(I'm off to NYC to watch the second bear graduate. Will post more when I get back at the end off the week. The first bear graduated in Orange County early Saturday morning. If you are my Facebook friend there is 41 seconds of her on the big screen by the stage shaking hands with the bigwigs. Jerry Lewis was the commencement speaker - he was funny and spent most of the time making faces at the girls graduating. He's 85.)
More Daydee- right where we left off:
She did a little more sorting, but was feeling the effect of the rum and evening was here. She cooked some hot dogs she found and turned off the overhead lights except for the kitchen and snuggled down on the couch to watch television. It was a bit cool because she had left the windows open. She would not have the smell around her. She’d have to get a fan when she bought a lamp. Thrift stores were good for that kind of thing, if you weren’t too choosey. This wasn’t New Orleans, but it wasn’t totally uncomfortable. She pulled off her clothes, leaving them in a heap on the coffee table and crawled back into her blanket in her underwear. She dozed and awoke in the middle of the night. The television was still on with some old black and white movie. She turned it off, and thought she heard something or someone moving in the apartment. She got up and wrapped the blanket around her and peaked into the kitchen. The light was still on. Nothing. She moved toward the bedroom. She knew she shouldn’t have left the windows open.
“Hello!” she said to the dark bedroom.
They were going to answer her? She jolted to the doorway and turned on the light. Nothing at all. Then she realized it was her mother. She could feel her in the room. She pulled open the closet door and there were her mother’s clothes. Those would go tomorrow. Maybe that would get her out of here.
“You’re dead. You can leave now! I have no use for you.”
She wanted something. Had she just been in the dream just now that Daydee didn’t remember? Then she realized that the bed was made. Her mother had never made a bed in her life. Who had made the goddamn bed?
“There’s really nothing you can tell me that I don’t already know,” she told the ghost. “And I don’t give a fuck.”
She turned off the light and closed the door behind her. Her suitcase was sitting there in the light from the kitchen. She had forgotten to unpack. She crawled back on the couch and hid her face in the blanket. Her mother hovered about her in her dreams, but when she awoke in the morning light, she didn’t remember anything of what dreams she might have had. She considered that a blessing.
It was a bright and shiny morning when she finally sat up on the couch. The sky was blue outside and there were birds chirping. She had no idea what time it was and couldn’t remember what time Winston was supposed to be there to pick her up. She went to the kitchen in her blanket and made coffee and found toast and then did recall that she was supposed to go to breakfast with him. Eating wasn’t a good idea. Maybe a half of piece of toast to help her not feel hung over. She carried the coffee and toast into the bedroom and then returned for her suitcase. The blanket slipped off her shoulders and she glanced out the open front curtains to make sure no one was around. She wasn’t in her second story back apartment any more. The bedroom curtains were open as well.
“Damn it.”
She closed them all. There was nowhere to hang her clothes. She pulled all of her mother’s clothes out of the closet and piled them in middle of the bed. She threw all of the shoes up there with them and then began to pull hangers out to hang up her own clothes. She would be wrinkled today. She also didn’t own any sensible shoes. She imagined they would be walking around cornfields today. In the bathroom, she raked all of her mother’s things off the counter into the wastebasket and dumped that on the bed as well. There must be a store they go to at sixty and buy only old woman things. She took a shower and blew her hair and put on her make-up. She didn’t want to be too sexy today, so she toned everything down. It was a small town. They would really decide that she was a hooker. The sweater was good. She’d be covered but would still give the boys something to look at while they were explaining fertilizing. Her skirts were all probably too tight. She needed a sundress, which was farm girl sexy. She looked at a pair of her mother’s shoes and then sat down to try them. They fit. They were black. They could have belonged to anyone. Better an inch than two inches in the mud.
She lit a cigarette and looked at herself. Not bad for an old broad, she thought. She wiped off the red lipstick and did a little gloss instead. The apartment looked a shamble now. As she came out, Winston was pulling up in front. Was there a car? She hoped she wasn’t obliged to wait on him to get her places. She went out to meet him. The shoes felt weird. They also made her feel smaller. He jumped out as if he was going to run around and hold the passenger door for her.
“Relax, honey. I can get in the car just fine.”
They climbed in.
“I’m starving. Breakfast first?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“Do you make beds, Winston?”
“Why? Oh, I cleaned up the place a little for your coming.”
“She never made a bed in her life,” Daydee said.
Winston smiled at her.
“You knew that,” Daydee said. “Is there a car?”
“There’s a pick-up over at the cemetery. We can get it for you today. Jack was using it to carry lawn seed and fertilizer over there from the garden center.”
“Jack?”
