Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 06 (14 page)

Ruby Bee and Estelle put their handbags on the nearest table and homed in on the food like airborne missiles with heat detectors. Frannie sat down next to Brenda, and after a moment, Catherine followed Jerome’s path. This left me in an awkward position, as in standing next to Durmond in the doorway. I was quite sure we resembled a pair of freshmen at the first sockhop of the year.

“Thank you so much for coming!” Geri trilled from the lobby. I looked back at the two men in business suits, who were frozen just inside the lobby door. They were not identical, but their gray suits, hats, briefcases, and dumbstruck expressions were close enough to qualify them as salt and pepper shakers. She hesitated, then extended her hand and continued. “Are you from Travel and Leisure? I just knew Tina would come through for me, and I’m so very, very pleased that you’re here. Come right in here and we’ll get you settled with drinks and let you meet our five super-finalists! They’re so eager to meet you. Do you have a photographer coming?”

“I don’t think so,” muttered one of the men. They conferred for a moment, then allowed Geri to escort them to the bar. As Jerome and Catherine turned around, I noticed she was holding a glass not unlike his—right down to the olives. Across the room, her mother winced, but continued to chatter with Brenda.

Durmond and I drifted toward the food. It looked good, especially to someone who hadn’t had a decent meal in so long she felt as emaciated as one of Perkins’s dawgs. I picked up a plate and allowed myself a visual feast: meatballs, imported cheeses, seafood platters, cold cuts nicely curled around fillings, crudités, and fruit dipped in dark chocolate.

As I poised a serving fork over the shrimp, Ruby Bee sniffed and said, “It’s not bad, but I’d be embarrassed if I was Geri. Lord only knows how much this cost, and there ain’t a wienie in barbecue sauce to be seen, much less any potato chips or mixed nuts.”

“Or onion dip,” Estelle said, smirking. “How much trouble is it to whip up a batch of onion dip, for pity’s sake? Now, your fried okra is a sight more trouble, but I always say it ain’t much of a party without fried okra.” She peered more closely at a platter. “You’d think they could afford to pay someone to peel the shrimp for ‘em.”

“That cheese looks like it’s been bleached,” added Ruby Bee, pointing at a slab of Brie. “And this one smells worse than Boone Creek in August, when the fish take to flopping in the mud. What do you reckon this stuff costs?”

Don’t think for a second that they weren’t piling up their plates with the objects of scorn, or that I was about to jump into that conversation. I escaped to the bar, praying that their hisses were inaudible and no one from the press would realize I even knew the two gourmands.

Said gentlemen were being served cocktails. I nodded to them, asked for a beer, and fled to the farthest table to devour meatballs and bleached cheese (in Maggody, if it’s not Velveeta, it’s highly suspect).

Geri herded a man into the room. “This is simply marvelous of you, and I cannot begin to tell you how grateful I am.” She gave him a conspiratorial smile. “You’re from Gourmet, aren’t you? You’ve got that look, if you know what I mean.”

“Whatever you say, doll.” The man winked at Geri and headed for the bar. She managed to close her lips, although it took a moment for her smile to slip back into place, and once again, the tiny frown line appeared.

It was still there as Ruby Bee and Estelle approached my table, staggering under the weight of their plates. “But the Buchanons all look alike,” Ruby Bee was saying in a low voice as they sat down. “Maybe he’s kinfolk on the less successful side of the family. Not everyone can be a plumber, Estelle. Some folks got to settle for less.”

Estelle chased down a meatball and popped it in her mouth. “It’s more likely I’m seeing things after all this time in this crazy town. Afore long, I’ll probably see Mrs. Jim Bob selling pretzels from a pushcart and Hiram flapping the reins on one of those fancy carriages in the park. Brother Verber panhandling at the subway station. Perkins’s eldest driving a cab.”

“But you have to agree there’s a favorance that ain’t easy to miss. A right strong favorance.”

Before I could dredge up the courage to ask what the hell they were talking about, Durmond appeared at my elbow and said, “If I may presume to intrude on such a lovely trio …?”

“Goddamn it!” Catherine exploded. We all stared as she banged her glass down on the table and grabbed her mother’s arm. “For once in my life, why don’t you leave me alone? I am not your Barbie doll! If you’ve got a problem with that, you can go straight to hell!”

It should have been an exit line, punctuated with the slam of a door. Instead, she released her mother’s arm, sat back in the chair, and calmly picked up her glass. She wasn’t exactly smiling, but she had a vague aura of triumph that made me uneasy.

