Chapter 11
Memories of the last time Bernie wore her Mardi Gras costume flooded her mind as she carefully folded the flamboyant outfit, put it in a box, and added a dozen strands of beads and a lot of bangle bracelets.
She hummed the jazz music that she always put on the jukebox for the Friday and Saturday nights when the Chicken Coop celebrated the holiday.
Etta James with her “At Last” and Louis Armstrong singing “Hello, Dolly!” and “Georgia on My Mind” were some of her favorites.
“Can’t leave out Ella Fitzgerald and sweet, sweet Ray Charles,” she said with a sigh. “I could have shown that man a really good time if I’d ever met him in person.”
She shook out the Christmas outfit she intended to take with her—a green sequined dress that had a side slit so high that she had to go commando when she wore it.
“My Christmas present to me was a firefighter the first year I wore this. Lord have mercy!” She fanned herself with the back of her hand.
“It was a wonder we didn’t set the mattress ablaze that night. ”
Her phone rang and jerked her right back to the present, but when she checked the caller ID and saw that it was Clara’s mama, she hit the decline option on the screen.
She was too deep in dragging out her memories to listen to a bunch of crap about convincing Clara to go to Fritch so Marsha and Vernie Sue could talk her into going to a save-thy-soul rehab center.
“I believe in God, and I pray every night, but I also believe that He supports unconditional love,” she muttered.
She ignored the phone when it rang five more times. “No thank you,” she hissed.
The third time it started the incessant noise, she figured she had better answer it—just in case Vernie Sue had had a cardiac arrest or maybe a stroke and was having trouble talking her way into heaven.
Maybe they had her sitting at the gates waiting to get Bernie’s opinion on the matter.
Marsha had already said at multiple reunions that her mother deserved gold stars and diamonds in her halo, but Bernie decided that she would get Mary Jane’s thoughts before she gave Saint Peter the green light.
“What do you want?” Bernie answered.
“That’s a fine way to answer the phone,” Marsha huffed.
“You never call unless you want to yell at me about my lifestyle. Well, like the country song says, I’m happy being me, and I think Clara has found her place in life right here in Ratliff City,” Bernie snapped.
“You exasperate me.” Marsha groaned. “And Mama too, for that matter. Was there ever a time that you two got along?”
“Probably not,” Bernie answered. “She’s always been too high and mighty to accept me for who I am, and I refused to change.
I will not give up my happiness to please her narrow mind.
Are you calling today to try to get me and your mother to call a truce?
Will she let me wear my I love Jesus but I drink a little T-shirt to the reunion in the fall? ”
“Probably not, but that’s not the reason I’m calling,” Marsha said.
“Then spit it out so we can say goodbye.” Bernie could hear the bitterness in her own voice. She didn’t like it, but dang it all anyway, her sister’s side of the family aggravated the hell out of her.
“I feel convicted,” Marsha said in a low voice. “I’ve tried to pray about it, but God won’t talk to me.”
Bernie laid the Mardi Gras costume on the table and sat down with a thud. “If you can’t love your own child unconditionally, then how can you expect Him to love you the same way and open the door to visit with Him?”
There was a long pause and then Marsha asked, “Do you love your sister unconditionally?”
“Yep, I do,” Bernie answered. “I support her religious beliefs, and according to what Jesus taught, I have to love her, but there’s not one place in the Good Book that says I have to like her. So, what have you done that God has turned his back on you?”
“I was wrong to treat Clara the way I did, and I should have stood up to Mama and told her to butt out,” Marsha admitted.
Bernie held the phone out from her ear and stared at it for a long moment. Surely that shot of whiskey she had had to give her enough courage to go through her costumes hadn’t dulled her hearing. Neither Vernie Sue nor Marsha had never admitted being wrong about a single thing in the past.
Bernie glanced out the kitchen window at the sky. Stars flickered around the moon, so there wasn’t a late tornado about to hit Ratliff City. “Would you repeat that?” she asked as she returned the phone to her ear.
