A Trashy Affair (13 page)

“Wait. I’ll put my trash in a lighter can even I can lift. Would that do? Just give me a few minutes.”

Another shrug and he leaned against the truck, took out a half-smoked cigar from his pocket, and lit it. “Go on and get it.”

Jane dashed to her kitchen and seized the tall waste can under her sink. She carried it to her garbage receptacle and went in armpit deep to retrieve the two trash bags inside. The first she smashed down into the waste can as far as it would go, then balanced the other on it like a giant muffin top. With the second bag tucked under her chin, she carried her load to the idling garbage truck and thrust it at the driver.

“See, if a small woman like me can handle this, I am sure a great, big man like you will be able to dump it in the truck.

“Okay.” He took a moment to toss the butt of his cigar and grind it out with the toe of his work boot, took her kitchen waste can and threw it, contents and all, into the back of the truck. He pulled the lever to rotate the waste.

“No! I need my can back.”

“Well, it’s gone fo’ sure now, little lady.”

Tears of frustration gathered in her eyes. Bad enough when Merlin called her little lady, let alone this guy. Her entire body trembled with rage. She’d like to pummel this man, tip him into the maw of the garbage truck, and hit the switch.

The garbageman interpreted her watering eyes and tremor in another way entirely and took pity. “Now don’t you cry, ma’am. I’m gonna tell you a little secret. You don’t gots to go out to the barn for a black can. New ones done come in finally. You gets one on Monday.”

Jane eyed him suspiciously. “That’s what Ethel tells me every time I call B.O. to complain.”

“I ain’t Ethel. I’m in the know. Dry yo’ eyes, little lady. Weep no more.”

“Thank you for the information.” Jane squinted at the name embroidered on his dark blue uniform shirt in orange thread half-obscured by smut. “Lemonjello? Is that right?”

“Yeah, my mama musta been smoking something when she named me. Most folks call me Mellow for short. See, this is the best job I could get after the sheriff let me out of the pokey. I gots to do what Mr. Burl says. You understand.”

“I do. My name is Jane Marshall, not little lady.”

The driver stuck his head out of the cab window. “You done flappin’ yo’ gums, Mellow?”

“Miss Jane, that’s my brother, Oranjello, O.J. for short. Yeah, coming. Drive on.”

Jane returned to her house and added “kitchen waste can” to her list of party needs from the Wal-Mart out on the highway. She appreciated that K-Mart stayed in its spot on the edge of town and usually tried shopping there first, but she had to admit Wally World offered a better selection for festive occasions, much cheaper than the Hallmark store on Main Street. Since she planned to get May a hundred-dollar gift card, she must pinch her pennies somewhere.

A thought occurred as she finished applying makeup for her foray out to the shopping center by the interstate. Miss Olive might enjoy getting out of assisted living for an afternoon to join the party. Not that Jane would do it simply to please Merlin and gain his attention. She genuinely liked his grandmother, surprising in so many ways. Olive Tauzin probably knew May. They were of an age. She made the call.

“
Mais,
yeah, I want to come. I know May Robin from way back though I have a couple years on her. We went to the same high school. I do love a good party. Will you have music? I can’t dance no more, but I sure do love to listen and tap my feet.”

“Sorry, no music. Not in the budget. The party starts at two. It’s a surprise, so don’t tell. Should I pick you up around one?”

“No need. The Villa’s van will bring me, like having a chauffeur to do for me. Lots to like about this place.”

“Attitude is everything.”

“
C’est vrai
. Thanks for inviting me, baby. We have birthday parties for the geezers here all the time, but it is nice to get out.”

“Glad to have you. Off to get the decorations,” Jane said when she sensed Olive would keep her on the phone chatting about life at Magnolia Villa.

“Bye-bye,
cher
.”

****

Jane waited tensely. The guests filled her living room and kitchen, overflowed into her library. Now if only Spring had been able to convince May to come for a conciliatory visit. The sight of the older woman’s betrayed eyes lingered in her memory as they’d cleaned out her desk, and Jane settled into the receptionist’s chair used so long by its former occupant that it molded to her skinny behind and so felt lumpy and uncomfortable to a younger, more rounded derriere.

