Drop Dead Divas (8 page)

Rayna's house, the Delta Inn, is a lovely nineteenth century hotel that had fallen into disrepair at one time. As so many buildings and homes, it was scheduled to be torn down and replaced by weeds and forlorn footings, but Rayna and Rob had taken a liking to it and saved it from the wrecking ball. The lobby of the inn still has lots of marble and ornate fireplace mantles, which I’m sure the salvage company still regrets not getting their hands on. Stuff like that sells at flea markets, antique fairs, and on the Internet for incredible prices.

They are slowly refurbishing the interior, and Rayna uses the lobby as her artist’s studio since it has plenty of natural light. It has a unique domed skylight on the roof, and floor to ceiling windows on the north, east, and west sides. Potted tropical plants grow to enormous size, and you can usually find a cat or two sleeping under a gigantic leaf as big as a beach umbrella. The former baggage room makes a discreet cattery, complete with litter trays, food bowls, and small dishes with running water. Rob and Rayna have no children, so the animals receive the benefit of their time and attention.

Behind the lobby is an industrial size kitchen with all the amenities. Rayna cooks gourmet meals when she isn’t busy painting and selling canvases of a wide variety of subjects. A lot of the paintings feature her animals or garden and sell quite well locally and at small gallery showings. She really is a woman of many talents.

“How many of the upstairs rooms do you have done?” Bitty asked when we were all sitting at what used to be the check-in counter but is now a breakfast bar of sorts.

“Just two. Rob has been so busy lately investigating insurance claims, and when he isn’t doing that, he’s busy bailing somebody out of jail. So it’s been difficult to put much time into renovation. We’ll get it done one day.”

“Are you going to do like the Madewells and rent out rooms?”

Rayna shuddered. “Lord, no! Can you imagine me in my painter’s smock trying to change beds for new guests? It’d be a mess.”

“True.” Bitty readjusted Chen Ling in the baby sling she wore across her chest as a constant accessory. I suppose that’s why the slings are always in matching colors and suitably fancied up. “I didn’t mean it when I told Trina that I’ve thought about renting out rooms at Six Chimney’s, you know,” said Bitty as if telling us something we didn’t already know. “I just said that to make her feel comfortable.”

“Have you heard from her since she tore out of your house like a cat with its tail on fire?” asked Rayna.

“Not even a phone call, much less a written note. Really. People have no manners these days, have you noticed? No one observes the social graces anymore.”

“Good god,” I said. “Count yourself lucky she didn’t take home the silver as she left. You’d be amazed at the things people do in hotels.”

“I had forgotten you used to work in the hospitality industry, Trinket.” Rayna poured me another glass of lemonade. She makes the old-fashioned kind of lemonade with juicy lemon slices crushed in sugar and ice, and fresh mint added to give it a zing. Her garden is overflowing with different kinds of mint and herbs. Rayna has a green thumb, too. As I said before, a woman of many talents. “I suppose there were a lot of things taken when the guests left. Towels, soap, things like that?”

“If we didn’t nail the paintings to the wall, they would be missing. Towels, lamps, shower curtains, silverware, dishes—once a guest took the toilet seat. Don’t ask me how he got it off. He must have checked in a tool box inside his luggage.”

“Was that at The Peabody?” Bitty asked. “It must have been an expensive toilet seat for him to want it.”

“It’s been a while since I worked there,” I said, “but The Peabody didn’t have gold toilet seats or any other reason for a guest to want to take it. Not even a duck motif on it.”

For those unfamiliar with “The South’s Grand Hotel,” The Peabody is a famous hotel in the heart of downtown Memphis, Tennessee. Memphis is about forty-five minutes up 78 Highway from Holly Springs. There is a local saying that the Mississippi Delta begins in the lobby of The Peabody Hotel. It’s also said that if you sit in the lobby long enough, you’ll see everyone you know and a few people you would like to know.