“Jack Evans. He went to high school with you. He was on the football team. He’s been doing upkeep on the cemetery grounds and the openings and closings for your mother. He’s the preacher at the Baptist church, but that doesn’t pay real well. He’ll probably be at the restaurant.“
The restaurant turned out to be the main hangout in downtown Paris in the mornings. It was the usual small town place, hadn’t been remodeled since the 60s. Booths and tables with Formica tops. Old eggshell ceramic coffee cups that had seen the dishwasher too many years in a row. A counter where toothpicks were within easy reach. Businessmen and farmers. There were a few older women scattered around among the men, but those were there with their retired spouse because neither felt like cooking breakfast any more. The waitresses were all Daydee’s age. The fry cook in the serving window had a cigarette dangling from his mouth. All the men looked up when they entered and watched her cross the room. She smiled at each group as they passed them. Why did she feel like one of the waitresses? They sat at a table toward the back. She imagined this to be Winston’s spot every morning.
“This brings back memories,” she said. “I was working weekends at a place out near the high school before I left.”
“I remember. That place closed about ten years ago.”
A tall good looking blonde man got up and came over to the table. She remembered him now. He looked pretty good, no paunch, though he was gray around his ears. He had a buddy that was just as handsome that he hung out with. They were both on the team. The girls had all drooled over the both of them. She put out her hand.
“Jack. How are you?”
There was a wedding ring on his hand.
“Deidre. Boy, has it been a long time.”
“You want to join us?” Winston asked.
He sat down. The waitress came over with coffee and took their order. Jack had just finished eating.
“She just got in yesterday. I was going to take her around to get the lay of the land,” Winston said. “I thought the cemetery first. You going over there?”
“Well, I need to see Edward first. I’ll meet you in about an hour?”
“So where have you been all this time?” Jack asked her.
“I’ve been living in New Orleans.”
“How long before you have to go back?”
“Oh, I’m not.”
“It must be a lot more exciting than here.”
“Quiet will be good.”
“What exactly were you doing there? You have a family?”
“Never married. I’m a para-legal.” She had used that for years.
“Well, it’s good to see you. I need to go. Winston, I need to talk you for a minute.”
He stood and motioned him to follow. They went over by the door. Secrets. They seemed to be arguing by the front door. Everyone else in the place were either watching them or watching her. She smiled at the men that made eye contact. Frank Harris appeared at the table.
“I brought the rest of the money. I was going to run by to see you, but this is easier.”
He pulled out his wallet and handed the bills over to her. Great, she thought. Now I really am a hooker. Winston returned and made arrangements for them to meet up with Frank later that morning at the farm. Their breakfast came.
By the time they walked out of the restaurant, Daydee really felt like she knew what movie stars must feel like when they are out in public. She was being memorized by the other customers. Soon the whole town would discussing what she had on, how she fixed her hair, what blemishes she had and where they were. The men were all eyeing her up and down, which was a good sign. If you were a hayseed and over forty, she looked real good, she guessed. She could work with that. The old women were probably scandalized by her look. The waitresses were the ones whose tongues would really wag. She envisioned the headline on the Beacon tomorrow: ‘Back From The Dead!’
Winston had a toothpick and was rooting around in his mouth. They got in the car.
“Well, let’s do the cemetery first,” she said.
They drove the few blocks- it was only a half mile away, on the north side of town. It had a archway in front with Paris Memorial Gardens in wrought iron over the dirt road entrance. It was just a large expanse of green lawn. There were a couple of trees. All the markers were flat in the ground as plaques. There was a little concrete bunker of an office and a large shed to house the mower and tools. The pick-up truck that was her mothers’ was sitting by the shed. It was old. She knew immediately it had to be a stick. There was a big back hoe sitting behind the shed. Jack Evans wasn’t here yet.
“Your mother is over here.”
They walked over to the mound of brown earth.
“Shall I leave you?” Winston asked.
Daydee laughed at him.
“No, don’t be silly. I didn’t love my mother.”
She was looking at the plaques nearby. Her Grandmother and Grandfather. Her Great-grandmother and Great Aunt and Great Uncle separately. Her father.
“We’re all here,” she said. “My father came back?”
“Well, that’s a story in itself. About fifteen years ago, he was spotted wandering around the farm. Your mother and your Great Aunt drove out to look for him, but never found him. The next day Frank Harris found him dead in the middle of the corn. The sheriff decided your mother had killed him and arrested her. There was a big investigation. Your mother hired Edward to be her lawyer. They never found enough evidence to put her on trial. So they let her go.”
She felt like she was ready to cry. She had always imagined him crazy as a loon wandering the countryside or pushing a shopping cart in some skid row in some city. He’s been here for fifteen years.
A car pulled up by the office. It was Jack. She was glad for the distraction. She dabbed her eye and started over. Winston followed.
“I swear you’re just as good looking as you were in high school,” she told him.
His eyes jumped to Winston behind her. She had embarrassed him?