The women of the council office went all out for May’s party, short notice or not. A rice cooker and crock pots holding meatballs and mini-cabbage rolls sat plugged into the outlets on the kitchen counter. Jane put an extra leaf into her table to hold all the sandwiches, her turkey salad, ham, and tangy pimento cheese, and a huge assortment of sweets, the cranberry bread, chocolate chip cookies, pastel mints, pralines, and tiny pecan pie tarts. Even Tonette brought some pretty decent homemade peanut butter fudge. Didi, who did not cook, stopped on the way to pick up boudin sausage and sliced it into rings on the cutting board. Jane considered leaving the snitches off the guest list along with Nadia, but figured she had nothing to hide. Didn’t Miss Nixon tell her to have the party on her own time?

Jane saved a place for the cake Spring intended to smuggle to the event in the trunk of her car by filling it with the turkey centerpiece, now disassembled and revamped without its goggle eyes, red felt wattles, and yellow beak. With any wilted flowers discarded and the rest placed in a pretty green recycled glass vase, it thriftily served the purpose. Pitchers of lemonade on the table, soft drinks in a cooler, coffee ready in a borrowed Party Perk, check! Black plates, cups, and napkins bedecked with a colorful confetti and streamer design and the words “Happy Retirement” in yellow placed on the table along with forks and spoons, check! A large basket brimming with cards containing gift certificates placed next to the guest-of-honor chair, check! Now, they only lacked that honoree.

“Here they come,” Angela Savoy announced from her spy place by the front window. The crowd went silent as the car turned into the side road and moved up the gravel drive. The passengers didn’t come to the back door like old friends but walked around to the front and rang the bell. Jane opened the door and embraced the wide-eyed May who immediately noticed the “Happy Retirement” sign hung across the hallway. All the ladies jumped out of their hiding places and shouted, “Surprise.”

She managed to whisper, “May, I don’t want your job. Not with all the tales you’ve told about the crazies and the threats received over the years. How did you ever do it?”

“It’s a special talent, being able to handle people,” May replied. “One that I cultivated over the years. Everybody assumes being a receptionist is easy.”

“I know it’s not.”

May’s niece, Wendy, and her children surged forward and escorted the woman of the hour to her designated chair. Spring brought in the cake and displaced the turkey flowers. Jane provided the honoree with her drink of choice, and the opening of the cards began. Some were funny, the majority sentimental, bringing tears to May’s eyes. Most favored Wal-Mart for a gift, but May received a nice selection of restaurant meal tickets, all with notes inviting her for a lunch or dinner, and a few gas cards, too. Didi gave her a gift certificate to the local naughty nightie store, adding more red to May’s already rouged cheeks and great guffaws of laughter from the women.

“How do you know? This might be the first one I use,” May quipped, bringing on additional chuckles.

“For true,” Merlin’s granny said from her perch on the other comfortable chair. “You got no idea what hanky-panky goes on at Magnolia Villa now that the old men got those little blue pills—only they don’t remember you in the morning.” Chortles erupted all around.

May’s oldest grandniece, a beautiful blue-eyed girl out of high school a year or two, carefully paired the greeting and gift cards together, saving all the envelopes to make the task of thank-you notes easier. Finally finished with the abundance of good wishes, the ladies dug into the food, none of them holding back on seconds or mentioning a diet, except Didi who had to keep herself svelte for the councilman and Angela who seemed to be lacking in appetite.

One by one, the guests departed, most of them leaving their food contributions behind for Jane and May to split. Spring, her daughter, and three granddaughters began ferrying containers, the gifts, and remaining cake to the car, leaving the kitchen a quiet and private place for the first time in hours.

May squeezed Jane against her bony frame. “Thank you for doing this for me, honey. I know none of my trouble was your fault, but a person looks for someone to blame at first. I should have retired years ago before this happened.”

“Nonsense. You did a great job, how great a job I am finding out. What will you do now?”

“No idea. Buy a travel wardrobe with my Wal-Mart gift cards and hit the road, maybe. I won’t even have to pay for gas or food on the way.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me.”

“Jane, could I ask a very special favor?”

“Anything.” As soon as the word escaped her lips, Jane knew she should have held it captive.

“Would you go out with Waldo just once and give him a chance? Like me, he’s had no luck in love. He didn’t marry until he turned thirty-five, about the same age I messed up my life. His first marriage lasted ten years before she ran off with a casket salesman. Married again when he was forty-nine, but that babe only wanted his money. Undertaking is a very lucrative business, you know.”

