Good Heavens (33 page)

“We will,” they all said.

I asked again if they were sure they had everything. They thought they had. “If you've left anything, we'll mail it to you. . . . Now, Thelma, you know the way back?” She said she did, so I was satisfied they would make it home okay.

I stood in the driveway waving and watching until the car pulled onto the Old Turnpike. As much as the W.W.s meant to me, I wasn't sorry to see them leave. I had to get my ducks in a row for Saturday night.

22

The garden was furnishing us with salad greens, green onions, squash, and some peas. Tomatoes were beginning to come in but were still green. Brenda had fried some twice. Soon an abundance of the beans would be coming in, and we would need to start canning them.

Dora and I decided to drive down to Lester's place to see about getting a plumber to put sinks in the garage. Along the way, I was surprised to see that flock of wild turkeys again, and we stopped to watch them. “Turkeys has got their regular range close by where they were borned,” Dora told me. “They sleep in the same tree on the same limbs night after night, a-favorin' evergreens to bare branches. Won't light on the ground of a night afeared of bobcats and foxes. Lookee yonder at them two gobblers by that rotted fence.”

I looked and saw only one, his head held high and erect. “I thought you said there were two.”

“The one you're a-lookin' at be the lookout. The other 'un is a-bathin' hisself on the ground.”

Then I spotted that one wallowing in the warm, dry sand, his feathers all fluffed out. He rose and shook himself, filling the air with dust and tiny feathers. After preening himself like a peacock, he took up the stand as watchman while his buddy took his dust bath.

I heard some gobbling, and Dora told me, “He's a-signalin' stray members of the flock.” Suddenly, the whole flock took off and flew away from us.

I cranked the car, and we got back on the Turnpike. “People has not got the sense a turkey has got,” Dora said.

“How's that?”

“A turkey a-guardin' a flock don't take nothin' for granted; for all that gobbler knew, we was turkey huntin'.”

I didn't get the point. “What are you saying, Dora?”

“Miss E., Miss Ursula checks all them packages that come in our place, and after that she thinks you got no need to worry that somebody has snuck in some weed or pills. I could have brought in a load of my weed right under her nose and sold it at a good price.”

“How could you do that?”

“In my pockets and underneath my clothes. But I'd not do a thang like that, beholdin' as I be to you. A body don't betray a trust an' live in peace with hisself.”

We were turning in the lane to Lester's place. “Well, Dora, I had thought about that—that somebody could easy sneak in drugs—but there's a limit to what we can do to keep them from doing it. Priscilla Home is not a prison where they do body searches and the like.” It was
hard keeping the tires in the ruts. “You don't think any of the girls bring in stuff, do you?”

“Can't say,” she said, and I knew that was all I could get out of her.

Lester was coming up from his garden as I parked the Chevy. I had brought him some leftovers and took them in the kitchen.

“Lester, you're looking good,” I told him.

He had his hands full of ripe tomatoes and handed them to Dora. He came up on the porch. “I hear say the blight's bad this year.”

“Your tomatoes look good.”

“Blight won't touch my tomaters. It's store-bought plants brings in the blight.” He set a folding chair for me. “Set down.”

“We can't stay. Came to find out if you know a good plumber hereabouts. We're making a canning room out of the garage, and we've got to put a sink or two in there.”

“You got little time to outfit a canning room. Yer garden must be coming in good now, and you ort to be fixed for canning.”

“I know,” I said. “We got to get a hold of a good plumber right away.”

He looked off across the valley like he might be studying on that, but it was a long time before he said anything. “I done a little plumbin' in my day.”

“You have?” I said. “We would pay you whatever you ask.”

He didn't say anything, and I wondered if I had insulted him by bringing up the money business too quick. “When can you start? Could you go back with us today?”

It seemed like he wasn't paying any attention to my question because he said to Dora, “Fetch that milk pail out in the shed and pick what blueberries be ripe.”

After she left, he just sat there looking off toward the river. I hoped he was studying on my question. I owed Lester some company, so I didn't leave the porch to help Dora.

Eventually, he started in talking about the weather and what we could expect in the months ahead—then he rambled on about the lumber company that once operated in the valley and the kind of logs they hauled down to the furniture markets—told me the river used to run through the middle of the valley not alongside like now. “Floods kept a-eatin' away at it,” he said. “Changed its course.”

I was beginning to think he had forgotten what I had asked him.

Finally, he said, “Oncet I see what fixings we'll need, you can take me into town and git most ever'thang at the Farmer's Hardware store.”

I still didn't know if he was going home with us. As anxious as I was to get going, all I could do was wait for Dora to fill that bucket.

Finally, she came back to the porch, the bucket full of plump berries. “Good heavens, you picked all them? Lester, you sure you want us to have all of these berries?” He was sure, so I said, “Well, Dora, we best be going.”

