arkansastraveler (15 page)

“Do you want something from the fountain?” Mr. Hawley called. “Mrs. Hawley’s down to the Piggly Wiggly pickin’ up some cold cuts for lunch, but I can come up and mix you something.”

“No, thanks,” I called back. “I’ll just drink some of my husband’s. Did you get a fishing license?” I asked Gabe, slipping onto the slick green stool next to him. For old time’s sake, I twirled around a few times.

“It’s good for a week,” he said.

I grabbed his paper cone of hand-mixed soda and took a drink. “Ummm, I forgot how good a perfectly mixed Coke tastes. It looks like our plans for fishing this afternoon have to be changed. At least, mine do. You can still go.”

“What’s up?”

I admitted he was right about Amen hiding something and how she’d invited us out to Miss DeLora’s at two o’clock. “But you don’t have to go.”

“We only have one car,” he pointed out.

“Oh, that’s right.”

“I’ll drive you out there,” he said, taking the soda out
of my hands and finishing it. “We can go fishing tomorrow.”

“Miss DeLora lives out by Mayhaw Lake. Maybe she has some fishing tackle you can borrow.”

“It’s not that important. I’m really here just to support you, visit with your family.” He folded up the magazine and stuck it under his arm. “Besides, I’m a little curious about what your friend Amen will reveal.”

I slid down off the stool. “Ha! You’re always telling me I’m the nosy one. Admit it, you’re just as nosy as me.”

“I was a homicide detective for five years. I have a professional reason to be curious. You, on the other hand, are just a busybody.”

I jerked the magazine from under his arm and smacked him across the chest. “You take that back.”

“It’s the truth,” he said, laughing and holding up his hands in defense.

I smacked the palms of his outstretched hands.

He grabbed for the magazine. “You’re always hitting me,” he said, still laughing. “Why are you always hitting me?”

I danced out of his reach. “Because you deserve it, Friday.”

“If y’all are gonna be foolin’ around like that, go outside,” Mrs. Hawley said, coming in the front door carrying a red and brown Piggly Wiggly bag. Her pink cat’s-eye glasses were the same style she’d worn for the last forty years. I wonder if she realized they were back in fashion again.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, smacking Gabe one more time before darting out the door.

Outside, I handed him back the magazine and said, “We’ll be catching heck about being thrown out of the drugstore tonight from Aunt Garnet, mark my words.”

“You’ll be catching heck,” he said smugly. “Aunt Garnet
loves
me.”

It took us about a half-hour to get the Explorer and drive out to Miss DeLora’s. I kept us entertained reading sections of the sports magazine out loud.

“Bagging Trophy Bucks During the Rut,” I read. “Tips on Hunting October Squirrels. Which one would you like to hear first?”

“I bought it for the article on bass fishing,” he said.

“Oh, sure. Hey, here’s something right up your alley. An advertisement for deer scent. Guaranteed with two drops to arouse sexual interest and curiosity in both bucks and does. And look, they’ve got another lure made from doe urine. Says it’s one hundred percent natural doe-in-heat urine collected during the twenty-four-to-thirty-six-hour breeding period. How do you figure they do that?”

“I don’t even want to think about it. I just want to go fishing. Nice, asexual fishing. No urine involved.”

I hadn’t been out to Mayhaw Lake for ten years, but I remembered how to get there without any wrong turns. Things had definitely changed since I’d last seen the lake. At the turnoff, there was a fancy wooden sign advertising
LOTS FOR SALE
—
BUILD TO SUIT
.

As we drove around the lake, it became obvious that the modern American’s obsession with planned retirement and recreation had come to roost with a vengeance in central Arkansas. This had once been a fairly untouched, local recreation spot where Sugartree citizens and other small-town visitors could fish, picnic, and camp. The far side of the lake, the hardest place to get to, had also been a popular place for teenagers to park, drink beer, and make out. Now it appeared the lots were being sold for vacation cabins. Some of the cabins looked like something straight out of
Architectural Digest
, leading me to believe that it most likely wasn’t the average Sugartree resident buying them.

