Tied to the Tracks (34 page)
Read Tied to the Tracks Online
Authors: Rosina Lippi
“Bless Ridley’s soul, he’s as boring as vanilla pudding without the bananas,” said Marilee Bragg when Rivera asked about the mayor. As Basket Girls, they were sitting together on the stage, the baskets lined up in front of them. They were waiting for the Shriners to stop fussing with cables and the microphone so that the auction could start. Angie thought again how odd it was that none of the three black women who were participating were uncomfortable with this, and made a note to herself to ask the Bragg girls about it when she had them alone.
Marilee’s sister Anthea was saying, “It’s true. It gives me gooseflesh just to listen to the man talk.”
Miss Maddie giggled. She said, “Ridley’s talents were being wasted at his daddy’s funeral home. That MBA don’t mean much to the dead, but he balanced the town’s budget straightaway.”
“Truth is,” said Anthea Bragg, “folks were tired of the Ogilvies running everything all the time.” She said this in a whisper, as Nan Ogilvie was sitting on her other side.
“He’s a good auctioneer,” said Miss Maddie. “He’s got the patter.”
“Uh-huh,” said Anthea. “Got a tongue hung in the middle so it can flap at both ends.”
“Lucky Mrs. Mayor,” said Rivera, and Angie elbowed her.
Miss Maddie said, “Angeline, dear, stop fidgeting. You look lovely. Very ladylike. Wouldn’t your mama be proud?”
“Her mama would fall over flat,” said Rivera.
“I feel like ten pounds of potatoes in a five-pound bag,” Angie said.
“Don’t be silly,” Miss Maddie said. “You’ve got a lovely figure.”
“That dress looks better on you than it ever did on Anthea,” said Marilee, and: “Ouch. Leave off, sister, you know it’s true.”
“The whole town must be here,” said Rivera, rising up from her seat to look over the crowd. “Wasn’t Shirley Jackson from the South? I keep thinking about ‘The Lottery.’ ”
Nan Ogilvie turned to Rivera, her perfectly made-up face glowing beneath the brim of a hat the size of a small car. “It’s an auction, dear, not a lottery.”
“Nan, she’s talking about a short story,” said one of the Stillwaters. She gave Angie a quick apologetic smile.
“Oh,” said Nan Ogilvie, spreading her skirt around herself more artfully. And: “I’m far too busy to bother with fiction.”
Miss Maddie said, “Hush now, he’s about to get started. Girls, sit up straight, and smile.”
Here goes,” said Rob. “I bet Wyeth Horton twenty bucks that Ridley could shave fifteen seconds off Miss Maddie’s time.”
“I hope you got odds,” said Kai. “The volunteer firefighters have been raising money for months.”
Ridley held up Miss Maddie’s basket and started the bidding. The volunteer fire department went head to head with the college Faculty Club and the combined resources of the Mount Olive AME church. An individual had no chance at all, unless he was willing to put a second mortgage on his house.
“Sold!” Ridley Smith slammed the gavel down less than thirty seconds after the first bid had been shouted out. “To the deacons of the Mount Olive African Methodist Episcopal Church, two thousand forty-one dollars and fifty cents. Miss Maddie?”
There were hoots and whistles of appreciation as Miss Maddie walked off, head held high, on the arm of her nephew Martin.
“Granny Junie sent me to say you should go ahead and bid, if you care to.”
John turned to find Markus Holmes standing behind him.
“She thought maybe you’d feel like you couldn’t bid because Caroline isn’t here. She said you should go ahead, if you want.”
“I wasn’t planning on bidding,” John said.
“Because,” Markus said, as if John hadn’t replied at all, “you could go in with me and Tony.” He pointed to Tony Russo, who was standing on a chair with a video camera pressed to his face. “We’re going to bid on Rivera’s basket. Unless you were going to bid on Angie’s?”
John met his brother’s eye over Markus’s head. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll go in with you on Rivera’s basket. Put me down for fifty dollars.”
“It’ll take more than that,” Markus said. “How about a hundred? It’s for a good cause.”
“It’s for fireworks and watermelons,” said John. “But okay, count me in.”
Unless I miss my guess,” the mayor was saying in a voice that reverberated through the microphone, “I smell somebody’s mama’s secret recipe for macaroni and Vienna sausage casserole. Let’s see what else we got.” He held up the sheet of paper that listed the contents of each of the baskets.
“Well, now, look at this. I can’t remember the last time I had Coca-Cola cake. I believe I’ll have to start the bidding at fifty dollars.”
“I hope Tony is getting this,” Rivera said to Angie when Marylou Scott went off with Ogilvie’s high school football team. The boys had come up with close to three hundred dollars among them so they could each claim a spoonful of casserole, a chicken wing, and a few crumbs of cake. Now only two baskets remained on the table, but it seemed to Angie that the crowd was significantly bigger than it had been.
“I feel like the kid who gets picked last for kickball,” Angie said. There was a warm wind but she was wishing for a shawl or a sweater or a blanket she could hide under. She alternated between wondering where John was in the crowd and hoping he had stayed away. She needed to tell him about Win Walker and the condom debacle, but there would be no chance to do that for the next few hours.
“I’m glad they do the guest baskets last,” Rivera said. “I wouldn’t want to miss any of this.”
Angie said, “Did you see Little Billy Munro?” She pointed with her chin. “The entire population of the Liars’ Bench is over there giving you the eye, and they haven’t bid on a basket yet. Look,” she said, “you’re up.”
