Distilling Lies, page 2
“Theo, I gave that away, for pity’s sake.”
The Mama and Daddy Bickering About Betty Hour played louder than Will Rogers on the radio. Louder than Jelly Roll Morton’s jazz on the Victrola. Daddy seemed to think the only reason Betty came to town six months before was to initiate Mama into the “immoral” flapper scene of New York City.
Betty said she moved from the excitement of speakeasies and skyscrapers to ho-hum Holly Gap in order to recoup her losses. It didn’t work out as planned. The cousins she had intended to stay with had moved the year before.
“Ready, Emma June?” Mama called. “And grab the pecan pie from the kitchen, will you, doll baby? Hold it by the brass carrier handles.”
“I got it, I got it,” Daddy mumbled, his broad shoulders nearly bumping the top of my head as I darted past him.
Mama, already in the revved-up roofless breezer, tap, tap, tapped the steering wheel with an impatient index finger.
Daddy opened the passenger door and handed me the pie. “Madam,” he said, with an up swipe of his palm.
“Thanks, Pop.”
“Pop?” He frowned. “What happened to Daddy?”
I patted his hand. “He’s here somewhere. If you see him, don’t tell him I have red lipstick in my purse. He’d have a conniption.” I batted my eyelashes and blew him a kiss. “Okay, Mama. Let’s blouse.”
As Mama drove toward the end of our long weed-trodden driveway, I looked back. Choppers was running to the side of the house like a dog with four legs instead of three. And Daddy, tall and fit, stood on the front porch with his thumbs tucked in his breeches and a scowl on his shadowed face. His early work hours at the dairy meant he couldn’t come along. Without his watchful eye, I’d have more freedom at the carnival. I threw a wave out the roofless motorcar and said another prayer of thanks to Klinger’s Dairy.
“Scooter’s waving to us, Emma June,” Mama said.
Across the scraggly grasses, soon to become sticker burs with the hotter weather, Scooter hopped up and down on his front porch, his arms flapping in our direction. “We’ll be back, Scooter,” I yelled, on the off chance he could hear me over the distance and the breezer’s rumble.
Three years younger than me, Scooter Munson was the closest thing I had to a brother. Folks in town called him dim-witted, maybe because when he spoke, he accented random words. But folks in town didn’t know a piss from a pot. Scooter was kind, funny, and generous to a fault.
“Still feel bad about not bringing him?” Mama said.
I answered with a shrug, yet still felt guilty. I knew how Scooter’s eyes would have lit up seeing all the rides, all the people, all the food. I also knew that if he came, I’d have to spend every second coaxing him along. Scooter could use up an hour just watching an earthworm wiggle. The night belonged to Wade and me. And, well, to me and Charlene. I’d make it up to Scooter later.
“Mama, you feel bad about Daddy not coming?”
“It’s good for him to have some peace and quiet. But he—”
“Is too old-fashioned. It’s 1928, for crying out loud.”
“I was going to say your daddy could worry warts off a frog. But he’s a good man and a fine husband.”
“I didn’t say he wasn’t. It’s just that …” I waited for Mama to count down from three.
“Well, go on. It’s just that what?” she said, giving in to the silence.
“You can’t even bring your best friend to the house. He doesn’t like Betty and hasn’t even met her.”
Mama slammed on the brakes and threw my wits in the back seat. “Poor fella.”
She pointed to the armadillo moseying to the side of the road. “Watch out, mister,” Mama said, lowering her voice. “No telling what kind of riffraff is in those woods.”
I chuckled at her imitation of Daddy.
Before Betty came into our lives, Daddy laughed more. A few weeks before, when Daddy drove us past old Mr. Porter’s farm, Mama lifted herself off the seat, put a hand to the side of her face, and yelled to his cow, “Make them ask before they touch your udders.” Mr. Porter, the same man who cursed motorcars when he rode his mule into town, happened to be watching. Daddy grimaced and muttered something about bad influences.
“Now,” Mama said, finally picking up speed. “Don’t blame Daddy. I think Betty’s afraid to meet him.”
“Pshaw.” Betty wasn’t afraid of anything. Not skinny dipping in the Brazos. Not calling out the old bench sitter, Mr. Finch, for pinching her behind on Main Street as she walked past him.
