The Convent Rose (The Roses) (4 page)

“Yes, sir, they do. Would you like them with a baked potato, stuffed potato, Cajun fries, white rice, brown rice, rice dressing, or baked sweet potato?”

“The stuffed potatoes still have real bacon in them?”

“They do.”

“Then, that’s what I’ll have.”

“A garden salad or a melange of steamed broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots?”

“No slaw?”

“Sorry.”

“Salad. Ranch dressing.”

“May I get you a drink from the bar?”

Her voice had slowed down and almost drawled the last sentence. He could hear an imaginary “cowboy” being added. That’s when he remembered he still wore his Stetson. He pulled his stretched-out, booted feet back under the table and hung his hat on the knob of his chair.

“Jack Daniels on the rocks.”

She raised her pale eyebrows over big, gray eyes as if to say, “What, not a straight shot?”, but the words that came out of her pale pink lips were, “I’ll bring that right away, sir.”

His waitress was a little stiff for the Landrum taste, but he thought she might be able to loosen up with some help. He had a long evening ahead and needed some entertainment. He watched her move away, hips swaying under a snug, but not tight, black skirt, her long, white-blonde French braid switching back and forth, back and forth, with a black bow on its tail.

No, it couldn’t be Miss Fancy Pants. If she was, the mighty had fallen farther than he ever had off a bucking bull. She brought his drink and salad. This had to be her. He studied on the matter a while longer, watching her serve other tables. When his order came, he said impulsively, “It’s my birthday.”

“Have a good one,” she replied, setting down a massive platter of ribs and a large stuffed potato in a side dish. The bread basket followed with a steaming hot pistolette roll and a thick square of Mama Tyne’s cornbread. She added a packet of sanitary wet wipes to the accumulation on the table.

“Would you like one of our rib bibs to protect your clothing, sir?” Again, there came that tiny hint of a smile.

“Hell, no!”

She laughed. It was an unexpectedly hearty laugh, and people at adjoining tables turned their heads and smiled, too. Bodey figured she had just earned herself a bigger tip.

“Too sissy for you, cowboy?” she said.

“Damn straight,” he answered with an I’ll-eat-you-right-up grin.

“Anything else I can bring you?”

She intended to leave, and he wanted to prolong the moment. “How about some company to help me celebrate?”

She seemed puzzled and glanced around as if seeking other patrons who might want to sit at his table. The pass went right over her head. Eve Burns—still an innocent. Go figure.

“I mean, what time do you get off? Maybe we could go on into Lafayette and do some dancin’ at one of the clubs.”

“Oh! I—ah—don’t get off until nine, and I have an early class.”

“You still a student?” Bodey figured she had to be thirty-one now, thirty-two in the fall. Now why did he remember that when he had forgotten the names of half the women he’d ever bedded?”

“I teach an art class at the Academy, also riding.”

He noticed that flush rising along her cheekbones, same as the time he thought she’d use her crop on him. “Must not pay much,” he said.

“Well, no.” Her cheeks grew redder.

A spoilsport from a nearby table hissed, “Miss, can we get our check?”

“I have to go.”

Eve sprinted to the kitchen and Mama Tyne. She felt safer next to the deep fat fryers and steaming grill than she did near Bodey Landrum. He’d hit on her once in high school, and she’d frozen up and panicked. Afterward, she’d drawn his picture a dozen times in her sketchbook and made up conversations between them hoping he’d make another attempt. But, Bodey had gone off with Renee Niles who knew how to handle a guy like that and give him what he wanted. Probably by now, Bodey had slept with a hundred women or more. As for her, did one affair in college even count if the man left you? She put a hand over her thudding heart.

As big and stately as the Queen Mary docking, Mama Tyne shifted her attention from the bubbling hot oil to her waitress. “You sick, honey?”

“No, Bodey Landrum is out there. It’s his birthday.”

“Well, we’ll just have to do something about that, won’t we?”

****

Bodey settled into his dinner, eating slowly, getting sauce under his nails and on the cuff of his shirt. He did not favor dining alone. When he had been on the circuit, someone always wanted to grab some grub no matter what time of the day or night.

