A Penny Urned

by Tamar Myers

  “So, what’s this all about?” I asked brightly.

  “Miss Timberlake, I’m afraid I haven’t been entirely forthcoming.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “There is something important I feel obligated to tell you.”

  “That you’re in love with me?” It was of course a joke, and a stupid one at that. No doubt it had to do with the lingering hormones I’d picked up in the lobby.

  He turned in my direction, but I still couldn’t see his eyes, thanks to the light that came glancing through the window. I was grateful for that.

  “It regards your aunt’s will.”

  I prayed that my gasp had been felt only and not heard. “It’s valid, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, ma’am. It will stand up in any court of law.”

  “So, what’s the problem?”

  “It’s not a legal problem, ma’am. I guess it’s more of a moral dilemma.”

  “What is?” I wanted to grab him by his white lapels and shake him like a James Bond martini.

  “You see, ma’am, for years your aunt had another will.”

  “Of course. She was married.”

  I think he stared at me. “To my knowledge your aunt never married.”

  “Yes, she did. She married—” I caught myself just in time. If Aunt Lula Mae’s scandalous marriage had been forgotten, then who was I to bring it up? “What I mean to say is, what does an earlier will have to do with me?”

  Dewayne Kimbro folded his massive hands around a half-empty glass. Perhaps he sensed that if the waitress didn’t take my order soon, I was going to ask him to share.

  “Ma’am, I just want to see that the right thing is done.”

  “By whom?” My mouth was so dry you could plant cactus in there.

  Dewayne Kimbro took his sweet time before answering. “I’m afraid I might have some bad news,” he finally said.

  15

  “What bad news?”

  Tiffany, our cocktail waitress, chose that moment to make her appearance. Although I had no designs on Dewayne Kimbro, it still irritated me to see Tiffany giggle and jiggle far more than was necessary to get a good tip. I couldn’t help placing my order with a scowl.

  “Spill it, dear,” I snapped as Tiffany waggled off. If I didn’t watch myself, I was going to end up every bit as tart-tongued as Magdalena Yoder, an innkeeper I once met up in Pennsylvania.

  ‘Well.” Dewayne cleared his throat. “I don’t know where you are on the integration issue, but…”

  “I have no problem with integration,” I said, and then, dreading what was surely to come, tried to make a joke. “If Yankees don’t mind moving in next to me, then I don’t mind them.”

  “I’m not talking about Yankees,” he said, not cracking a smile. “I’m talking about coloreds.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Blacks, then. African-Americans. Your aunt—well, she was involved with one.”

  “I know.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, in fact I think she married him. And just for the record, Mr. Kimbro, it doesn’t bother me a bit. I don’t know how long your people have lived in the South, but I bet if you shook my family tree, more than a few dark-skinned folks would fall out. I doubt that few or any of the so-called best families are lily white. I know for a fact that my great-great-grandmother was Cherokee.”

  “You may be right. Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not prejudiced or anything like that. I just didn’t know how you’d take the news.”

  “Perhaps it’s time you told me,” I said through gritted teeth. “Let’s see.”

  He drained the last of his Bloody Mary. “In her first will, your aunt left everything to—uh—a certain Amanda Gabrenas.”

  “The budding pianist?”

  “You know about her?”

  “Yes, I met her this morning. At the house. She’s a very talented young woman. Tell me, why did my aunt change her mind? And what does this have to do with race?”

  He cleared his throat again. Despite the thickness of his lenses, I could tell he was looking desperately at Tiffany, who incidentally appeared to be flirting with the bartender.

  “Miss Gabrenas is—uh—African-American.”

  “She most certainly is not.”

  I think he blinked. “Your aunt seemed to think so.”

  “There must be some mistake. Amanda is as white as you or I. Not that it matters in the least to me, Mr. Kimbro. Amanda could be blue for all I care. However, I would like to know why my aunt changed her will.”

  “Amanda’s mother found out about the will and wouldn’t have it. Said if your aunt didn’t drop Amanda from the will, she was pulling her out of Juilliard.”

