The Christmas Cantata (The Liturgical Mysteries) (9 page)

"English teacher," said Pete. He walked up to the table and put two orders of Cheese Grits Mexicano on the table. "I'm gonna need a caregiver, too, if this keeps up," he said. "Look there." He pointed toward the door and I saw that, in the five minutes since I had come in, a line had formed at the front of the café and now people were lining up in front of the window and down the block.

"Wow," I said. "The thermometer still hasn't risen above the freezing mark."

"Yeah, but the sun is shining, and Rosa and Cynthia are out there handing out hot chocolate."

"When did Rosa start back?" I asked. Rosa Zumaya was Manuel's wife, a short, plump, middle-aged Mexican woman with a smile as wide as she was.

"Yesterday," Pete said. "Didn't need her last week. We didn't have any customers."

"You have them now," said Meg, "so quit complaining!"

"I'll try to cut back," said Pete with a grin. "I may be getting my Christmas spirit back. I'm feeling sort of...I don't know...charitable."

"Hang on," said Pauli Girl. "How'd you know Miss Baker was an English teacher?"

"I had her for English," said Pete. "We all did, back before St. Germaine High School closed and everyone moved to the new county school. She was a monster. 'Baker the Grade Shaker.' That's what we called her. She was tough as a boiled owl."

"She's still tough," admitted Pauli Girl. "And rather difficult."

"I know her," I said, "although I never had her for English. She was on the vestry at St. Barnabas when I was hired twenty years ago and she was ancient then." I took a sip of my coffee. "I believe she was the only dissenting vote."

Meg giggled.

"Then she made my life miserable for about five years. Complaints about the hymns, the anthems, the psalms. The organ was too loud, the service was too long, and why didn't we do Morning Prayer? She had a standing Monday morning appointment with Father Tony just to complain about the previous Sunday. He kept a notebook and gave it to me before he retired. Three hundred pages."

"Only five years?" said Meg. "Why'd she stop?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe she just wore out. Maybe Father Tony told her to lay off."

"Maybe she decided that you weren't going to get any better," suggested Pete.

"She had a stroke," said Pauli Girl. "In 1992. It was in her chart. She recovered pretty well."

"I've never seen her in church," said Meg. "At least I don't think so. I certainly don't know her."

"Hey," I said. "I just had a thought. If Bessie Baker was living in St. Germaine at the time, maybe she used to sing in the choir. Even if she didn't, she might shed some light on what happened on Christmas Eve in 1942. Wynette didn't know much, but remembered that the cantata was cancelled at the last minute. They may have even cancelled the midnight service."

"Are you talking about that music that Cynthia found?" Pete said.

"Yep," I said. "We're singing it on Christmas Eve. The note Nancy found in the score said that it was premiered at St. Barnabas that Christmas, but now it seems that it never happened. Maybe Bessie Baker knows something." I turned to Pauli Girl. "How old is she?"

"She's in her nineties."

"She might have been what...late twenties? Early thirties?"

"Probably," agreed Pauli Girl.

"So, she
might
have been in the choir," I said, then had another thought. "How's her memory?"

"Her short term memory isn't good," admitted Pauli Girl, "but you know what? She's good at remembering stuff that happened a long time ago."

"She was a helluva teacher," said Pete. "We hated her when we were in school, but she was one of those teachers that, you know, when you're out in the world, you realize that, wow, you really actually learned something."

"I had a few like that," admitted Meg. "You should send her a card or something and tell her what she meant to you."

"Nah," said Pete. "Too touchy-feely. But you know, a bunch of us from the high school always get together after Christmas. Sort of a reunion. Maybe I'll suggest that a few of the girls go over to see the old bat. That should do it for my seasonal benevolence."

"No, I don't think so," said Meg. "Your seasonal benevolence is just beginning. It's payback time. Remember when I did your taxes last year and saved you a pot-load of money and you said if there was anything I ever wanted..."

"I do not remember that," said Pete, going pale. "I definitely do not remember that."

"I remember it quite well," I said.

"Anyway," said Meg, "I'm the president of the choir, and you and Cynthia are going to come and sing on Christmas Eve. Not only that, you're coming to all the rehearsals and singing on Sunday mornings as well."

Now it was my turn to go pale. I had heard Pete sing. Cynthia was fine, but Pete?

"Wait a minute," I said. "Pete's extremely busy."

