The Ladies' Room (7 page)

"Sorry if I stepped on sore toes. You sure you want to move
in here?"

"Very, very sure."

"Want me to carry that air conditioner upstairs and get it
running for you?"

I could have kissed the man right between his pretty blue
eyes. Billy Lee had simply accepted my decision and moved
on. And everyone thought he was an odd duck!

He picked up the air conditioner box as if it was a feather
pillow and started into the house. "Tomorrow is church. Shall
we begin the work the next day?"

I carried my other bags and opened the door for him. "I'd
like that"

He found a long brown extension cord in a kitchen drawer,
laid it on top of the air conditioner box, carried both upstairs,
and plugged the cord into an apparatus with a plug on each
side that was screwed into the lightbulb socket. He weaved the
cord around the end of the iron bedstead, under the throw rug
on the hardwood floor, and over to the window. In minutes
cool air blew into the room.

"Keep the door shut, and this room will cool down by bedtime. I've got a rack of ribs smoking for supper. Dinner at six?"

My expression must have been scary, odd, or plain crazy, because he threw up his hands in defense. "What's the matter? Did
I say something wrong? Do you hate ribs? I used to bring Gert
food all the time."

Evidently I'd taken Gert's place in the scheme of things. As
the wife of a small-town lawyer I'd been at the top of the social ladder, but now I was on the same level as crazy old Aunt
Gert. That deflated my ego as much as the news in the ladies'
room had.

"No, Billy Lee, you didn't say anything wrong. I'd love to
have ribs for supper. Thank you"

"Good. I'll go on home and check on them. They're in the
smoker. I'll be here at six, then?"

I nodded.

He closed the door behind him.

I plopped down onto the bed and enjoyed the wonderful
cold air flowing over my body. After a while, I flipped over
onto my stomach. That's when I saw the old wooden jewelry box sitting on the nightstand. I rolled off the bed and picked it
up. It was heavy enough that it could have been holding gold
nuggets, and after my bank trip nothing would surprise me. I
opened it carefully. It was brimful of gorgeous jewelry that I'd
never seen Gert wear and that sure hadn't come from a dollar
store.

I picked up a brooch shaped like a daisy with a long golden
stem. The petals were white elongated opals, the center a lovely
golden topaz of at least three carats. I flipped it over to find a
date written on a tiny piece of masking tape attached to the
back. June 3, 1958. That would have been a year after she'd
married Uncle Lonnie. Why hadn't she ever worn this lovely
piece?

A beautiful, heart-shaped pendant was the next thing I
pulled out. The diamonds around its outer edge sparkled in
the light. The single dangling diamond in the middle was a
carat or maybe more. It was dated August 1959. Uncle Lonnie
had died the year Drew and I married, and there was a piece
for every year up until then.

Why had he given Gert one costly piece of jewelry a year,
and why hadn't she worn any of them? They couldn't be anniversary presents, because they'd married in June of 1957,
and not all the dates on the jewelry were in June. She'd told
me at my wedding, which was also in June, that she'd married
in the same month and that I was not to expect a happily-everafter marriage just because I'd chosen that most traditional
month to marry.

I scattered the jewelry on the bed all around me. The topaz
and opal pin looked familiar; I'd seen one like it before, but
where? I picked it up, and then it dawned on me. Daisy Black
wore one pinned to the lapel of a black suit almost every Sunday. Why would Aunt Gert and Daisy have identical fancy
brooches?

I untangled a pendant with a fine gold chain and looked at
the diamond cross and remembered that Patsy Banner had
had one like it. She had died a couple of years ago and had
passed it down to her daughter, Loretta, who wore it all the
time to remember her mother.

A square-cut emerald ring caught my attention. As I laid it
back in the box, I noticed the corner of something sticking out
from the felt bottom. It was a certificate for the diamond pendant from a famous jewelry store in Oklahoma City.

