The Sisterhood of the Queen Mamas (3 page)

“Hot-air balloon rides! Tethered for your complete safety!”

“Are you crazy?” The harsh voice was only a few footfalls in back of us now. “After what happened to my husband?”

Maxine yanked on my elbow to keep me from stepping into a puddle.

“Jan Belmont,” she whispered. Even before I could whip my head around to gape, she tacked on, “Don’t look!”

But I
had
to look.

Jan was that kind of person. The kind you didn’t
want
to screech to a halt and stand and stare at but couldn’t help it. How do they describe that inclination? Like looking at a train wreck?

Few people would describe the perfectly pulled-together former cheerleader—and this being Texas, that’s not the kind of laurel that fades with time—as a wreck of any kind. But more than one poor soul who had gotten in her way certainly knew what it was like to be run over by a fully stoked locomotive.

Jan stopped. Well, her feet stopped any forward motion. Then she sort of juggled everything in her arms, without actually tossing anything up in the air. Although that would have been worth more than the price of the hot-air-balloon ticket to see, given that she had a sheet cake and four plastic containers of assorted baked goods to drop off for our church charity booth.

Anyway, she stopped walking just long enough to nail this poor young fellow with a spine-shriveling glare. Then she said, in a way only a woman like Jan—bless her heart—can pull off, “I’ve seen what becomes of a body that falls from even that short of a distance, thank you. And because of that, I have neither the inclination—or, frankly, the financial freedom—to take that kind of risk.”

The young man’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He stepped back. “No, ma’am. I mean, yes, ma’am. I understand.”

“I thought you might.” She smiled in such a way that it looked as if it actually pained her to lift the corners of her mouth. Then she stormed forward, people getting out of her way as she went. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.”

Maxine pulled on my elbow again, and I slipped out of Jan’s path.

Seconds later her monster-expensive—meaning the price of those things was more frightening than sitting through a scary monster movie—athletic shoe went plunging square into the puddle I had narrowly avoided.

Water splashed up, onto her skirt and legs.

She shut her eyes.

Someone else might have let out with a string of curse words.

Jan just gritted her teeth and announced, “This place is a pigsty. And I hate every second of the few minutes a week I am forced to spend here doing God’s work.”

Jan Belmont was indeed a malcontent. But then, life had not handed her much to feel contented about these past eight months. There’d been talk of trouble in the marriage, and of her not taking it well when both her children
went to swanky East Coast colleges and hardly ever returned to visit. Then her husband had had what folks in town solemnly called “the accident,” in that tone that made you wonder if it actually wasn’t. An accident, that is. Whatever it was, it required a lengthy recovery period, with no return to good health in sight to date. The financial strain alone had altered the course of her life in ways that no one could really grasp, especially with Jan trying so hard to pretend everything was fine. Right or wrong, the burden of that pretense would have crippled most other people.

“I can’t help but feel sorry for her,” I whispered to Maxine.

“I hate this dirty people-blocking-the-aisles-devouring-corn-dogs-and-tossing-the-gnawed-on-sticks-on-the-ground health hazard, eyesore-to-the-community pigsty. And I promise everyone within hearing distance that one day I am going to do something to see that this flea market is shut down and that monstrosity of a movie screen bulldozed to the ground!”

“I can,” Maxine said as we both watched Jan limp along with one soggy shoe toward the vendors’ entrance. “Help it, that is. In fact, I don’t feel sorry for her one bit.”

Yes, in Proverbs they warn us that it’s better to live in the corner of the roof than to share a house with a quarrelsome woman. I can’t help but wonder if that was what Marty Belmont had in mind—taking up residence on the roof—the day he crawled out of a second-story window of his home, fell off, broke half the bones in his body and crushed what little bit of goodwill there was left in his now ever-malcontent wife, Jan.

J
ust as heaven has its orders of angels—Seraphim and Cherubim, Thrones, Archangels and the like—churches have a hierarchy all their own.

