Caveat Emptor and Other Stories (10 page)

I was eager to get back to the creek, take off my shoes, and let the mud slip between my toes, stuff my face, read about two-headed babies in the Amazon rain forest. “I'll be clapping for you on Friday,” I said in one last attempt to extricate myself from the conversation.

“But Benjamin won't,” she said, talking more to herself than to yours truly. “It won't matter how many times I tell him how important this is, how many times I beg him to be there at seven o'clock. He'll cross his heart and swear he'll be there, but he won't, and he'll be wondering where everyone is when he arrives two hours later. This may be the most important event in my life—an acknowledgment of all my years of teaching and the beginning of what's supposed to be our golden years together. He really should be on time.” She took an orange from a sack and squeezed it until the skin burst and juice dribbled down her white fingers. “He really should.”

Something was dribbling down my back that wasn't a source of vitamin C and I was ready to forget about my picnic and flat out flee to my car. I'd known Mary Frances Frank for a good many years, but this was my first glimpse of her as a vindictive Munchkin. “I'm sure he'll make it this one time,” I said.

“He'd better,” she said. “Otherwise, he'll be very, very sorry … this one time.”

By Friday I'd corralled the miscreants and bawled them out, cleaned the back room of the PD in a paroxysm of seasonal madness, and given some consideration to dust-busting my efficiency apartment above the antique store. Only my penchant for chicken-fried steak and cream gravy saved me, and I was devising ways to idle away the afternoon as I went into the bar and grill.

“Thought you said you'd be here at noon,” Ruby Bee said in an unfriendly voice.

I didn't much worry about it, in that she's no more predictable than the weather—and this was hurricane season, after all. “Did I say that? I could have sworn I said I'd be here around noon.” I appropriated a stool and gave her a beguiling smile. “How about the blue plate special and a glass of milk?”

“How about you learn to be on time?” muttered my mother, although she did so while stomping into the kitchen.

I sat and waited, listening placidly to the wails from the jukebox and the conversations from the booths along the wall. Now that it was no longer legal to shoot helpless birds and hapless mammals, the hot topic seemed to be the slaughter of largemouth bass and crappies. At least it was preferable to brands of toilet bowl cleaners.

Estelle sat down beside me as Ruby Bee came through the kitchen doors. “I guess we're all excited,” she said.

“I guess we are,” I said, although I had no idea what she assumed was exciting us. I myself was a little choked up at the sight of the plate Ruby Bee was carrying, but I'm a patsy in such matters.

Ruby Bee banged down the plate in front of me. “Has Mary Frances decided what she's going to wear tonight?” she asked Estelle.

“Her beige linen suit. She wanted to buy a new dress, but her car's still at the shop and Benjamin didn't get home yesterday in time for her to drive to Farberville. I wouldn't have liked to have been him when he finally got there. Mary Frances's eyes were flashing when she told me about it this morning, and I can imagine what all she said to him. They may have been married for forty years, but his lateness is starting to get on her nerves.”

“I heard something interesting,” Ruby Bee said. She glanced at me to see if I was listening, then moved down the bar so she and Estelle could share the big secret. The two often mistake me for someone who cares. “I heard,” she continued with the muted subtlety of a chain saw, “that Mary Frances made up with her brother just two days ago. After all these years of not speaking, she upped and called him, and then borrowed Elsie's car for the afternoon and went to visit him.”

“She didn't say one word to me,” Estelle said, clearly stunned by the magnitude of the revelation. “Not one word, and there I was recombing her hair for free!”

“Elsie promised not to tell anyone, but we were talking about the award ceremony tonight and she let drop that Mary Frances invited her brother and his wife.”

“What about the credenza?”

Ruby Bee nodded somberly. “She gave it to him. Here they've been fighting like dogs and cats over it since their mama died ten years ago, refusing to speak to each other at the family reunions, paying lawyers to file lawsuits, and sitting on opposite sides of the church at weddings and funerals. All of a sudden she's willing to give him the credenza just to make peace with him. He went to her house and picked it up last night. I was flabbergasted when I heard that.”