Frannie tried to laugh. “Oh, dear, let’s watch our temper and our language. We wouldn’t want these representatives of the media to get the wrong idea.” She waved at the three people hovering near the bar.

All three turned back and demanded refills. Frannie lowered her hand and again forced a laugh, although it reminded me of a drill sergeant on the verge of announcing a twenty-mile hike. “We’ll be sure to go to bed early tonight. Lots of rest will make us feel so much better for the big contest tomorrow.”

“Oh, yes,” Catherine said complacently. “I can hardly wait to go to bed. All the little piggies want to go to bed, don’t they? We can’t have any little piggies crying wee, wee, wee all the way home.”

Geri’s lips quivered, but she clearly was at a loss for a response. No one else did any better, and we were all waiting for inspiration when the lobby door opened. Geri exhaled and looked over her shoulder. “Why, if it isn’t the representative of Krazy KoKo-Nut, a mere twenty minutes late for our little reception! The media will be so pleased that you’ve deigned to grace us with your presence.”

Kyle stopped in the doorway. “I had to shower and change after spending the day doing your chores. One would think the marketing firm could handle the mindless details, since that’s what they’re getting paid for. What a shame no one with experience was put in charge.”

Geri’s chin shot up, and her shoulders rose as if she were wearing inflatable pads. “What a shame no one from Krazy KoKo-Nut has enough sense to behave properly in front of the media.”

“My goodness,” Ruby Bee whispered, “the good ol’ boys at the bar are less fractious than these folks. When I had to throw out that one-eyed fellow from Hasty, he managed to apologize real nicely before he threw up all over the hood of his truck.”

“It happened to be my station wagon,” Estelle said tartly, “and I’d just washed it that very morning.”

Catherine stood up and began to move around the table, touching heads as she chanted, “This little piggie went to market, and this little piggie stayed home.” She dug her fingers into her mother’s lacquered blond hair. “Should have stayed home, anyway.” She continued past Brenda, saying, “This little piggie had roast beast, and this little piggie”—she sank down on Jerome’s lap and stroked his bristly hair—“had some. Didn’t you, piggie wiggie?” Before he could answer, she returned to her chair, smiling modestly, as if she’d aced the talent portion of the pageant. Durmond leaned toward me. “I’m not sure this is what Geri had in mind.”

“At least no one’s been killed,” I answered in a low voice, then mentally cursed myself for tempting fate. This was not a gathering of happy campers. At the table near the window, Brenda was nervously watching Frannie, who was scowling at Catherine. Jerome was staring at the olives in his glass, his lower lip thrust forward and his knuckles white. Catherine serenely awaited the scores from the judges. Geri and Kyle were glowering, Ruby Bee and Estelle were hissing, and the three men near the bar looked as if they were wishing they were history. Gaylene was grazing contentedly, however, and Durmond was sipping his drink with a faintly amused look.

“I want another drink,” said Catherine, shoving her glass across the table to Jerome.

“Now, Catherine,” Frannie protested, “why don’t we have some ginger ale? It’s not becoming for someone your age to—”

“She’s old enough.” Jerome took her glass and started for the bar. “Old enough for a helluva lot of things, including some you’ve never thought of.”

Brenda glanced at Frannie. “Jerome, I really don’t think you ought to—”

“Then don’t think,” he said over his shoulder. “It’s a little late in the game for you to take up a new hobby, anyway. If little Miss Vervain wants a goddamn martini, she’s going to goddamn have one.” Stricken, Brenda covered her face and began to sniffle. Frannie patted her shoulder, while the rest of us tried to pretend we hadn’t heard his remarks. Gaylene was the only one of us with any success. Oblivious to the chill in the air, she marched over to one of the reporters (the salt shaker), fluttered her eyelashes, and cooed, “I’m actually a dancer at the Xanadu Club just off Broadway and 52nd. You ever been there, honey?”

“No, but I’ll damn well make the effort,” he said, slipping his arm around her waist. His hand dropped to her derriere. “Can you get me a table right up front?”

Geri cleared her throat. “Well, then, shall we all mingle just a bit and do some interviews? These lovely representatives of the press must have busy schedules, and we don’t want to detain them any longer than necessary.”

“She can detain me all night,” said the pepper shaker, drooling into Gaylene’s cleavage.

The last of the reporters winked at Geri and said, “So who’s gonna detain me? You look like the sort who might go for something like that, hey?”

