The Cherry Cola Book Club (16 page)

Periwinkle nodded enthusiastically. “Sure, why not? I always like to think I'm at the top of my game.”

 

“Baby, you'll get the job. Don't you worry,” Ardenia Bedloe had told her son right before kissing him on the cheek and sending him on his way to the job interview at The Twinkle at nine-thirty in the morning. “That Miz Lattimore is crazy if you don't get it, good as you are. Nobody in Memphis ever fixed desserts as fine as you did!” Then she had drawn herself up as tall as her arthritis and seventy-five years of living would allow and waved good-bye to him at the door. “Hold your head up and your shoulders back!” she called out at the last minute. “You're a proud Bedloe, no matter what!”

And with that send-off to amuse and embolden him simultaneously, Mr. Parker Place drove from his family home on Big Hill Lane to the restaurant. He was thinking that Maura Beth Mayhew must be some sort of magician, getting back to him just a couple of days after their first meeting to tell him she had talked Periwinkle Lattimore into considering him for a position at The Twinkle. Though his world had come tumbling down around him in Memphis, thanks to the wrecking ball, it appeared he might be on the verge of constructing a new life for himself.

“What were your specialties?” Periwinkle was asking him once they had begun the interview in her cluttered office at precisely nine-thirty. Among the many good work habits he had acquired throughout his career, unerring promptness was near the top of Mr. Parker Place's list.

He took a deep breath and began a tempting recitation. “Crepes of all kinds, both cheese and fruit, Mississippi mud pie, grasshopper pie, carrot cake, red velvet cake, strawberry cake, caramel cake, éclairs, cupcakes of all kinds, macadamia nut cookies, dark chocolate chip cookies—”

Periwinkle held up her hand. “That's more than impressive, Mr. Place. Why don't I take a bite of the samples you brought?” She looked down at the éclair and the slice of grasshopper pie he had placed before her a few minutes earlier and settled on the éclair first. “What on earth have you put in there, Mr. Place?!” she exclaimed as she tasted his creation with ever-widening eyes. “It's heavenly!”

He leaned in smugly. “A little Amaretto in the filling.”

“How did you know I love that wedding cake taste?” she continued. “Though why I have no idea. My marriage was a disaster!”

He gently pushed the pie plate toward her with a disarming smile. “Sorry to hear that, but maybe this will make you feel better.”

Then she tasted the cool, green grasshopper pie, and he thought she might just swoon. “Ohhh!” Finally, she gathered herself. “My biggest gripe with mint is that it can be so overwhelming that you feel like you don't want to eat anything for another month. How did you manage to tame it like this?”

“Now that,” he told her, “is one of my secrets I don't care to reveal.”

She nodded enthusiastically. “I can respect that. I keep a few of my best tips hidden away on the pantry shelf myself.”

Then it was time to get around to the details of an actual job offer, and Periwinkle predictably led with the issue of compensation. “Can you tell me how much the Grand Shelby Hotel was paying you there at the end?”

He said nothing, preferring to write a figure on a nearby Post-it note and hand it to her.

She looked down at it and smiled. “I must say I think you were worth every penny, judging by what I just tasted.”

“Thank you.”

Then she took another Post-it note and wrote down a figure of her own. “See if this will work for you, Mr. Place,” she said, offering it to him.

He glanced at it quickly and caught her gaze. “Miz Lattimore, I'd love to come work for you whenever you say.” Then he leaned forward, maintaining the intense eye contact. “My mama said you'd give me this job before I left the house. She's a great judge of character, you know.”

“Tell you what,” Periwinkle added, reaching across her desk to shake his hand. “I want you to bring your mother here for dinner real soon. It'll be on the house. Just think of it as a sort of signing bonus.”

 

Miss Voncille glanced at the wall clock in her bright yellow kitchen and made a sour face. It was ten after two in the afternoon, one week exactly before the November
Mockingbird
meeting. “They're running late,” she said to Locke, who was leaning against the counter nursing a small gin and tonic. “That's not like them.”

He shrugged and began rummaging through the nearby dish of nuts she intended to set out for their upcoming bridge game with the Crumpton sisters.

