Dixie Divas

by Virginia Brown

  When Bitty started to introduce me to the other young lady, we both said at almost the same time, “We met Saturday.”

  Cynthia Nelson is a newcomer to the HollySprings area, having just moved into SnowLake, a community and corporation between HollySprings and Ashland. It’s about ten miles east of HollySprings, five miles west from Ashland, situated on a two hundred acre fresh spring lake that sports dozens of homes on the lakefront and backs up to the HollySpringsNational Forest. It’s mainly retirement homes, weekend homes, and hunting and fishing cabins that used to be seasonal. But in the past few years, families wanting a slower pace of life for their children and themselves but within commuting distance of Memphis or even closer locales have been moving in to the corporation. Cindy is one of the latter. Her husband, I’m told, works for a major satellite dish company, and Cindy stays home with their two children and a menagerie of animals. Their house is right on the lake with a dock, a pontoon boat, a fishing boat, and a heavily wooded lot; they get free satellite, and Cindy drives her school-age children all the way to Marshall Academy in Holly Springs, because it has a better school system. Having seen the Ashland schools, I must, alas, agree with her. An air of shabbiness and neglect hangs over the high school despite the best efforts of dedicated teachers and the local school board.

  Cindy is cute, bubbly, but not silly. Before the entertainment began at Saturday’s meeting, we’d enjoyed a discussion about William Faulkner, writing, and the occasionally tedious but always rewarding value of keeping a journal. While I don’t bother to date my entries or write everyday, Cindy prefers a daily account of events that may run from a single sentence to pages of impressions, emotions, or just venting. We share that last trait.

  “It’s so nice to see you again,” I said to her, and I could tell she felt the same. Cindy has light brown hair, gray eyes, a no-nonsense way about her, wears a minimum of make-up and casual clothes that are nice but not flashy. In some way, she reminds me of my daughter Michelle who’s younger than Cindy’s thirty, but as my mother would say, “has an old soul.” Both young women seem to know what they want from life and aren’t afraid to work for it.

  Melody and Cindy have been volunteering at the historical society copying old documents and getting data entered into computers.

  “I can’t stay long,” Cindy said when we invited them to sit down with us for lunch, “since I have to pick my kids up at two-fifty-five, and before that I have to pick up Pudgy from the vet.”

  “Is Pudgy a dog or a cat?” Rayna wanted to know.

  Cindy laughed. “Neither. He’s a hamster that foolishly decided to bite our cat. Until then, the cat had been accepting if not terribly excited to have Pudgy in the family. Fortunately, I think both of them just wanted to get away from the other. Dr. Coltrane said there’s no real damage.”

  “Dr. Coltrane?” Bitty frowned. “I thought I knew the names of every vet at Willow Bend Animal Clinic. Is he new?”

  Nodding, Cindy said, “Sometimes he’s in the clinic, other times he’s out tending to cows, horses, or whatever.”

  Melody leaned forward, her voice lowered and her eyebrows waggling a little. “I’ve heard he’s absolutely gor-geous! I’m thinking of adopting a dog or cat just so I can meet him.”

  “How old is he?” Bitty asked immediately.

  “Um, I’d say in his late forties, maybe,” Cindy replied, “but only because of the dates on his framed diplomas hanging on the wall. He looks much younger.”

  Bitty’s smile was absolutely feline. Have I mentioned she’s very resilient?

  “Well,” said Rayna, “the new foot doctor who just opened up an office over by the bank and health clinic is quite attractive, too. Of course, he’s only in his late thirties or early forties, I think. There’s a candidate for you, Melody. Doctors always make a good living, even when they’re podiatrists.”

  Melody blushed a little. “Truthfully, I’m not sure I’m ready to date quite yet. You know. My last break-up was pretty bad.”

  “Heavens, sugar,” Bitty said, “don’t let any grass grow under your feet. You won’t get over the last one until you’ve tried out the next one. I should know. I’ve had four of the worst divorces in the history of Mississippi, and I can truthfully say that men are like buses. If you miss one, another one will come along in ten minutes.”

