arkansastraveler (5 page)

Isaac glanced nervously at Dove, who continued to smile and rearrange the dishes. Uncle WW just kept dishing out food from whatever bowl or platter was closest to him.

“
Someone
is in deep need of spiritual readjustment,” Aunt Garnet said.

“Grits, anyone?” Dove said.

When they both retired to the kitchen, a pointedly silent kitchen, I quickly asked, “Okay, boys, what happened between last night and this morning?” I’d already figured out a food war of some type was going on.

“They’re just squabbling,” Uncle WW said, unperturbed. But then, he’d been living around these sisters for over fifty years.

Isaac, normally as unflappable as an owl, looked ready to bolt. “It started with some kind of argument about pecan pie last night,” he said. “It happened when you kids were out on the porch. Something about whether you pour the filling over the pecans or mix the pecans in the filling. When we came down this morning, they were both working in the kitchen making duplicate everything.”

“Oh, no,” I moaned. “Not the pecan pie debate. The last time they got into it about that, they didn’t speak for six months.”

“’Fraid so,” Uncle WW said. “Then it’ll move into what’s better, Yarnell’s ice cream or Blue Bunny, Goody’s versus BC headache powders, Martha White flour versus White Lily, California chicken versus Arkansas chicken. I’m thinkin’ we should just have ourselves a foot race out front and declare a winner once and for all.”

I giggled, the mental picture of Dove in her round-toed leather boots and Wrangler jeans running against Aunt Garnet in her Stride Rite pumps and flowered housedress too rich this early in the morning. “We could sell tickets, take bets. I’d take Garnet on a fifty-yard-dash ’cause she’s got longer legs, but Dove’s a better bet for endurance. We’ll have to discuss the length of the race.”

“I’m flexible,” Uncle WW said, grinning.

“Have they always, um, competed so. . . enthusiastically?” Isaac said, his smile a little shaky.

Uncle WW and I almost choked on our biscuits, laughing.

“I’m sorry,” I said, touching Isaac’s forearm, then wiping away the tears running down my face. “I just forget that you don’t really know Dove that well. She and Garnet have been like a couple of competing bird dogs since Aunt Garnet had the nerve to get herself born and knock Dove out of her cherished only-child spot. The best thing to do is go along and eat up while you can. These feuds can take weird turns sometimes, and they get caught up competing in something else other than cooking. As Daddy always told me, better put a biscuit in your pocket for later.”

“Thank the good Lord for cafes,” Uncle WW said.

I took a cup of coffee with cream and a hot biscuit upstairs to Elvia who was finishing her eye makeup.

“You look great,” I said.

“Thanks.” She took the coffee and sipped it. “Sit down and let me do your hair. It’ll relax me.”

As she combed and separated sections of my hair, I told her about the latest feud between Dove and Garnet.

“How in the world are they going to live in the same house all week and go to all these church functions while fighting?” she said, French braiding my curly, reddish-blond hair with speedy expertise. “Doesn’t it embarrass them to pick at each other in front of everyone?”

“Everyone in town knows the Mosely girls are always trying to one-up each other. It’s kind of a town pastime, watching them compete. People would be disappointed if there wasn’t a competition. Me and Uncle WW are thinking about making book on who’ll triumph.”

“Does either of them ever actually win?”

“We don’t think so. I imagine they’ll do this until one of them dies.”

“Then they’ll probably be sorry they spent their whole lives fighting.”

“I doubt it. The one who dies first will most likely sit up on a cloud and flaunt the fact that she got to see heaven first.”

When my hair was done, we decided to use the back stairs to sneak past the feuding sisters. When we came out of the screened back porch we were confronted with Uncle WW’s fountains gurgling in all their glory.

“Wow,” I said.

“I wonder how much water goes through these in a day,” Elvia said.

“Let’s walk through them and go see Emory.” I pointed to the back of the fountain-covered half-acre yard to the gate connecting Emory’s backyard with my aunt and uncle’s. We started walking toward the back fence on the gravel pathways that Uncle WW had fashioned. There were small concrete benches set among the fountains and the hundreds of flowers, shrubs, and even edible sections—I saw remnants of pole beans, onions, tomatoes, and carrots.

