pageant together and ridicule the contestants.
The red wigs ended up being too cumbersome (and attracted far too much negative attention in Gerald’s case), so we wore them only when riding around in the convertible. We still donned our cat’s-eyes whenever we felt a need to look mysterious—and trust me, five big ol’ people wedged up in a car, wearing the same identical fancy sunglasses, did pose a mystery to any and all observers.
When Homecoming came along, I suggested we have our own float in the parade.
“Other clubs do it. Why shouldn’t we?” I said at one of our meetings.
“That might be tricky,” Tammy said. “The football team sponsors the parade, and they have to approve all the floats. We’re not an official school club.”
“Don’t you worry your pretty little head ’bout that,” Mary Bennett said, batting her eyelashes. “I have ways of persuading the football team.”
True to her word, not only were we approved, but one of the players lent us a flatbed trailer, and a whole slew of them helped us build the float. They also brought the entire Tammy Club lunch from The Dog ’n’ Suds.
“Man, those guys are helpful,” I said to Mary Bennett as we were putting the final touches on the float an hour before the parade. “Did you pay them?”
“Nope,” she said coyly. “They’re motivated by the prospect of other rewards.”
“Such as what, exactly?” I asked nervously.
“I just made them all a little promise that made them all QUITE happy—and very willing to WORK, as you have seen. That’s all you need to know right now—the float is perfect—you just leave that other stuff to me,” Mary Bennett said with a sly grin and a wink.
I’d suggested we appear as the Tammy Queens in the parade—sort of a spoof of the Homecoming Court. All of us, except for Gerald, planned to wear old bridesmaid and prom dresses that Patsy embellished with sequins and feathers. Gerald was to wear a baby blue tuxedo and matching ruffledy shirt and SHOES, if you please, that he’d bought at a thrift shop.
A few minutes before the parade’s start, Patsy was finishing up painting the “Tammy Queens” banner when Gerald accidentally jostled her elbow.
“Sorry, Patsy,” he said, studying the banner. “Now the sign looks like it says ‘Yammy Queens.’”
“Too late to fix it,” I said, tucking a stray bra strap into my pink chiffon dress. A couple of football players affixed the banner to the float, and then helped us all get aboard. One of the players got behind the wheel of the truck towing the float.
“Those boys are leering at me,” Patsy said, patting her wig as she took her place on the float. “Maybe my dress is too tight.”
“I know what you mean,” Tammy said. “Their eyes were boring a hole clean through me.”
“It prolly had a little something to do with what I promise
d ’em,” Mary Bennett said, pulling a long, white glove up her raised arm.
“The usual reward, I suppose?” Gerald said with a knowing smile.
“Well, I sweetened the pot juuuusssst a weeee little bit,” Mary Bennett said, pinching her fingers together. The band had started, a signal for the parade line to begin. “I promised that all the Tammy Queens would give ’em blow jobs after the parade.”
“What?” Gerald said, holding his belly as if he’d been punched. The rest of us exchanged horrified glances.
“Excepting Gerald, of course,” Mary Bennett said. She grinned proudly. “Pretty effective, wouldn’t you say?” with a palms-up swoop of her arms at the float and us.
“Are you out of your fuckin’ mind!?” I exclaimed.
“Y’all put your eyeballs back in their sockets,” Mary Bennett said evenly. “Them boys ain’t ever gon’ collect. Trust me. I have tons of experience with this kind of thing.”
“Ummm, excuse me,” Patsy said, a bewildered look on her face. “But what is a blow job?”
The truck suddenly jerked forward, and we were on our way.
“Don’t you worry about that, Swiss Miss,” Mary Bennett said. “Just smile pretty and wave your little Yankee heart out.”
I can’t remember ever having a better time than I did on that first float. We pranced, waved, and blew kisses. The way the crowd waved back and carried on over us, you’da thought we were gen-u-wine Miss Americas on that float. I hadn’t been so full of myself since I was the first-grade Valentine Queen.