  “Not that it’s always going in the right direction, as your four divorces prove,” I observed, earning a grimace from Bitty.

  “Don’t listen to Trinket,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “She’s sworn off men.”

  Melody looked over at me. “Does that mean . . . well, I do know a lady over in Potts Camp who prefers other women. She’s had a recent break-up. I could introduce you, if you like.”

  Bitty choked on her sweet tea, and Rayna got really interested in the crusts of her grilled cheese with bacon sandwich.

  “Thank you,” I said, “but I’m not quite ready for any kind of relationship yet.”

  “I certainly understand that,” Melody said with a wise nod of her head. “I guess it doesn’t really matter if it’s a man or a woman, when you’re in love you do crazy things. Then when it’s over . . . why, life just seems empty for a while. Unless you do find someone new, I guess.”

  Apparently to change the direction of the conversation, Cindy said, “When I took Pudgy to the vet this morning, the strangest thing happened. I had to wait in one of the rooms just off the waiting room, and if the door’s open you can hear everything. A police officer came in with a dead dog wrapped up in a blanket and plastic. Said he wanted to know what’d killed it. Well, it smelled just awful, and three people in the waiting room had to take their pets and run outside to get away. I was gagging, too, I can tell you.”

  “How horrible,” Rayna said, and looked worried. “Did you find out what happened to it? I do hope there’s not some kind of jackass out to poison dogs with anti-freeze again. People like that should be locked up and dosed with salts, then given no access to a toilet.”

  “Forget the lock. Glue their butt cheeks together and let them explode,” said Bitty.

  “At the least,” Melody agreed. She looked over at Cindy. “What did happen to the poor thing? Was it the policeman’s dog?”

  “Dr. Coltrane came in before I heard what happened, but that kind of examination would take time anyway, I imagine.” Cindy shook her head. “And you never can tell what some people are feeling, so I don’t know if it was the policeman’s dog or not. He sounded straightforward about it, even when the receptionist got a little testy and told him he should have come around to the other door like he’d been told. I think she knew him, because she called him Jimmy Joe.”

  “Ah. Jimmy Joe Wellford,” Bitty said.

  '93My second cousin. Or is he my third? Sometimes I forget that kind of thing. Do you remember, Trinket?”

  “Third cousin, I believe, even though I have a hard time keeping all that straight myself.” Actually, I was still trying to envision the explosion of a villain dosed with salts and butt cheeks glued together. “Don’t you think it more likely that the glue would come undone before someone really exploded?” I asked no one in particular, and Bitty looked thoughtful.

  “Not if it was that gorilla glue, or super glue they show on TV that can hold chairs to the ceiling.”

  “I no longer believe all those commercials,” Rayna disagreed. “I can’t tell you the stuff I’ve bought because it looks so good on TV, and then it sits in a drawer until I either throw it away or donate it to the church bazaar to see if they can make use of it. Robby always tells me I have a too-trusting nature. I guess most women do.”

  “Not Trinket,” Bitty said. “I bet she’s never owned a bottle of gorilla glue in her life.”

  Since I hadn’t, but saw no need in giving fuel to Bitty’s teasing, I vowed that I had three tubes packed away somewhere in one of my moving boxes. It’s not that I’m untrusting, it’s just that sometimes I like to look at both sides of an issue, and prefer to see proof b
efore I commit myself either way. Most of the time, I strive for optimism, but I’m never really surprised when and if something doesn’t work out. Disappointed, perhaps, but rarely surprised.

  “Well,” Rayna said, and stood up with her sandwich remnants wrapped in the paper, “I think I’ll go on back home. I’ve got work to do. And I want to check on the stray cats that hide in that old compress building. Just in case there’s some crazy animal hater running loose again.”

  About that time a freight train came by, rattling the windows and shaking the floor even though it was moving pretty slowly. Most trains use the tracks a hundred yards down the hill, but engines always sit outside the depot, and a small crew mans the old cinder block building just a few yards away. Illinois-Central Gulf Railroad owns the tracks, but a local schoolteacher owns the depot that’s been in her family for years.

  We all waved our farewells, and then separated in front of the hotel to go our own ways.