What a mystery! Either Uncle Lonnie Martin had purchased the necklace for Gert, and she'd been too mean-spirited
to ever wear it, or she had bought the jewelry for herself and
maybe kept it a secret from Lonnie. If the designer was still
living, the jewelry store that sold it could probably tell me something about the pieces. Finding the jeweler took a little longer
than typing the address into the laptop I'd left behind with all
my other belongings, but the telephone operator finally located it for me.

The phone rang twice before a nice voice asked if she could
be of assistance.

"Hello, this is Trudy Williams. I've just inherited several
pieces of jewelry from my aunt, Gertrude Martin..

"Just a minute, ma'am. You'll need to speak to my husband.
Please hold on while I transfer you to his office ""

A deep voice promptly answered. "Hello, Mrs. Williams.
My name is Paul Fisher. I understand you have inherited a
collection of jewelry from your aunt. I wasn't even aware that
Gert had passed on. Please accept my condolences."

"You knew Gert?" I was amazed.

"Oh, yes. I only met her once, but we've talked several times
on the phone. I've been trying to buy back those pieces ever
since Lonnie died. It's the only complete set of my work. Name
your price."

"Mr. Fisher, I know of at least two more pieces you designed
right here in Tishomingo. Two different women each own a
piece exactly like these," I said.

"Yes, they do. There are thirty-seven pieces in all, and I
made two of each design. But Gert had the only complete set"

"Why did Gert have them all and these other women have
one each?"

"Because Lonnie had two pieces done each time he came in.
I didn't ask questions. I was here to design and sell jewelry."

"That rat!" I changed my mind about Gert.

"Could be. I didn't ask what he did with the two pieces when
he walked out of here. I just knew that after Lonnie died, Gert
came here toting a wooden box with all that jewelry and asked
me what it was worth. I made her a generous offer, but she
laughed at me. Every year I beg, and every year she tells me the
same thing."

"Which is?"

"Verbatim?"

"That would be nice."

"'I'll keep these until I die. The world is going to the devil
in a handbasket. These will keep me and my family from
starving.' So, are you selling?"

"Not today, but if I decide to, I won't sell to anyone else.
You've got my word"

"If it's as good as Gert's word, then that's all I need. Call
me when you get ready to give them up"

A cuckoo clock in the living room clicked six times, and
Billy Lee knocked on the door at the same time I hung up the
telephone. When I opened it, he was standing there with a
container of food.

"Suppertime," he said.

"Have you eaten?"

Crimson flooded his cheeks. "No, me and Gert always ate
together."

"Then bring it in. I've got sweet tea in the fridge."

"Gert and I ate in the kitchen on the bar. Is that all right
with you?" He followed me through the living room and dining room and into the kitchen.

"How did Gert stand you? You're too nice to get along with
her."

He squared his shoulders and set his jaw. "I'm not always
nice. I speak my opinion. I just didn't want to offend you on
your first day here."

"I'm not going to be nice all the time, and I don't want you
to be. I'd rather have honest than nice. So we'll always speak
our minds. Deal?" I stuck out my right hand.

"Deal." He set the food on the counter and shook.

He opened the plastic containers, and I popped ice out of those old aluminum trays that have a handle on top, filled two
glasses, and added tea. The aroma of barbecue and baked
beans filled the kitchen, and my mouth began to water. He
opened cabinet doors and removed two plates, took out silverware from a drawer, and pulled the paper-napkin holder over
to the middle of the breakfast bar.

"Dig in," he said.

The ribs had just the right blend of smoke and sauce. The
baked beans had been slow-simmered until they were thick,
and the biscuits were light and fluffy.

"Tell me something," I said between bites.

"Long, slow cooking over a low flame"

"No, not about supper. This is better than a five-star restaurant's food, and you ought to run a barbecue joint. But that's
not what I wanted to know. Do you know much about the relationship between Uncle Lonnie and Aunt Gert?"

