The Oleander Sisters

Six

EMILY DIDN’T KNOW WHAT was wrong with Sis. Ever since their talk about having her wedding in the garden, she’d been snappish and forgetful. It had gotten worse since that awful dinner with Larry, and that was more than a week ago.

Yesterday Sis forgot to order coffee with chicory, and she still hadn’t brought those polka-dot sunglasses she’d promised Andy last week.

Still, nothing could mar Emily’s happiness. The cheese balls for her reception were in the refrigerator, the petit fours decorated with pink icing were rapidly piling up in the chest freezer in the pantry and she was going to do one last campout with her son before the wedding.

Standing in the backyard of Sweet Mama’s Café, enjoying a cup of coffee before the breakfast crowd started getting too big for Sweet Mama to handle, Emily kicked off her shoes and smiled as Andy raced around the ship, his untamable hair flying every which way. She made a note to add a trip to the barber to her list of things to do before the wedding.

“Can we camp out here tonight?”

“No. We’re going to camp out at Sweet Mama’s house.”

“Can we take the rocket ship?”

“We’re going to sleep in a tent.”

“Why can’t we sleep in the rocket?”

“Because then there wouldn’t be enough room for Aunt Sis. You want her to join the campout, don’t you?”

“I can sleep on the roof. See?” Andy clambered on top and stretched out. When his feet hung over the side, he curled up in a little ball. “Just right,” he yelled.

“That’s not a good idea, Andy.”

“How come?”

Ordinarily, Emily reveled in these meandering conversations with Andy, but lately he’d been trying her patience. Deliberately, it seemed. Was it because he didn’t want to share her with Larry or was there some deeper motive?

It was a relief when her neighbors Tom and James Wilson came through the back door of the café. Still bachelors at fifty and some said set in their ways, they were nonetheless two of the sweetest guys Emily had ever met. Tom was carrying a toolbox and James was wagging a little stack of lumber.

“We’ve been seeing you and Andy toting stuff out of your house for his little project out here,” Tom said. “Hope you don’t mind some help.”

“Of course not!” Emily hugged them both and they got pink in the face.

Soon the sound of hammering blended with Andy’s laughter as they shored up the cardboard boxes with scrap lumber. Tom looked like a rumpled, friendly elf with his shirtsleeves rolled up and his white hair sticking out from an old fishing hat with the lures still attached to the band. James was just the opposite. Tall, reserved and elegant, even with a hammer in his hand, he was dressed in a summer suit of blue pin-striped seersucker.

“That ought to do it,” Tom said, pushing back his fishing hat and reaching over to ruffle Andy’s hair. “Now that little rocket ship is sound as a dollar, even if it rains.”

Emily hoped the little ship didn’t have to be put to the test. She was still planning on a garden wedding, in spite of Sis’s long lip. As much as the new rose hedge would benefit from a shower, she didn’t want anything to ruin her wedding.

“It just needs this one last thing.” James bent over his toolbox and pulled out a wooden box with a little red steering wheel attached. It was covered with dials that looked as if they’d come from old car parts. Inside he’d rigged a set of hair clippers that buzzed when Andy turned one of the dials.

Being part of her little boy’s quest for the moon might be the biggest event in their lives. Neither Tom nor James had ever been married, and they both still lived with an ancient cat and their even more ancient mother, who had taken to her bed when she was fifty for reasons nobody knew or would tell.

Emily teared up, but she didn’t know if she was crying because Andy didn’t like Larry, or because the Wilson brothers had to find joy in a little rocket ship made from cardboard boxes, or because her own sister could end up exactly like them, with nothing to show for her years except gray hair and an old cat.

As they loaded up their tools, Emily said, “I’m going to give you an Amen cobbler to take home. Your mother might enjoy it.”

“Mother eats like a bird,” Tom said, “but she’s still partial to Sweet Mama’s cooking.”

“Good, then. That’s settled.”

They trudged back to the café, turning in the doorway to wave just as Burt Larson came out.

“I had some old sheets of plastic up at the house,” Burt said. “I thought I’d help out with that little rocket ship, if you don’t mind.”

Andy squealed and hugged the postman around the legs. Emily wished he’d show half that much enthusiasm with the man who was going to be his daddy.