  Once we were in my car, Bitty said, “I have the most perfect idea.”

  I shuddered. I’ve had vast experience with some of her ideas, and when said in that particular tone, it doesn’t bode well. Too few of Bitty’s ideas have satisfying endings for me.

  “I’m scared to ask,” I finally said. “Can you keep it to yourself?”

  “I could, but it’s too good not to share. Did you hear what Cindy said about Jimmy Joe bringing in a dead dog to find out what killed it? I think it might have been Sanders’ dog. Why else would the police care?”

  Sometimes Bitty really surprises me. “You may be right,” I said.

  She nodded. “Well, I know better than to go around and just ask him questions, because Jimmy Joe is naturally contrary anyway, and close-mouthed as a dead man if it has to do with police business.”

  “Lovely analogy,” I observed, but Bitty hardly slowed down.

  “So, if I take in my dog to see this new vet, he won’t know me and may just tell me all about what killed that dog. That way, I get to see if it’s Sanders’ dog, and at the same time, I get to meet this gorgeous new vet who’s just my age.”

  “Ah. You were paying attention. Cindy said he’s in his late forties. And you don’t have a dog.”

  “Well, good heavens, Trinket, there’s probably only a year or two’s difference between us, and besides, everyone says I look much younger than my age.”

  “You do,” I said truthfully, “but you still don’t own a dog.”

  She waved that small detail away with a flick of her wrist. “I’ll just borrow Aunt Anna’s dog. He’s fairly small, though not at all the kind of dog I’d choose. He’ll do in a pinch.”

  I had a vision of her dragging the neurotic Brownie into the vet’s, then a vision of her crossing the rural highway to the county hospital’s emergency room to get stitches in her hand.

  “Brownie isn’t very sociable,” I said. “And even if you could somehow get him into the vet’s without an escort or getting half your arm chewed off, Mama would never let you take him off without her. She adores that dog.”

  Bitty mulled that over for a moment or two, and I thought maybe she’d rethink ways to get information and meet the new vet, but I should have known better.

  “I have it,” she said as we turned off Van Buren, “I’ll borrow a dog from Luann Carey. She has several, and probably won’t even miss one.”

  “Uh, you are going to ask her first, I hope?”

  “Honestly, Trinket, sometimes you act like I’m an idiot.”

  “Sorry. I just know you get carried away when you’ve got a mission. And obviously, your current mission is to snag you a new husband. I’m just not sure why, since you’re still having problems with your last husband.”

  “I’m not looking for a new husband. Are vets rich?”

  “Some are. Bitty, is that what you base a good marriage partner on? His bank account?”

  “I might as well. Look what basing a marriage on love did for me. And for you, for that matter.”

  “You’ve got me there. And which one of your husbands were you in love with? Just out of curiosity.”

  Bitty laughed. “The one with the most money, of course.”

  “Oh, that narrows it down. Except Frank—your first husband, father of the twins, in case you don’t remember. He started out with a lot of money. Was it him?”

  “Frank was definitely the best-looking one. We made beautiful babies, didn’t we?”

  “You certainly did. Clayton and Brandon have turned into good-looking young men, too. Or were the last time I saw them. How are they doing?”

  “Driving all the girls at Ole Miss crazy. They’ve each changed their major a few times. I think it’s a ploy to keep from graduating so they can keep drawing money from their trust funds. Good thing Frank set those up before he got involved in all that mail fraud business.”

  “Is he still in prison?”

  “He’s got eight more years left, I think. Those Federal guys really do take some things to the extreme.”

  Frank Caldwell, Bitty’s first husband, had done a lot more than mail fraud, but good lawyers and a sympathetic judge that used to go fishing with the senior Caldwell kept him from getting life. Bitty’s third husband had been a Frank, too, but she called him Franklin so as not to get them confused. I’ve always thought her choices were repetitive, and not very wise.

  Since the mystery of which husband Bitty might have truly loved held a limited appeal for me, I changed the subject.

  “Speaking of prison—I wonder if Philip’s disappearance has anything to do with Sanders disappearing.”