“It’s true. I made the mistake of telling her your daddy was stuck in his ways. She laughed and said, ‘I best stay clear of him then. He wouldn’t like me.’”
“She can’t help being widowed young and needing income. And she’s not a taxi dancer anymore. Even if she was, you told me it was honest work.” Roseland’s, New York City’s largest dance hall, paid good money for women to dance with lonely men, many of them immigrants. The women were not allowed to drink or do anything with the men other than dance.
“It was respectable work,” she said. “But small towns spread gossip.”
I wanted to scream. Betty had witnessed firsthand the real world of speakeasies, flapper lingo, fashion, and music. If it weren’t for her, the only taste I’d have of the outside world would come from Vogue or Photo Play. And if it weren’t for Miss Helen taking her regular trips into Mineral Wells, I wouldn’t have those either.
Mama reached over and squeezed my hand. “Holly Gap’s not such a bad place.”
“Yeah, if you don’t mind settling for church picnics as your main form of entertainment.”
“We have dances at the Methodist church.” Mama glanced at my lap. “And don’t let the glass lid slip off the pie. I worked too hard on that pinched crust.”
“You call waltzing a dance? You barely touch, for Christ’s sake.”
“Oh, doll baby.” Mama tsk-tsked and laughed. “Do we need to have another chat about the birds and the bees?”
“I know about pollination, Mama.”
“Yeah, well, keep your pollen to yourself. You’re not an adult yet.”
Maybe not. But I was getting close. I could almost taste the sweetness of eighteen, could almost touch the endless possibilities of what I might do. Anything would be more exciting than skimming rocks on the Brazos River or having to hear Miss Helen rant on about the art of moonshine-making.
Mama lifted a hand from the steering wheel and reapplied her lipstick. “Speaking of Betty.” She smacked her lips together. “After we pick up Charlene at Johnson’s Variety, we need to swing by The Diner. We’re giving Betty a ride to the carnival.”
CHAPTER 2
FRANK
Frank hadn’t seen his mother since she unloaded him in the dump of a house. Apparently, she’d rented the place just before showing up at his doorstep in New Orleans. His mother, quite the glamorous planner.
Unless you counted flat land with weeds, brush, and mesquite trees as company, the desolation made a nuthouse seem like a step up. On the other hand, maybe he could take advantage of this inconvenience and write a few songs. That is, if he could find any inspiration from the nothingness.
Sitting far off from the road, the peeling blue paint and warped boards of the clapboard house weren’t noticeable. Close up, the place looked like you could push it over with a stick of chewing gum. The inside was worse. The sitting room, bedroom, and kitchen combined were maybe a hair bigger than his place in New Orleans.
After he had rid the place of cobwebs and dust, and the front porch of wasp nests, he took advantage of Irene being gone. He slept on the old mattress on the bedroom floor. When she returned, he’d have to get used to sleeping on a dusty pallet in the sitting room.
Not unusual for her to pop in, then take off. He’d become used to that. But he wasn’t used to living in a crappy town. No music. Anywhere. The nearest form of entertainment consisted of a shoddy hash house where the flies and cockroaches strutted across plates like elected officials. The Diner, on the outskirts of town, was the only place she thought safe for him to go until he heard from her again.
Her list of conditions was firm and final:
Do not tell anyone we’re related. If anyone finds out, we’ll both be in danger.
Do not let anyone know you live here or that I rented this place for you.
The blackmailer, Earl Foley, lives nearby. Find a way to keep track of him and his son, Wade.
Remember, in Holly Gap, I go by Betty Bedford. You don’t know her either.
No one is allowed in this house except you and me.
What had he gotten himself into?
He wouldn’t have to endure the place much longer. Tonight was carnival night and Irene would spill whatever beans she carried in her pot of secrets. Then, somehow, his life would improve.
Frank hadn’t met Earl Foley, but if he was anything like his son, Wade, they had both attended the same club for dimwits.
He had run across the eighteen-year-old dunce at the Dogcrap Diner a few nights before. Irene had given a decent description of both Foleys and Frank spotted Wade right away: reddish hair that appeared darker with its layer of grease, small scar over an eyebrow, about Frank’s height. A country bumpkin.