Without giving us leave, Lester got up, opened the screen door, and went inside the house.
Now what's he doing?
I wondered.

Dora put the berries in the car, and I stood on the
porch waiting. In a few minutes he came out again. He had torn off a scrap of a brown paper bag and had a stub of a pencil he was putting in his bib pocket. Lester had made up his mind; he was going with us. Dora got in the backseat and he crawled in the front seat.

Lester took his time making the measurements in the garage. When he finally finished, I took him into town, and he ordered everything he could buy in the Farmers Hardware. Then we went to the building supply store.

I was tied up with Lester all day, but I felt good about getting the canning room done. He would do a good job, and if nothing unforeseen happened, we'd be ready when the produce started coming in big time.

I was tired, but while in town I had got the color for my hair and Brenda said she'd do it after supper.

We went up on the third floor where they had a hair dryer, and she commenced putting that stuff on my hair. Portia was sitting on the couch watching, but she couldn't keep awake so I told her she better go on to bed.

I thought my hair turned out good. It was a light rinse, and Brenda said it gave a lift to my look, whatever that means. Anyway, I was satisfied we had done our best. I asked her if she could fix my hair Saturday afternoon, and she said she would.

The next morning, I was outside waiting for the building supply truck. It was almost lunchtime and still they hadn't come. Melba came to tell me Ursula wanted to
see me, so I went up to the office. “It's Portia,” Ursula said. “Emily can't get her awake.”

“I'll go see about her.”

Nancy was coming out of the bathroom. “Nancy, could you come with me a minute?”

Together we went in Portia's room. She was lying on the bed sound asleep, and Emily was standing against the wall looking scared as a jackrabbit. I leaned over the bed and called, “Portia?” Nothing happened. I asked Emily how long had she been asleep.

“Since early last night. Miss E., she never sleeps late—never!”

Nancy took a look, lifted Portia's eyelids. “Miss E., let's get her up and see if she can sit on the side of the bed.” Together we tried, but Portia was as limp as a dishrag. Laying her back down, Nancy felt her forehead for fever, took her pulse, told Emily to bring her a wet washcloth.

After Emily left the room, Nancy told me, “Miss E., she's stoned.”

My heart sank. “Stoned? On what? What's she taken?”

“My first guess would be sleeping pills. She must have taken a handful.”

No
, I told myself,
Portia wouldn't do that!
“Could she have had an overdose?”

“I don't think so. She's beginning to wake up; see her eyelids flutter. She'll be all right . . . Miss E., Portia has been coming along so well—really by leaps and bounds. It's hard to believe she would do a thing like this.”

It's Linda, I know it's Linda!
I was saying to myself.

I didn't realize Ursula had come in the room until she asked, “What is it, Nancy?”

Nancy didn't say anything. Ursula moved closer to look at Portia. “Are you trying to conceal the fact that she has ingested drugs? Is that it?”

“We can't be sure,” Nancy answered.

Ursula turned on her heel. “I'll call her mother. Portia will be leaving as soon as arrangements can be made.”

“Oh, now, wait, Ursula!” I said. “Let's not jump to conclusions. Maybe Portia is sick.”

“Does she have a fever, Nancy?”

“No, I don't think so.”

That's all Ursula needed to hear. She marched back to the office to make the call.

I could not believe what was happening. Nancy looked at me and without saying it, mouthed the name “Linda.”

“Yes, Linda!” I said aloud. “Oh, Nancy, we can't let this happen. What can we do?”

Emily was back with the washcloth. Nancy took it and began bathing Portia's face and arms.

“Emily,” I said, “would you go downstairs and run the vacuum in the day room? And, Emily, please don't say anything about this to anyone.”

“I won't, Miss E., but some of the girls know already. Linda found out, and she's told everybody. Is Portia going to be all right?”

“Yes, she'll be all right,” Nancy said.

I closed the door behind Emily. “Nancy, let's go through everything in here to see if we can find drugs. If there is no evidence in here, then maybe we can persuade Ursula
to hold up on sending Portia home. At least until we can get to the bottom of this.”

We searched dresser drawers and the closet and found nothing. Then I spotted Portia's jacket hanging on a hook on back of the closet door. Reaching in a pocket, I felt something and pulled out a handful of trash. Nancy leaned over my shoulder to help examine what was in there.

There were many small squares of stiff paper, silver on white, with plastic bubbles popped open and empty. Nancy fingered them carefully, counting.

“Nancy, what do you make of this?”

She looked like she hated to tell me, but I already knew. “This is the way they package sleeping pills?” I asked.

She nodded. “You can buy these over the counter, and it would be easy to smuggle them in here in your underwear.”