  I pulled up in front of Bitty’s house and parked at the curb. Her lawn service keeps the beds mulched and tidy, and before long the pansies planted in the front beds and in twin concrete pots on each side of the walkway to the porch will be replaced with summer flowers.

  “Oh, I doubt it,” Bitty said. “Philip will turn up in some bimbo’s bed, and Sanders doesn’t look like the type for threesomes.”

  I went inside with Bitty to use her phone to call my parents and see if there was anything they’d like me to bring home from the store. I had to pass by the Piggly Wiggly anyway, and it’s much less trouble for me than for them. There’s a nice phone in Bitty’s front hall, one of those fancy white French retro copies that has punch buttons instead of a dial. She keeps it on a small table that has a pretty mosaic tile garden pattern.

  “You should get a cell phone,” Bitty said. “Then you could call them from anywhere.”

  “And they could call me.”

  “I see your point.”

  She started toward the coat closet to put away her poncho, and the doorbell rang. Since I was already on the phone dialing home, Bitty went around me to get to the door.

  About the time Mama answered, I heard Bitty’s voice rise indignantly and turned to see several policemen at the door.

  “Trinket,” Mama asked, “what’s going on there? What’s all that noise?”

  “Mama, I’ll have to call you back—everything’s fine, I’m sure. I think Bitty’s alarm went off and the police are here to check things out.”

  Of course, I knew that wasn’t it at all. The way Bitty barred the door with one hand on her hip and shaking her finger at the tallest officer standing his ground couldn’t mean anything good.

  Sometimes I hate it when I’m right.

  “Mrs. Hollandale,” the officer repeated politely, a nice young man with a stoic face and patient tone, “it’s just routine. We’re not here to arrest you, but we would like to ask you some questions.”

  “Do you know Lieutenant Jimmy Joe Wellford? He’s my cousin,” Bitty said, still waving a finger. “I’ve a good mind to call him right now!”

  “Yes, ma’am. Lieutenant Wellford said you might want to do that.”

  “Well then!”

  “He also said to tell you he’s not accepting your calls and to cooperate.”

  Bitty looked outraged. I decided I might be able to help, fool that I am.

&nbs
p; “Officer, Mrs. Hollandale has been very upset by the disappearance of her ex-husband. I think if you’ll just give her a moment to calm down, she’ll be most glad to answer any questions you have for her.”

  par I ignored the look of betrayal Bitty shot at me, and took her by the arm to drag her a few feet deeper into the hall and away from the officers.

  “Bitty,” I said in a low tone, “by not cooperating you look guilty of something. Invite them in, we’ll give them some sweet tea, and you’ll politely, calmly, and truthfully answer every question they ask. Okay?”

  “You’ve gone over to the dark side.”

  “I prefer to think of it as the sensible side. Now I’ll go fix the tea and bring a tray, and you take the officers into the living room.”

  One thing about Bitty, she can be very flexible when she chooses.

  Turning with a brave smile, she went back to the doorway and said, “I do apologize for my rudeness. It’s been such a terrible time for me lately, with all the uncertainty and everything. Of course you may come in and ask me some questions. My cousin will bring us some sweet tea while we talk. Do either of you take lemon?”

  Both officers stepped inside. I’ve noticed that as I get older, professional people tend to get younger. I’m not sure why that is. These two young men looked as if they should be juniors in high school. The one obviously in charge had caramel-colored skin and refined features, and the other officer, pale white, thin, and jumpy, kept looking around the room like he’d never been inside a house before. He reminded me of Barney Fife.

  “Trinket, would you mind hanging up my poncho for me?” Bitty asked, giving me a sweet smile while her eyes shot daggers in my direction.

  “Why, of course I would, dearest cousin,” I replied as I held out my hand for it, leaving it up to Bitty to decide if I meant I minded or not.

  Bitty and the two officers went into the living room with its tall windows that let in lots of sunlight through the sheer curtains, and antique couches and chairs probably uncomfortable for any man over five-two, while I crossed to the coat closet to hang up Elvira’s cape. The door was already slightly ajar, and I seized the brass knob and pulled it wider to reach inside for a hanger.