The wannabe tough boy had sat at a table with a man a handful of years older. Wade called him Moody, and the name fit. Black hair and muscled, his mouth held a permanent scowl on a face pocked with acne scars.
Frank had sat at the counter drinking joe, his ears perked to their conversation.
“What’re we supposed to do again?” Bumpkin asked.
“Whatever he tells us is what.”
Frank assumed “he” meant Earl, Wade’s father, the bleeder of Irene’s funds.
“Well, there ain’t nothing tonight,” Wade continued. “Let’s stroll into town. Peek in some windows or somethin’. Bring along some shine.”
Frank had seized the moment. He swiveled his body around the stool and faced them. “I hear you say shine? Didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I’m new here and could sure use a belt or two.”
Moody ignored him.
“Where you come from?” Bumpkin asked.
“New Orleans. Home of the blues. Feeling that way now, not knowing anyone.”
“Then why’d you come here, dumbnuts?”
Frank ignored the insult. “Let’s just say the city and I didn’t get along. I got escorted out.”
“That yeller eye have something to do with it?”
Frank had forgotten about the punch to his face three weeks ago. His eye, once black, had faded to yellow. It came in handy now.
Frank shrugged his indifference. “Bygones.”
Wade, looking down like a boy asking his daddy’s permission, asked Moody if he could step outside and share some hooch with Frank.
“Stay close,” Moody said.
Frank offered Wade a smoke and, in return, got a few swigs of god-awful coffin varnish.
Frank tried not to grimace through the swallow. “Any way to make a buck around here?”
“Ain’t much. Mostly odd jobs here and there.”
“What about for fun?”
“Ain’t much to choose from when it comes to broads. I’ve tried most of ’em. But the Mineral Wells carnival’s coming up. Lots to pick from there, I reckon.”
Frank ignored the boneheaded comment and thought about the carnival. Irene had made it plain it was off limits. “So, you’re going?” he asked.
“Damn straight. Come hell or high water.”
“Wade?” Moody stood by the door. “Time to get.”
Wade had hopped up like a doughboy answering to his colonel.
Now, as Frank sat on the sorry excuse of a front porch, he thought about this evening. While Wade scouted the carnival for some poor gal to slobber, Irene would reveal some secret to her best friend. Tomorrow, if his mother was right about things looking up, a new cornet might relieve that itch in his palm.
He stared at the night sky. Stars. No city lights to absorb them. The first checkmark in the positive column for living in the middle of nowhere. He pulled out his blues harp and played for the twinkling crowd.
CHAPTER 3
EMMA JUNE
Mama and I drove toward Main Street. With Betty along, I’d get free pointers on how to finesse my way into a romantic evening with Wade.
“Don’t worry, baby doll. I didn’t lie to your daddy. I just left out a little sugar in the husband-wife recipe. And Emma June, I’m not going to tell you what to say or what not to. But if your father finds out about us driving Betty—”
“Tell him? And watch Daddy flex his righteous jaw muscles? I’d rather listen to the needle skip on the Victrola.”
Mama giggled and backhanded my shoulder. Matter settled.
I also didn’t want to add to Daddy’s aggravation. Since Betty’s arrival, he’d taken to tossing motorcar and gardening tools a little harder and further than necessary. His agitation was uncharacteristic of the father I’d grown up with. It troubled me. But I also knew he was no Mr. Kennedy, the previous owner of the hardware store, who walked out on his family and never returned. Mama, Daddy, and I were like Choppers’s legs—a sturdy threesome.
Mama turned onto Main Street. Motorcars were rapidly replacing horses, the real world finally creeping into Holly Gap. The best thing about the town center was Rosie’s Café, where I earned enough dough to feed a few habits.
The rest of town offered old-fashioned country businesses. Jasper & Brothers Feed Store, Mercer’s Bank, Grace’s Lace dress shop, Dixie’s Drug Store, Hank’s Food Market. Most smelled of old musty wood.
Johnson’s Variety sat smack dab in the center of Main Street. Owned by Charlene’s father, Mr. Johnson had plenty of money. But unless his precious daughter demanded a new dress, Charlene’s father stretched his dollars tighter than a clothesline.
