arkansastraveler (2 page)

W
E CLIMBED BACK
into my rented Ford Explorer and started driving north. Sugartree, a small town of about five thousand or so, was an hour north of Little Rock. Late-afternoon shadows clung to the pine and black gum trees that lined the highway. Always the first trees to signal fall, the black gum leaves had already started turning a glossy deep carmine. I rolled down my window and inhaled a deep breath. It had been ten years since I’d been back to Arkansas. That trip I was twenty-six and married to Jack Harper, my childhood sweetheart and late first husband. Though the memory of driving on this road with him wasn’t as painful as it might have been if I didn’t have Gabe in my life, the smell of the piney woods did cause a twinge of sadness as I remembered the three weeks Jack and I had spent here. I mentally nudged that feeling away and recalled instead my earlier summers here with Dove. Some of my best childhood memories involved Sugartree, including my first kiss behind the Dairy Queen when I was twelve years old. I pressed down on the accelerator in my eagerness to see Sugartree again.

“When did Gabe say he could get away?” Elvia asked, looking pointedly at the speedometer. I eased up on the gas pedal.

“He has a meeting tomorrow with his department heads, then he’s taking Scout out to the ranch and catching a ride with a friend down to L.A. He’s going to spend Monday night there, then fly in Tuesday.”

“When’s your father coming?”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you, he’s not. Arturo’s the only person he trusts to watch the ranch, and he had to drive down to Mexico because his mama’s sick. Daddy said it didn’t matter, that he didn’t have any great desire to see Arkansas again. Personally, I think he’s relieved. There’s a lot of memories of my mother in Sugartree.” My mother died of breast cancer thirty years ago when I was six years old, and my father had never remarried, instead pouring his whole life into our cattle ranch outside San Celina. I’d been raised by him and his mother, my gramma Dove, who’d moved out from Arkansas right before my mother died.

“How long has Dove been here?”

“She and Isaac drove out about a week and a half ago. I got another frantic phone call from her last night. She and Aunt Garnet started squabbling the first day she arrived and haven’t stopped. Apparently there’s a ruckus going on with Sugartree Baptist Church because of talk about a merger with another church. Some people aren’t happy about it. But, according to Dove, attendance has dropped drastically in the last few years with young people moving down to Little Rock or leaving Arkansas altogether. The only financial hope Sugartree Baptist has is joining with another church. The other Baptist church is also having attendance problems and is losing the lease on their building. It’s going to be razed to build a motel and cafe. And, surprise, surprise—Aunt Garnet and Dove view the merger quite differently. Dove is a lifetime member, so she gets a vote, which irritates some people, specifically her sister.”

“So what’s the problem? Sounds like a merger is the perfect solution.”

I glanced over at her. “You don’t know Baptists. They are the most fiercely independent people there are. Not to mention hardheaded. Changing a Baptist’s mind once it’s set is like whittling steel.” I gave a half-hearted laugh. “I can say that ’cause I grew up one. But that’s not the real problem.”

“What is?”

“To put it plain and simple, the church down the road is African-American, and that doesn’t sit well with a lot of old-timers in both churches.”

Her sculpted eyebrows came together in a small scowl. “Oh, come on, Benni. This is the nineties.”

“And this is the South. Some white people are still annoyed they lost the Civil War or, as some of them call it, the War of Northern Aggression.”

“So I imagine Cinco de Mayo is not a holiday they celebrate with great enthusiasm.” Only someone who knew her as well as I did would hear the almost imperceptible catch in her voice.

I reached over and squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry,
mi amiga
. Anyone who treats you with
any
disrespect will have Emory and me to contend with. And you know how creatively evil he and I can be when we put our heads together.”

She pushed a strand of smooth black hair behind her ear. “I’m not worried.” The apprehensive glint in her eyes said otherwise.

A flood of love and protectiveness for my friend welled up inside me. I so wanted things to work out between her and my cousin. I knew that the differences in their backgrounds were a very real obstacle, just as it was and still is for Gabe and me, but I also truly believed that love was greater than any differences, greater than any prejudice. I refused not to believe it.

“Wait’ll you meet Emory’s daddy,” I said. “He’s a character and a half. It’s good you like chicken.”

Boone Littleton, Emory’s daddy, owned Boone’s Good Eatin’ Chicken, a smoked chicken and turkey business that had had its ups and downs through the years, but in the last year or so had boomed, causing the company stock to soar in value. Emory’s stock and the shares he inherited from his mother were now worth a fortune. His father’s chicken was famous all over Arkansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi. Even though I’d just gorged on Waffle House cuisine, my mouth watered in anticipation of one of his smoked chicken dinners with baked beans, coleslaw, corn bread, and one of his chocolate fried pies for dessert. I couldn’t wait to drop by the tiny original restaurant in Sugartree.

Though she knew Emory was financially well off, I wondered if Elvia had any idea how prominent his family was in Arkansas. Glancing over at her worried expression, I thought it might be better if she didn’t know. Though my friend loved nice things, she was a daughter of working-class people and therefore had almost an automatic distrust of the rich.

We pulled off the highway onto a smaller country road, passing a sign that said:
SUGARTREE
5
MILES
. Next to me, Elvia straightened in her seat, clasping her manicured hands tightly in her lap. I knew better than to try to comfort her again, that it would only make her more nervous, so I turned on the radio and started singing along with Dale Watson, a country singer who never received airplay in California, his music being too “country.” He was obviously more appreciated by DJs in Arkansas.

“Almost there,” I said, when we came to the Sugartree city limits sign. Then I literally squealed out loud and pulled a sharp left into a parking lot, causing Elvia to grab the dashboard.