There had to be at least fifty fountains, all spouting water in some different way—water came out of swans’ beaks and trolls’ buckets and frogs’ mouths and tree stumps.
There were koala bears, eucalyptus trees, raccoons, and dolphins. I counted three different clam shell fountains, a California forty-niner who held a gold pan with the water flowing into a slush box, four elephants, a pod of whales, two roadrunners, and a ceramic dog holding a ceramic hose in its mouth. A gray stone book fountain sat on a pedestal in the middle of the garden, water bubbling around the book, on which was written, “All our visitors bring happiness—some by coming, others by going.”

As we walked deeper into the fountain garden, the sound of rushing water became louder and louder.

We pushed gratefully through the wooden back gate. The whooshing sound of the fountains receded as we walked the pathway through the quiet, English-style garden toward the back patio.

“You know,” I said, “a few fountains are soothing, but that sounded like Niagara Falls. Not to mention that suddenly I have a strong urge to pee.”

When we walked under the tree house in the towering oak tree next to the flagstone patio, something wet hit the top of my head. I instinctively reached up to feel what it was, then received a stream of water full in the face.

“You cut that out, Emory Delano Littleton!” I yelled up at him. He squirted me again with his long-range water rifle.

I grabbed the rope ladder and scrambled up it, dodging blasts of water. “I’m going to get you,” I said, sticking my head through the opening in the tree house floor.

“Why, good morning, Miz Albenia,” he said, blowing at his firearm’s plastic barrel. “Lookin’ a bit damp this morning. Reckon it’s goin’ to be a right muggy day here in Sugartree.” He called out to Elvia, “I’ll be down in a minute, darlin’.”

“No hurry,” she called back. “You two kids play in your tree house as long as you like.”

“You freak of nature,” I said, sitting down next to him
on the plush red carpeting and stretching out my legs. I leaned over and dried my face on the sleeve of his white polo shirt. “Wow, the tree house hasn’t changed one bit.”

The one advantage to having a rich cousin is you got to play with all his expensive toys, including the tree house his dad had had designed by a prize-winning architect from Atlanta. With a row of built-in bookshelves, three windows with shutters, and a tile roof with a skylight, it was big enough to host a party for six people. Emory joked that if he could move it to New York City he could rent it for three thousand a month.

Below us we heard Elvia talking to someone. Her delighted laugh floated upwards to our perch in the tree. We scrambled up and stuck our heads out the window overlooking the patio. She and Miss DeLora had apparently introduced themselves and were in the process of having a swell ole time.

“You’re in big trouble now, buddy boy,” I said. “Miss DeLora’s gonna tell her the down and dirty truth about you, and she’ll be on the next plane back to San Celina.”

Miss DeLora, wearing a starched, yellow calico dress and white straw sun hat, sat across from Elvia at the glass patio table, talking in that smooth, alto voice that had soothed Emory, Amen, and me to sleep more times than I can remember. It had a sweet airiness that made you think of wind in the piney treetops and small chittery bush animals. That voice read me
To Kill a Mockingbird
for the first time, and I’ve never forgotten it.

“Stop right there!” Emory yelled. “I’m coming down.”

“Don’t you hurry yourself, little man,” Miss DeLora said, waving a wrinkled brown hand, not even looking up. “Me and your young lady’s going to have ourselves a nice cup of peppermint tea while you two monkey-children swing in the treetops.”

We sat back down on the red carpet, our backs against the tree house’s oak paneling.

“You’re right, sweetcakes,” Emory moaned. “I’m a goner.”

“If you’d been a better kid, then Miss DeLora wouldn’t have so many tales to tell.”

“You’re one to talk. When old Brother Cooke visits Sugartree Baptist, he still talks about the time you put red dye in the baptismal pool behind the pulpit. Washed in the blood, my eye.”

“I didn’t think that up, Duck did! I just executed it because I was the smallest one and could fit in the pastor’s study window.”

He laughed. “You almost
got
executed for it.”