He studied the art hung on the walls, nice landscapes with discreet cards tucked in the corners of the frames. Back when, the décor had been neon beer signs and ads for smokes and chewing tobacco. Once, an autographed picture of his early bull riding triumph at the World Championships had hung among other souvenirs over the bar. Now, the shabby newspaper clippings and photos torn from magazines and taped to a chipped mirror badly in need of resilvering had been replaced by a clear, beveled sheet of glass bringing light into the once dark room.

His eyes strayed toward the exit that at one time had been the pathway to a double set of outhouses in the back. Now, this had become the entrance to a gift shop hawking postcards of the Academy in spring, pastel T-shirts bearing the legend “I’ve been to the End of Rainbow”, and what looked like the kind of religious paintings a tourist would smuggle out of Russia. Icons, that’s what they were. He didn’t care much for religious stuff.

The painting nearest to his table had a nice big sky like at his ranch in Texas, but he could tell the view came from around here because the grass grew greener and the oaks were thicker. He squinted at the price tag, two hundred fifty. He collected western art, and this didn’t exactly fit in, but he liked it. Despite what his dealer said was collectible, he didn’t buy anything he didn’t like. The old house could use some decoration. He squinted at the signature “Eve Burns.” Now, he took a turn smiling.

Eve Burns wasn’t the most attentive waitress he’d ever known. His own mama had been better, schmoozing with those truckers for a bigger tip, really friendly. She did check back with him once, and he’d said, “Doing fine” before he caught himself, and she turned away to another table of diners.

At the end of the meal while Eve cleared his plates, he ordered coffee. He guessed he could sip slowly. His Rolex watch said eight p.m. The café probably had nice restrooms now, indoors and everything. He could check that out in a little while, then hang at the bar.

Eve came bearing his coffee in a thick white mug with a rainbow and the name of the café printed on the side. Right behind her marched Ja’nae, her brother Leon, and Mama Tyne holding a small birthday cake with frosting that expanded on the rainbow of colors theme and one thick candle.

“Oh, no! You ain’t gonna sing me one of those awful birthday songs now. Y’all sit right down and share this cake with me.”

He blew out his candle, remembering his mother for a few seconds, and sliced the cake four ways with a dinner knife. He quickly cut the biggest chunk into half again as he saw Eve start to drift away from the gathering. “You too, sit and help me eat this cake.”

“I have tables to clean.”

“Sit down, Eve. Dinner crowd’s almost gone. Dirty tables can wait. I want to introduce you to our local celebrity, Bodey Landrum. Eve Burns, meet our four times All-around Cowboy and best bull rider of the century!” Mama Tyne gave him a great big hug, crushing him to her cushiony breast. As light-skinned as her daughter, she stood three times as wide. Her gray hair covered with a sleek black wig made her look like a hefty Lena Horne.

“I wanted to say hey earlier, but you looked real busy.”

“You always had nice ways when you weren’t being a smartass, Bodey.”

“That’s how my mama taught me.”

“How does yo’ mama?”

“Died in a car wreck a few years back. Smashed up that little ole Jag Big Ben got talked into buying for her just before the oil bust. She was on her way home from the country club with a few martinis under her belt, I guess. Mama lived to see me make it big though.”

“Miss Betsy, she never knew a stranger. So sorry to hear she’s gone.”

“And Pops, where’s he?”

“Passed on from the diabetes last winter. He’s wit’ the other Platos now up at Mt. Carmel cemetery.”

“Sorry to hear it. Best barbecue man in the South.”

“So he was. Finally give me his recipes when he knew he wouldn’t last, kidneys going, liver going, everything going. You enjoy them ribs? Just like old times, huh?”

“Was. Missed the slaw, though. Hey, Leon, you do any calf ropin’ lately?”

“Only thing I do now is taxes. I’m a CPA. I was back in the office doing the books when Ja’nae said we were all coming out to surprise you with a birthday cake. Usually, I’m not here at night, but during tax time, I have to work the café into my schedule.” Leon was also light-skinned and trim but already balding like Pops though he and Bodey were about the same age.

“Least you can do to repay yo’ mama for a college education,” Mama Tyne joked with her son.

“This place sure has changed.” Bodey dug into his slice of cake to show his appreciation, chocolate, his favorite under that rainbow-striped icing.

“
Ja’nae’s doing. Give a girl a degree in business management, and she manages the business. Got a loan from the gov’ment to fix the place up. We already done paid the Feds back. Now, she workin’ on Unc Knobby across the street. She say Rainbow Liquor and Food need a real deli counter, not jus’ a hot lunch case, and a bakery department with fresh goods, not jus’ Little Debbie cakes and white bread.”