I looked across the float at my good friend Patsy and recalled our initial encounter over that first-grade crown—and her Peculiar Prowess way back then. She caught me looking at her and when I burst out laughing, she gave me a look that promised death if I told what I was thinking but joined my belly laugh—which we both declined to explain to the other Queens.
After the parade, Darla Hopkins, a bespectacled girl from the school paper, approached us saying she wanted a photo and an interview. We were only too happy to oblige and posed on the float.
“Y’all caused quite a stir,” she said, after snapping a picture. “I think you gave the Homecoming Court a run for their money. Tell me, how did you come up with your name, the Sweet Potato Queens?”
“What?” Mary Bennett said, a confused look crossing her face. “That’s not what we’re called.”
“But I thought…” Darla glanced at the banner on our float. “You’re right. I misunderstood. You’re the Yammy Queens.”
“That’s still not right,” Tammy said. “You see, Patsy messed up the banner—”
“Wait a minute. I like the sound of the Sweet Potato Queens. After all, we are as sweet as tea,” I said.
Patsy nodded. “And we sure put away a lot of potatoes.”
“I think it’s time for a change,” I said, “especially since we were such a big hit. As a matter of fact—”
“What in the hell do y’all think you were doing?” a red-faced Marcy Stevens said, flouncing over to our float in a long, formal white gown. She was the current Homecoming Queen, naturally. Her tiara was askew on her blond head.
“Excuse me,” Darla said to Marcy. “I’m trying to conduct an interview here, and—”
“Look at the five of you,” Marcy spat. “You’ve got a giant, a slut, a pansy, a maid, and a damn Yankee. What kind of Queens could you possibly be?”
Boy hidee. Marcy was ugly when she was mad. I couldn’t believe how insignificant and puny she looked from my perch on the float. I looked that little hussy straight in the eye and with a regal sweep of my arm said, “We are the Sweet Potato Queens, and YOU are NOT!”
To my utter and everlasting surprise, Patsy stepped over to the float railing and smiled down at Marcy and said in a voice as sweet and Southern as you please, “You know, Marcy, hunny, little girls who look like YOU gen’lly have to be NICE—you ain’t NEARLY good-lookin’ enough to be such a fuckin’ bitch.” And then, as if to punctuate it, Patsy turned her back to Marcy and let one fly—the magnificent Poot had returned.
There was just the briefest moment of stunned silence as we all processed what had just happened, and then I’d have to say it was your basic pandemonium after that. We all blew Coke out our noses (which also seemed aimed at the hapless yet despicable Marcy), laughing until I thought we would surely pee our pants—and prolly THAT would end up on Marcy, too. She appeared to levitate for a split second, making unintelligible spluttering noises, and then she attempted to whirl around to leave in a big huff but of course she forgot she had on that big white dress. It didn’t whirl quite as fast as she did, so she ended up practically hog-tied in her own homecoming gown and was flailing around in the grass trying without success to free herself, yowling in fury.
Gerald, whose mama raised him to be a gentleman always, even to mean-ass bitches like the one we saw writhing beneath us, jumped down from the float to help her. We thought we were gonna have to rescue HIM from HER. She reached out and grabbed one of his pant legs and hand-over-handed herself up off the ground, snarling like a crazed beast all the way. It looked like she might do him great bodily harm until she realized that Darla was focusing her camera on the Homecoming Queen in all her somewhat sweaty glory. With a venomous look and a parting snarl, she stomped away.
Then Darla looked up at us as if we really were Royalty. She even made a little curtsy as she asked if we would please, please, please—she would do ANYTHING—just let her be a Sweet Potato Queen. And just like that—a dynasty was born.
The Queens spent the next week or so on high alert, not sure which we were more afraid of: that Marcy Stevens would succeed in having us maimed or murdered, or that one of the football players was gonna try to “collect” on Mary Bennett’s Promise. But Marcy gave us the wide and respectful berth we deserved (possibly because we made Darla ask Marcy, in a sweet, innocent voice, if she would like prints of the photos Darla had taken of her with the Sweet Potato Queens—just to let her know we Had Proof). And the football players followed us around in worshipful adoration—just in case there was even a Chance, I suppose.