Charlene barreled out of the store with only a few inches of blonde bob showing beneath her pink beret. So different without her long, bouncy curls from the month before.
“Finally,” Charlene said, sweeping the back of her hand across her forehead like the dramatic Clara Bow in her silent pictures. “I’m free of the drudgery.”
I waited for her to get settled in the back seat and told her the good news.
“Betty’s coming? Berries!” she said, using her favorite expression. She adjusted her pink beret, then leaned forward. “I need to tell you something about Wade.”
I was about to tell her to clam up when her mother called out and scampered toward us.
“Hold up a minute, Mrs. Crawford.”
“Rats.” Charlene sighed. “Here comes pry baby.”
Mama peered over my head. “Yes, Edith?”
Mrs. Johnson didn’t acknowledge me. Ever since the dowdy woman learned of Mama’s friendship with Betty, she barely tolerated my friendship with her daughter.
She poked her uppity nose in the air. “Bernice, what time can we expect Charlene home? Before ten, I hope.”
Only the old folks went home by ten.
Mama pointed to the pie on my lap. “Depends on what time they judge the pie contest. You know how slow those judges can be. Half of them push wheelbarrows with rope handles.”
“Well, the sooner, the better. We have church in the morning. Don’t want to keep the good Lord waiting for Charlene to peel her eyes open.”
Charlene’s folks, card-carrying Holy Baptists, couldn’t seem to unhitch their Victorian shackles. Like Daddy, only worse.
Most of Holly Gap’s citizens had a real fondness for Mama, and for good reason. Mama went with the grain of their varied personalities and left the townsfolk feeling a little better about themselves. Charlene’s mother was the exception. Both Edith Johnson and Mama had a hard time hiding their dislike for one another.
“I’ll do the best I can, Edith. If I could control those judges, I’d win for sure.” Mama threw her head back and let out a fake laugh.
Mrs. Johnson remained somber-faced and glanced at the empty spot next to Charlene. “And it’s just the three of you, right? No one else tagging along?”
While the men in town thought Betty was the cat’s meow, the women wanted to give her a one-way train ticket and a kick in the behind.
“Scooter’s staying home,” I said before Mama had to either lie or tell the truth. “We worried that if he came—”
“Don’t worry, Edith. I’ll take good care of Charlene,” Mama said, like giving an imaginary pat to Mrs. Johnson’s hand.
As Mama drove away, intentional or not, the breezer blasted a circular puff of smoke in Mrs. Johnson’s face.
“Ugh,” Charlene said. “When we get to Mineral Wells, remind me to buy her a big jug of Crazy Water.”
Crazy Water. Legend had it that in 1881 a demented old woman sat by the town’s well every day drinking that awful tasting stuff. When her mind returned, the Mineral Wells community became believers in its benefit and marketed the water. The city became more than a dust spot in the road. And whenever they opened the fourteen-story Baker Hotel, it would become a big red dot on the Texas map.
“Now, Charlene. Your mother loves you, and don’t forget that,” Mama said.
“Tell it to Sweeney,” Charlene mumbled.
Barely two miles east, dust sprouted wings and swirled through the motorcar. Cactus, Texas thistle, and mesquite trees replaced the cattle ranches and farmland that thrived on our side of town.
The Diner divided Shanty Town, the side where the penniless white folk lived, from its neighbors where, penniless or not, all the darker-skinned folk lived, including my boss, Miss Atta. Neither side had room to turn sideways in their lean-to homes but had ample amount for hard times to blow through their front door. This commonality didn’t stop the two communities from being separated just because of differing skin colors.
Mama had told me life was less discriminatory in New York City. She said that the same fair-minded thinking would make its way to Holly Gap like fashion trends. Ha, some reassurance. We still had to order our shorter dresses from the Sears and Roebuck catalog.
We pulled up to The Diner. Betty stood outside holding her long cigarette holder with enough sophistication to put Coco Chanel to shame. But instead of chandeliers and martini glasses as her backdrop, buckled and peeling gray wood siding stood behind her. It was a lousy place to make a living, and I counted my blessings that I worked at Rosie’s. Unlike Betty’s boss, Miss Atta didn’t forgo repairs and drink up the profits.