“Looks like Mayhaw Lake is going upscale,” I said as we drove along the narrow, two-lane road, looking for Miss DeLora’s cabin. I recognized it the moment we saw it. It
was a real log cabin, not the manufactured kind.

“That’s my uncle Boone’s old hunting cabin,” I said. Only it had been completely rebuilt from the primitive cabin Boone and his friends used to stay in back in the fifties. The difference between it and the paint-by-number cabins of her neighbors was sheer authenticity. If I remembered correctly, this cabin was well over a hundred years old. Rich purple and glowing white morning glories crowded the flower beds in front of the deep porch. Shagbark and black hickory trees shaded the graveled front walk.

We pulled up in the circular driveway, parking behind Amen’s Mustang.

“What a great place,” Gabe said, climbing out of the car.

“Amen told me Uncle Boone offered to buy her a house anywhere she wanted, but she insisted on this place.” I stooped down and picked a long-stemmed yellow and orange wildflower. “Look, Butter and Eggs,” I said, holding it out to him.

Gabe’s expression was confused. “What?”

Amen came out on the front porch and answered for me. “It’s the name of the wildflower. Miss DeLora used to quiz us kids all the time. Benni
would
remember the one that pertained to food.” She was dressed in cutoff jeans, a white cotton tank top, and rubber thongs, looking more like the girl I used to play with during those muggy Arkansas summer days.

“Come on in,” she said. “Miss DeLora’s made y’all some iced tea and ginger cookies.”

The wishing well in front greeted us with a soft gurgling of water. It was actually a working fountain, most likely the creation of Uncle WW.

Inside, the cabin was pure Miss DeLora—family pictures, old fans, hand-embroidered samplers, and her breath-taking quilts. Her favorite colors were obvious in the quilts and window coverings—turkey red, black, grass green,
pure sky blue, hot pink. A black and salmon-pink Snail Trail quilt lay across her black vinyl sofa.

“Oh,” I said, picking up the sofa quilt. “Lord forgive me, I purely envy this quilt. Y’all’d better check my pocketbook when I leave.”

Amen grinned up at Gabe. “She’s soundin’ more like us the longer she’s here.”

“So I’ve noticed,” he replied.

Miss DeLora came out of the kitchen carrying a tray of glasses and a crystal plate of thin, star-shaped cookies.

“Grandma, let me help you,” Amen said, rushing over to her.

“Now, get back, child,” she scolded. “I’m perfectly capable of carrying a couple of glasses of iced tea and some cookies.” She nodded toward the large, airy living room. “Take a seat, and I’ll serve this up.”

“May I help, ma’am?” Gabe asked, reaching for the tray. He gave her his most ingratiating smile.

She smiled back up at him, batted her eyes in a flirtatious manner, and allowed him to take the tray without protest. “Yes, you may, young man. Just set it there on the coffee table. You must be Benni Louise’s new husband.” She undid her lacy white apron and carefully folded it, setting it on a side table. “My, you’re a nice-looking fellow.”

Amen rolled her eyes at me and jerked her head in the direction of the kitchen. “Grandma, Benni and I will get the napkins.”

“That’s fine, Amen,” she said, already sitting down next to Gabe on the sofa. “I’ll just get better acquainted with Benni’s young man. What did you say your Christian name was, boy?”

In the cheery yellow, red, and white kitchen, I couldn’t help giggling at Amen’s mock exasperated expression. “Now, c’mon, Amen, you know Miss DeLora’s always been a flirt. Let her enjoy my husband.”

She leaned against the white refrigerator, folded her
arms across her chest, and smiled. From the living room came a burst of male and female laughter. Amen opened a drawer and took out some red-and-white-checked napkins. “They sound like they’re doing fine without us. Let’s take a walk.”

In the living room, Miss DeLora was pouring Gabe another glass of iced tea and urging more cookies on him.

“Here’s the napkins, Grandma,” Amen said. “Benni and I are going to take our tea and go down to the lake.”

Miss DeLora waved her hand at us without taking her eyes off Gabe. “Take your time, girls.”

