Born Under a Lucky Moon (18 page)

“Good night then, sunshine.” Mom kissed my forehead and closed the door quietly behind her.

I woke up at 8:10 a.m. to the high-pitched whine of a buzz saw. I groaned into my pillow—now what? I pulled on a pair of sweatpants and went to the kitchen. Mom and Dad were already having coffee and watching Evan's show. Not that I could tell what Evan was saying because the buzz saw was so damn loud. I watched his mouth move silently while he demonstrated pouring a bottle of beer over wood chips. Ah, he was going with the smoked walleye segment after all. The trick was to soak wood chips in beer for about twenty-four hours, put the chips in the Weber Smokey Joe, and presto, smoked walleye.

The buzz saw whined down and then stopped. Tom bumped his hip on the locked back door and walked in. It was too early for me even to ask what they were all up to now. Tom got some coffee and the newspaper and we all watched Evan. He laid some fish on a grill. Then he put the cover on it and lit a cigarette. He sat on a picnic table smoking and regarding the grill. “Corn would be good with this I guess,” Evan mused.

I could tell he was ad-libbing. His philosophical inspiration hadn't been with him much lately, he had complained to me privately. “But it would be better to wait until August when the corn is good and ready to be picked. In the meantime, some fried squash will do fine,” Evan continued. We watched him stub out his cigarette on the ground, then pick up the butt and put it in his shirt pocket. “Have to be careful of the environment,” he murmured. Then he wandered back into the kitchen TV set. The cameraman followed him. The camera bobbled up and down as we heard the cameraman sneeze.

“Bless you,” Evan said as he picked up a yellow squash. He sliced it very thin, dipped it in water, and then rolled it in flour seasoned with salt and pepper. Then he threw it all into a pan and fried it in butter.

“That's my recipe”—Mom nodded proudly to Dad—“straight from West Texas. I told Evan I thought it would be good with walleye fish.”

“Do you know how walleye got their name?” I asked Tom.

“Nope.” His attention was on
The
Muskegon Chronicle
.

“Did you know that Muskegon is actually a Native American word that means ‘swamp'?”

“Like I give a sparrow's fart.” Without taking his eyes off the paper, he reached for his coffee mug and took a sip.

I went back to watching Evan's show until a commercial came on. “So what's Tom making out there?” I asked Mom.

Mom explained, “Sometimes Grandma needs a wheelchair to get around so we had to make a plywood ramp for the back steps. She'll be arriving in a couple of hours. Dad is going to pick her up. Can you stay with her this afternoon?”

I knew it wasn't really a question. I would be staying in with my grandmother on a beautiful July afternoon.

“Come on, Mom. Walker was going to come by this afternoon.”

“Then you can both stay with Grandma,” Mom said and the case was closed.

“All right, but I'm still getting my hair done this morning.” I had finally saved up enough tips from the Blit to try to repair my damaged hair.

“Then could you stop by the church and ask Father Whippet to come over? I'd like him to meet your grandmother.”

Mom had apparently forgotten that there was a little invention called the telephone, but it wasn't worth arguing about. I drove to Alan's Beauty Shoppe and arrived to find a line of women waiting in front of me. They were seated reading
Redbook
and
Good Housekeeping
and the
Enquirer
. Alan was busily trying to shepherd a few women through their hair rinses while his assistant blow-dried another. I walked over to Alan, who had his hands deep in a shampoo.

“I have a ten o'clock, Alan. What's up with all this activity?” Usually I could stroll in without an appointment.

Alan rolled his eyes. “I have no idea, darling. You would have thought the word was out that they were discontinuing the blue rinse at midnight.” He glanced down to make sure the woman he was shampooing had her ears covered in soap. “Can you come back in an hour? I'll have the ladies done by then.”

This seemed doubtful to me, but I figured I'd run over to St. Peter's to talk to Father Whippet. I walked across the town park, skirting the World War II memorial, to get to the church. The Muskegon Seaway Festival was in a few days, and people were everywhere erecting booths and tents in the park. The festival usually had a couple of amusement park rides, an art fair, and, by far the most popular attraction, a beer tent. North Muskegon countered with an ice cream social up at the high school, followed by fireworks. Since these events were two of the few big things that happened in either town, they were well attended. The other big thing was the Polka Festival, which was a few weeks later.

I went in the side door of St. Peter's and down the corridor to Father Whippet's office. The outer office, where his secretary sat, was empty.

“Hello?” I called out. Nothing. I entered the office and knocked softly on the door leading directly to Father Whippet's inner sanctum. “Hello?” Again, nothing. His office hours were clearly posted and he was supposed to be there. I put my ear to the door and heard a gasping noise. I recoiled. He could be having a heart attack. One of my mother's relatives had died that way. He was in the bathroom, but they just thought he was having trouble doing his business. Nobody checked on him until another family member got anxious to pee.

I knocked again, but still just heard the same gasping noise. I jiggled the handle, but it was locked. Then I thought of my own family's door and I gave it a sharp knock with my hip. It bumped open. I moved inside the office, which was clearly empty. The lights were off, and only dim, filtered sunlight came through the lead-paned windows. The gasping noises had abated. I stood in the middle of the room not sure what to do.

He might have fallen behind the heavy antique desk. I moved around it but Father Whippet was not lying prostrate on the floor. I pulled the chair out from the desk and got down on my hands and knees to check the leg area. Maybe he had slipped down there. Nothing. I put my hands on the edge of the desk to hoist myself up, then I saw the papers on the desktop. They were drawings that could have put the
Kama Sutra
to shame. They were crudely drawn and involved poses that I didn't think were actually achievable between a man and a woman. I didn't get to see much more because at that moment Father Whippet opened another door that led to his office. I realized then, of course, that he had been in his private bathroom. He must be constipated to be making so much noise. He stood stock-still, staring at me with the papers in my hand, and I stood stock-still, staring at his secretary, who emerged from the bathroom, too.