She thanked Burt and then left him in the backyard, helping Andy with the rocket ship while she hurried back to the café. A cloud of sugar and spice rose from the cobblers Sweet Mama had lined up on the counter.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if a big bowl of cobbler for dessert worked its magic on Andy? Wouldn’t it be great if the steam that rose around him softened her son so that viewing Larry as his daddy would be as simple as a hug?

They’d eat it tonight in Sweet Mama’s backyard, while the moon was high and the stars looked like a blanket of lights thrown across the sky. She was smiling as she got a big bowl to serve up Andy’s surprise cobbler, and a length of tinfoil to cover it.

Emily dug through the flaky crust and into a mixture of peaches and cherries so deep she could see her future. The sweetness of love long denied wafted around her, and the joy of having a real family of her own.

But as she dipped toward the bottom, she felt an overwhelming sadness, as if something waited for her in the dark with fangs bared.

“Oh, I’m just being silly.” She quickly covered Andy’s bowl, then wrapped cobbler for Tom and James.

“What was that, dear?”

Miss Opal Clemson was standing behind Emily, a little blue hat perched on her gray hair, a black patent-leather purse tucked over her arm and a wide smile on her face. Emily made a mental note to pay her a visit. Miss Opal lived just around the corner from her, and she thought how lonely it must be to rattle around in a house all by yourself.

“My goodness. Miss Opal.” She smiled at the petite piano teacher who had tried her best to teach Emily the mysteries of the keyboard. It hadn’t worked. Emily didn’t have a musical bone in her body.

“I was thinking about your wedding music, dear. Have you thought about using a recording of ‘Clair de Lune’?”

Burt Larson, just coming from the backyard, chimed in with, “Seems to me like Emily’s Big Event ought to have music plain folks can understand.”

The regulars at the next table joined in, and soon the entire café was abuzz with plans for Emily’s Big Event, spoken as if each word were capitalized and ought to be posted out by the Gulf on the huge billboard that advertised Baricev’s Seafood Harbor.

As the customers continued to offer unsolicited advice about the wedding, Emily saw Sis materialize in the doorway of her office, then turn and walk back inside.

Excusing herself from Miss Opal, Emily handed Tom an Amen cobbler then stowed Andy’s in the kitchen and hurried after her sister.

She found her seated at a battered oak desk glancing at the clock as if she could cling to the march of time and soothe herself with the thought that two o’clock would eventually come and she could close up Sweet Mama’s.

As Emily sat in the other chair, an uncomfortable old thing with a slatted back and a cane bottom losing some of its canes, she was certain Sis chose it deliberately to discourage visits.

“How was Jim this morning?” Emily asked.

“The same. Hunkered down in the house like he’s in a foxhole.”

“Maybe my wedding will be just the thing to bring him around.”

“I wouldn’t hold out any high hopes, Em.”

Sis always looked on the gloomy side of life. Emily refused to let it sag her spirit.

“Did you bring those special astronaut glasses for Andy?”

“I forgot. Sorry, Em.”

Good grief! Forgetting was so unlike her sister, Emily wondered if Sis was getting a brain tumor.

“Just give them to him tonight at the campout, will you? He’s worrying me to death over those glasses.”

“I don’t know that camping out in the backyard is such a good idea.”

“Why not? We always camp out in Sweet Mama’s backyard.”

“It’s too hot to camp out.”

“It’s never too hot for a six-year-old. Besides, it’ll be fun. We can pitch the tent by the new hedge so we can smell the roses.”

“Not the rose hedge!”

“Good grief, Sis. What’s the matter with you?”

Sis just clamped her mouth shut and refused to say another word, which was fine with Emily. She had too much on her mind to continue this silly argument with her sister. If she didn’t hurry back to that growing café crowd, there was no telling what kind of mess Sweet Mama would make. She seemed to be having one of her good days, thank goodness, because Beulah had stayed home again to be with Jim, who seemed to be going backward instead of forward.

Still, something had to be done to help Sweet Mama, but Emily didn’t know what. After the wedding she’d ask Sis. But not until her sister got in a better mood.

“I’ve got to get back in there,” Emily said. “You didn’t forget that we’re looking at dresses for the wedding this afternoon, did you?”

Sis rolled her eyes and looked as if she’d been asked to stand before a firing squad. But Emily refused to be daunted, even when her sister glanced at the clock again as if it had suddenly become her enemy.

“How could I forget, Emily?”

“Good, then. We’ll leave at two.”