In the hotel lobby is a gorgeous marble fountain with a gigantic fresh flower arrangement atop the exquisite center and wild ducks swimming in the water. Yes, ducks. Mallards, to be precise. Back in the 1920s, when the hotel owner and a few friends returned from duck hunting in Arkansas, one of the inebriated gentlemen released a live duck into the fountain to swim. While it’s normal to bring dead ducks home from hunting, this gentleman apparently got confused. At any rate, the duck in the fountain became a huge tourist attraction, and thus began the practice of live ducks in the hotel lobby. There is a complicated ritual to it now; a red carpet stretches from the fountain to the elevator for the ducks to walk down while the Duck Master accompanies them to the lobby from an elegant and very expensive penthouse suite built especially for ducks. The John Philip Sousa March plays while tourists crowd the strip of red carpet with cameras. The ducks go on duty at eleven in the morning and return to their penthouse at five in the evening, all to great fanfare. While The Peabody has ducks in the lobby, you can rest assured there is no duck on the menus except as photos. It would be just too unsettling for guests to wonder if they were eating a duck they’d seen happily swimming the day before. The Peabody ducks retire to a farm outside Memphis where they live out the remainder of their lives in contented ducky fashion.

So when Bitty asked, “Have they ever served duck on the menu?” I smiled.

“Not officially.”

“What on earth does that mean?”

“Well, there was that time a group of college frat boys got drunk, stole a duck from the fountain, and tried to cook it in their hotel room.”

Bitty looked scandalized. “No! I tell you, some colleges just let their students go wild. It’s terrible. What sleazy college were they from?”

I hesitated, then said: “Ole Miss.”

Nonplussed, Bitty fumbled for a response. I could see she was torn between her distaste for bad manners and loyalty to her alma mater, as well as the fact she pays a great deal of tuition money each semester for her twin boys, Brandon and Clayton, to attend Ole Miss. So I softened the blow:

“The Peabody banned that fraternity from their premises for a while, and the boys responsible were sternly disciplined by the school and made to pay restitution. It was dealt with quite well, I believe.”

That made Bitty feel better.

“Well, I should hope so. Thank heavens not every university condones such behavior. Then I would worry about my boys being off at Ole Miss.”

“When are your boys due back in town?” Rayna asked Bitty.

“This week sometime. They’re still in Miami right now, visiting my aunt. They’re keeping her pretty busy, I imagine. On the way home they intend to stop by and visit Frank.”

While I had my doubts two young, handsome, healthy boys were spending all their time in Miami visiting Bitty’s senior aunt, I was intrigued to learn they kept in touch with their father.

“So,” I asked rather delicately, since Bitty doesn’t always like being reminded of her first husband and the twins’ father, “how is Frank?”

“Still in prison. The idiot. Why I ever thought he was smart is beyond me.”

“Well,” Rayna said, “he was always smart; he just got caught up in something he shouldn’t have.”

Bitty rolled her eyes. “I know nothing about financial markets, but even I’m not dumb enough to fall for a pyramid scheme. He should have done more research on the men he was working with instead of thinking he was some hotshot investor. Now look. They took off for the Mediterranean with most of the money, and he’s doing twenty in a Federal prison. Like I said: Idiot with a capital I.”

“At least you didn’t spend twenty-odd years following him around the country to different jobs,” I said. “It took me a lot longer than you to figure out my husband had problems with dependable employment.”

“That’s true.” Bitty bent down to let a wriggling pug loose in the lobby. Several of Rayna's cats eyed Chen Ling with flattened ears and twitching tails, not a good sign of impending feline friendship. “I always wondered how you could be so stupid.”

Before I could say what came first to my mind, she added, “For such a smart woman, you sure did overlook a lot,” and I didn’t say it. After all, she was right.

Now, to give Bitty credit, even though she’s been married and divorced four times, there was always an excellent reason for the divorces. Usually a much better reason, in fact, than there was for the marriage, but since I’m obviously not in a position to judge, I try to refrain from pointing out that detail. After all, I got married because he had great abs. Go figure.

If I haven’t mentioned this before, my ex-husband—whom I met at a sit-in for Native American rights—was a jack of all trades. He worked various jobs throughout his career, and still does I imagine, although I haven’t kept up with his whereabouts. I wish him no ill, mind you. We just get on much better a continent apart.

Anyway, all talk about ex-husbands came to a screeching halt as two things happened at once: Chen Ling decided to taste a cat, and the doorbell rang. As the lobby is so huge, sound reverberates off the marble, glass, and wood. Jarring echoes of a yelping pug and a deep, repetitive gong made my head vibrate at warp speed.

Since Rayna was helping Bitty untangle Chen Ling and a rather large cat that had been happily napping under a chair before the introduction, it was left to me to go answer the door. Not that I minded. It was much better than getting scratched or bitten.