“Why do men always do that?” she wanted to know, watching him poking his index finger around and feigning disapproval.

“Do what?”

“Pick out all the cashews and leave all the Brazil nuts.”

Locke washed down the nuts with another sip of his drink and smirked. “For the same reason we date the prettiest girls in town if we can get them to go out with us. They're yummier.”

“I'm not sure I like the sound of that too much,” she added. “But at least it's consistent.”

“Yes,” he continued. “Also, cashews are compact, and Brazil nuts are . . . well, always the size of Brazil.” He decided to take a seat in the breakfast nook, and she joined him, bringing the nuts with her. “Playing bridge with the Crumpton sisters still seems like an extraordinary sacrifice on your part—or on ours, I should say, since I'll have to be in the room except when I'm lucky enough to be dummy. Please see if you can arrange for me to be dummy every deal. Those Crumpton sisters are the world's most acquired taste.”

Miss Voncille looked exasperated and went after the last of the cashews herself. “I expect them to be testy if we cut off one of their legs, or even defeat one of their contracts, but if I can maneuver them into coming to the
Mockingbird
meeting in another week, it will help Maura Beth out immeasurably. We're all just trying our best to increase those numbers—day by day, week by week—right up until the last second. Maura Beth and Periwinkle really have that cross-promotional angle going, Connie's doing her thing out at the lake this Sunday with her seafood extravaganza, and Becca's been doing hers on the radio now with Stout Fella as her sidekick. I'm not about to be the only one who doesn't contribute something. And you have to be in on it for the simple reason that it takes four to play bridge.”

Locke lifted his glass in tribute and took another swallow. “I must admit I never thought Mamie and Marydell would accept your apology about that crazy armadillo story of yours. Looks like they're back in the genealogy fold. Mind telling me how you managed it?”

“A strange form of flattery, if you must know. I told Mamie that I thought I must be showing the first signs of dementia with all that nonsense I made up. ‘Clearly, you're the healthiest, sanest person in our class,' I went on. ‘You'll outlive us all!' I laid it on pretty thick because it appeals to that unique morbid streak of hers. That's what we used to call her in high school, you know—Morbid Mamie. I think it started when our journalism teacher, Mrs. Lander, let her write an article for the school paper on poor Preston Durant's tragic death in a wreck. Oh, it was awful! His car stalled on the railroad tracks! After that, it got around that she had asked Mrs. Lander if she could write ‘practice' obits for some of us. Apparently, something about it got her juices flowing. I only hope she doesn't drag our senior yearbook out of mothballs again.”

Locke furrowed his brow. “Why? Would that be a bad thing?”

But the doorbell prevented Miss Voncille from answering his question. “Ah, there they are at last! Shall we go greet them and get the afternoon started?”

Unfortunately, Mamie Crumpton bounded through the front door out of the brisk weather with the yearbook of the Cherico High School Class of 1960 and her sister in tow. “This is why we're late,” she explained, foregoing so much as a hello while brandishing the worn-looking annual over her head like some sort of sports trophy. “We got halfway over here and I realized I had forgotten to bring it. So I said,‘Marydell, we'll just have to turn around and go back.' ”

Somehow Miss Voncille managed a careful, polite smile. “Why, of course you had to.”

“I didn't know if you knew that two more of us had died last month,” Mamie added, while Locke took the ladies' coats and hung them up in the hall closet. Then he gestured toward the long green sofa as both Crumpton sisters took their seats and settled in.

Miss Voncille sighed wearily, remaining standing beside Locke. “Who bought the farm this time?”

Mamie puffed herself up as usual and rattled off all the pertinent information. “It was Dexter Thomas Warrick, Jr. He and his family moved away a long time ago. I believe he was a basketball player back then. But a few weeks ago, he succumbed to a heart attack. I think some of these tall people have trouble with their hearts.”

“I vaguely remember him,” Miss Voncille said. “It continually amazes me how you keep up with all this. You must have runners all over the country.”

Mamie was clearly proud of herself, completely missing the humor. “Oh, I do have my methods.”

“So who was the second person to leave us?” Miss Voncille continued. “And then Locke will take your drink orders.”