You have the leaders and the laymen, the servers and the silent types, the vivacious go-getters and the perpetual victims, the nitpickers and the naysayers, the ones who show up every time the door is open and those you only see on Christmas and Easter. And in every church—at least every one that I have had the privilege and/or frustration to be associated with—there is a Bernadette.

When Bernadette Alvarez named the bridal-and-formal-wear boutique she started in her one-bedroom house At Your Service, absolutely everyone—from her grand
mother to the kid who delivered her first box of business cards—said the same thing about her choice.

“Perfect!”

I think she should have seen that as a warning.

People, sometimes even though they are total strangers, often see things about a person that that person cannot, or refuses to, see about themselves. And when these people go to the trouble to point it out again and again in one sweet, concise, enthusiastically spoken word? Well, that pointed-out-to person? She should see it for what it is—a big ol’ red flag.

Trouble with Bernadette was…when it came to warning flags, that girl was color-blind.

Having listened to her talk over the months I’ve known her, I think that’s because ever since she was a child growing up in a home overflowing with family and cultural conflict, Bernadette Alvarez has tried to make
everybody
happy. She tried to be Texan enough for her “My forefathers died at the Alamo” mother, Gloria Perry Alvarez. But also Mexican enough to suit her first-generation-immigrant grandmother, Gallina Roja.

“Let me—it’s Maxine again—just pop in here to emphasize that everyone in town calls that spry, ornery old woman Gallina Roja, which means ‘red hen.’”

“They say it’s because she has red hair, even though she is no spring chicken.”

“What Odessa is too nice to tell y’all is that we all know she got that title because she has practically pecked her daughter-in-law and granddaughter and even her precious son to death, trying to ‘improve’ their lives for them.”

Bernadette tries. She does try. To please both Gloria and
Gallina Roja, and not to mention she works hard to show herself as savvy enough to make her ever-ambitious father proud. All the while staying sweet enough to get along with everyone at church, who in many ways represent the extended family she had never had. That should have been enough, right?

Not if you grow up in a family where everybody wants to be in charge. Of everything. Everywhere. All the time.

Gloria has dominated the real-estate market throughout the county for years, and has served so long on the town council they say she can’t be pried out with a crowbar. Mr. Alvarez, a deacon in their church
and
a successful local businessman, used to be a state senator. And Gallina Roja? Her grandmother topped them all.

Her grandmother thought she could direct the action of the Lord Himself.

Bernadette says she couldn’t count the number of times she has seen her grandmother clasp her hands together, raise her gaze heavenward and cry out, “Please, Father, please, send this girl a good man to marry her and take care of her.”

Or “Please open her eyes so she can see there is more to life than work, work, work and letting people push her into every chore at her church that no one else wants to do.”

And when all else fails, “Father, I beg You,
do
something with this girl!”

Do something? Where had that grandmamma been? That’s Bernadette’s whole life—doing things, usually for everybody but herself.

At Your Service.
She’d intended it as a play on words about the goods she sold being used mostly in wedding
services, not a description of how she remained ever at her family’s beck and call. Or how, what with her being single and over thirty, the whole church had begun to assume that she had nothing better to do than be at everyone’s disposal. Because she worked out of her home and lived alone, they assumed she should serve on every refreshment committee. Because she had a strong, pure voice and had sung in the choir for more than half her life, they figured she was more than qualified to serve on choir fund-raising and hymnal oversight committees. Because she knew what it was like to live alone and be starved for company, they expected her to serve lunches to shut-ins. And because she wasn’t exactly a petite thing, they even counted on her to serve on the business end of a shovel every spring, when they remulched the flower beds around the church.

No wonder she finally decided to open a booth weekends here in the lot of the long-closed Satellite Vista Drive-In. For two-and-a-half days—she only worked a few hours on Sundays, after church and fellowship hour, and before she had to get back to teach the junior high youth group in the evening—she remained blessedly unavailable to everyone who thought they knew better than her how to run her life.