"I
am
busy," said Pete. "Anyway, when I said that, I meant that I'd give you a pie or something. I have things to do. Important things. Like..." he struggled, panic evident in his eyes. "Like, I've got to go visit that old lady in the nursing home."

Pauli Girl laughed out loud and headed for another table, coffee pot at the ready. "Nice try, Pete," she said.

"No way out," said Meg. "You promised. I've already asked Cynthia and she said she's happy to come. Rehearsal is tonight at seven."

* * *

"I heard
all y'all
were looking for singers," said a voice from the top of the choir stairs. I looked up from where I was seated on the organ bench and saw Goldi Fawn Birtwhistle filling the doorway.

"We're always glad to welcome new choir members," said Meg. "Are
y'all
a soprano or an alto?" Meg was using the singular
y'all
, as opposed to the collective
all y'all
.
Y'all
is also permissible as a collective pronoun, but once
all y'all
has been introduced into the conversation, it is simply good manners to follow suit.

"I'm a soprano, I guess," said Goldi Fawn, maneuvering her heft past the occupied chairs of the tenor and bass sections. "I like to sing the tune."

"Good luck with that," muttered Muffy. "There ain't no tune that I can find. Not in this thing."

"I usually sing solos," Goldi Fawn said to Muffy. "You know, with an accompaniment track? My signature song
is Christmas Shoes
. It's a song about a little boy who wants to buy some shoes for his dyin' momma at Christmas so she can look pretty when she goes to meet Jesus."

"I sing that song, too," said Muffy. "It's beautiful!" She wiped a single tear from her eye. "But Hayden won't let us sing with a track."

Goldi Fawn Birtwhistle gave her a smile and a wink. "That's okay. I'm singing it at the Lion's Club Christmas luncheon in Boone next week. Wanna come?"

"Yeah!" said Muffy. "You think I could sing something, too?"

"Oh, I'm
sure
you could!" said Goldi Fawn, choosing an empty chair next to her new friend. "I know the program chairman. She comes in every week to get her stars done and her hair colored."

The choir had grown since Sunday, thanks to some heavy handed recruitment by Meg and Bev. I'd also made a few phone calls and now we numbered twenty-five. Codfish Downs had agreed to sing and was a good, if aging, tenor. Codfish made his living selling fresh mountain trout out of the trunk of his '98 Pontiac. Most of the trout farmers in the area thought that he made his living by selling
stolen
fresh mountain trout out of his trunk. This accusation had never been proven and until I had some evidence to the contrary, I had to view the Codfish's wares as not only legitimately procured, but also very tasty. If he was poaching trout, the farmers couldn't figure out how he was doing it. Fresh fish were a seasonal delicacy, however, and when the temperature dropped into the single digits, the trout became much harder to come by. Hence, when I offered the Codfish a few bucks to sing with us, he jumped at the chance.

Nancy didn't actually
jump
at the chance, but did agree to join us once Meg asked her nicely. Annie Cooke heard Bev and Elaine talking about the cantata over at the Ginger Cat and was invited to sing when she'd expressed a previously forgotten pleasure in singing Ralph Vaughan Williams'
Hodie
years ago with her college choir.

Pete and Cynthia, good as their word, were on hand. Pete found a chair in the far back of the choir loft, beside Mark Wells.

A surprise, a
pleasant
surprise, was Rhiza Walker. As Raymond Chandler so aptly put it, Rhiza was a blonde, a blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window. She'd been married to St. Barnabas' Senior Warden once removed. Now she was divorced and her ex, Malcolm Walker, was finishing a seven to ten year plea deal at a minimum security facility. Not hurting for money, she'd been living in Europe for the past few years, but I'd seen her in town on Monday, and so invited her to come and sing. She'd been an undergraduate music major at the University of North Carolina when we'd met. I was in graduate school at the time, and we'd dated for a while. When she graduated, though, she married Malcolm. It was Rhiza, in fact, who told me that Pete was looking for a police chief all those many years ago. I remembered her as a wonderful soprano. I was hoping she still was.

"I have an announcement," said Dr. Ian Burch, PhD, standing up. "I'm having a sale on zinks and lysards at the Music Shoppe," he said. "I've gotten a double shipment by mistake. I also have a selection of handmade snoods just in from Luxembourg."

"Hang on," said Marjorie. "You've got skinks and lizards?"

"Zinks and ly-
zards
," corrected Ian, putting the accent on the final syllable.