“Well, it was Katherine Anna Wilson. I think she went by Katie, or was it Kathy? I forget which. Anyway, she won Miss Home Ec her senior year. The obit didn't say what did her in—just that she passed away among family and friends. She wasn't in our crowd, though.”

Miss Voncille was scowling in a genuine attempt to conjure her up. “Heavy girl?”

“Very much so. She wore dresses that looked like she'd wrapped a fabric bolt around herself. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if she won Miss Home Ec because she ate everything she cooked in class. That always made the teacher look good, you know.”

Then it was time for the ritual. Mamie opened the yearbook and gestured to her classmate while locating the senior pictures of the dear departed. Both Locke and Miss Voncille moved around behind the sofa to take them in. “There they are. Both on the same page in the W's. Don't they look young as spring deer? Weren't we all back then? Ah, for the good ole days!”

Miss Voncille couldn't resist. “Yes, indeed! When we were all alive, each and every one of us!”

Locke gave Miss Voncille a playful nudge. “Let's see you, Voncille. Come on, Mamie, find her for me.”

Mamie flipped a few pages and zeroed in on the picture with her index finger. “There you have her. Miss Voncille Deloris Nettles. I've always said you were a looker, Voncille.”

Locke leaned down for a closer look and wagged his brows. “That you were, my dear. Of course, you still are in my book. Is Deloris a family name with that unusual spelling?”

“I doubt it. My parents just liked to be different. He was Walker Nettles, and she was Annis Favarel, and I have no idea where their first names came from.” Miss Voncille finally exhaled dramatically, having survived the ordeal of Morbid Mamie and the yearbook yet another time. “Well, we've paid our proper respects now. Locke, why don't you see what the ladies will have, I'll get out the card table, and we'll play some bridge.”

 

For the first time in their fledgling relationship, Miss Voncille and Locke were having a disagreement over something other than picking through the party nuts or which wine to have with dinner. A somewhat trying two hours of bidding, finessing, and drawing trumps had crawled by, but from Miss Voncille's point of view it had all been worth it. She'd gotten the freshly departed Crumpton sisters to agree to attend the
Mockingbird
meeting and even check out a few books in the interim for lagniappe. Mission more than accomplished.

“You were as obvious as they were clueless,” Locke kept insisting. “It's true that I've never been your bridge partner, so I have no point of comparison. But I find it hard to believe that someone could renege, mismanage trumps, and overbid so many times in the same rubber. I wonder if they were wise to you but let you play on like that anyway. A win is a win is a win.”

He began imitating her voice and gestures. “ ‘Oh, my goodness, I thought I had completely drawn trumps. Where did that come from, Mamie, you clever rascal!' And, ‘Did I double your contract, Mamie? I wonder what I could have been thinking of with the hand I had?' And my absolute favorite, ‘I shouldn't have bid a slam in no-trump without a stopper in spades.' Mamie ran the entire spade suit against us in that one. The only good thing about it was that I was dummy and didn't have to stay in the room to watch all the carnage.”

“I had no idea you were such a sore loser,” Miss Voncille said, watching him fold her card table and put it away in the hall closet.

He had an impish grin on his face when he emerged from his task. “And I had no idea you would go to such lengths to stay on the good side of your Morbid Mamie and her mousy little sister who only opened her mouth to bid. At least come clean and admit you played like a college student on a drinking binge.”

She put her hands on her hips and turned her nose up. “I never drank when I was in college. Besides, what happened here this afternoon was only a game.”

“Which you won, despite appearances to the contrary.”

She finally gave in. “Very well, then, Locke Linwood. That was indeed the most atrocious rubber of bridge I've ever played in my life. But it got results, didn't it? I know Mamie Crumpton like the back of my hand. She loves nothing more than feeling like she's on top of the world, alive and kicking, while the rest of us are dropping like flies and playing beginner's bridge. This was the perfect afternoon for her—two senior pictures to shed crocodile tears over and two bridge opponents to trounce—with a little help, of course. Besides, it's all just part of my ongoing transformation from semi-curmudgeon to sweet little old lady.”