Emily could hardly contain her excitement. They’d drop Andy off to stay with Beulah, and then Emily could enter that sacred territory she’d fantasized about ever since she met Mark Jones—the bridal shop.

As she stepped back through the office door, she drew the sound of laughter and lazy chatter around her like a beloved shawl. But the Amen cobblers gave off such a scent of sorrow she wanted to weep.

Quickly she skirted around them, wishing it was already two o’clock.

* * *

The clock on the wall had become Sweet Mama’s enemy. Every loud ticktock meant she was roaring closer to the edge of a looming precipice. Sis was saying, “Sweet Mama, are you sure you can lock up?” and she didn’t have the faintest idea what this fierce granddaughter of hers wanted her to put under lock and key.

“Of course,” she said. “Go on and have fun. But don’t pick out a blue dress for me. If you do, I won’t wear it.”

She’d been wearing blue on the four worst days of her life—the day in 1920 that jackass came home drunk and all hell broke loose, the day horrible Ethel Williams sank her claws into Sweet Mama’s son Steve and dragged him to the altar, the Christmas her son Bill and his wife, Margaret, had died in a car crash and the day one year later when she’d stood in the doorway of her café and faced down the KKK with her double-barreled shotgun.

She was standing now in the café on a hot July day in 1969, waving cheerfully at her two departing granddaughters and her great-grandson, but she had the eerie sense of standing smack-dab in the middle of a brisk winter day in the forties with the double barrels of her shotgun pointed at a ragtag group of cowards. She could almost hear their voices, almost see the white hoods.

Through the echo of time, she heard the bell over the café door ringing. Sweet Mama came back to herself in time to see her granddaughters departing. Now, what was it they’d told her to do?

She sifted through a mind that felt like a sieve. Her memories were leaking through the holes so fast sometimes Sweet Mama felt as if she’d wake up one morning and see her past scattered around her on the floor.

Something kept nagging at her, something she ought to remember. Suddenly, it came to her, and she hurried to the kitchen to get the notepad she kept in her voluminous purse.

Sinking into a cane-bottomed chair that Beulah used when she was peeling potatoes, Sweet Mama thumbed through the pages. One was titled “Customers.” Tom and James Wilson were there along with Opal Clemson, the music teacher and Burt Larson, the mailman—every one of them described right down to the roots of their hair.

Sweet Mama found herself shaking again, an old woman with a rapidly fading memory depending on a notebook to keep her straight and wondering how much longer she’d be able to hang on to her secret and fool her granddaughters.

Beulah was another story. Nobody could fool her. When Sweet Mama had first started forgetting things she’d said, Beulah, my mind’s going and you’ve got to help me.

Beulah didn’t ask any questions. That was her way. She just folded Sweet Mama in one of her wide hugs and whispered, I ain’t about to let Mr. Steve and that uppity Miss Ethel put you in a nursing home.

That’s when the Remembering Book had been born. The only trouble was, she often couldn’t get to it in time to bail herself out of public embarrassments. More and more, she had to throw up smoke screens or pretend she was just kidding.

The clock in the café chimed three, and Sweet Mama knew she was already an hour late leaving. If she didn’t get a move on, she wouldn’t make it home before Sis and Emily got back from their shopping trip. Emily would worry and Sis was liable to call for a search party.

She scanned through her book till she found a page titled “Locking Up.” It told how to turn the open sign to Closed, how to find the key to the café on a peg in the pantry, and how to put it in the top zippered pocket of her purse after she’d gone out and locked the front door behind her.

Sweet Mama read the entry twice before she got up enough courage to execute it. Then she gathered her hat and her purse and stood awhile, trying to think if she was forgetting something.

Finally, she ended up at the front door where the key seemed to have outgrown the lock. It took her five minutes to discover she was holding it upside down.

By the time she got to her Buick, she had sweat patches under her arms and a bead of perspiration lining her upper lip. Thank God the key she put in the ignition caused the car to roar to life. Sweet Mama drove out of the parking lot as smooth as if it were 1921 and she was driving her Tin Lizzie, heading to her brand-new bakery with Beulah at her side.

With the windows down, the Gulf breeze got under the brim of her black straw hat, making her feel twenty-seven again and ready to show the Jazz Age that a young divorcée with two little boys could start a business the same as a man, only ten times better if it’s a bakery.