The Mama and Daddy Bickering About Betty Hour played louder than Will Rogers on the radio. Louder than Jelly Roll Morton’s jazz on the Victrola. Daddy seemed to think the only reason Betty came to town six months before was to initiate Mama into the “immoral” flapper scene of New York City.
Betty said she moved from the excitement of speakeasies and skyscrapers to ho-hum Holly Gap in order to recoup her losses. It didn’t work out as planned. The cousins she had intended to stay with had moved the year before.
“Ready, Emma June?” Mama called. “And grab the pecan pie from the kitchen, will you, doll baby? Hold it by the brass carrier handles.”
“I got it, I got it,” Daddy mumbled, his broad shoulders nearly bumping the top of my head as I darted past him.
Mama, already in the revved-up roofless breezer, tap, tap, tapped the steering wheel with an impatient index finger.
Daddy opened the passenger door and handed me the pie. “Madam,” he said, with an up swipe of his palm.
“Thanks, Pop.”
“Pop?” He frowned. “What happened to Daddy?”
I patted his hand. “He’s here somewhere. If you see him, don’t tell him I have red lipstick in my purse. He’d have a conniption.” I batted my eyelashes and blew him a kiss. “Okay, Mama. Let’s blouse.”
As Mama drove toward the end of our long weed-trodden driveway, I looked back. Choppers was running to the side of the house like a dog with four legs instead of three. And Daddy, tall and fit, stood on the front porch with his thumbs tucked in his breeches and a scowl on his shadowed face. His early work hours at the dairy meant he couldn’t come along. Without his watchful eye, I’d have more freedom at the carnival. I threw a wave out the roofless motorcar and said another prayer of thanks to Klinger’s Dairy.
“Scooter’s waving to us, Emma June,” Mama said.
Across the scraggly grasses, soon to become sticker burs with the hotter weather, Scooter hopped up and down on his front porch, his arms flapping in our direction. “We’ll be back, Scooter,” I yelled, on the off chance he could hear me over the distance and the breezer’s rumble.
Three years younger than me, Scooter Munson was the closest thing I had to a brother. Folks in town called him dim-witted, maybe because when he spoke, he accented random words. But folks in town didn’t know a piss from a pot. Scooter was kind, funny, and generous to a fault.
“Still feel bad about not bringing him?” Mama said.
I answered with a shrug, yet still felt guilty. I knew how Scooter’s eyes would have lit up seeing all the rides, all the people, all the food. I also knew that if he came, I’d have to spend every second coaxing him along. Scooter could use up an hour just watching an earthworm wiggle. The night belonged to Wade and me. And, well, to me and Charlene. I’d make it up to Scooter later.
“Mama, you feel bad about Daddy not coming?”
“It’s good for him to have some peace and quiet. But he—”
“Is too old-fashioned. It’s 1928, for crying out loud.”
“I was going to say your daddy could worry warts off a frog. But he’s a good man and a fine husband.”
“I didn’t say he wasn’t. It’s just that …” I waited for Mama to count down from three.
“Well, go on. It’s just that what?” she said, giving in to the silence.
“You can’t even bring your best friend to the house. He doesn’t like Betty and hasn’t even met her.”
Mama slammed on the brakes and threw my wits in the back seat. “Poor fella.”
She pointed to the armadillo moseying to the side of the road. “Watch out, mister,” Mama said, lowering her voice. “No telling what kind of riffraff is in those woods.”
I chuckled at her imitation of Daddy.
Before Betty came into our lives, Daddy laughed more. A few weeks before, when Daddy drove us past old Mr. Porter’s farm, Mama lifted herself off the seat, put a hand to the side of her face, and yelled to his cow, “Make them ask before they touch your udders.” Mr. Porter, the same man who cursed motorcars when he rode his mule into town, happened to be watching. Daddy grimaced and muttered something about bad influences.
“Now,” Mama said, finally picking up speed. “Don’t blame Daddy. I think Betty’s afraid to meet him.”
“Pshaw.” Betty wasn’t afraid of anything. Not skinny dipping in the Brazos. Not calling out the old bench sitter, Mr. Finch, for pinching her behind on Main Street as she walked past him.