“What is it?” she cried.

After parking, I turned off the ignition and pointed up
at the red-and-white grocery store sign with the Porky Pig-like cartoon character wearing a jauntily tilted military-style cap. “Piggly Wiggly,” I said, resting my arms on top of the steering wheel.

Elvia groaned. “Even their grocery stores have pigs on them.”

“Blue Bunny and Yarnell’s ice cream,” I said gleefully. “Delta Gold syrup. White Lily flour. Aunt Nellie’s corn relish. Martha White cornmeal. Crowder peas! Eight flavors of grits. Eight! You can’t get
that
in California.”

“Eight?” she repeated, her voice weak, staring at the smiling pig on the brown bag of groceries of a passing woman.

“Emory loves the Redeye gravy and Country Ham flavor. Don’t worry, they’re instant. They’ll be easy to fix.”

My soliloquy to Ozark foods was interrupted by knocking on the car window. After seeing who it was, I squealed again and threw open the car door. “Duck? Duck Wakefield! Is that really you?”

“Benni Harper! I heard a vicious rumor you were sneakin’ into town. Welcome home, Curly Top.”

I jumped out and hugged the tall, rangy, fortyish man tanned a rich tawny brown. His laugh brought back the memory of muggy Arkansas summer nights filled with the scent of sweet honeysuckle, freshly mowed grass, and the taste of half-melted Dairy Queen chocolate sundaes.

“You haven’t changed a bit,” he said, holding me by the shoulders and looking me up and down.

“A compliment I don’t believe, Duck Wakefield, but thanks anyway.”

“You still eating that crappy food?”

“My blood cholesterol is 150, thank you very much. So there.” I turned and motioned Elvia out of the car.

“High cholesterol’s not the only reason people have heart attacks,” he said, shaking a finger at me.

“You and Gabe are going to get along great,” I said,
laughing. When Elvia came around the car, I said, “Elvia, this is the famous Dr. Duncan Wakefield the Third, cardiologist supreme, who, to his old swimming hole buddies like me and Emory, is referred to simply as Duck.”

“That’s Dr. Duck to you,” he replied. He held out a sturdy hand to Elvia. “Ms. Aragon, your virtues and beauty have been widely praised by my childhood friend, the esteemed Emory Littleton. I can see he didn’t exaggerate the beauty part, and I can only assume your other virtues are also not a product of his often grandiose Southern hyperbole.” A white perfect smile softened his craggy features. Though not as conventionally handsome as my cousin, Duck never had any trouble getting girls with his lean outdoorsman looks and quick wit. Not to mention he was an outrageous flirt.

“Thank you,” Elvia said, her normally haughty expression melting slightly under his smile. “But we all know how enthusiastic Emory can be.”

“In this case,” Duck said, his face solemn but his hazel eyes twinkling, “his enthusiasm was more than justified. It was required.”

Elvia actually gave a small giggle. My mouth dropped open in shock. A giggle hadn’t passed through those lips since the sixth grade.

I groaned out loud. “Okay, Duck, let’s not pour more molasses than we need in the beans here.” Secretly I was thankful he’d set my nervous friend at ease. “Have you seen Emory today?”

“For a little while this afternoon. Amen talked him into goin’ with her to evening church services at Zion Baptist. He’s hopin’ to help her convince some of the unenthusiastic voters there that merging with the white folks’ church isn’t necessarily selling out to the Man.”

“If anyone could convince the holdouts, it would be Emory and Amen.”

“Amen?” Elvia asked.

Duck and I looked at each other and laughed.

“I guess I should have given her a rundown on the town’s cast of characters on the flight out here,” I said.

“
That
would have taken a flight to Australia,” he replied.

“Amen Tolliver is another old friend,” I told Elvia. “Emory, Duck, Amen, and I were called the Fearsome Four by our families ’cause of all the trouble we got into. Miss DeLora, Amen’s grandmother, was Uncle Boone’s live-in housekeeper from the time Emory’s mama died when he was eleven. She practically raised Emory. Amen lived in Little Rock with her mama, but used to stay the summers with Miss DeLora.” I turned back to Duck. “How is Miss DeLora? She’s got to be in her eighties now.”

“Boone finally talked her into retiring when she fell and cracked a femur bone trying to carry a load of laundry downstairs. She absolutely refused to allow him to send the laundry out. She’s livin’ about a mile outside town in that old hunting cabin of Boone’s out on Mayhaw Lake. She always loved that cabin. He had the whole place rebuilt, then deeded it over to her. You know he thinks the world of Miss DeLora, would give her anything. She’s still makin’ quilts, I hear. Had some kind of group from Harvard or Princeton—one of those eastern schools—come film a documentary about her and what they called her African-American art quilts. You know Miss DeLora, though. She doesn’t take to such fancy talk. Told them she just made blankets out of scraps, pure and simple. That J. C. Penney did, too, and sold them a heck of a lot cheaper, especially if you had a coupon. Amen said she had a grand time putting those Northerners on. She made them eat collard greens and fatback. Said some of them, the vegetarians, I guess, turned almost the color of the greens, but they choked it down so as not to insult her. They forgave her when she served them up some of her Lemon Chess pie and told them her story about cooking dinner for Mrs. Roosevelt.”

“Eleanor Roosevelt?” Elvia asked.

“The one and only. Get Curly Top to tell you the story. It’s a semisecret legend around here.”

“She doesn’t sound like she’s changed one bit,” I said, smiling.

“Feisty as ever and all for the churches merging. She said it’s about time Christians became a little more color-blind. To quote her, ain’t no soul she ever heard of got a color. Dove’s been out to see her a couple of times already, I heard.”