I halted a forkful of mashed potatoes halfway to my mouth. “I don't understand why you're treating this like the collapse of the Soviet Union. Maybe she wants to begin her retirement without any lingering feuds.”

Estelle pondered this while she ate a pretzel. “Nope, this credenza is mahogany and it's been in the family for three or four generations. We're not talking about a sewing box or an end table worth a few dollars. Roy Stivers appraised it back when Mary Frances and her brother were dividing the estate, and he said he hadn't come across a nicer one in all his born days.”

In that I wasn't sure I'd recognize a credenza if it nipped me on the butt, I resumed eating.

Ruby Bee resumed gossiping. “Elsie was miffed when Mary Frances brought the car back all covered with mud. It seems her brother is working on that new stretch of highway that's supposed to replace Highway 71 if they ever finish blasting through the mountains. Mary Frances wanted to hose off the mud, but Else said not to bother on account of it wasn't right for the Teacher of the Year to be washing cars. They almost had an argument over it, but Mary Frances insisted Elsie come over for coffee and homemade doughnuts this morning. Elsie ain't all that hard to mollify.”

“Mary Frances is gonna be real-hard to mollify if Benjamin's not on time tonight,” Estelle said. “She told me she was going to teach him a lesson once and for all. Do you reckon she'll say something in her speech?”

“She can't say anything folks don't already know.”

The discussion wandered at this point, and so did I. Not off to the trenches, mind you, or even off to determine the dimensions of the credenza and delve into the mystery of why a woman might want to make peace with her brother after ten years of estrangement. The grapevine was more than capable of producing a tidy solution sooner or later.

Where I wandered was out to the skeletal remains of Turtle's Esso station, where I could run a speed trap to make a little money for the local coffers and, more importantly, read a magazine. At five o'clock, I went back to the PD and tucked away my radar gun, called the dispatcher at the sheriff's office to find out if I'd missed anything newsworthy (I hadn't), and was halfway out the door when I noticed the blinking red rat's eye of the answering machine.

Approach-avoidance reared its ugly head. Was it the man of my dreams offering an escape to a Caribbean island? Was it a lawyer in Manhattan calling to tell me my ex-husband was so overcome with remorse that he was sending the money he owed me? Or was it the Pope?

I pushed the button.

“This is Ruby Bee Hanks, and I don't know why I bother to call over there when all I ever get is this rude machine. I don't know what the world's coming to when people can't bother to answer their own telephones.” There was a sharp inhalation before she took off once more. “Estelle and I are going out to Mary Frances's house just before the ceremony to get everything ready for the party. We won't get to the cafeteria until right at seven, so you need to go over early and save us seats on—”

The machine cut her off before I could, although it was close. I locked up and walked across the road to my apartment having been warned much earlier that Ruby Bee's Bar & Grill would not be serving supper to the likes of me or anyone else. I could survive on a can of soup, since I'd be having chocolate cake and champagne punch within a matter of hours, I assured myself as I showered and changed into a skirt and blouse in honor of the honoree.

I figured I'd best get to the high school fifteen minutes early in order to secure the best seats. Would Benjamin Frank be thinking the same thing? From what I could gather, the only place he'd get to on time was his own funeral—unless Mary Frances Frank did indeed teach him a lesson as she'd vowed. The adage about old dogs and new tricks came to mind, along with her comment that he would be “very, very sorry.”

Abruptly I got it—credenza and all. My fingers felt numb as I finished buttoning my blouse, grabbed the car keys, and sprinted down the stairs and across the road. Mary Frances had not been making peace with her brother; she'd been making a deal. It was nearly six-forty, which meant Ruby Bee and Estelle were in as much danger as Benjamin Frank, and if my car balked, all three were in for one helluva surprise party.

I squealed out in front of a pickup truck and jammed down the accelerator. The Franks lived in a farmhouse several miles out of town on a passable county road. Six-forty-two. Ruby Bee and Estelle might already be there, taping up streamers and setting out the punch bowl. Benjamin might be there, or still at his office in Starley City. Six-forty-five. Mary Frances had no idea Ruby Bee and Estelle might be in the house. Six-forty-eight.