  “Wow! That’s incredible. Why would she do that?”

  Dewayne Kimbro shrugged. “I don’t know. But I got to feeling bad about that. I know your aunt was putting her through school. Now that your aunt’s dead—well—I guess young Amanda had to drop out of school, didn’t she?”

  “Yes, she did.” I sighed. “Okay, so now I feel guilty too. I tell you what, I’ll help her look into scholarships.”

  He smiled. “That would be right nice of you.”

  Tiffany sashayed over with our drinks. “Here y’all go. One Bloody Mary—” the woman bobbled her breasts in Dewayne’s face—“and one White Russian.”

  “I asked for a Bailey’s,” I said calmly.

  “Yeah, right. But a White Russian has Kahlúa in it. I like it a lot better.”

  “Then you drink it. Bring me the Bailey’s.”

  “Geesh!” Tiffany stomped off, her knickers, if indeed she wore any, in a knot.

  I smiled at Dewayne. “Please allow me to leave the tip.”

  He actually chuckled. “I had a waiter serve me fish once. Tried to tell me it was chicken.”

  “That’s funny. Mr. Kimbro—”

  “Please call me Dewayne.”

  “All right,” I said, but didn’t offer him an “Abby” in return. The man was holding something back, and it irked me. “Dewayne, I’d like to return briefly to the matter of my aunt’s will.”

  “Like I said before, Miss Timberlake, I’m sure it will stand.”

  “I’m not worried about that. What I want to know is why my aunt then picked me as her beneficiary. Why not some charity? Why not just establish a scholarship at Juilliard if she wanted to help Amanda so badly?”

  Dewayne took a long slip through one of those narrow cocktail straws. “She had just celebrated a significant birthday—her seventy-fifth, I think—and was feeling a need to reconnect to her birth family. I suggested she change the beneficiary to you and your brother.”

  “That was very nice of you, Dewayne. By the way, why wasn’t my brother Toy included?”

  “Your aunt heard through the grapevine that he was a ne’er-do-well. Your aunt couldn’t abide fools.”

  “Amen to that.” Of course, I felt guilty, now that Toy was no longer a ne’er-do-well but a wannabe man of the cloth. Although whether or not he actually became a priest remained to be seen. Always a poor student, Toy somehow managed to get admitted to a medical school in the Caribbean but dropped out the first week of classes when he was assigned a cadaver. Since then my brother has dropped in and out of a chef school, clown school, two art academies, and the U.S. army. He’s held more minimum wage jobs than a boatload of refugees, and to my knowledge has never stuck with any long enough to get a raise—well, except for his last job, parking cars out in Hollywood at some highfalutin restaurant.

  Dewayne sucked the last of his drink with a loud slurp. I, on the other hand, had yet to see my Bailey’s.

  “Miss Timberlake, I’d like to change the subject altogether, if you don’t mind.”

  “Ah, you want to talk about your fee, right?”

  “No, ma’am. Your aunt took care of all that. I was wondering if you’d seen the movie Titanic.”

  “Most of it.”

  “You didn’t like it?”

  “I loved it, bu
t I made the mistake of buying a large soft drink along with my popcorn. The last hour or so I did a better job of floating than the ship in question. It was hard to concentrate.”

  “I hear the musical is playing over at Oglethorpe Mall.”

  “There’s a musical version?”

  He nodded. “With dancing. I read somewhere they lost several of the dancers in that final deck scene. At any rate, I was thinking of seeing it tonight and was wondering if I might have the pleasure of your company.”

  “That’s a very nice offer Mr. Kim—I mean, Dewayne, but I’m seeing someone back home.”

  “Why is it the best ones are always taken?”

  Fortunately it was a rhetorical question. Nevertheless I shrugged and chuckled appropriately.

  “No, I mean it, Miss Timberlake. A nice, pretty woman like you—of course you’d be taken. But why is it I never meet someone like you before they’re taken? This someone you’re seeing back home—I bet he’s really good-looking, isn’t he?”

  I knew where this conversation was headed and made a snap decision to head it off at the pass. “It’s a she. And she’s gorgeous.”