To add to the fun, Rick came to the door. A startled look crossed his face, but he rearranged his smirk, put his hand solicitously on Geri’s arm, and said, “Oh, dearie, I’m so sorry to bring bad news, but some lady from a food magazine just called to say she won’t make it. She has a hangnail.”

Geri’s eyes welled with tears. She knocked away Rick’s hand and slammed the clipboard into Kyle’s abdomen. “I’ve had it with all of you! This is more than anyone should have to bear! I don’t care if every last one of you chokes on Krazy KoKo-Nut and dies! I cannot stand the sight of you! You’re all worse than Scotty Johanson, and he’s nothing but a turd! I hate you!”

With a howl of a coyote, she dashed across the lobby and out the front door. We couldn’t hear what she said to Mr. Cambria, but he came into the lobby, scratching his head and mumbling to himself.

“I want another drink,” Catherine repeated in the ensuing silence.

“I didn’t mean anything when I called you a ho, ” Marvel said, flashing his warmest, whitest smile. He turned around to peek through the dusty venetian blinds, then cautiously looked at Dahlia, who was sitting in the booth all the way across the room. The distance didn’t make him feel real safe, not with her dark eyes almost lost under her lowered brow and her lips puckering in and out every second or so.

“I ain’t a whore,” she growled. “If Kevin had half the gumption of Ira Pickerel, he’d whomp you something fierce for sayin’ that kind of thing.”

Her defender, seated across from her, gulped and said, “But, sweetums, he has a gun, and he said he’d shoot us if we so much as moved from this booth. It’d just ruin our honeymoon if we both ended up dead.”

“He called me a whore.”

After he’d checked once again to make sure the cops were keeping a civilized distance, Marvel sat on a stool by the counter. “I’ve already explained a hundred times that I didn’t mean anything. It’s street talk, Big Mama. You know—jive?” He rubbed his face with his free hand, wishing he were at the schoolyard shooting baskets with his friends. Even sitting at a desk in a school that should have been condemned before he was born had appeal. Shit, watching television with his mama and little sister didn’t sound half bad.

“I ain’t a whore,” Dahlia insisted. “I am a respectable married woman, and I’ve been a member of the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall my entire life. Robin Buchanon was a whore; there’s no gettin’ around that. And I’ve heard stories about girls who hang around the bus station in Farberville, their dresses tighter than sausage casings and their hair dyed funny colors. Brother Verber says they’ll be spending a good long time in Satan’s bedroom, doing the same wicked and perverted things they’re doing with men from the bus station.”

“Like what?” asked Marvel, momentarily diverted.

Dahlia stiffened as much as she could, since she was wedged in so tightly she was barely able to breathe. “We are not gonna talk about things like that. You’ve got a filthy mind for even asking.” She glowered at Kevin, who had slithered down as far as he could without ending up on the floor. “Do you aim to sit there like a napkin dispenser while he calls me a whore? What’re you gonna do if he attacks me right here in this café?”

“Marvel’s not gonna do that,” Kevin said weakly. He reminded himself that he had vowed to defend his wife till death did them part. The possibility that it might happen sooner than he’d expected didn’t help much, but he straightened up and said, “If he so much as touches one hair on your head, he’ll be sorry he was ever born.”

“I wasn’t referring to him mussing my hair,” she countered.

“Stop it!” Marvel commanded. “I promise I won’t muss or mess or do anything to either of you, so just chill. Jesus, you white folks are tight. No wonder you can’t dance worth shit. As soon as I figure out how to get out of this with my hide intact, I’ll be on my way to some place that’s not Cleveland. I’ll find some place where they’ve never even heard of Cleveland.”

“Soon as you figure it out,” Dahlia simpered, making it clear she didn’t think it would happen anytime soon.

“Honey bunny,” whispered Kevin, “don’t go riling him like that. That ain’t exactly a water pistol he’s holding.”

Marvel considered giving them a demonstration, but the sound of gunfire would agitate the cops outside, maybe even provoke them into storming the doors. From what he’d seen and heard, they were nothing but rednecks with itchy fingers and no great fondness for black boys.

He went back to the window to see if they were up to something new. No, a few were hunkered behind their cars, keeping their weapons trained on the door, while others stood in a group on the far side of the road, gabbing and waving their hands and playing with their walkie-talkies. None of them had donned white robes and pointy hoods, but that didn’t mean they weren’t debating it.