“I have a wife and two kids now.”
“Good for you!”
“I’m the pastor of the First Baptist Church here in town.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have imagined that. I’ll have to come to hear you. What time Sunday?”
“The first service is at nine.”
She had no intention of really going, but she thought he needed buttering up a bit.
“So you’ve been taking care of the cemetery?”
“Yes, Ma’am. I mow and keep the lawn up and do the opening and closing of the graves. There haven’t been very many lately. I’ll show you the office.”
They walked over and he unlocked the door. It was a nice little cozy room with file cabinets and a big desk and two overstuffed chairs for family of the deceased. Lots of windows with their curtains open, looking out to the green outside. There was a bookshelf with what had to be the Harris’ mantle clock. Jack handed her the keys.
“Your mother ran the business, sold plots and vaults and scheduled everything. She’d just call when she needed something done. I can’t say that I’d be much help on the accounts. She handled all that. “
“There’s no answering machine,” she said.
“Everybody knew to call her at home. She was never out here much toward the end. “
They locked up and went out to the shed.
“All of the equipment belongs to the cemetery. The truck and the backhoe too. I’ve never used this one. I don’t know if it will even start. I own my own, a smaller newer one. Your mother would pay per the grave. “
“Let’s just keep everything the way it was until I can figure it all out,” Daydee said.
“That would be great, Deidre.”
“So where next?” she asked Winston. “The farm?”
“Sure, if you want.”
“Let’s take the truck,” she said.
The men followed her. She managed to climb in without making a fool of herself, but was sure audience appreciated her rump in the tight skirt. She knew because Winston hadn’t budged.
“You coming?”
She pulled her door shut as he trotted around to the passenger side. She was actually scared to death. She hadn’t driven anything in a couple of years. Didn’t have a driver’s license in Louisiana. But these hayseeds were not going make her dependant on them. It started up well enough. She hit the brake and the clutch and tried shifting into first. It grinded.
“You have to double clutch it,” Jack said.
“How do you do that?”
“You have to pump the clutch every time you shift,” he said.
“You want me to drive?” Winston asked.
“No!”
She tried again, the gears screeched a bit, but the truck jerked forward. She went off the drive a little and cut it close going out the entrance.
“I can drive,” Winston said.
“I know!”
He gave her directions. She ran a stop sign, but didn’t hit anything. They were on a road leading out of town. She eased it into second and gassed it up to the top of second gear and made it into third. Her hair was going to be a mess from the open window. She should have a scarf. Downshifting was just as much of a problem. They reached the farm, and she took the turn off a little fast. She was certain she was going to run off into the ditch. She slapped Winston’s shoulder.
“That was fun!”
Coming up on the barn, she kept the clutch in and jiggled the stick back into first and let it jerk to a stop. The engine died.
“Well, I’ll practice.”
She tried fixing her hair in the mirror, but saw it was hopeless. They got out and looked around. The barn was on its last legs, and leaned to the left, about to topple over. It was ancient. It wasn’t the one that had been on her great-grandmother’s farm. There was a tractor on its way to them. There was a house here, a big two story Victorian with boarded up windows. The crop rows had been planted up to the very walls, so there was no yard or even a path to it its front door.
Frank Harris was on the tractor. He had a fertilizer rig attached to the back. He pulled up and turned it off. It continued to putt along as he climbed down.
“You were lucky to make that turn coming in,” he said.
“Glad you liked it, sweetie.”
He frowned.
“No, seriously.”
“Seriously, I could give a flying damn about what you think of my driving!” It was out before she could stop it. But she did smile.
Frank looked at Winston.
“I don’t think he’s going to help you,” she said.
“Sorry, Miss McIntire. I was just concerned about you hurting yourself.”
“Hey handsome, let’s not let it get us down. So what’s going on with the farm?”
“You want a tour?”
“Not today, love. Next time for sure. So what do you have planted?
“Its half soybeans, half corn, about 180 acres each. I’ve got a futures offer for 7.40 a bushel on the soybeans that we probably should take. It won’t go any higher than that.”
“I don’t know what that means,” she said.
“We get offers to buy the crop before it even comes out of the ground. Most wait until mid-summer, but it’ll be below that by then.”
“Let’s do it if you think we should.”
He was smiling now.
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll bet you a percentage if you want.”
“No.”
She held out her hand. He swiped his on his rear and then shook with her on it.
“What about the other farm?” she asked.
Frank shrugged at her. She looked at Winston.
“You’re thinking of your Great Aunt’s land?” he asked her.
“Yeah.”
“Your mother ended up with just a parcel. Edward owns the rest now.”
“How did that happen?’ she asked.
“Come on, let’s go there. I’ll tell you about it on the way.” Winston said.
“You be careful driving, ma’am.” Frank said.
“You mind your own business, Sweetie.”
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