“So I’ve heard.” Jane’s brain churned desperately trying to produce an excuse not to grant May her wish. She wanted to say that she and Merlin were a couple, hardly the case since the Thanksgiving debacle. No, couldn’t use that reason.

“He wouldn’t build her a house away from the funeral home and made her sign a prenup. That floozy only gave him a few of years of her life. Neither one of his wives had any interest in having children. Waldo is all alone, like me.”

“Neither of you are alone. You both have Jethro and Spring, Wendy and her three daughters. I can tell the girls love you.” How they felt about their uncle was another matter entirely. Jane overheard one of them call him “Creepy Uncle Waldo” just this afternoon.

“Wendy, sweet as she is, is part of the problem. When that baby girl came along ten years after Waldo, Spring simply stopped paying much attention to her son.”

“Spring and Wendy do have a lot in common, I could tell. They both have those light blue eyes and sunny natures, always smiling and joking, at least here at the party. Waldo is more like his father. Maybe that’s why.”

“Yes, Waldo is Jethro’s son all right. That’s why he needs someone like you who is cheerful and positive to bring out the best in him. Please, Jane. May I tell my nephew you’d like him to call for a date?”

“Like might be implying too much. Just say I’ll go out with him if he wants.”

“Thank you, dear.” May gave Jane a peck on the cheek and left a small smear of coral lipstick behind.

The youngest grandniece poked her curly head into the kitchen. “Come on, Auntie May. Grandma says the car is all packed. We’re waiting.”

This time, May used the backdoor. With dread of the call from Waldo occupying her mind, Jane wandered toward the living room intending to pick up any party trash left behind. Before she arrived, Angela Savoy stepped out of her library.

“Oh, Angie, I thought you’d left with the others. Come back to the kitchen and take some of these leftovers home to Chad.”

“I have to talk to you. I guess being Catholic, I need to confess.”

Jane drew back. “Not to me! Tell a priest.”

“I have, but I can’t make things right again. Oh, Jane, I’m the one who left that ugly note on Nadia’s desk and got May fired. I didn’t mean to. I only wanted to get back at the Nixster for what she said to me. Now, I’ve messed up your career, too. You can’t do both jobs. Everyone knows Nadia is gunning for you next. Look, anytime you need to work on a project, I’ll fill in at the reception desk if I possibly can.” Angela wrung her hands in front of her belly, a little pudgy despite her dieting.

“From what you say, Chad makes good money and can support you. Why not go in, tell Nadia, and get it off your chest? Yes, she will fire you on the spot, but maybe May and I can get back to our old jobs. I am sure the retirement paperwork hasn’t gone through yet. Besides, you do have some business school training. If you want to work again, I’ll give you a reference.”

“I can’t get fired, Jane. I’m pregnant. They won’t let me get on Chad’s insurance for six months until pre-existing conditions are ruled out.” Angela patted that poochy belly tenderly. “The baby pre-existed the wedding, too. I mean, we were getting married anyhow, so I thought, why not? That’s what we should name the kid, Whynot Savoy.”

“Oh, don’t stick a child with a name like that! It might turn out like Waldo Robin. Weird names, not good.” Jane simply couldn’t shake the idea of the upcoming date with the undertaker, even with this startling confession to provide a distraction.

“Creepy, isn’t he? May kept trying to fix me up with him before I got engaged to Chad. She said Waldo was his grandfather’s name and her brother, Jethro, insisted on using it. I heard her talking you into a date with him. Loud as she is, maybe her hearing is going.
Pauvre bête
as my mawmaw would say.”

After this expression of sympathy, Angela raced along nearly breathless in her haste to convince Jane not to turn her in to the CAO. “Anyhow, I’ve been trying to keep my weight down so no one will know for a while. Even with my husband’s good salary, having a baby without insurance will put us in the hole so I have to use my parish health insurance. Please, please understand why I can’t tell Nadia now. After the baby comes, I plan to quit anyhow. I’ll make things right then. I promise.”

“Too late for May by then, though maybe she should get free of the council office, but I guess I can hold out against Nadia for a few more months if you help me at the desk.” For the second time today, Jane knew she shouldn’t promise a friend anything. “How far along are you?” she belatedly asked.