Thoroughly 10 - What Are You Wearing to Die? (11 page)

I trotted back to my office, planning what I’d get them for a wedding present.

Martha called to say she had invited Trevor and Bradley and Robin Parker and her girls to share Thanksgiving dinner with us.

“Would you consider inviting the Spences, too? I’ve been wanting Robin to meet some people her own age, and Maynard and Selena are close.”

Thanksgiving in our family has always been a holiday when we put all the leaves in the table and invite anybody we think would enjoy coming.

“That would be good. Selena already knows Bradley. He was in the hospital last summer with a broken arm, and she took care of him.”

That must explain why she and Maynard had gone to Trevor’s after Starr died.

Martha was still talking. “…not sure how I’m going to do the tables this year. You heard, didn’t you, that Walker and Cindy are going up to her parents’ for dinner? That means we won’t have their big kids to ride herd on the little ones, and with Robin and Trevor, that will make four kids under five. I can’t let them eat in the kitchen by themselves.”

“And Ridd would have a fit if you suggested that Bethany eat out there.”

“You got that right. He’s already complaining that she’ll only be home four days. Besides, she’s bringing a friend with her.”

“I’ll make the supreme sacrifice. I’ll send Joe Riddley to eat with the kids.”

I could hear Martha counting. “That works. We can fit ten at the table if folks get close.”

We drifted into a discussion of Bethany’s friend and from there to a discussion of food. As I hung up, I couldn’t help thinking how nice it was that my children had gotten to be the grown-ups and all I had to do was show up with a few dishes.

Thanksgiving Day the temperature soared to seventy-two and the sky was a clear, deep blue that seemed to go all the way to heaven. I was delighted. That meant we could sit out on the porch after dinner.

We arrived, later than we had planned, to discover a minor problem. Bethany had showed up with two friends, having found somebody else who wasn’t going anywhere for the holiday and continued the family tradition of inviting her along. “I’ll need one more grown-up to eat with the children,” Martha told me, thinking we were speaking privately.

There is no such thing as privacy with four small people around. I had opened my mouth to unwillingly volunteer when Bradley announced, “I want Miss Selena at my table.”

“Miss Selena! Miss Selena!” Natalie chanted, jumping up and down.

Anna Emily joined in. She’d been clinging to Selena’s hand ever since we got there, but I hadn’t paid much attention until then.

“You sure made a new friend fast,” I joked, hoping she’d accept the invitation.

Joe Riddley clapped Maynard on the shoulder. “Why don’t you come, too, to help us ride herd on these cowboys and Indians?”

Maynard looked startled. He’d had little experience of being a child, much less taking care of them. He’d been too young for our boys to play with, and while he was growing up, we had no other children down our road and his mama tended to keep him home helping her rather than encouraging him to join other children’s activities. After his initial hesitation, however, he said with a show of enthusiasm, “That will be fun.” He did enjoy Joe Riddley, so I hoped his meal wouldn’t be a total waste.

From the giggles and squeals we kept hearing, the children’s table had a better time than ours.

I cannot say that the adult table was a success. Robin had put on her denim skirt and dark navy shirt in honor of the occasion, but she said no more than the turkey and kept looking toward the kitchen door and tightening her lips in a way I couldn’t interpret. She left the table three times to check on her girls. Martha and I exchanged a look that said if Robin wasn’t careful, she’d wind up as overprotective as Maynard’s mother. We both felt that children deserve stretches of independence from their parents. How else will they learn to live in the world without us?

Trevor wasn’t lively, either; in fact, he was sunk in gloom. And Hubert was downright testy about “being forced to close the doors on a perfectly good store.”

If it hadn’t been for Bethany and her two guests, we’d have had a pretty thin time. Fortunately, they were at that self-absorbed age when they presumed everybody wanted to hear about their lives, and they had lots of funny stories to tell about their first weeks at college.

After dinner, Bethany and her friends offered to clean the kitchen. Joe Riddley, Ridd, and Hubert went to watch football on TV. Robin, Maynard, and Selena stayed with Martha and me on the porch, and the children went out to play in the yard.

“Aren’t the woods pretty?” Selena was holding her husband’s hand, but addressing us all. “All gold and green. And look at that Bradford pear up by the road. It’s green, gold, burgundy, and peach, all at once.”