“It’s true. I made the mistake of telling her your daddy was stuck in his ways. She laughed and said, ‘I best stay clear of him then. He wouldn’t like me.’”
“She can’t help being widowed young and needing income. And she’s not a taxi dancer anymore. Even if she was, you told me it was honest work.” Roseland’s, New York City’s largest dance hall, paid good money for women to dance with lonely men, many of them immigrants. The women were not allowed to drink or do anything with the men other than dance.
“It was respectable work,” she said. “But small towns spread gossip.”
I wanted to scream. Betty had witnessed firsthand the real world of speakeasies, flapper lingo, fashion, and music. If it weren’t for her, the only taste I’d have of the outside world would come from Vogue or Photo Play. And if it weren’t for Miss Helen taking her regular trips into Mineral Wells, I wouldn’t have those either.
Mama reached over and squeezed my hand. “Holly Gap’s not such a bad place.”
“Yeah, if you don’t mind settling for church picnics as your main form of entertainment.”
“We have dances at the Methodist church.” Mama glanced at my lap. “And don’t let the glass lid slip off the pie. I worked too hard on that pinched crust.”
“You call waltzing a dance? You barely touch, for Christ’s sake.”
“Oh, doll baby.” Mama tsk-tsked and laughed. “Do we need to have another chat about the birds and the bees?”
“I know about pollination, Mama.”
“Yeah, well, keep your pollen to yourself. You’re not an adult yet.”
Maybe not. But I was getting close. I could almost taste the sweetness of eighteen, could almost touch the endless possibilities of what I might do. Anything would be more exciting than skimming rocks on the Brazos River or having to hear Miss Helen rant on about the art of moonshine-making.
Mama lifted a hand from the steering wheel and reapplied her lipstick. “Speaking of Betty.” She smacked her lips together. “After we pick up Charlene at Johnson’s Variety, we need to swing by The Diner. We’re giving Betty a ride to the carnival.”
CHAPTER 2
FRANK
Frank hadn’t seen his mother since she unloaded him in the dump of a house. Apparently, she’d rented the place just before showing up at his doorstep in New Orleans. His mother, quite the glamorous planner.
Unless you counted flat land with weeds, brush, and mesquite trees as company, the desolation made a nuthouse seem like a step up. On the other hand, maybe he could take advantage of this inconvenience and write a few songs. That is, if he could find any inspiration from the nothingness.
Sitting far off from the road, the peeling blue paint and warped boards of the clapboard house weren’t noticeable. Close up, the place looked like you could push it over with a stick of chewing gum. The inside was worse. The sitting room, bedroom, and kitchen combined were maybe a hair bigger than his place in New Orleans.
After he had rid the place of cobwebs and dust, and the front porch of wasp nests, he took advantage of Irene being gone. He slept on the old mattress on the bedroom floor. When she returned, he’d have to get used to sleeping on a dusty pallet in the sitting room.
Not unusual for her to pop in, then take off. He’d become used to that. But he wasn’t used to living in a crappy town. No music. Anywhere. The nearest form of entertainment consisted of a shoddy hash house where the flies and cockroaches strutted across plates like elected officials. The Diner, on the outskirts of town, was the only place she thought safe for him to go until he heard from her again.
Her list of conditions was firm and final:
Do not tell anyone we’re related. If anyone finds out, we’ll both be in danger.
Do not let anyone know you live here or that I rented this place for you.
The blackmailer, Earl Foley, lives nearby. Find a way to keep track of him and his son, Wade.
Remember, in Holly Gap, I go by Betty Bedford. You don’t know her either.
No one is allowed in this house except you and me.
What had he gotten himself into?
He wouldn’t have to endure the place much longer. Tonight was carnival night and Irene would spill whatever beans she carried in her pot of secrets. Then, somehow, his life would improve.
Frank hadn’t met Earl Foley, but if he was anything like his son, Wade, they had both attended the same club for dimwits.
He had run across the eighteen-year-old dunce at the Dogcrap Diner a few nights before. Irene had given a decent description of both Foleys and Frank spotted Wade right away: reddish hair that appeared darker with its layer of grease, small scar over an eyebrow, about Frank’s height. A country bumpkin.
