Temple Secrets: Southern Humorous Fiction: (New for 2015) For Lovers of Southern Authors and Southern Novels (29 page)

“I can’t believe you’re even considering this,” Rose says to Max.

“I can’t believe I’m considering it, either,” Max says. “But I think I’m ready for a new adventure. I’m definitely ready to stop working so damn hard. But mostly I want you to be happy, Rose. We’ve lived the last twenty-five years where I wanted to live. Let’s live the next twenty-five years where you want to.”

Emotion catches in her throat. She has never loved Max more than she does at this moment. Like every couple, they’ve had their issues, but nothing they didn’t work hard to get past. She reaches over and takes his calloused right hand and presses her love into it.

Are you sure?” she asks.

“I’m sure,” he says.

Their eyes meet briefly and he squeezes her hand again before returning it to the steering wheel.

The weariness around Max’s eyes is as tangible as the calluses on his hands. She has spent hours of her life trying to rub the pain out of his back and shoulders after a long day. Ranching is hard on an almost fifty year old man. It’s hard on anyone. She’s had her share of aches and pains, too. But this is the first time she’s heard him voice his willingness to walk away from the ranch.

Rose tries to imagine Max in Savannah. He’s only been there twice. Once for their wedding and then a second time at Christmas, a year after that. Rose pauses to let this new possibility seep into her tired body. She thought moving back to Savannah was not even an option. She thought that Max wouldn’t want to leave their home, nor be manipulated by her dead mother. But evidently, Rose thought wrong.

As they pass the last exit for Fort Collins, the snow begins again in earnest. She hopes they don’t close I-25 down before they get home. She thinks back to her walk on the beach earlier that day. It was nearly 80 degrees in Savannah. She doesn’t have the heart to tell this to Max.

Snow drifts form along the highway. Max isn’t talking now. He’s putting all his attention into getting them home before the road closes. Even though Max seems certain, they will probably need to have many more conversations about her mother’s proposition before they sell the ranch. But Rose feels a spark of possibility come alive inside of her. Is it really possible to go home again?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

11 Months Later

Queenie

The one year anniversary of Iris’s death is a month away and the
Temple
Book of Secrets
is still in the news. Reporters have joined the crowds out front and Queenie has even dealt with paparazzi while doing her errands. Paparazzi—Savannah style—which consists of a couple of acne-faced teenagers taking snapshots of her picking out lettuce in the produce aisle of the Piggly Wiggly. Why anyone in the world would want a picture of Queenie threatening to throw produce at her stalkers is beyond her.

After a court injunction stopped the newspaper from printing the secrets, they began to show up on flyers delivered to downtown mailboxes and stapled to light poles and trees. Not to mention community boards in almost every grocery store and coffee shop. The mystery continues as to who is planting the secrets and Queenie has heard that there are even bookies who are laying odds as to who it might be. Queenie, Edward and Rose are suspected. Even Violet has been named. But what would they have to gain from all this? If she had to guess, she thinks that whoever it is planting the secrets is someone outside of the immediate family, but also someone who knows a tremendous amount about the Temples and somehow got access to the book. But how?

Queenie is usually good at figuring out
who done it
in the murder mysteries she reads, and it is usually the last person you would ever suspect. But this is one mystery that has her totally stumped. She is even starting to wonder if it is the deceased Temples who are doing it, in an effort to somehow free themselves.

Whoever it is has also not tired in their quest to expose every last secret. It doesn’t matter if a secret is two hundred years old and contains information about a family that has long since died out, it shows up somewhere and is reported upon. Savannah is getting a history lesson about its past.

However, Queenie prefers to focus on the present. Earlier that day, she received a phone call from Rose that they sold their ranch and were now in the process of packing up everything to move to Savannah. At Violet’s insistence, they will live in the Temple house with Queenie, as well as Violet and her family, who plan to make the move as soon as school is out in June.

“How do you like that, Iris?” Queenie looks up at the light fixture in the sun room. “This old mansion is becoming a halfway house for recovering Temples.”

As always, Queenie’s laugh comes out as a cackle, but then she stops herself with the thought:
No need to rub it in.
Even dead, Iris can still make Queenie regret it. For months now, she has carried a sweater with her everywhere she goes to combat the icy blasts of Iris’s disapproval. But at least the odor has gone away.