He shook his head. "I was off at college when Lonnie died.
I didn't know Gert really well until after that. She didn't talk
much about him. Matter of fact, the only time we talked about
Lonnie was a couple of years ago. I was helping her with some
plumbing and noticed the padlock on that door up there."

"What did she say?"

"She said that what was in the past was best left there and
that talking about it was like stirring a fresh cow pile with a
wooden spoon. Didn't accomplish a thing, and only made
the stink and the flies worse and the spoon useless for anything else. Then we came downstairs and had a beer and
talked about the new president. His inauguration was on
television."

"You remember exactly what you talked about?" I asked,
amazed.

He shrugged. "Sure. I'd stepped on her toes pretty badly, so
I remember it well. Gert was a fine old girl."

"What else is this old place going to tell me?"

He smiled, and his whole face lit up. "Whatever it is, I hope
you like it."

The phone rang, so I dashed off to the foyer table where the
ancient blue object was located.

I hoped it was Crystal, but the minute I picked up the receiver, Drew started yelling, "Have you gone as crazy as your
mother, woman? I'll be home on Monday, and you'd better
have a good excuse for what you've done. Why did you take
all that money out of the bank?"

"I'm not having this conversation right now." I hung up on
him.

The phone rang again immediately. I picked the receiver
up. "I took the money out of the bank and buried it in the
backyard under Aunt Gert's apricot tree. I left two bits in
the accounts for your newest fling. I'm having supper with a
friend, so leave me alone."

Drew was yelling and cussing as I hung up on him. I made
a mental note to ask the phone company about getting caller
ID when they came to add a jack to every room.

I returned to the kitchen and loaded another helping of barbecue onto my plate.

"Hey, I forgot to tell you this afternoon. I love your new
haircut. It looks just like it did when we were in high school,"
Billy Lee said.

"Thank you." I smiled, and it felt dang good that he remembered.

"Was that Drew?"

"Yes."

"Want to talk about it?"

"No."

"Then we won't."

I'd never appreciated a person as much as I did Billy Lee
right then.

I'd never been claustrophobic in my life until I shut the bedroom door the second night. Every knickknack in the room
seemed to stare at me with those never-closing eyes. Shelves
were covered with everything from cats to elephants waiting
for me to shut my eyes so they could come alive like in a sci-fi
movie. Poorly painted ceramic ducks on the windowsills had
cacti growing out of the holes in their backs. I imagined them
jumping off the sills and throwing cactus needles at me like
porcupines.

The cold breeze from the air conditioner caused the wooden
thread spool attached to the end of the light cord to sway.
Would the menagerie of glass-eyed critters blink and begin to
breathe if I yanked on the cord? Why was I suddenly afraid to
turn off the light?

A little introspection said it wasn't all that junk that bothered me but the fact that Drew was coming home in two days.
We'd never fought. Not one time. I'd figured out early how to
keep him happy and made a full-time job of it. The wind-up
clock beside the bed sounded a tick-tock warning in singsong
fashion: Drew is coming home. You are dead. You will never
out-argue a lawyer. He'll talk you into going back with
him ... yes, he will!

I vowed that the next morning the animals and the clock
were all going to the Dumpster or Goodwill. It was their last
night to look at me with black-enameled eyes and evil little
smirks on their faces or for the clock to tick out a message. I was in charge of my future, and Drew wasn't going to win,
lawyer or not.

I pulled the cord, but all the dark did was bring on acute
insomnia. I tossed and turned and finally groped around for
the cord and turned the lights back on. All the animals were
exactly where they'd been, and Drew was still coming home.
I went to the kitchen and had a cookie. That led to another
cookie and a glass of milk. While I was pouring the milk, I
dropped the jug and drenched the front of my nightgown. I
cleaned up the mess, then went back upstairs to find another
nightgown in Aunt Gert's dresser. I pushed aside the flannel
gowns searching for a cotton summer one, and found a manila
envelope addressed to Gert.