  Dewayne Kimbro recoiled in surprise. “Oh?”

  Tiffany the barmaid inadvertently came to my rescue by plunking the Bailey’s in front of me. Bless her pea-picking little heart.

  The mysterious mob of bedecked teenagers had disappeared, perhaps beamed up by their mother ship. At any rate, I was able to cross the lobby without further exacerbating my acne. I had just pushed the elevator button when I heard the now familiar voice of Ashley.

  “Oh, Miss Timberlake. One minute, please.”

  I watched the doors open to reveal an empty car and, alas, close again. I watched Ashley leave her post behind the counter and trot over to me. She was much younger than I, after all.

  “Miss Timberlake,” the big girl said, slightly out of breath, “you have a message.”

  “I do?” I glanced at Ashley’s empty hands.

  “Not a written one. Your mother called while you were in the bar talking to Mr. Kimbo.”

  “That’s Kimbro, dear. What did my mother have to say? And why didn’t she just leave it on the answering machine in my room?”

  Ashley smiled. “She says she hates machines.”

  I nodded. That was Mama, all right. The woman doesn’t own an answering machine or a VCR or even an electric can opener. She does push a dilapidated old Hoover around—wearing her pearls, of course—but her vacuum was manufactured back in the days when a man by the same name was wearing dresses and running the F.B.I.

  “What’s the message?”

  Ashley could have written it down, but apparently it was more fun to screw one’s features into a semblance of deep concentration. It was certainly more dramatic.

  “Let’s see. She said to tell you she’d met some old friends—one was a Mrs. Williams, I think—and they’d decided to drive down to Saint Simons Island.”

  “Saint Simons Island? How far is that?”

  Ashley shrugged. “I’ve never been there. But I don’t think it’s that far. Maybe an hour or two south of here. Anyway, your mother said to tell you not to worry in case they decide to spend the night.”

  “Spend the night?”

  “That’s what she said. She said if they really liked it, it might be two nights. Hey, you’re not worried, are you? ’Cause your mother seems like a really cool woman.”

  “She’s cool, all right.” I paused to let the dripping sarcasm puddle at my feet. “And no, I’m not worried, but I am annoyed. If she calls again when I’m not in, tell her I’m going back home day after tomorrow at the latest. If she’s not back in time—well, she’s just going to have to find a ride home with Mrs. Williams or whomever. I am not a taxi service.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I’ll tell her that.”

  “And if you see either of my two friends, tell them—”

  “Tell us what?”

  I whirled. C.J. was standing at my elbow. A careless gesture and I might well have poked her in the knees.

  “If you ladies will excuse me…” Ashley backed away a few steps and then practically sprinted to the desk.

  I pushed the elevator button again. “Where’s Wynnell?”

  “Ooh, Abby, you’re not going to believe what happened to Wynnell.”

  “Try me.”

  “She ran off with that group of tourists. You know, the ones who were taking our picture by the statue of the Waving Girl.”

  “The tourists from Tokyo?”

  C.J. nodded. “I don’t want to be too hard on you, Abby, but I think you went overboard that time.”

  “No, that was you two,” I said, and giggled.

  “I’m serious, Abby. You told the tourists Wynnell was Linda Tripp and I was Monica Lewinsky.”

  The elevator arrived, and I ushered C.J. in. “That was only a joke, dear,” I said as I pushed our floor. “Nobody took me seriously.”

  “The tourists did. They all wanted my autograph, and some of the men even wanted—well, you know what. It was humiliating.”

  “I’m sure they were just joking, dear. They had to have known that I was. You don’t look anything like Monica.”

  “Yeah, but Wynnell does look sort of like Linda Tripp.”

  “Linda is prettier,” I said, and clamped a hand over my mouth.

  We reached our floor, and the door opened. “But Abby, it’s like Wynnell suddenly started believing she was Linda Tripp. The guide asked her if she wanted to join his tour, and she accepted. You don’t think she hit her head on something when she fell in the river, do you?”