It was the kind of plan I wish I had thought of years ago, as a young minister’s wife. But I didn’t, and even if I had, I doubt I’d have had the gumption to try it. So, you see, I both envied and empathized with Bernadette. And I couldn’t help wanting to, you know,
encourage
her in any way I could.

“So, Bernadette, when does the new minister arrive?” I called as I paid for some of Jan’s donated brownies at the church booth across the aisle from Bernadette’s.

Before she could answer, Maxine leaned in, whispered in my ear and reminded me of something she’d mentioned in more detail earlier. It made me gasp. Big and dramatic-like.

Of course, I tend to do a lot of things big and dramatic-like, but this bit of news actually warranted it. “I’m sorry, Bernadette, sugar. What I meant to ask was, when does the new
single
minister arrive?”

Bernadette rolled her eyes and shook her head. Her long black hair fell softly over her shoulders as they rose and fell when she gave a kind of low-key sigh. Inhale. Hold. Then exhale, slowly. You know, nothing spectacular or overdone, the way some people—okay, me—the way
I
would have played it. I suspect Bernadette does most things low-key and unspectacular, just to keep herself below the radar of people who might want to get all up in her business.

I mean like her grandmother, of course. Not me. I wouldn’t dream of telling that sweet girl what to do with her life. Even though I have some really good ideas swirling around my head, starting with getting a look—and maybe something more—at that new single minister.

Single.

The good folks at the Castlerock Church of Christian Fellowship had called to shepherd their small but faithful flock that rarest and most sought-after of all creatures around here, the SIPYCM. The Still-in-Play, Young Christian Male.

At least young to a church that tended toward retirees and whatever children or grandchildren they could drag in on Sunday mornings. This thirty-something fellow would be arriving any day now. And by all accounts, he was seeking his very own SIPYC
F
for friendship, possibly marriage.

That’s what the secretary at Maxine’s church said, and she got it directly from the director of Little Lambs Christian Day Care, who heard it from the wife of the chairperson of the selection committee at Bernadette’s church.

“All I can say—” Maxine peered around me to nail Bernadette with a stern look, as if to let on that this was an important thing to consider “—is some church ladies someplace have certainly fallen down on their jobs. But that
cannot
last long. A single minister? I didn’t know they allowed such a creature to exist.”

Bernadette smiled.

“Here, these are for you.” I slid the box of baked goods across the tabletop toward Bernadette. “Yes, I know—I bought them, why shouldn’t
I
enjoy them?”

“Well, I, uh, I…” Bernadette stammered.

I held up my hand. I had chosen to ask that question, not the one that was obviously playing across her mind, because I did not expect a real answer to the real one. At least not an answer from
her.
I had my own answer, thank you very much, and I wasn’t one bit shy about sharing it. “Only kind of person who would ask why I don’t help myself to a plate of brownies is the kind of person who hasn’t seen me in my, uh, full glory…from the back…in the bathroom mirror after all the steam has dissipated. Steam from the shower, that is, not me.”

She smiled.

“Me, I haven’t run out of steam yet!” I laughed.

No, I still had plenty of steam in me. Full speed ahead and all. That’s why I had to buy the brownies. I saw it as the right thing to do, and I determined to charge right ahead
with it. The way I see it, the church needs my money. Churches always need money. And Jan—who reportedly stays up all night making things to donate to the booth to assuage her guilt over never volunteering in it—needed the self-esteem boost of having everyone tell her that her contributions sell out every time. And overworked, underappreciated Bernadette needs the comfort of chocolate and the kindness of someone who isn’t trying to make a contest of wills out of every simple gesture.

So when I checked my watch, I knew Jan Bishop Belmont would be back any minute—because she always expects her goodies to by gone by noon—to collect her plastic containers. Well, I just
had
to stuff some money into the donation jar and nab the last batch of brownies languishing there. This way, everyone benefits.

Maxine got it, of course.

“And don’t start with us with all that nonsense about losing weight, now,” Maxine warned as she pushed the delicious-smelling dark chocolate squares toward Bernadette. “You have a darling figure,”

Darling
might be a bit generous a word for Bernadette’s figure.

