Sunset Over Verdigris Bend Chapter 5

                                                                 CHAPTER FIVE

    “Libba, are   you finished with the deviled eggs?  I’m almost ready to serve.”  Virginia spooned the potato salad into a serving dish.

    As  this was not what was termed a ‘special occasion’, the family  did not eat in the dining room.  They simply pulled the big round table into the middle of the country kitchen and congregated around it. 

    “Why can’t I get a nose ring?  Everybody is getting one.  Aunt Lib, don’t you think I should get a nose ring?”  Melissa turned, looking for an ally.

    “Oh, no, you don’t.  You’re not dragging me into this.”  Libba reached for the gravy.

    Marilyn, Lib’s sister-in-law, gave her a grateful smile.  Melissa gave up.  For the moment.

    “O.K.  O.K.  Aunt Libba, us kids didn’t get to see anything last Friday.  Mr. McNulty rushed all of us out the back door as if there had been a bomb inside.  What did you see?”

    “Not at the dinner table, dear,” Virginia had many rules.  Near the top of the list was the one about only pleasant conversation at the dinner table.

    “Mother, give us a break.  I’m interested in that myself,” Larry forked his third hamburger onto his plate. 

    “This is getting to be a drag.  I didn’t see anything.   I don’t know anything.  I was ducking Chuck McNulty’s libido.”

    “Elizabeth!”  Virginia nodded towards the girls.

    “What!  It’s true, Mother.  The man’s a pig, and if he doesn’t quit, I’m going to complain  to the school board.”

    “Oh, Chuck’s harmless.  He does that to all his teachers.”

    “We’re not HIS teachers, and it’s harassment, Mother.  I don’t have to take it. Furthermore, why do you always insist that I be ‘nice’ no matter what kind of crap other people pull?”

    “Don’t raise your voice at your mother.  I won’t stand for it.”  Roger stood up and poured coffee.  “On the other hand, if that old fool is out of line, you don’t have to stand for that.  Tell him if he can’t keep in his pants, you’ll whack it off with a paper cutter.  Then do it.”

    “Roger!  Well, I never!”

    “I mean it, Virginia.  She doesn’t have to tolerate that sort of nonsense, and if she doesn’t want to face him, her brother and I can talk to him for her.”

    Libba stood up and kissed her father. “Thanks, Daddy, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.  By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.  Do you prune fruit trees in the fall or the spring?”

    “Well, I’ve always found that the best time was whenever I had the pruning shears in my hand,” he took a sip of the coffee,     “Why you thinking about pruning Mom and Dad’s trees?”

    “I did already.  Yesterday.”

    “Well, then, if they don’t die,  fall is best.”  He sat back down at the kitchen table.

    Warmed by her father’s support about Chuck, Libba began to open up.
 
   “I did talk to Bobby yesterday, though.  He was on his way over to see Miss Ardis.  He has the notion that the body might be Emily Fournier .  Larry!  Here, take my napkin.” 

    Larry had knocked over his iced tea, and his hamburger was swimming on the plate.

    Virginia absent-mindedly lifted the wet tablecloth and put a napkin underneath to absorb the spilt tea.  For once her curiosity won out over her concern for dinner table decorum.

    “Emily Fournier.  My Land.  I haven’t thought of her in years.  Why, I just assumed she had gone back to Chicago.  I thought I had heard Miss Ardis say she had heard from her or something.  Why would Bobby think of Emily after all this time?”

    “Well, he thinks it’s unlikely that a tramp would have known that the Old Red Building was deserted a large part of the time.  The skeleton looks like that of a woman.  According to Bobby, the only local women who disappeared from around here within the past thirty years  were Emily and Pearl Watkins.”  .
   
    “Pearl Watkins?    Emily Fournier?  Who were these women?”  Marilyn had  moved to Verdigris Bend when she was in high school.  
 
    “Emily Fournier was an art teacher who disappeared in nineteen eighty three.  She was Miss Ardis’ niece.  Pearl Watkins was a woman who lived up around Skiatook with her husband and daughter.  One night in nineteen seventy-five,  she and her little girl just disappeared.     No one ever heard from her or her daughter again.”  Libba reached for more potato salad.

    “Yes, they did.    ” 

    Everyone stopped in mid-chew and looked at Virginia.      “Rose Hepler saw Nancy, the daughter, a couple of years ago over at a hospital in Oklahoma City.  Saint Anthony’s, I think she said.  Or Saint  Anne’s.  I don’t know.  I just remember it was a  Saint something or other.”

    “Well,” Virginia was on her way.  “Rose’s cousin, Violet....that family gave an entire generation of girls flower names.  Did you ever hear of anything so ridiculous? .  Anyway, Violet, who lives in Shawnee, was in the hospital  with a stroke.   Rose went to see her, and the nurse who came in to change Violet’s sheets was Nancy.”

    “And, you know, it was the funniest thing.  Nancy wouldn’t admit who she was.  But, you know Rose.  She’s like an old box turtle  when she gets into something, and she would not let it go.   Finally, Nancy did acknowledge her identity, but begged Rose not to tell anyone back here.  On account of her father.  He used to beat both her and her mother terribly, I guess.”

    “And Rose runs home and tells you.  Smart.”  Roger swallowed the last of his coffee.

    ”Mama, you had better tell Bobby what you told me.  Then he can strike Pearl off his list.  And that leaves Emily.”  Libba felt a deep sadness inside.