I turned off the highway and tightened my grip on the steering wheel as I bounced down the road. Six-fifty came and went. Biting down on my lip, I went even faster and therefore came within inches of crashing into the back of Ruby Bee's car in the middle of the road. Dust caught up with me as I leaned my forehead against the steering wheel and waited for the adrenaline to abate.

Ruby Bee stood up on the far side of her car. “What in tarnation's going on?” she squawked. “You liked to kill the both of us! Driving like a madman on a narrow road!”

I got out of my car and clung to the antenna until my knees quit knocking. “Where's Estelle?”

“As any fool can see, I had a flat tire. She went on ahead to see if Benjamin can come help us change it and get all the party food into the house. At this rate, there's no way we'll be at the cafeteria on time.”

Six-fifty-eight. “How far is it?” I demanded.

“You're antsy this evening,” she said, her hands on her hips and a disapproving look on her face. “It's nearly a mile further, and Estelle's wearing high heels, but she should be getting there by now. If you'd stop gawking and loosen these lug nuts, we won't need Benjamin's help.”

“Is he there?”

“Now how on earth should I know a thing like that?”

We both turned and looked up the road a split second before an explosion rocked the sky, the sound reverberating across the valley like distant cannon fire. Black smoke and an orange haze appeared above the trees. It was seven o'clock.

Mrs. Jim Bob stood behind a podium, her hands clutching the edges as she leaned into the microphone. “And our only hope for the future lies in the moral education of our youth, who need to learn about respecting their elders and staying out of their begonias,” she was saying as I came into the room.

“Excuse me,” I said, “but there's been an accident. I need to speak to Mrs. Frank.” Scanning the faces in the audience, I hurried up to the front row as Mary Frances Frank stood up. I asked her to accompany me to the back of the room.

“There was an explosion at your house,” I said, then stopped, ignoring the murmurs of uneasiness and Mrs. Jim Bob's shrill comments about being interrupted.

“I thought I smelled gas,” she said without hesitation. “I mentioned it to Benjamin this morning, and he said he'd call the gas company. It's a good thing nobody was home.”

“Then your husband is here?”

“Well, I believe he ought to be on his way by now. He called from his office at six and assured me he'd go by the house to take a quick shower, then come right here. I made a point of reminding him how important it was for him to be here at seven, then arranged for Mrs. Jim Bob to give me a ride.” She regarded me with a level expression. “He may be running a few minutes late, but he should be here any minute.”

“It's already seven-thirty,” I said. “I had to wait at your house until a sherrif's deputy arrived to take over. The volunteer fire department is on its way, but I'm afraid there won't be anything to save. It was a powerful explosion. My first thought was dynamite.”

“Why were you out that way?”

“I went to warn Ruby Bee and Estelle to be away from the house at seven o'clock. Benjamin arranged a surprise party for you after the ceremony, and they were delivering the food on their way here.”

Her face turned as white as her hair. “Oh, no … I didn't know. I had no idea. Were they injured?”

I gave her the look she'd given me years earlier when I'd tried to explain that my dog ate my term paper. “You're damn lucky they weren't. Ruby Bee had a flat a mile from your house, and Estelle went ahead to ask Benjamin to give them a hand. If she hadn't lost a heel, she might well have lost her life.”

“Thank God,” she whispered.

“Benjamin's car was in the driveway,” I continued coldly. “He must have been running late. If he'd been here as he promised, no one would have been hurt in the explosion.”

She looked up at me, her eyes welling with tears, her lips trembling. “I told him over and over how important it was that he be here at the cafeteria at exactly seven o'clock. I really did.”

I believed her. I really did.

All's Well That Ends

Jack was looking at the flickery television set on a shelf above the bar when the woman sat down next to him. Her gender was hard to overlook, but he wasn't into specifics, having long since given up hope of being approached by a gorgeous young actress in search of a passionate one-night sexathon. His sixtieth birthday had passed without such a phenomenon taking place. Not much had happened since, for that matter. He was older and grayer, although not especially wiser. For years he'd come to the corner tavern to have a beer, maybe two, and a little conversation. Depending.