For Queenie, life without Iris isn’t what she expected. As much as she yearned not to be ordered around and criticized, she has yet to find something to fill the yawning gap that Iris left behind. In her weaker moments she even wishes Iris was still here.

For months, Edward kept things interesting with his team of lawyers contesting the will like a team of Georgia bulldogs fighting for a touchdown from the one yard line on a fourth down. However, Bo Rivers assures them that Edward doesn’t have a case and that the entire dispute should be settled in the next few weeks.

Queenie walks into the dining room where she looks out the window to see the black sedan parked in its usual place. It shows up as regularly as a Temple secret. She wonders if they are somehow related. Queenie goes into the kitchen where Violet is polishing the silverware at the kitchen table.

“What are you doing?” Queenie asks. “Nobody’s going to fire you if you want to relax for a change.”

“The silver still needs to be polished,” Violet says. “What am I going to do, hire someone?” She laughs.

Queenie tells her she has a point and takes a polishing cloth and starts on the knives.

A day doesn’t pass without Queenie writing in her journal about how grateful she is that Violet forgave her. It took several months and many talks and tears on both parts, but they reached the conclusion that they needed to forget the past and focus on the future.

Now if these damn ghosts would just do the same,
Queenie thinks. “Rose called this morning,” she says to Violet. “They’ll be here this time next month.”

“I’m so glad they’ll be living here, too,” Violet says, going to town on a gravy boat. “At least then the ghosts won’t outnumber the people anymore.”

“It’s about time,” Queenie says.

Violet’s girls, her granddaughters, as Queenie is now finally free to call them, have already claimed two bedrooms at the east end of the house. Queenie and Violet have been getting them ready for weeks. Not only have they taken down draperies and cleaned windows, but they have also moved furniture from other parts of the house to accommodate two teenage girls.

“I like that this old house is coming alive again,” Queenie says.

“I’m not sure the rest of the Temples like it,” Violet says. “Have you noticed how quiet it’s been on the ghost front lately?”

“Come to think of it, I haven’t needed my sweater all day,” Queenie says.

“It’s like when children get quiet,” Violet says. “It means they’re up to something.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Queenie says. “By the way, Mama called with another warning. She says to be careful around the anniversary of Iris’s death. Evidently, anniversaries create openings between the visible and the invisible worlds.”

“That’s the last thing we need,” Violet says.

“Tell me about it.” Queenie polishes the salad forks, wondering how many of her ancestors have done this same thing. Except now these salad forks belong to her daughter. She smiles her glee.

“I think Rose and Max should have the back two bedrooms,” Violet says. “They look out over the garden and they can convert one of the bedrooms into a den.”

“That’s a great idea,” Queenie says, “those rooms will be perfect for them.” She remembers a summer when Violet and Rose were girls. The older she gets, the more vivid her recollections. “Do you remember saying as a little girl that you wanted to live with Rose when you grew up? Mama and I just rolled our eyes. But it seems you got your wish.”

Violet smiles. “I’d forgotten all about that,” she says. “Maybe the seed got planted then and the possibility has been growing all these years.”

“In that case, I should have planted the seed that I’d be wealthy in my old age,” Queenie says with a wink. “But I guess there’s still time.”

Queenie has talked to Violet about Old Sally maybe living here, too, someday. Not that it will be easy to convince her to leave her house. Violet was totally open to the idea. Old Sally is getting frail—something she didn’t think was possible a few years ago—and Queenie worries about her.

“By the way,” Violet says. “Spud is coming over later to help with some things.”

“He’s been coming around a lot these days,” Queenie says. She’s not sure how she feels about this. In a way, she hates sharing Violet, now that they get along again. But she doesn’t want to be selfish.

“I think he’s lonely,” Violet says. “That’s our good luck because he’s incredibly helpful, too.”

“I’ll see him today,” Queenie says. “I’ve continued Iris’s tradition of going to the Piggly Wiggly every Wednesday. He always seems glad to see me.” What Queenie doesn’t admit is she likes seeing him, too.

“Spud is a real sweetheart,” Violet says. “Maybe you should get to know him a little better. How long’s it been since you had a man in your life, Queenie?”