“My favorite is that dogwood.” Maynard pointed to a small tree covered in deep plum leaves. “I used to climb that thing.”

“Joe Riddley planted it the year we moved into this house,” I told them. Before we could continue our praise of the gorgeous day, Robin’s girls came pelting back in terror.

“There’s dogs!” Natalie made them sound like man-eating beasts.

“The big ones are penned and cannot get out,” Martha assured her. “The only two in the yard are Me-Mama’s beagle, Lulu, and Lulu’s son, Cricket Dog. Both of them are very friendly. If they jump on you, say, ‘Down,’ and they’ll obey.”

“I want to stay with Mama,” Natalie whined.

Anna Emily buried her face in her mother’s skirt. “I doesn’t like dogs.”

“They eat you up,” Natalie explained.

Martha gave a reassuring laugh. “Not those two. The worst they’d do is lick you some. Come on, let me introduce you.” She held out a hand.

Natalie edged closer to Robin and Anna Emily clung to her mother. “No!”

Anybody could see that the girls were truly terrified.

I started to get up. “Let me put them in the pen. It will only take a minute.”

“I’ll do it,” Maynard offered. The rest of the afternoon was punctuated by an indignant beagle duet.

Once the dogs were penned, Selena was able to persuade the girls to walk back outside with her and play with the others. Maynard stayed out, too. Anna Emily clung to Selena’s hand for the rest of the afternoon, and several times I saw her give the barn and the dog pen an anxious look, but Natalie played happily with Bradley, Cricket, and Maynard. As I watched Maynard giving piggyback rides and pushing kids on the swing, I wondered if he was making up for his isolated childhood.

After a while, Bethany and her friends came out and joined Maynard and the children in throwing Frisbees and playing keep-away. I was delighted to hear children’s voices echoing up and down our road again.

It wasn’t long before Trevor left the men and joined us. As he sank into a wicker chair next to Robin, he muttered, “Can’t seem to get interested in football these days.” He seemed content to sit without talking, watching the children play and listening to us women chatting. Martha and I tried not to let on that he had cramped our style.

Anna Emily pitched a fit when her mother said she couldn’t go home with Selena or stay with Cricket and his parents. Tears streaming down her cheeks, she held up her arms to Maynard. “I want to go home with
you
!”

Poor Maynard didn’t know how to respond.

“She says that to everybody.” Natalie clued him in. “Come on, Anna Emily. I’ll race you to the car.”

Obediently, Anna Emily turned and ran.

When the guests had gone, the dogs were let out of jail and Bethany took her friends over to visit with some of her high school buddies. Martha and I finished up a few last chores in the kitchen. “Do you think Trevor is interested in Robin?” I asked her. Martha is one of the wisest women I know.

“Not romantically. They treat each other more like father and daughter. Did you notice how he kept making sure she had what she needed, and how she told him a couple of times that he needed to eat? My guess is that Robin is becoming the daughter Trevor always wanted Starr to be—thoughtful, hardworking, clean of drugs. Maybe Trevor is a father figure Robin is lacking. She seems woefully short of family.”

“She has a brother over near Tennille, but I’ve only seen him once. I think it could be good for both their kids to have something like a normal family, don’t you?”

Martha didn’t answer for such a long minute, I thought she hadn’t heard me. Then she stood from putting bits of turkey into her cat’s bowl. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think Anna Emily had reactive attachment disorder. But that’s something Starr’s child ought to have had, not Robin’s. If anything, Robin smothers those children. I never see them away from her.”

“What’s re—whatever it is?”

“Reactive attachment disorder? It’s what happens to a child who fails to bond with somebody in the first couple of years. One of two things can happen. Either they don’t bond with anybody, or they bond casually with everybody, like Anna Emily tends to do.”

“Couldn’t it be a habit, sort of testing the waters to see what she can get? Or a way of getting attention from her mother?”

“I hope so.” Martha didn’t sound convinced.

Around three the following Wednesday afternoon, Evelyn came in to say Gladys had everything under control out front and she was going home early because she and Hubert were going to Dublin to eat dinner and see a movie. I started thinking about them—whether they were really suited or whether she’d be borrowing trouble marrying a man that old with a tricky heart. Gradually it dawned on me that I wasn’t going to get any work done with all that on my mind.