“Y’all know I’m right. Rainbow is turning into an artists’ colony and attracting the upper classes out this way. And if Pops had laid off the Little Debbies and white bread, he might be here with us now.”

“Let go, Ja’nae. You couldn’t tell Pops nothing.”

In the midst of the reunion, Eve slipped away still holding her fragment of cake in a napkin. She ate her slice quickly and now quietly cleared tables.

“Artist colony, no kiddin’. Why I was admiring that landscape right over there a minute ago. Someone local paint it?” Bodey said a bit on the loud side.

“You can see plain as day by the card, it’s our Eve.” Mama Tyne gestured toward her hard-working waitress.

Color running up the back of her neck, Eve retreated to the kitchen with a tray of dirty dishes. She swore she could feel Bodey Landrum’s eyes watching her backside. She hit the swinging doors too hard, and a mug fell to the floor and shattered. A minute later, the party could see the bottom of a broom sweeping up the mess.

“She a quiet woman, Bodey Landrum, and life done her lots of wrong. You leave her be,” Mama Tyne said softly.

“Oh, maybe a little bit of Bodey would be good for Eve,” Ja’nae suggested. “All she ever does is teach, paint, ride, and work evenings for us. I can’t believe you were playin’ her with that pitiful ‘alone on my birthday’ routine though. As I recall, you had a big thang for Academy girls when you were in high school.”

“Most of the time, I was lyin’ except for Renee Niles. Renee told me once Eve wanted to be a nun.”

“Lives like one, but never was one. Her mama left her with a pile of medical bills for cancer treatments and died anyhow. I keep telling her to fix up and get herself one of those rich men who come to the art openings and buy something just because they think they should,” Ja’nae went on. “She’ll be fifty before she pays off all that debt.”

“Doesn’t sell much of her art, then?”

“Every once in a while, but I suspect her supplies and those bills eat up her profit. She does good with the icons when the Academy sponsors a retreat.”

“Doesn’t her daddy help her out? I heard he used to dote on her.”

“Dead, too. His luxury car business went bankrupt in the oil bust. He had no cheap franchises to keep him going, you see,” Leon explained. “One day he sailed off in his yacht. They found the Princess Eve capsized, but no sign of Mr. Richard Burns.”

“Her mama, people said, was too good or too lazy to get a job. They lived off the life insurance money left to Eve for a while. Then, turned out Mrs. Burns had that chronic fatigue problem and went right into leukemia. Tough break.” Ja’nae shook her head in sympathy.

The restaurant stood empty now. The bartender told two men lingering over drinks that it was closing time. A couple of the kitchen workers came out to say they were leaving, and Eve had gone already.

Bodey got up and stretched. He snagged the card from the picture he had admired, put it in the pocket of his tan leather jacket, and gave hugs to the women and a handshake to Leon. “Great seeing y’all.”

“Come back soon, now.”

“Oh, I will. Big Ben left me the Three B’s. I plan on being here for quite a while.”

Stepping from the restaurant, Bodey stopped in the middle of the gravel parking lot to look up at the sky. He thanked heaven Rainbow didn’t have enough streetlights and neon to block out the stars. On the horizon, clouds even blacker than the night sky built up for a spring storm. A little night chill was coming down, and moisture already covered the windshield of his truck. He worked the wipers and checked his watch. Only nine-fifteen.

Bodey pulled a phone from his pocket and dialed. “Hey, Russ. Mind if I come over for a while if I bring the beer?”

“I told you earlier Noreen and our little girl are down with something, but if you want to take your chances, sure, come on over. I just got Jesse into bed. We have the place to ourselves.”

“Be right over with the brew and some strawberries for the missus. You’re a friend, Russ. Thanks.”

****

They talked about old times, him and Rusty. They spoke about his kids. Finally, they got to the sticky subject of the fate of the Three B’s.

“You plan on selling because I’d like to make a first offer?” Rusty said.

“I know it was your family’s land, Russ, but I spent some of the happiest years of my life here, too. Means a lot to me that Big Ben thought to leave the Three B’s in my care after he dropped dead at his annual Dallas pig roast last year. Good ole Ben, boozin’ and barbecuing right up to the end. Not a bad way to go.”