“My mother says I’m chunky.”

“Chunky?” Maxine shook her head, her expression sour. “That word doesn’t describe you at all.”

“Chunky?” I repeated, with my nose crinkled up. “Sounds weighed down. Cumbersome. Like a block broken off from the whole.”

“Not a
thing
like our Bernadette.”

“Zaftig!”
I love that word, and it fits when you’re talking about someone still young enough that none of her curves
have gone completely ’round the bend. “Now,
there’s
a word for our girl.”

“Curvaceous.” Maxine waved her hands in the air, as gracefully as she could with a plastic bag over one wrist and those bracelets clacking on the other.

“Zaftig and curvaceous,” I said, as if it was a queenly decree. “
Chunky,
that’s a word best saved for women like me and Maxine.”

“You got that right. If we are what we eat, then Odessa and I are fast, cheap and—”

“Dangerous to the hearts of middle-aged men everywhere,” I hastened to add. I may not be much to see in that bathroom mirror, but I
do
have my pride, after all.

“Shh. You shouldn’t talk that way in front of our little health-food friend over there.” Bernadette nodded toward the young girl dressed—on purpose—in things I’d have been ashamed to give to the church clothes closet for the needy. “If she hears you touting the goodness of food that’s bad for you, she might try to force you to take a sample of that wheat grass smoothie she’s peddling today.”

“What’s she promising the stuff does for you? Give you a thick, healthy mane?” Maxine sucked in her cheeks. “I sure wouldn’t feed anything she gave me to a dog.”

“Meow,” Bernadette teased.

“She’s just doing her job, y’all,” I said, trying not to stare at the girl’s hair, which was dyed a color I’d never seen on anything but a pair of ugly shoes. To make matters worse it was matted in the back as if she’d slept on it for weeks, and yet was meticulously gelled into place in front and clamped down with the sweetest sparkly barrettes in front.

I felt sorry for
her,
too. I mean, usually she was snarly and
downright ugly to people, as if she wanted us all to think she hated everything and everyone. But those sparkly barrettes told a different story.

Or maybe I’m just such a sucker for anything that glitters that I
imagined
a different story.

“Where
is
that child’s mother?” Maxine tsked.

“Something about her just breaks my heart, Maxine.” I shook my head. “I think we should talk to her, give her the benefit of our years of experience.”

Despite the fact that she couldn’t tell a red flag from a purple haze for her own self, Bernadette was very good at detecting warning signs on behalf of others. When you live to please people, that’s a given. So, obviously determined to save me and Maxine from our own good intentions, the poor misguided girl slapped her hands together and said, “So, what have you two found so far? Show me today’s treasures of the Tiara Madres.”

“Tiara Madres!” Maxine surrendered to the distraction in a heartbeat. A sure sign she hadn’t wanted to follow my lead and get mixed up with Little Mary Deathray and her wheat-grass concoction of doom.

“Don’t you love it when she calls us that?” I said, accepting Bernadette’s distraction and Maxine’s reluctance.

“I’d love it more if
somebody
was up to acting the part a little better.” Maxine arched an eyebrow. My dear friend gave me a nudge and gazed down on the portable showcase in Bernadette’s booth—the one with the four sample tiaras glimmering up at me from a deep blue velvet backdrop.

I sighed.

She sighed. “Face it, Odessa, we are a couple of Queen Mamas without the proper accoutrements.”

“One day, mark my words, ladies, you are going to break down and think of a reason to buy yourselves your very own queenly headgear.” Bernadette tapped the glass.

“Me? Don’t be silly.” Spoken like a true minister’s wife. “What would we do with those, Maxine? Perch one on top of our heads while we ride around in a golf cart keeping the reverends company for eighteen holes on a Wednesday afternoon? Use it to catch the light and signal passing airplanes to try to divert them from the flight path over our retirement village? Wear it to the Piggly Wiggly?”