“I’m going down to Myrtle’s for some pie,” I informed Lulu. “Hold the fort.”

Myrtle still made chocolate pie like my mama used to, rich and dark, with three-inch meringue. The kind of pie that is good for anything that ails you.

The beautiful weather we’d had for Thanksgiving had been blown away by a stiff, steady breeze that brought clouds in on Sunday and a chill on Monday that lingered. Winter was definitely coming. The wind wasn’t what folks up north might call cold, but it was chilly enough for me to wrap my coat around me as I walked and decide to order coffee with my pie instead of iced tea.

When I entered the restaurant, I thought at first that I was the only person there. Midafternoon is Myrtle’s dead time, especially when school is in session. I was delighted to spot Selena’s bright head over in a far booth.

“You having a pie break, too?” I called as I walked across the restaurant.

The face she turned toward me was pink and wet with tears.

“Oh, honey! What’s wrong?” I slid into the booth across from her and handed her a tissue from my purse.

She sniffed and dabbed her eyes, but she would need several tissues before that flood was mopped up. I pulled out a whole pack and set it on the table beside her black coffee. Before we could say another word, Myrtle called from the kitchen door, “You want your usual, Mac?”

“Yeah, and bring a piece for Selena, too.”

Selena lifted a limp hand. “I don’t need…” Then she dropped her hand, pulled out a fresh tissue, and held it to her nose as she fought back tears.

“You okay?” Myrtle asked as she set our pie and my coffee before us.

“We’re fine.” I waved her away after she’d heated up Selena’s cup. Myrtle had a tendency to hover if she thought a good conversation was in progress.

I started to eat my pie. Selena would speak when she was good and ready.

I’ve heard you can tell a lot about a person by where she starts to eat her pie—from the tip or from the back. I don’t know what it says about me, but when it comes to Myrtle’s pie, I start with whichever part she has set down nearest my mouth. I had taken two good-sized bites before Selena poked a tentative fork into the point of hers. She took a tiny nibble, then another. Her third bite was of a decent size, her fourth rivaled one of my own.

We did not say a single word until our plates were scraped clean and our cups were empty. I slid out of the booth and went to the employees’ door, which led to the kitchen and Myrtle’s office. “Could we have some more coffee in here?”

Myrtle slouched out of her office and reached for the pot. “Aren’t you going to complain about my floor today?”

“Nah, I’m gonna let somebody trip on one of those holes in the tile and sue your pants off. Hand me the coffeepot and go back to your smoke.”

“I don’t—”

“Don’t lie to me. I can smell it from here. I don’t mind you smoking. It’s the lying I can’t tolerate.”

Before you think I’m hard on Myrtle, you need to know that we go way back. In first grade, she used to steal cookies my mama put in my lunchbox and replace them with little boxes of raisins her mama put in hers. That wouldn’t have been a bad swap, except she told me after I’d been eating raisins for half a year that raisins were dead baby roaches. That set the tone for our lifelong relationship.

I carried the coffee back to our table, poured us each a fresh cup, and slid into my side of the booth. “I don’t want to pry, but do you want to tell me about whatever has you watering the earth? Not that we can’t use the moisture, mind you, but you are wasting it on those tissues. I’ve got some pansies that could use a drink.”

Selena sniffed. “I’m okay now.”

“You sure?”

She started to nod, then flung her arms down on the table and laid her head on them. “No! I’m not fine. I can’t…I can’t…” She gasped for air and got it out. “I can’t have a baby! I’ve got endometriosis too bad.” She started to bawl.

“Oh, honey!” There are no words sufficient for that tragedy in a woman’s life. I let her sob. That whole time, I was informing the Boss upstairs that when I arrive in heaven, one of our first conversations is going to be about why foolish fourteen-year-olds can get pregnant and a married woman who would make a great mother can’t.

When her sobs had slacked off, I asked, “Does Maynard know?”

She sniffed. “No. I just saw the doctor this afternoon. He won’t mind as much as I do, though. He’s already said”—she hiccupped—“he prefers an adult household.”

I knew as well as she did that was because he was an only child who had never been around children growing up. Maynard would make a terrific dad once he got used to the idea.