“You little slime ball. You and Duck got away before they could catch you. You know, I’ve never ratted on you two, but I still could.”

“You can rat on
us
when you pay
me
back the five bucks you owe me for getting Duck to teach you how to kiss. Better yet, maybe Gabe should pay me. He’s reaping the benefits.”

“Suck a rotten goose egg,” I said, reaching over and hugging him. “Gosh, it’s good to be back, isn’t it?”

“It sure is. Like some ole Kansas girl said, there surely is no place like home.”

“I heard the meeting with Boone went good.”

He nodded. “Daddy likes her a lot. But you know Daddy, he’s never met a stranger, and he’s liked all the girls I’ve brought home.”

“Does he know this one’s different?”

Emory studied me with his bright green eyes, crinkled in an almost smile. “Is she different?”

I smacked him in the chest. “Don’t mess with me, cousin, or I swear I’ll punch those green bedroom eyes of yours clean into the next county. Elvia’s my best friend.”

“I thought I was your best friend. Fickle, fickle.”

“My best
girlfriend
. And I don’t want her hurt.” I tucked
my arm through his. “And I don’t want you hurt either. How do you think it’s going, really?”

He shrugged, trying to be nonchalant, though I could see the apprehension in his face. “Only time will tell, I suppose.”

“What’re you up to today?” I asked, changing the subject.

“I have a ton of stuff to do to get ready for Amen’s fund-raiser barbecue tonight. I wanted to spend the day with Elvia, but Daddy’s been so busy at the plant he left most of the arrangements up to me.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

“Just keep Elvia from being too bored today. After tonight I can spend the rest of the week with her. It’s lousy timing, I know, but I feel like I owe this to Amen.”

“Elvia will understand. Man, I hope Amen wins.”

“Me, too, sweetcakes, but some people are real upset about her running, and she’s also part of the group who started this church merger idea, so there’s that hostility to contend with, too. Lots of people in this town are still mentally livin’ in the days before Martin Luther King Jr. made his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, and they want to keep it that way.”

“I’m glad she’s got you and Boone rooting for her.”

“Such help as it is. There’s a mess of folks in Sugartree who don’t put much stock in what me or Daddy have to say either.”

“But they put lots of stock in the success of your smoked chicken. Green is the only color most folks aren’t prejudiced against.”

“That’s a mouthful, cousin.” He stood up and held out his hand. “Let’s go see what damage Miss DeLora has wrought upon my sterling character.”

Elvia and Miss DeLora were laughing at something when Emory and I walked up and took a seat.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, giving Miss DeLora a
pained look. “Lordy, you’re not telling her about my bed-wetting days, are you? Miss DeLora, I’m tryin’ to
win
this one, not chase her away.”

“You just settle down,” Miss DeLora said, her rich espresso-colored face lighting up with affection for Emory. “We wasn’t even discussin’ you.” She turned back to Elvia, took her hand, and patted it. “Oh, he’s always been a heap too involved with his own self, but I reckon you can wean that out of him, though Lord knows I’ve tried and not had one tablespoon of success.”

“Benni, stop her,” he moaned. “She’s cuttin’ me off at the knees here.”

“It’s so great seeing you again, Miss DeLora,” I said, ignoring him. “You’re looking wonderful. I saw Amen last night, and she looks great, too.”

“I am proud as punch of that girl,” she said, beaming. “She’s the smartest one of the bunch.”

“Miss DeLora was telling me about her herb garden,” Elvia said.

“Y’all have to come out and see my place,” Miss DeLora said. “If the Lord Jesus brought down heaven to earth, I swear this’d be what it looked like. Why, Boone practically turned that little cabin into a mansion.”

“And there isn’t no one who deserves it more’n you for puttin’ up with us Littleton men for so long,” Emory said, bending down to kiss Miss DeLora’s cheek. “Ladies, I wish I could sit and chat, but I’ve got a zillion details to see to before the fund-raiser tonight.” He went over and kissed Elvia quickly on the mouth. “I’ll leave you in Benni’s capable hands. She’ll give you a tour of our town. Tomorrow I’ll take you around and correct all the lies she told you.”