She pauses long enough to count back the years.

“Would you believe 1973?” Queenie asks. This shocks her as much as it appears to shock Violet.

“Time to get back on that horse,” Violet says.

“That horse turned into a jackass and died a long time ago,” Queenie says with a chuckle.

“I have an idea,” Violet says. “Why don’t you invite him over for dinner? He’s a vegetarian, you know, so how about picking up some Portobello mushrooms at the store, and I’ll make Portobello burgers.”

“I could never be interested in a man who doesn’t eat meat,” Queenie says, her tone dismissive.

“Don’t make excuses,” Violet says. She hands Queenie the car keys and gently pushes her toward the door.

As Queenie walks down the aisle toward the meat section, she remembers following Iris down this same aisle. At the counter, Spud Grainger wraps a package of ribs for a customer. When he sees Queenie he smiles and she nods in return. Lips pursed, she studies him from the back of the line.

He’s a tad scrawny, as men go,
she thinks,
yet still handsome.
It doesn’t seem to matter that he’s about a dozen shades lighter than Denzel. But how does he feel about full-figured women? Iris was scrawny as a Q-tip. Queenie puts her hands where her waist used to be. A waist that disappeared sometime in the 1970s. She thinks,
Lord, have mercy, if things ever got amorous I might accidentally crush him.
She smiles at this thought and catches Spud Grainger smiling back.

When it is her turn, Queenie tells Spud of Violet’s invitation to come to dinner that night, all the while trying not to gag at the thought of mushroom burgers.

Yet Spud accepts the invitation and then straightens his tie, which prompts Queenie to straighten the red wrap she’s wearing around her hair. Instead of two peas in a pod, they are more like a zucchini and a watermelon growing on different vines altogether.

A flash goes off near the dairy section and she rolls her eyes at the same kid who got a photo of her getting out of the Town Car. Does he think she’s delivering a Temple secret to the butcher?

“If it’s okay with you, I’ll bring some shrimp,” Spud says, unaware of the camera. “We just got in some beauties this morning. Do you like shrimp and grits?” he asks. “I make a mean shrimp and grits.”

“I thought you were a vegetarian,” Queenie whispers, in case he doesn’t want his customers or the paparazzi to know.

“Not a strict one,” he says. “I also eat seafood.”

Queenie smiles, thinking there may be hope for him after all.

“Six o’clock?” Queenie asks. She flutters her eyelashes wondering who she’s trying to fool. She hasn’t flirted with a man since Elvis Presley wore blue suede shoes.

“Is something irritating your eye?” Spud asks. “I have some eye drops in the back.”

Queenie assures him she’s okay and swears off flirting for another forty years, as they say their goodbyes.

While in the area, Queenie gets her hair done at the Gladys Knight and the Tints beauty parlor, as she always does. It feels strange to drive on these outings, instead of being Iris’s unwitting passenger. However, she likes the thought that pedestrians are safe in Savannah again. She half expects a public service announcement to run at the bottom of her favorite television programs to document this change. Along with the latest Temple secret.

In Iris’s honor, and because she’s hungry, Queenie goes through the pick-up window at Kentucky Fried Chicken. Another acne-clad teenager—minus a camera, yet with an Adam’s apple the shape of a chicken gizzard—sticks his head out the window.

“Hey, isn’t this the car of that rich old lady who used to come through?” he asks.

If I needed further proof there it is,
Queenie thinks. “I’m afraid Iris Temple died almost a year ago,” she tells him.

The teenager sniffs, as if genuinely saddened, and starts to pick at one of his pimples. “She was kind of interesting, you know?”

“Yes, Iris Temple was definitely interesting,” Queenie says.

He leans further out the window and whispers, “She used to tip me. Can you believe that? Nobody ever tips.”

Queenie smiles. Iris could be generous when she wanted to be.

After he takes her order, the teenager gives Queenie a free side order of slaw as a condolence. After parking at the back of the lot, she eats three chicken strips and a biscuit, along with the bereavement cole slaw. It is still a mystery to her how Iris could devour an entire bucket all by herself. As delicate as Iris’s digestive system appeared to be, she must have had an iron stomach.