Temple Secrets: Southern Humorous Fiction: (New for 2015) For Lovers of Southern Authors and Southern Novels (20 page)

“I’m glad your mother wasn’t alive to see someone throw a brick through the window,” Queenie says. “And to think I was complaining earlier about how dull the event was.”

“Hopefully, that’s the end of the excitement for the day,” Rose says.

“We’ll see,” Queenie says.

Within seconds a soft chanting can be heard coming from outside. Rose listens carefully to make out the words:
Secrets, no! Book’s gotta go! Secrets, no! Book’s gotta go!

“I’ll drink to that,” Queenie says.

Rose holds up her glass of tonic water and salutes. They clink glasses. Twenty years before, there would have been vodka in her glass. But drinking for Rose was never about celebration. It was about forgetting. And she isn’t willing to forget anymore.

After entering the dining room, Violet straightens various serving trays and then picks up empty glasses and used napkins. Rose asks if she can help, but Violet declines her offer. On the way back into the kitchen Violet stops and glances out toward the street to see the chanters, and then shrugs like nothing surprises her anymore.

“By the way, did you turn up the air conditioner?” Rose asks her. “It’s very cold in here.”

“It’s Miss Temple,” Violet says, turning to face Rose and Queenie. “She’s crashing her own wake.”

“That sounds like something Old Sally would say,” Rose says.

Queenie agrees.

“I take that as a great compliment,” Violet says.

“By the way, I smelled rotten eggs earlier,” Rose says. “At first I thought it was Edward, but maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s Mother.”

“Oh my, this is just what Mama was afraid of,” Queenie says with a tsk.

“Ignore Miss Temple if you can,” Violet says. “That’s what I do. Try to ignore the chanting, too.”

Rose has tried to ignore her mother for the past twenty-five years and she’s not sure what good it’s done. Earlier today, she finally felt free. But it seems her deceased mother isn’t exactly cooperating. As if to offer commentary, another current of cold air slides across her arm. She rubs away a new crop of goose bumps.

“Well, I think Iris would be pleased with the reception,” Queenie says to Rose. “I followed all your instructions to the letter. Didn’t I, Iris?” She glances up, as if expecting an answer from the chandelier.

“Violet did an amazing job, too,” Rose says.

As they applaud, Violet gives an exaggerated curtsy. Meanwhile, the chanting outside gets louder.

“Do you really think Mother’s here?” Rose asks, with a quick glance at the same chandelier. Perhaps her mother is protesting the protesters.

Violet and Queenie nod and Rose can see a bit of family resemblance between the niece and aunt. Rose doesn’t have experience with extended family. The Temple line has dwindled over the years. Her mother was an only child, as was her mother before her. Rose has often thought she was an accident and that her mother would have preferred to have just had Edward. It is obvious Edward would have preferred it, too.

Late afternoon sun breaks through the sheer curtains sending narrow brush strokes of light into the dining room and hallway. The Temple house always seems dark to Rose so any outside light breaking through is a welcomed change. Plus it makes it warmer, given her mother’s intent to chill.

“I’d better get back to work,” Violet says, balancing dirty dishes. “I don’t want to find a note in the morning from you-know-who.” She smiles before returning to the kitchen.

“Did Bo Rivers approach you about a meeting on Monday?” Queenie asks Rose.

“He did,” Rose says. “I hadn’t planned to stay that long. But he made it sound important.”

Another blast of frigid air makes them pause.

“That woman was never very subtle,” Queenie says, and directs a sneer at the chandelier. “It’s just like Iris to be the center of attention at her own funeral reception,” she continues. “She is already, of course, being that she is the deceased. But probably not in a way that is fully satisfying.” Queenie grins.

“It must be killing her that people are protesting outside,” Rose says.

“No pun intended,” Queenie notes with her signature laugh.

Meanwhile, the reception has flat-lined. Even the different scents in the room seem to be dying away. The people who are left check their watches as though counting the seconds before they can make a mass exodus after staying the obligatory hour.

“Do you know what this meeting is about on Monday?” Rose asks Queenie.

“Probably the will.”

“That’s fast,” Rose says. “What about probate and all that?”

“Somehow your mother arranged it. You know how she hates to draw things out.”

