Land Sakes (4 page)

He opened the door on the driver's side, and that hound, staring straight ahead, did not so much as look his way.

I whispered to Barbara, “You sure them dogs are housebroke?”

She giggled. “Maybe.”

That didn't help my jitters one bit.

Percival was showing off the interior of the car, pressing his palm down on the soft leather seat. “Sir, the material that goes into this model is the kind dreams are made of. This leather, made of champagne-colored hides perfectly matched and hand-stitched, required the hides of eighteen cows.”

Albert nodded and began admiring the instrument panel. Nozzle Nose fell all over himself explaining. “All the woodwork is Lombardian walnut, burled walnut with silver inlays.”

“It's really a magnificent car.”

I stood on one foot then the other, anxious to get this show on the road, but Percival wasn't done. “Sir, this odometer is designed to record one million miles.”

“So I've heard,” Albert said. “I understand the Rolls has built-in security. Is that correct?”

“That is correct, sir.” And Nozzle Nose was off to the races. “The pin tumbler door locks are designed using an Egyptian model used four thousand years ago to seal the tombs of the pharaohs.” He paused for that to take effect. Albert nodded again, so Percival went on. “The odds for forging a key for these doors are one in twenty-four thousand. One in twenty-four thousand,” he repeated. “That is not all, sir; when I remove the key from the ignition, the transmission automatically locks.”

I could tell that Albert was ready to leave, but Nozzle Nose kept right on talking. “This motorcar is equipped with a minibar, refrigerator, silver-plated cocktail flasks, crystal glasses, a vanity set, and a marvelous entertainment console.”

“Thank you,” Albert told him and threw up his hand
to me. “Esmeralda, enjoy yourself. Lenora sends her love. We'll be praying for you.”

“Good-bye, Albert. Take care of that vertigo.”

I turned to say one last good-bye to the girls. There were tears in our eyes; we were too full to say much.

Percival opened the door for me, and, sad as I was, I slid in beside Mrs. Winchester. Percival fastened my seat belt. I wiped my eyes. There was no turning back now.

The mutt didn't even notice me as I settled in my seat.
Some guard dog
.

Barbara opened my door a bit and poked her head inside. “Mother, this is Miss Esmeralda. We call her Miss E. We all love her very much, and I know you will too.”

“How do you do,” Mrs. Winchester said in a small voice. “I am Winifred Win
chus
ter.”

“I see,” I said.
So this is the way it's gonna be—Mrs
. Win
chus
ter, my eye! Here's somebody who won't be calling her Mrs
. Win
chus
ter. I am nobody's lackey
.

Barbara tried to speak with her mother, but her mother had nothing to say to her. “Mother is shy,” Barbara explained. Then she pecked me on the cheek and closed the door.

I'd never heard anything so crazy. Why would any mother be shy around her own daughter? Whatever this Mrs. Winifred Winchester was, she didn't strike me as being shy. Dressed in an elegant linen suit with a chiffon scarf and a broad-brimmed hat with feathers, she had to be the queen of the world. It made me feel good to see that her outfit did not hide the fact that she was heavier than me. As for her face, I couldn't see much of it because of that hat and the dark glasses, but what I could see put me
in mind of a Cabbage Patch doll. What nose she had was pressed in between blubber cheeks. But I must say her perfume was nice.
Must be Evening in Paris
, I thought.

The dog beside her was gazing off into the distance, still ignoring me. That was fine—I'd sooner it ignore me as growl, bark, bare its teeth, or bite a plug out of me.

Percival had put on white gloves and was wiping dust from the flying lady with a chamois. Well, he was wasting his time and mine, because once we hit the Old Turnpike there'd be dust enough to bury us. While he was polishing the chrome, the lights, and hubcaps, I was getting antsy.

I decided to check my pocketbook again. I didn't want to get on the road and find I had left something behind. I counted the bills in my wallet and found my Medicare and health insurance cards, driver's license, and credit card. After rummaging in that bottomless pit, I didn't miss anything, so I stuffed everything back in there, snapped it shut, and, with butterflies in my stomach, sat waiting for us to get going.

At last, Percival changed his gloves to the black ones and climbed in behind the wheel. He did something or other that rolled up the glass partition between the front and back seats.
Good
, I thought.
That takes care of number two terrorist
.

You'd think Nozzle Nose was getting ready for the Indy 500 the way he checked all the gadgets, adjusted his cap and gloves, then started the engine and got us moving. As we glided down the driveway, I couldn't look back; my heart was too heavy. Leaving Priscilla Home for a world I knew nothing about was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life.

4

As we were going down the Old Turnpike, Mrs. Winchester spoke not a word. It was just as well; I didn't feel like talking. My heart was heavy as lead. Closing the door on the people and work I held dear had me so full I could have busted out crying.

Sitting in that fancy car beside that rich woman and those funny-looking dogs, I might as well have been leaving the planet for some other world. I felt out of place and uneasy. Never before in my life had I felt old, but now I was feeling old, too old to once again take the bull by the horns and do what I had to do.

I think it was Mr. Splurgeon, but it might have been Pastor Osborne, who said, “The future is as bright as the promises of God.” In a better frame of mind I could have taken that at face value and got help from it, but I was feeling so low I'd have to stand on a soapbox to reach bottom.

I knew Jesus don't go to pity parties, so I tried to get
this party over with as soon as possible. That don't mean it was easy.

I slipped a Gospel of John out of my pocketbook and looked up that verse the Lord seemed to have give me. “When he puts forth his own sheep, he goes before them.”
That ought to be enough to settle my nerves
.