The wannabe tough boy had sat at a table with a man a handful of years older. Wade called him Moody, and the name fit. Black hair and muscled, his mouth held a permanent scowl on a face pocked with acne scars.
Frank had sat at the counter drinking joe, his ears perked to their conversation.
“What’re we supposed to do again?” Bumpkin asked.
“Whatever he tells us is what.”
Frank assumed “he” meant Earl, Wade’s father, the bleeder of Irene’s funds.
“Well, there ain’t nothing tonight,” Wade continued. “Let’s stroll into town. Peek in some windows or somethin’. Bring along some shine.”
Frank had seized the moment. He swiveled his body around the stool and faced them. “I hear you say shine? Didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I’m new here and could sure use a belt or two.”
Moody ignored him.
“Where you come from?” Bumpkin asked.
“New Orleans. Home of the blues. Feeling that way now, not knowing anyone.”
“Then why’d you come here, dumbnuts?”
Frank ignored the insult. “Let’s just say the city and I didn’t get along. I got escorted out.”
“That yeller eye have something to do with it?”
Frank had forgotten about the punch to his face three weeks ago. His eye, once black, had faded to yellow. It came in handy now.
Frank shrugged his indifference. “Bygones.”
Wade, looking down like a boy asking his daddy’s permission, asked Moody if he could step outside and share some hooch with Frank.
“Stay close,” Moody said.
Frank offered Wade a smoke and, in return, got a few swigs of god-awful coffin varnish.
Frank tried not to grimace through the swallow. “Any way to make a buck around here?”
“Ain’t much. Mostly odd jobs here and there.”
“What about for fun?”
“Ain’t much to choose from when it comes to broads. I’ve tried most of ’em. But the Mineral Wells carnival’s coming up. Lots to pick from there, I reckon.”
Frank ignored the boneheaded comment and thought about the carnival. Irene had made it plain it was off limits. “So, you’re going?” he asked.
“Damn straight. Come hell or high water.”
“Wade?” Moody stood by the door. “Time to get.”
Wade had hopped up like a doughboy answering to his colonel.
Now, as Frank sat on the sorry excuse of a front porch, he thought about this evening. While Wade scouted the carnival for some poor gal to slobber, Irene would reveal some secret to her best friend. Tomorrow, if his mother was right about things looking up, a new cornet might relieve that itch in his palm.
He stared at the night sky. Stars. No city lights to absorb them. The first checkmark in the positive column for living in the middle of nowhere. He pulled out his blues harp and played for the twinkling crowd.
CHAPTER 3
EMMA JUNE
Mama and I drove toward Main Street. With Betty along, I’d get free pointers on how to finesse my way into a romantic evening with Wade.
“Don’t worry, baby doll. I didn’t lie to your daddy. I just left out a little sugar in the husband-wife recipe. And Emma June, I’m not going to tell you what to say or what not to. But if your father finds out about us driving Betty—”
“Tell him? And watch Daddy flex his righteous jaw muscles? I’d rather listen to the needle skip on the Victrola.”
Mama giggled and backhanded my shoulder. Matter settled.
I also didn’t want to add to Daddy’s aggravation. Since Betty’s arrival, he’d taken to tossing motorcar and gardening tools a little harder and further than necessary. His agitation was uncharacteristic of the father I’d grown up with. It troubled me. But I also knew he was no Mr. Kennedy, the previous owner of the hardware store, who walked out on his family and never returned. Mama, Daddy, and I were like Choppers’s legs—a sturdy threesome.
Mama turned onto Main Street. Motorcars were rapidly replacing horses, the real world finally creeping into Holly Gap. The best thing about the town center was Rosie’s Café, where I earned enough dough to feed a few habits.
The rest of town offered old-fashioned country businesses. Jasper & Brothers Feed Store, Mercer’s Bank, Grace’s Lace dress shop, Dixie’s Drug Store, Hank’s Food Market. Most smelled of old musty wood.
Johnson’s Variety sat smack dab in the center of Main Street. Owned by Charlene’s father, Mr. Johnson had plenty of money. But unless his precious daughter demanded a new dress, Charlene’s father stretched his dollars tighter than a clothesline.