She started to sing, but was shocked at the thin, reedy voice she heard. She and Beulah used to ride along in that Tin Lizzie, singing in harmony as good as the Boswell Sisters, Sweet Mama belting out the alto and Beulah adding her soaring soprano.

Determined not to be depressed on such a beautiful day, Sweet Mama glanced toward the beach. Terns called from sandy knolls and seagulls wheeled over the Gulf and everything was exactly where it ought to be. Sweet Mama didn’t know why Sis worried so much about her driving. She’d lived in Biloxi all her life and knew it from one side to the other.

The usual souvenir shops lined the highway, eventually giving way to a row of waterfront houses. Her own pink Victorian house would be coming up any minute now.

The bridge loomed in front of her, and she eased off the accelerator. Sweet Mama didn’t believe in crossing bridges at full speed. It was a sure way to cause an accident. As much as she enjoyed looking out over the water, she kept her eyes straight ahead till she was over the bridge and cruising down the highway where long-legged storks lifted toward the tops of cypress trees sprouting out of the shallows.

Always a lover of nature, she admired the sight while the Buick hummed along the highway.

Was that the sun already sinking over the water? Where was her street? Where was her house?

Panicked, Sweet Mama eased her Buick into a side road that looked like it didn’t lead anywhere, let alone her house where Beulah would be waiting with a glass of sweet tea. She stumbled out of her car and held on to her hat, searching her surroundings.

It seemed to her the sun was sinking in the east.

Then it occurred to her that she’d been driving along in exactly the opposite and wrong direction.

Frantically, she grabbed her purse out of the car and dug out the Remembering Book. But it was already too dark to read driving directions from the café to her house, and there was nothing written about a bridge to the unknown.

She was lost. And no matter how hard she searched the little notebook in her hand, it wouldn’t tell her how to find the way home.

Seven

DRIVING TO THE BRIDAL SHOP Sis felt as if she were in two places at once, behind the wheel of the car where she was borne along in a rushing torrent of Emily’s chatter and on the beach with the crowd of little boys playing a game of baseball.

“There’s no use counting on flowers from that new rose hedge,” Emily said.

Sis refused to think about the rose hedge till after the wedding. Even when she was in the garden, she skirted around the roses.

“Nothing’s surviving the heat except the oleander and the day lilies,” Emily added. “White oleander will be fine, but maybe I can use some baskets of pink roses to camouflage all that orange.”

His baseball cap was orange, that little boy on the beach who lobbed the ball toward center field and then spewed up a fine storm of sand as he slid into first base. He looked about ten, the age Sis’s son might be...if she had one. If she had a house and a husband and a dog in the backyard. She’d have a large breed, a golden retriever, maybe, or even a Border collie. Her son would call him Boy and play fetch with him in the backyard using a small baseball mitt to match the one she’d used when she was a child.

Her fantasy became part of Emily’s enthusiastic monologue.

“I thought for the music, we’d just move Sweet Mama’s turntable to the back porch and put on a record.”

The little boy in the orange cap was stealing into home. If she’d had a son, he would have done exactly that. He might even have grown up to be a professional baseball player.

“Sis, are you listening to me?”

“I’m listening.”

“I was going to use Judy Garland singing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow,’ but Larry doesn’t like that song.”

Just the mention of that fool’s name had Sis tightening her grip on the wheel.

“Emily, if you want to use that song, use it.”

“After what happened to her, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

“Good grief!”

Judy Garland had died last month of a drug overdose. The famous singer’s death had made no impact at all on Sis. Music was just something to fill the days that seemed to go on forever. When had she realized she’d never marry, never have children of her own? When had the door slammed shut to a future that included a man with dark eyes and gentle hands who would hold her close and whisper her real name?

She could almost hear his voice. Beth, Beth, Beth.

“Sis!” Emily grabbed ahold of the dashboard. “Slow down.”

“Why? I’m not five miles over the speed limit.”

“You’re going to whiz right past the bridal shop.”

If Sis had her way, she’d fly past. She’d sprout wings so strong they would carry her and her sister far above the shop with pink-striped awnings where fairy tales were wrapped in pearls and lace and sold to gullible women who expected life to be one big happily ever after.

Wondering if she was being cantankerous or practical or just plain jealous, she parked under the spreading branches of an ancient magnolia tree so huge it shaded three spaces. The only good thing she could say about this shopping trip was that she didn’t have to lock the car. Thank God Biloxi was still that kind of town.