“Who rang that bell?” I sang as I marched to the double entry doors, mimicking the tone of the doorman/wizard/professor in the
Wizard of Oz
movie. In case I haven’t mentioned it yet, I have a habit of quoting from old movies, television shows, and books. I’m not alone in my oddity, as Bitty can match me quote for quote. This talent is a left-over product of our youth. While we were mostly normal children, family rumor has it that we spent a great deal of our time restricted to our respective homes because of some misdeed or other that we had no doubt been unjustly accused of committing, so we used up a lot of time watching television. Don’t listen to my mother if she tells you differently. She has memory lapses.

I repeated my demand even louder as I opened the door. Gaynelle Bishop gave me a sharp rap on the arm with a folded newspaper. “Don’t be rude, dear.”

Rather meekly, I stepped aside to let her into the lobby. It must take a long time to recover from thirty years of teaching bad-mannered children not to shout, swear, or pee their pants in the classroom.

“How are you today?” I asked as I accompanied Gaynelle across the lobby.

“Oh,
I
am fine, but I’ve been hunting for Bitty to see how
she
is doing.”

We both looked at Bitty and Rayna as they successfully rescued Chitling from the sharp clutches of a miffed tomcat. The cat went to work cleaning bits of pug fur from his claws, while Bitty held a recovering dog close to her chest.

“Oh my poor baby!” Bitty said as she examined Chen Ling for damage. “Did that mean ole cat hurt you?”

Rayna hovered close. “I am so sorry. Merlin has little tolerance for strange dogs. I should have warned you. I just didn’t think Chen Ling would get too close to him.”

“Well, there’s no blood so I’m sure she’ll be fine eventually. Though I do think she may have been traumatized.”

Safe now in Bitty’s arms, Chen Ling revealed the depth of her trauma by looking down at Merlin and growling. Then she started barking, shrill yaps that billowed around the lobby all the way up to the domed skylight. I touched my ears to see if they were bleeding yet, while Bitty tried to get the dog to hush.

After a moment, Gaynelle intervened. “Do be quiet,” she said to Chen Ling, and the startled pug stopped barking. Not bad, I thought. She could give the Dog Whisperer a run for his money.

“Bitty, have you read
The
South Reporter
today?” Gaynelle demanded, and when Bitty shook her head, I had a sinking feeling we were about to hear something dreadful. I was right.

“Here.” Gaynelle thrust the paper toward her. “Read
Miranda’s Musings
.”

“You mean Miranda’s tell-all column. What on earth has she managed to get into print now?”

Bitty took the paper. It had been folded, so the column was on top for easier reading. As she read, Bitty’s face took on an odd hue, somewhere between raspberry and purple. It was not a very complimentary shade. When she looked up, her eyes glinted like steel daggers.

“That
bitch!
“

Since she’d crumpled the paper in one hand as she snarled, I snatched it away so I could read it. Rayna crowded close behind me as I read aloud:

“’Trina Madewell reports that she was invited to a Dixie Diva meeting this week. As the Divas rarely invite outsiders to their meetings, Miss Madewell felt especially honored to be invited by the Queen Bee herself, one Bitty Hollandale. Mrs. Hollandale, you may recall, was divorced from the late Mississippi senator Philip Hollandale, who was found murdered a few months ago in his ex-wife’s wine cellar. Although arrested for his murder, Mrs. Hollandale was released the same day through the efforts of Jackson Lee Brunetti, her attorney. Brunetti and Brunetti is a well-respected Holly Springs’ firm with offices in Memphis as well as Mississippi. Since that time, Mr. Brunetti and Mrs. Hollandale have been seen around Holly Springs enjoying late-night dinners together.’”

I paused and looked up. Bitty had gone quiet. Too quiet. Gaynelle watched her closely as if expecting an eruption, and I noticed that Rayna's cats had all left the room like rats from a sinking ship. This was gonna be bad, I told myself, and prepared for the worst as I continued to read. My voice got lower, not that it mattered. Gaynelle and Bitty had already read it, and Rayna was still leaning over my shoulder.

“But back to the Dixie Divas. Miss Madewell arrived promptly for the meeting, and they were soon joined by other members of this secretive club. For those of my readers who have long wondered if these meetings are just polite socials, let me be the first to inform you—they are anything but polite.