The rest of our junior and senior years of high school passed faster than shit through a goose. Before I knew it, it was the last day of school, and I was sitting in the auditorium watching my friends pick up a slew of awards. Tammy got a certificate for being the lead soloist in the choir; Mary Bennett collected a trophy for best actress for her performance as Katherine in the school’s production of The Taming of the Shrew. (She managed to pull off Shakespeare without a trace of a Southern accent, making us all wonder if her normal drawl wasn’t exaggerated just a bit.)
Our darling Gerald received a huge loving cup for being the captain of the Quiz Bowl team, and Patsy was awarded several ribbons for her oil paintings—one a self-portrait in full Sweet Potato Queen regalia.
During lunch that day we all gathered under a big live oak (we’d long since abandoned the steps of the vocational building), and everyone was passing around their awards to a chorus of oohs and ahhs.
“Don’t be modest, Jill,” Mary Bennett said, holding her hand out. “Show us what you got.”
“They don’t hand out any kind of trophy or plaque for being ‘Wittiest’ and ‘Class Favorite,’” I said softly. “They just call out your name—nothing to hang on your wall or put on your résumé. What good is it gonna do me that a bunch of kids liked me ’cause I could make ’em laugh? And that D I got in Algebra II—which was a GIFT, by the way, I shoulda flunked—means no college for me.”
“You drop that crap right now, Jill,” Mary Bennett said, shaking her head. “Who the hell cares about a bunch of dinky-ass dust-catchers from the trophy shop? You have so many other things going for you.”
I tugged at the collar of my blouse. “Like what, for instance?”
All the Queens became unnaturally quiet. Nobody looked me in the eye. Why had I asked such an asinine question?
“You’re a whiz at motivating people,” Tammy said, her expressio
n relieved because she’d finally come up with something. “You’re the one who encouraged me to join the choir. You convinced Mary Bennett to try out for the school play, and persuaded Patsy to enter all those art shows.”
“Remember how you staged a pep rally before my big Quiz Bowl meet?” Gerald said, patting his loving cup. “You even made me a breakaway poster to run through. I get misty-eyed just thinking about it.”
“You’re a born leader,” Patsy said, nibbling on a blade of grass. “If the Queens had a president, you’d be it.”
“And you’re a helluva cook,” Mary Bennett added. “Culinary history was made when you invented Pig Candy. Who else would have had the genius to combine bacon, brown sugar, and pecans?”
“Don’t forget about Chocolate Stuff,” Gerald said, smacking his lips. “We musta gone through a hundred pans of it in the last two years.”
“I’m disappointed,” I said, tossing about my hair, which was limper than usual from the June heat. “Not one of you assholes has said a word about my devastating beauty.”
They all laughed. I’d hoped to lighten up the moment so they wouldn’t guess how down I really was. All the Queens had plans to set the world on fire after graduation. Mary Bennett was moving to New York to conquer Broadway; Tammy was going to Nashville to be a country-and-western singer; Gerald had been accepted at Baylor to major in premed; and Patsy was moving to Atlanta, enrolled in art school. As for me, I was barely going to make a spark. I planned to stay in Jackson, and I’d found a pissy little temporary job as a receptionist at the Quick Weight-Loss Clinic. It was the only job I could get where I didn’t have to wear a hair net.
I must have been absent when God handed out talents. And clearly that was the same day he gave out titties and big hair.
“Diamond bracelet, pearl necklace,” Mary Bennett said, with a yawn, as she sorted through her graduation gifts at the kitchen table. “Those are the highlights—Daddy wanted to get me a new car, but I’m not ready to give up the Tammymobile.”
The Sweet Potato Queens' First Big-Ass Novel Page 4