The mayor was holding up Rivera’s basket in one hand while he peered at the list in the other. “Folks—”
“One hundred dollars!” The decidedly female voice came from the back of the crowd.
“Oh, shit,” said Rivera, sliding down in her chair. “Weepy Meg.”
Ridley Smith laughed, though he didn’t look much amused. “I haven’t even—”
“One hundred twenty!” Markus Holmes called, his voice cracking.
“One thirty.” Meg’s voice boomed like a soprano foghorn. Angie wanted to get a look at the woman she had only heard about, but there were enough people craning their necks. She settled for sending a furtive glance in John’s direction. He was talking to Kai, his head bent down solicitously. A flush started deep in Angie’s belly, but luckily nobody was paying any attention to her just now.
“The Liars bid one hundred fifty!” called Little Billy.
“Wow, Angie.” Rivera gave a nervous giggle. “I’ve got the Liars and the lesbian competing for my company at dinner.”
“Supper,” Angie muttered. “It’s called supper in the evening.”
The mayor was trying to impose some order on the bidding, and not having any luck at all.
“One fifty-five!”
“One hundred sixty!”
“Is that you, Meg?” The mayor squinted into the late-day sun. “Are you bidding for the ladies’ auxiliary?”
“I’m bidding for myself,” Meg called back. “You got a problem with that, bubba?”
Angie turned to hiss in Rivera’s ear. “Weepy Meg is the mayor’s sister?”
Rivera bit her lip. “Who knew?”
“One hundred sixty-five dollars!” Little Billy had worked his way to the stage and he held up a fistful of bills. “Cash money.”
“Two hundred fifty dollars,” Meg yelled.
“What a time to come out of the closet,” Angie said.
Rivera slid slower on her seat. “I don’t know whether to be flattered or pissed off.”
“I’d go with flattered,” said Angie. “There’s lots of people here got pissed off covered already.” But when she really looked, she didn’t see as many thunderous expressions as she might have expected. She did see I’m the Shit That Happens and his friends, all of them looking uncharacteristically interested in the proceedings. Somebody else was making trouble for once, which might be an irritation or a relief; it was hard to tell.
“Maybe I could lend Markus some money,” Rivera said, just as the gavel thwacked on the podium.
“Sold,” said Ridley Smith. “To my little sister Meg, for three hundred fifteen dollars.”
“Eat in plain sight,” called Angie as Rivera walked off.
The only safe thing John could think to do was to leave before the bidding started on Angie’s basket, and that with as little fanfare as possible. If he was gone and Angie was in plain sight, Patty-Cake Walker’s suspicions could be put to rest for tonight, which would be a good thing for all parties.
He kissed Miss Junie’s cheek and made excuses that were at least partially true: he was near dead on his feet, and he did have a big day ahead. On Thursday five different reunions would get started, and in the first flush of enthusiasm for his new job he had said yes to every invitation. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, a way to keep busy on the two days before the wedding and while making clear to the administration that he was willing to do his share of the work. Now he found it hard to think about giving a dinner talk on new directions in academia, but he would have to do just that, in about forty-eight hours.
Which would hopefully take his mind off both Angie and Caroline.
He saw Louanne Porter getting into her squad car as he came to the edge of the park and waved her down to get a ride home, glad to let her distract him for ten minutes with stories about things that had kept her busy: kids smoking weed out in the open, Charmaine Walker just drunk enough to think it would be a good idea to jump in the river topless, the theft of a half dozen pies from the food tent, and a night in jail for Peter Robeson, whose wife had been taken to the emergency room with a broken jaw and a black eye.
“The Jubilee isn’t much fun for you,” John said.
“More fun than it was for Georgia Robeson,” said Louanne. “But she never learns. Tomorrow she’ll get him out of jail and refuse to press charges, and about Labor Day we’ll go through the whole thing again. I’ll never understand women who go looking for exactly the wrong man to marry.” She seemed to remember that John was about to get married himself and threw him an apologetic smile. “Caroline being one of the exceptions, of course.”
“Of course,” John said.
He got out near campus to walk the last block in the twilight, thinking about Caroline and the choices she had made. She would be coming home tomorrow or the day after, and they would have to sort it all out between them. He might say,
I went about this all wrong,
and
I couldn’t be the husband that you deserve to have
. Which was only part of the truth, but she deserved all of it. If she wanted a play-by-play confession, he’d give that to her, too, because he might be stupid at times, but he couldn’t be a coward about this. That would be unfair to everybody.
I went about this all wrong,
and
I couldn’t be the husband that you deserve to have
. Which was only part of the truth, but she deserved all of it. If she wanted a play-by-play confession, he’d give that to her, too, because he might be stupid at times, but he couldn’t be a coward about this. That would be unfair to everybody.
He’d take the blame, pay the bills, make the phone calls. The long list of wedding plans in reverse: cancel the caterers, the church, the flowers, the honeymoon, send back the presents. He’d be the one to tell people to stay home, the wedding was off.
John stopped just where he was, overcome by a jolt of guilt so great that his stomach cramped with it.
On the other side of all that was Angie, or the hope of her. There was a long list of potentially troublesome practical questions that had to do with logistics and jobs and where they would be spending their time. To all that, Angie had added another item, one he hadn’t let himself think about.
They had been pinned together on the old couch on the Ivy House porch, the night breeze gentle on his sweaty skin, when she had put her forehead against his. “You’re going to be mad, at some point,” she had said, “when you realize what you’ve thrown away for me.”
It had taken him by surprise, but it shouldn’t have. Angie had a way of cutting to the bone, and he was smart enough to recognize the truth, even if he didn’t know what to do about it.
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