Charlene barreled out of the store with only a few inches of blonde bob showing beneath her pink beret. So different without her long, bouncy curls from the month before.
“Finally,” Charlene said, sweeping the back of her hand across her forehead like the dramatic Clara Bow in her silent pictures. “I’m free of the drudgery.”
I waited for her to get settled in the back seat and told her the good news.
“Betty’s coming? Berries!” she said, using her favorite expression. She adjusted her pink beret, then leaned forward. “I need to tell you something about Wade.”
I was about to tell her to clam up when her mother called out and scampered toward us.
“Hold up a minute, Mrs. Crawford.”
“Rats.” Charlene sighed. “Here comes pry baby.”
Mama peered over my head. “Yes, Edith?”
Mrs. Johnson didn’t acknowledge me. Ever since the dowdy woman learned of Mama’s friendship with Betty, she barely tolerated my friendship with her daughter.
She poked her uppity nose in the air. “Bernice, what time can we expect Charlene home? Before ten, I hope.”
Only the old folks went home by ten.
Mama pointed to the pie on my lap. “Depends on what time they judge the pie contest. You know how slow those judges can be. Half of them push wheelbarrows with rope handles.”
“Well, the sooner, the better. We have church in the morning. Don’t want to keep the good Lord waiting for Charlene to peel her eyes open.”
Charlene’s folks, card-carrying Holy Baptists, couldn’t seem to unhitch their Victorian shackles. Like Daddy, only worse.
Most of Holly Gap’s citizens had a real fondness for Mama, and for good reason. Mama went with the grain of their varied personalities and left the townsfolk feeling a little better about themselves. Charlene’s mother was the exception. Both Edith Johnson and Mama had a hard time hiding their dislike for one another.
“I’ll do the best I can, Edith. If I could control those judges, I’d win for sure.” Mama threw her head back and let out a fake laugh.
Mrs. Johnson remained somber-faced and glanced at the empty spot next to Charlene. “And it’s just the three of you, right? No one else tagging along?”
While the men in town thought Betty was the cat’s meow, the women wanted to give her a one-way train ticket and a kick in the behind.
“Scooter’s staying home,” I said before Mama had to either lie or tell the truth. “We worried that if he came—”
“Don’t worry, Edith. I’ll take good care of Charlene,” Mama said, like giving an imaginary pat to Mrs. Johnson’s hand.
As Mama drove away, intentional or not, the breezer blasted a circular puff of smoke in Mrs. Johnson’s face.
“Ugh,” Charlene said. “When we get to Mineral Wells, remind me to buy her a big jug of Crazy Water.”
Crazy Water. Legend had it that in 1881 a demented old woman sat by the town’s well every day drinking that awful tasting stuff. When her mind returned, the Mineral Wells community became believers in its benefit and marketed the water. The city became more than a dust spot in the road. And whenever they opened the fourteen-story Baker Hotel, it would become a big red dot on the Texas map.
“Now, Charlene. Your mother loves you, and don’t forget that,” Mama said.
“Tell it to Sweeney,” Charlene mumbled.
Barely two miles east, dust sprouted wings and swirled through the motorcar. Cactus, Texas thistle, and mesquite trees replaced the cattle ranches and farmland that thrived on our side of town.
The Diner divided Shanty Town, the side where the penniless white folk lived, from its neighbors where, penniless or not, all the darker-skinned folk lived, including my boss, Miss Atta. Neither side had room to turn sideways in their lean-to homes but had ample amount for hard times to blow through their front door. This commonality didn’t stop the two communities from being separated just because of differing skin colors.
Mama had told me life was less discriminatory in New York City. She said that the same fair-minded thinking would make its way to Holly Gap like fashion trends. Ha, some reassurance. We still had to order our shorter dresses from the Sears and Roebuck catalog.
We pulled up to The Diner. Betty stood outside holding her long cigarette holder with enough sophistication to put Coco Chanel to shame. But instead of chandeliers and martini glasses as her backdrop, buckled and peeling gray wood siding stood behind her. It was a lousy place to make a living, and I counted my blessings that I worked at Rosie’s. Unlike Betty’s boss, Miss Atta didn’t forgo repairs and drink up the profits.