Secrets, no. Book’s gotta go,
the chanters repeat in the background.

“It should be pretty simple, right?” Rose asks. “I’m sure Edward gets my share of everything. I have no idea why I would be required to be there. I certainly don’t look forward to watching him gloat.”

“I’m sure your mother had her reasons,” Queenie says in a quasi-whisper. “That woman had more secrets than anybody in that cursed book, although I’m sure she never wrote them down. She wouldn’t have taken that chance. Of course, I’ve been known to have a few secrets myself.”

Queenie’s face looks playful, even devilish. Is the wine getting to her?

“Out with it,” Rose says. “Did you put a quart of cole slaw at Mother’s ankles? Baked beans at her feet?”

Queenie guffaws, insisting her latest secret isn’t even remotely related to fast-food. Heads turn in their direction. Edward, now schmoozing with a councilman, narrows his eyes in disapproval at Rose and Queenie, who, it turns out, are dangerously close to enjoying themselves, despite the rabble-rousing outside.

“It seems we’ve broken the cardinal rule of white folks at a funeral reception. No laughter allowed,” Queenie says to Rose. “Darker folks don’t mind a good laugh, no matter what the occasion.”

Before now, Rose has never heard her speak about differences in race. She has never thought of her as black or white. In her mind, Queenie transcends color. Yet it appears she hasn’t felt this transcendence. Rose wonders if the people outside are white or black. Does it even matter?

Queenie pulls Rose into a corner of the dining room as if wanting privacy. “Would you like to know one of your mother’s secrets?”

Secrets, no!
the crowd answers.

“Absolutely,” Rose says, ignoring the voices outside. She nibbles on some fruit. All these secrets are making her hungry again. Not to mention the resident ghosts in attendance and not being able to drink.

Queenie leans in and lowers her voice. “Did you meet Spud Grainger earlier today?”

“I didn’t officially meet him,” Rose says. “But isn’t he the butcher? The one who went on and on about exotic meats?”

“Uh, huh,” Queenie says. She cuts her eyes from door to door.

“What does Mother’s secret have to do with a butcher at the Piggly Wiggly?” Rose asks, putting a cocktail shrimp in her mouth.

“After your daddy died, Spud Grainger had an affair with her,” Queenie says. “From what I hear, it was quite passionate.”

The shrimp shoots across the room and lands in a large ficus plant. Guests from the back of the foyer turn to look, as if to determine the credibility of the crustacean UFO.

“I thought you’d like that one,” Queenie says with a smile.

Rose asks in a whisper, “Really?”

“Your mother told me one night when she had a little too much sherry,” Queenie says. “You know how she gets on holy days.”

Queenie leans over the buffet table and fills a clean plate with crab legs. The chanting fades. It is raining again. While Rose attempts to process this latest piece of news, Queenie cracks one of the spindly legs and sucks the white meat from inside with the deftness of an orthopedic surgeon.

“Mother had an affair with the butcher at Piggly Wiggly?” Rose asks.

Passion is not something Rose has ever associated with her mother. It is hard to imagine her being intimate with her father, much less the butcher at the Piggly Wiggly.

“This from a woman who could make Antarctica seem warm in comparison,” Rose says.

“Tell me about it,” Queenie says. With a fingernail, she fishes out a piece of crab meat from one of the legs and then sucks her nail. She savors the crab, like it is a delicious secret.

For the first time, it is Rose who feels like chanting,
Secrets, no!
This day has already been too much, but her curiosity wants more.

“How long did it last?” Rose asks.

“Six months,” Queenie says.

“Are you kidding me?” Rose says. “Next you’ll tell me that Mother wasn’t really a member of the Daughters of the Confederacy and that our family fought for the Union.”

“Now that really would be a scandal,” Queenie says, “But the confederacy was definitely supported by many, if not all, of the Temples, as the family on my mother’s side can unfortunately attest.” She cracks another crab leg as if to add an exclamation point to her words.

Rose forgets sometimes that Queenie has lived both sides of the Temple story, and in fact is from both sides.

Violet enters the dining room again, refreshing different plates of food and then returns to the kitchen with Queenie’s discarded crab legs.

“Violet’s staying on, right?” Rose asks Queenie.