    “Elizabeth, if this turns out to be Emily Fournier that they have found, I hope you are not going to let it get you down.  Just when you had begun to look better.”

    “I wasn’t aware that I had looked badly, Mother,” and at the look of protest, “No, I know what you mean.  It doesn’t bother me.  Really.” 

    First Miss Millie and now her mother.  Monday morning.  Call the hairdresser, and then ask Merideth if Rebecca Muldoon is still  giving free facials in order to get people to buy her cosmetics.

    “In a way, this sounds awful, but if it is Emily, I’ll know she didn’t just leave without saying good-bye.  When I was younger, I couldn’t understand how she could leave without telling me.”

    “Emily Fournier was nothing in this world  but a college educated  call girl.”  The words  popped out of Larry’s mouth, as if he had no control over them.|

    “Larry Troy Jeffreys!  What is becoming of this family?”  Virginia looked as she were about to pass out.

    “What’s a call girl?”  Melissa looked up from her plate.  “Can't you call any girl?”

    “Hon, why don’t you go out and play with the kittens,” as Marilyn pushed Missy out the door, she looked at her husband as if she had never seen him before.  Michelle, momentarily forgotten, slid into a corner, quiet and all ears.

    Libba put down her fork and looked at her brother, “I know what’s wrong with you.  You had a crush on Emily, and she was way too old for you.  You never could take rejection, but good grief, Lar, you’re a grown man, now.”

    Larry sat staring at his soggy hamburger and his empty tea glass.  Without looking up, he said, “Yeah.  You’re right, sis. I’m sorry.  It was no secret that I had a crush on her, and now, I’m acting like an ass.” He looked , involuntarily, at his mother who , apparently, had so overloaded on bad language that she  had not  even heard his last lapse.  He  stood up,  “Hey, who’s for some help in the kitchen?  Pop, what do you say we do the dishes?  Since the women cooked, we can give them a rest.”

          “Give them a rest yourself.  You’re the one who swore at the table.  I’m watching the Cowboys.  There’s a game on at two o’clock, and I just have time to get my feet up,” Roger stood up and without a backward glance, walked away.  A totally unrehabilitated male  to the  end.

    “Well, nuts.  Who’s going to help me?  Doing the dishes is no fun without David, oh, hell.  Libba, I’m a real big mouth today.”

    Libba reached out and put an arm around Larry’s waist.  “Don’t worry about it.  I know you guys were friends, and it’s not you he left.  Besides, after everything, sometimes I still miss the jerk myself. Tell you what I’ll let you off the hook for today.  Mom and Marilyn did most of the cooking.  I’ll do the dishes.  Go watch the game with Daddy  You know I don't like anything about football but the halftime show.”

    Marilyn jumped up, “Oh yeah, right.  Like I’m going to sit here and let you clean up.  Come on.  We’ll be done in no time.”  In two seconds the woman had the leftovers set up in the center of the table and were scraping dirty dishes. 

       
    She was turning the corner from her parents’ street in order to head out to Gran’s when she saw Bobby coming out of the drugstore.  Without signaling, she pulled into the gravel drive and honked.

    “Lady, can I see your license?  You just committed at least three moving violations.”

    “Please, I didn’t kick up nearly as much gravel as you did yesterday in my driveway.  Besides, give me a ticket, and I won’t tell you what Mother told me at dinner just now,” she squinted at him, through the setting sun.

    Bobby leaned into her window,  “What did Virginia have to say that would interest me?”

    “Oh, nothing really, just  that Nancy Watkins and her mother are living in Oklahoma City which would definitely rule out Pearl as your dead body..”

    He opened up the tobacco he had just bought, looked her straight in the eye and spoke.  “You talked to her mother about what we discussed?  Your mother, Libba?  Jesus H. Christ!  That’s worse than telling Merideth.”

    “Take it easy, Bobby.   Mother’s not that bad.  Besides, I told her to talk to you.  When she does, you can give her the Silence is Golden speech.”

    In a few sentences she recounted Virginia’s story of Nancy.  He was impressed.

    “Did Rose see Pearl?  Or just Nancy?”

    “Why, just Nancy, I think.  But, why would she lie about her mother?  That’s pretty far-fetched, don’t you think?”

    “Yeah, I do.  But, just to be sure, I probably ought to talk to Rose myself, maybe make  a few phone calls to Oklahoma City.  Well, where are  you headed?  Want to go up to the café and have a cup of coffee?”

    “I wouldn’t mind except that I promised to see Miss Ardis this evening.  I haven’t been over to her place since I moved in, and she  invited me this morning at church.” 

    He smelled good, like leather.  Lately all the men she knew smelled like fruit salad.
  
    “Suit yourself.  I’m going to get a cup of coffee.  See you.”

    This time it was she who sat for a moment watching him walk away. For about the third time in two days, she noticed how attractive he was.   He had the gait of a man who had ridden horses from the time he could walk.  His sheepskin lined jacket bore the weathered look that people in cities paid top dollar to get, and his jeans covered a butt  that was compact and tight. And, more attractive, almost, than the butt, was the fact that he had listened to her, had appeared to give her thoughts about Nancy and Pearl   due consideration. Who was she kidding?  The butt was , definitely, more attractive than the mind..

    Oh, Lord.  Was the world ready for a Bobby Carmichael  who looked like he did and treated her as an adult?  The world be damned.  Was she ready for such a man?   Forcing her heart to beat in a more sedate manner, Libba backed the car out of the parking lot and drove off, careful, this time, not to raise gravel.