  “No, I do not! Wynnell said I’d pay for my practical joke, and that’s exactly what she’s trying to do. She—”

  “Oh, my God!” C.J. said.

  I screamed as icy talons dug deep into my arm.

  16

  “Diamond!”

  The old woman cackled. “Got you scared real good this time, didn’t I, child?”

  I staggered to the wall and slumped against it.

  “Yes, ma’am, I got you real good.”

  “You scare me like that again,” I panted, “and all the mojo in the world isn’t going to protect your scrawny neck.”

  “Hush, child. It you that be in trouble, not me.” Diamond aimed a claw in C.J.’s direction. “Who might you be?”

  C.J. thrust a hand forward. “I’m Jane Cox from Shelby, North Carolina, but all my friends call me C.J.”

  Diamond gave C.J. the once-over. “That ain’t enough name for a girl like you. Crystal, that’s how I sees you.”

  C.J. grinned. “Crystal what?”

  “Ain’t no need for no other name ’sides Crystal.” Diamond turned back to me. “Where your mama?”

  “She must have heard you were coming,” I said naughtily, “because she’s skipped town.”

  “Where to?”

  “Saint Simons Island.”

  Diamond nodded, and the chicken foot and black leather pouch bobbled between her sagging breasts. “Good. She safe, then.”

  C.J. sucked in her breath sharply and then exhaled hard enough to blow out a candle at ten paces. “Ooh, but she isn’t.”

  I straightened. “What?”

  C.J. looked at Diamond, back at me, and then at the floor. “I had a dream last night, Abby. Your mama started out looking like she always does—you know, short, dark like you only prettier, puffy skirt, pearls—”

  “I know what Mama looks like,” I wailed.

  Diamond put a finger to her lips. “Shh. Let the child be. I have me a feeling this girl have the second sight.”

  C.J. grinned, needlessly encouraged. “Like I was saying, your mama started out like her regular self and suddenly she turned into this little dog. Only it being a dream and all, that didn’t seem to bother me one bit. Anyway, I walk over to scratch her ears, but the next thing I know she’s in one of those carrying cases. Well, I stick my finger through the wire mesh to scratch her anyway, but—well, it was just too awful.�
�

  “But what?” I screamed.

  C.J. was no longer grinning; in fact she looked close to tears. “She was dead.”

  “Dead? Are you sure?”

  “Well, not exactly.”

  I would have grabbed C.J. and shaken her like the paint mixer at Home Depot, but Diamond’s claws had found my arm again. “Don’t,” she said, reading my mind. “This child is something special.”

  “So is a case of the plague! C.J., finish your sentence!”

  “That’s Crystal,” C.J. said, and tossed her dishwater blond hair saucily.

  “Crystal, please,” I begged. “What happened to Mama? What do you mean by ‘not exactly’?”

  “Well, okay, since you’re using the right name, I’ll tell you. It wasn’t a dog anymore in that carrying cage, it was a bird. A kind of sparrow, I guess. And it was dead.”

  I turned to Diamond. “Well, that’s not so bad, is it? I mean, what does dreaming about a dead bird prove?”

  Diamond fingered the chicken foot. Her dark eyes were barely visible under the broad rim of her straw hat, but what I did manage to see in them didn’t look good.

  “Dead birds is bad omens.”

  “Ha!” I said bravely. “Then what about Thanksgiving? Turkeys are birds, and roast turkey is not a bad omen.”

  “It was for the Indians,” C.J., aka Crystal, opined. “Look what happened to them.”

  “Give me a break,” I growled. “The Pilgrims didn’t even eat turkey that first Thanksgiving.”

  “They did so. I studied that in school.”

  “Don’ matter,” Diamond said. “That don’ change what is, and it sure don’ change what to come. Only one thing change what to come.”

  I may have snorted, but I assure you it was in a ladylike manner. “And what would that be? Some low country voodoo spell?”

  “Ain’t nothing wrong with good juju. But first I got to have me another talk with Miss Amy.”

  “Your little ghost friend?”

  C.J.’s eyes widened. “You have a ghost friend? Ooh, cool!”