“Unless she decides she can’t take the boredom of a house without your mother’s drama,” Queenie says. “Of course if your mother decides to haunt the place, it may be like she never left.”

Queenie excuses herself and goes into the kitchen, and the reception dwindles to a small collection of her mother’s oldest acquaintances, most of whom treat Rose with a certain amount of caution. What story has her mother told the old guard, as to why Rose hasn’t been around for the last twenty-five years? When it comes to her mother, a storyline that involves mental illness or prison can’t be ruled out.

Most of her life, Rose has been cast in the role of the ungrateful daughter—the child born with a silver spoon in her mouth who spit it out just to spite her generous, benevolent mother. Very few people, other than Queenie and Old Sally, know the truth behind the disconnection.

Rose looks around for Edward, who is nowhere in sight. If he isn’t still snooping around, he has left without saying goodbye, which is fine with Rose. For all she knows, Edward has probably perpetuated these lies and may have renewed his campaign to discredit her at this very reception. Or maybe he has joined the protestors.
Secrets, no!
Lately, she has had enough contact with her brother to last another decade or two, maybe even a lifetime.

By late afternoon, the last of the mourners exit and the crowd outside finally disperses, leaving the five women alone in the dining room. Queenie, Rose, Katie, Angela and Violet finish up the last of the food. Rose takes off her shoes, her feet much more accustomed to boots these days than heels. She releases a long sigh. Her mother’s funeral is complete.

Katie puts her head on Angela’s shoulder and looks so much like Max, at that moment, it makes Rose miss him even more than she already does.

“Angie and I have a flight back to Chicago in three hours,” Katie says to Rose. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”

“I’m sure,” Rose says. “I’ll drive you to the airport, so you don’t have to take a cab.”

“Where are you staying?” Katie asks.

“Here, of course.”

“You mean you’re staying here at the house?” Angela asks.

Katie and Angela exchange concerned looks.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Rose says, thinking Angela’s question a bit odd. Although, truth be told, Angela is a bit odd, too.

“Mom, this house is so, like, haunted,” Katie says. “Earlier, when I was standing in the hallway, I kept getting these blasts of cold air that had nothing to do with the air conditioner vents. I checked.”

“And when I was in the garden,” Angela says, “someone put a hand on my shoulder. But when I turned around, nobody was there.”

Rose looks at Queenie who shrugs, as if deferring the secret-telling to Rose.

“I guess it’s time for you to learn one of the many Temple eccentricities,” Rose says to Katie. “It seems your grandmother made an appearance earlier. But there’s nothing to be alarmed about. This is what Temples do. They haunt.”

After two decades of watching her offspring, the look on Katie’s face is one Rose hasn’t seen before—a cross between horror and exhilaration. Angela appears a bit unnerved, as well, and glances at her watch as though ready to make an exit.

“It wouldn’t be the first reception the spirit Temples have attended,” Queenie tells them. “But they’re harmless. Honest.”

Is Queenie crossing her fingers behind her back with that promise?
Rose wonders.

“Was it that way when you were growing up, Mom?” Katie asks.

“It’s Savannah, honey. Every house has its ghosts.”

“I don’t understand how you can be so nonchalant,” Katie says. The look on her face is:
who is this woman and where have you taken my mother?

“This kind of thing happened my entire childhood,” Rose says. “Every family in Savannah has crazy uncles and cousins or a few ghosts.”

“And its secrets,” Queenie interjects.

“And definitely its secrets,” Rose says. The danger lies in both worlds, and seems to have only just begun.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Violet

What is Miss Temple up to?
Violet wonders. She searches through the clothes in her bedroom closet to find something to wear for the meeting downtown later that afternoon. Miss Temple’s lawyer sought her out after the funeral and insisted that she attend a meeting in his office the following Monday. All week she has wondered why.

“I thought you’d left already,” Jack says. He carries his morning coffee into the bedroom and sits on the bed.

“I’m the last person I thought would be invited to the reading of Miss Temple’s will,” Violet says. “Unless she wants to embarrass me in front of a bunch of rich, white people and tell me I’m out of a job.”

She pulls three dresses from her closet that are possibilities and holds each in front of her as she stands in front of the full-length mirror on the back of the closet door.