Carrying our plastic glasses of iced tea, we walked down the narrow, mossy path toward the lake, about five hundred feet from Miss DeLora’s front porch. There were only a few boats out this Wednesday afternoon. The weak October sunlight glinted off the dark surface of the water. In the distance I could hear a motor start, stop, then start again. One of the boats inched across the lake.

At the small dock, next to some river birches, we sat down on the edge and dangled our feet over the water. A flock of goldfinches darted in and out of the dark green elmlike leaves.

“It’s been so long since I’ve been here,” I said. “I can’t believe how much it’s changed.”

She snorted softly. “Yeah, as they say, that’s progress.”

We sat silently for a moment, drinking our tea and watching ducks bob for food, their fat feathered tails pointing straight to heaven.

“Reckon that’s where the term
a sitting duck
came from?” she commented.

“No doubt,” I said.

“I know how they feel,” she said, narrowing her eyes as if looking for something on the pine-jagged horizon.

“I imagine you do.”

Another silent moment passed. Then she said, “Duck and me are in love. We want to get married.”

I was stunned silent. Finally I managed to stutter, “Uh, gee, that’s certainly a conversation stopper.”

“You don’t approve?” Her voice was sharp, accusing.

“No, that’s not it at all. I’m just surprised.”

“Because I’m black and he’s white?”

I slammed my glass of tea on the dock, sloshing some on my jeans. “For cryin’ out loud, I’m married to an Hispanic man! How could you say that?”

“So what’s the big surprise? That someone like Duck could fall in love with someone like me?”

That really got my dander up. “Amen Harriet Tolliver, I oughta push you right into this lake. I’m
surprised
because I’m still back in the sixties when we were all kids playing in Emory’s tree house, scheming ways to get ice-cream money and singing rounds of ‘Greasy, Grimy Gopher Guts’ at the tops of our lungs until Miss DeLora came after us with a flyswatter. Moving from that to you and Duck doing the horizontal mambo under satin sheets is a big leap, okay? Just give me time to comprehend it.”

She fished a piece of ice from her glass and popped it in her mouth. “The horizontal mambo? You’ve been reading too much bad fiction.” She crunched down hard on the ice cube.

“As for you marrying Duck, you’d better do it quick, or I’m gonna tell Miss DeLora you’re feeding among the lilies without the benefit of wedding vows.”

She laughed and laid back on the dock, cradling the back of her head in her arms. “Oh, Lord, the Song of Solomon. Remember reading that out loud to each other when we were thirteen? The things we imagined?”

I laughed with her, glad we’d sidled around another conflict about race. “Yeah, and it’s way better than we ever dreamed, isn’t it?”

“Way better.” She sighed. “You know, Grandma loves Duck. She’d approve of us even though she’d have her say about the difficulties of a black woman marrying a white
man. It just happened by accident. We were thrown together when he became involved in my campaign. He’s been such a support, both financially and emotionally. I think maybe I’ve always been a little in love with him. Just never wanted to admit it.”

“Does anyone else know?” I asked, lying back and joining her, staring up at the deepening blue sky. A flock of ducks flew over us, their wings flapping with that impossible triple-time frenzy that always made me mentally hold my breath, sure their heavy bodies would fall out of the sky like feathered bombs.

“Just Quinton and Emory.”

I sat up abruptly. “Emory knew and didn’t tell me! He’s in for it now.” I narrowed my eyes at her. “And you. Some friend.”

Her deep, carefree laugh rolled over me, taking me back to our childhood when our biggest problem had been finagling enough money out of the adults to buy Goo Goo Clusters and RC colas at the Piggly Wiggly.

“Good, that tells me I can actually trust him to keep his trap shut when necessary.” She rolled over and faced me, head propped up on her hand. “I was going to tell you, really I was. And if it makes you feel any better, the only reason Emory knows is ’cause he caught us kissing in Little Rock the first night he came back home. I should have realized that the first place he’d hit coming into town would be Varsity Burger out near the university. He and Duck always loved their chili cheeseburgers. They must have caught a cravin’ at the same time.”