We were nearly at the end of the Old Turnpike. I saw a flock of turkeys down the hill. I would miss this road, these hills—so many memories. I leaned back, took off my glasses, wiped my eyes, and shut them.

Running through my head were the words of that old hymn “Anywhere with Jesus”: “Anywhere with Jesus, I can safely go; anywhere he leads me in this world below. Anywhere without him dearest joys would fade; anywhere with Jesus I am not afraid.”

No matter how many times in the past I had sung that song and meant it from my heart, I had never before put it to the test. This was the test; this was where the rubber met the road—either I was willing to go anywhere with Jesus or I wasn't.

As Percival was turning onto the paved highway, I took a gander at the dog on the other side of Mrs. Winchester. I had never seen a dog with as long a head as that one, and it had a topknot of long silky hair parted in the middle and falling down over its ears like a long-haired girl's. The hair on the dog's back was silky too, but short. I couldn't see the feet, but it wouldn't have surprised me to know its toenails were manicured. The way that dog held its head on that long, arched neck put me in mind of a fashion model posing for a camera.

“What's the dog's name?” I asked.

Out from under that hat came a small voice. “Lucy.”

“Lucy?”

“The one up front is Desi.”

“I see,” I said, but for the life of me, I didn't. Why in the world would anybody name dogs after Lucy and Desi Arnaz?

We rode another mile or two, but then my curiosity got the better of me. “Did you say Lucy and Desi?”

“Yes... Lucy is stagestruck, and Desi has been known to chase after female show dogs.”

I didn't know if I was supposed to laugh or what. “I see,” I said again, and the more I looked at Lucy, the more I could see that she might be stagestruck. The stuck-up way she held her head made her look like somebody who, if they ain't a celebrity, wants to be one.

We rode all the way to Highway 321 without saying another word. Most women have got tongue enough for two sets of teeth, but not Mrs. Winchester. She might just as well been a mummy sitting beside me. I felt myself lapsing into that pity party again. I forced myself to say something. “Barbara said your car is ten years old. Is this the one?”

“It is.”

Barbara had said her mother didn't have a driver's license, but just to see what she would say, I asked, “Mrs. Winchester, did you ever drive it?”

“No, I don't drive.”

“You mean—”

“I've never learned to drive.”

“I see.” I couldn't imagine any able-bodied woman her age not knowing how to drive. Maybe she was epileptic
or something. Could that be what Barbara meant by her having spells?

Anyway, I was going to keep talking whether Mrs. Winchester listened or not. “I use to drive around Live Oaks before I was old enough to get a license. Had to do it to get to work. My papa died when I was in the eighth grade, and I had to drop out of school and go to work. In the mill I worked on third shift and didn't cotton to walking to and from the mill at night. Of course, there's no danger in Live Oaks. It's a small town, and the only calls the sheriff and his deputy get is when somebody locks their keys in the car, or a cat won't come down out of a tree, or somebody reports hunters on posted land. Our officers of the law earn their keep writing traffic tickets on strangers coming through town. Live Oaks is not much more than a crossroads, and when a stranger comes barreling down the highway, he don't hardly know he's in a town before it's too late.”

The road alongside the river was one curve after another. That car we were in was heavy; it hugged its side of the road without the tires squealing. It would've been better if the tires had squealed, because here came a Bubba hot-rodding toward us in the middle of the road! He swerved to miss us and near 'bout went over the embankment on the other side.
Whew-ee, if he had hit this Rolls, he'd of been creamed like roadkill
!

Even so, Percival did not slow down. I got a firm grip on a hand bar next to the door, and to keep my mind off it, I kept talking a mile a minute.

“Live Oaks is where I met my husband. Hands down, Bud was the catch of the day, and I was the envy of
every girl in town except Beatrice. She only had eyes for Percy Poteat, so she wasn't jealous of me. Beatrice is my best friend. We grew up together, and she had to drop out of school the same as me. We went to work in the variety store before we got jobs in the mill. When the mill closed, there was no work in Live Oaks. Beatrice went to work in a convenience store in Mason County.”

Well, this one-way conversation was getting nowhere. I shut up for a while and started to read the Gospel of John. My bottomless pit is heavy, and as I leaned over to set it on the floor, lo and behold, out from under that hat came a small voice. “And then?”

I couldn't believe my ears. I remembered where I left off, so I picked up from there and went right on telling her about Bud and me, about how he went to Vietnam and got wounded, and how me and Elijah nursed him until he died.

Thinking about Bud, I got quiet. After all these years, it was still hard for me to think about him the way he was after he was wounded, the way he suffered all those years.

“And then?” I heard her say.

I come to. “Well, Mrs. Winchester, I had the best husband a body could ask, so I never looked for another.”

It was true; I never
looked
for another husband. Of course, there was Albert, but it wouldn't do to tell her about him.

I hardly knew where to go from there, so I ventured to ask her, “Tell me about yourself.”

She was so long in answering I didn't think she was
going to, but then she did. “I had a wonderful childhood.”

I waited for her to say more. Seeing she wasn't going to add anything, I decided not to let her off the hook easy. “When did you get married?”

Again, it didn't look like she was going to come down off her high horse and answer my question. I was about to let it go at that when she finally said, “After my coming-out party.”

Since it was like pulling eye teeth to get anything out of her and I have not got the patience to humor anybody, I leaned back and took a breather.

Looking at the back of Percival's head with his ears sticking out like taxicab doors and that hound beside him with its nose sticking in the air put me in mind of rednecks who ride around in their pickups with their red-bone coonhounds hanging their heads out the window. At least redbone coonhounds have got some personality, which was more than I could say for those fancy hounds.
I bet those Afghans cost a pretty penny
.