Father Whippet took the offensive. “What are you doing in my office!”

If I'd had my wits about me, I would have retorted, “What are you doing with your secretary in the bathroom?” Instead I took a step back. “My grandmother is going to be staying with us for a few months. Mom wants you to come by to see her.” I dropped the papers, edged toward the door, and bolted out.

I took a deep breath back out in the sunshine. It couldn't possibly have been what I thought. Father Whippet and his secretary having sex in the bathroom? It was too bizarre. I didn't know what to make of the drawings. I scuttled back across the park to the Beauty Shoppe. The overhead bell rang as I entered. Alan waved me to a chair and then flopped down in the one next to it. “What a morning. I've never seen anything like it.”

“Me neither,” I said heartily.

Alan reached over and picked up some of my hair. He let it fall again. “What demon gave you such a bad haircut?”

“You did, Alan,” I said wearily.

He didn't flinch. “I must have had a good night the night before. This only happens when I haven't slept.”

“Have you slept now?”

“Yes, and we'll make you look fab-o. But tell me I didn't do that to your bangs.”

“No, that was me.”

I was still thinking about Father Whippet. Mom always said I had an overactive imagination. Sammie even teased me, saying, “You are the biggest exaggerator in the whooole world.” Clearly, I was just putting two and two together and coming up with seven. It was just too absurd to think that the good Father had something going on the side. I turned back to Alan.

“Why the run on the blue-hairs today in the salon?”

“They acted like schoolgirls, but”—he saddened—“not a bit of gossip. Every one of them just said she got in the mood to have her hair done. That, and something about Father Whippet and some kind of secret event.”

When Alan finished my hair it looked marginally better than before. The color was back to a more-or-less blond color and he had trimmed the frizz off my bangs.

I was crossing the Causeway back to the house when I decided to pull over. I loved the Causeway. It crossed over the Muskegon River, connecting greater Muskegon to the tiny slip of land known as North Muskegon. The lanes going in either direction separated to go around a small island in the middle of the river. Then they rejoined on the other side.

The local VFW hall was in charge of the island's upkeep, and since the Fourth of July was upon us, lots of volunteers were busy getting ready. I watched the women as they bent over to plant the flagstaffs, their bottoms straining at their polyester pants. Every year, the entire perimeter was lined with two-foot-high American flags. Literally thousands of them fluttered in the sunshine as I looked out the driver's-side window and pondered my day.

So Father Whippet was having an affair with his secretary and had written some sort of sex ritual and a whole group of elderly women from the Linen Guild were involved. What could they be doing? Having sex orgies down in the basement where we have our bake sales and sell crocheted Christmas ornaments? Even my overactive imagination couldn't quite believe all that.

Three men in khaki army hats were standing by the main flagpole. One of them—the one with the portable oxygen tank and red suspenders stretching over his belly—seemed to be in charge of unfolding the flag. My dad had taught me to fold an American flag when I was six years old. First, fold the stripes over the stars lengthwise, and then take one striped corner to the other side so you form a triangle of fabric. Continue with the triangle back and forth until you have a little flap of stars left. Then tuck the star flap into the crease. Never let it touch the ground. He taught me that when the flag has done its duty to the country, a good American honors it with a ceremonial burning. Never throw it in the trash. The men in khaki hats successfully snapped the flag onto its hooks and ran it up to the gold-painted American eagle at the top. Then they all smartly saluted. I looked over my shoulder to see if any cars were coming, then pulled back onto the road.

Dad was digging a hole down by the lake when I got home. “Dad, have you noticed anything weird about Father Whippet lately?” I asked him.

He didn't even look up. “Weirder than what? His usual self?” He stopped digging and pondered the bottom of the hole he was standing in. “Do you see any water yet?”

“No,” I said, looking five feet beyond him at Bear Lake. I decided not to ask the obvious. I tried to bring him back to the subject I was interested in.

“Hand me that hose, would you?”

I handed him a coil of black hose. “Okay, I give. What are you doing?”

“Digging a well.”

He was about two feet below me and the sun glinted off the comb-over on top of his head. “The water pressure for the sprinklers is low. Somehow the pump just isn't pulling in the water.”

“What's the difference if the water is coming from Bear Lake or if it's coming from a well five feet from Bear Lake?” I asked.

“I have a theory I'm working on”—he leaned on the shovel—“but it's a bit too early to see if it's going to pan out yet. Why don't you go up to the house and say hello to Grandma?”

I know when I'm being dismissed. I trudged up the stairs and went in the house through the sliding doors. Walker was sitting at the kitchen table with Grandma Thompson. A deck of cards was spread out in front of them. “You see here? Three nines together. That means you'll be taking a long trip.” Grandma had her nose down close to the cards so she could see them.

“Hi, Walker.” I kissed him on the cheek. “Hi, Grandma.” I pecked her on the cheek, too. “What are you doing?”

“I'm reading his cards. What's it look like?” Grandma picked up the cards from the table. “I'll do you next, Elizabeth.”

“Jeannie,” I corrected.

Grandma tipped her head down and looked at me over her bifocals. “Oh, yes,” she said, “the fifth one. What in the world were your parents thinking?”

They probably weren't thinking, I thought. I was conceived a few years after the Pill hit the market. Mom had said she was too busy with three little kids to get to the doctor for the prescription. That's when Lucy was born. Then Mom said that she got the birth control prescription but couldn't find the time to get to the pharmacy. That's when I was born. Dad got a vasectomy after that.