“Are you getting deaf as well as cantankerous?” Marsha snapped. “You and Mama both should get fitted for hearing aids.”
“I am not getting old, and there’s not a thing wrong with my ears or my eyes,” Bernie answered in an icy-cold tone.
“Were you also wrong in the way you have treated your own sister? Mary Jane has never talked ugly about you, but I can’t say the same for you about her.
And while we are discussing family, Vernie Sue has an even dozen grandkids, nine of them granddaughters.
But she only acknowledges the three boys and Myra, probably because that girl is a preacher’s wife.
She even set you against your own sister from the time y’all were young. Is that any way for her to act?”
Marsha sighed again. “Mama will have to answer for her own choices, Aunt Bernie. She tried to talk Mary Jane out of getting a divorce. If she had to leave Martin, then she should have come home to Fritch and gotten a decent job.”
“Sounds to me like you aren’t willing to take a step toward really reconciling with either your sister or your daughter, unless they do things on your terms,” Bernie told her.
“I am willing to start with Clara, but she won’t even talk to me,” Marsha said. “Will you please help me convince Clara to come home? I promise not to preach at her or make her feel like she doesn’t matter.”
Bernie shook her head and set her mouth in a firm line. “Have you ever watched that old movie Steel Magnolias?”
“Yes, I have—more than once. What has that got to do with anything?” Marsha growled.
“The women in that movie should be an example to all of us. They didn’t all come from the same social world, but they accepted each other with no holds barred. This conviction you have should include more than just Clara,” Bernie told her.
“I’ll start with my daughter, and even that won’t be an easy job with Mama living right next door to me,” Marsha said.
“You won’t get any victory unless you extend it further,” Bernie said.
“If you want Clara to come home, ask her yourself. But in my opinion, you need to love her for who she is right where she is—not just if she comes back to Fritch and buckles down to your rules. But hey, what do I know about all this sister feuding stuff? Vernie Sue and I have been at it longer than you and Mary Jane, and we sure ain’t been much of an example for the two of you. ”
“You are right, Aunt Bernie, but I’m hoping that even though I’m past fifty, I can do things differently,” Marsha said.
“It’s possible, but only if you work at it. This whole thing has parked on your shoulders, and it’s kind of hard to teach an old dog new tricks,” Bernie told her.
“But not impossible,” Marsha said. “It might even work between you and Mama if…”
“Don’t even go there,” Bernie warned.
“Okay, then I’ll just say good night and have a great Sunday, if you even acknowledge the Lord’s Day.” Evidently, Marsha had too much of her mother’s DNA flowing through her veins to leave things alone and not have to get in one last little dig.
“Darlin’ girl. I acknowledge God every day, not just when the church doors open. Good night to you, too.” She tapped the end icon on the screen of her phone. “I understand Hershal loving his goldfish so much now. Crazy as it sounds, that was his confidant, like you are mine, Pepper.”
The little dog wagged his tail.
“I figured at first I would take you to the nearest animal shelter, or maybe give you to one of the customers, but you have proved your worth. You don’t talk back when I tell you my secrets, and I’m about to tell you a big one,” she whispered.
Pepper seemed to glare at her.
“Your cute little face will freeze, and you won’t be able to eat or get a little sip of my Irish coffee in the morning if you don’t smile.
” She could have sworn that she saw the dog’s expression change.
“I just talked to Marsha, and can you believe that she wants me to…” She ranted and raved about the phone call until she figured out that the bar would close in ten minutes.
“Enough about that. Thanks for listening, but right now, the kids should be closing up the bar, and we have to get the whiskey poured up so that we’re ready for our Saturday night therapy session. ”
“Aunt Bernie?” Clara’s voice floated through the apartment. “We need you in the bar. Someone is in crisis and won’t leave until she talks to you.”
“I’ll be right there,” Bernie grumbled. “What are they going to do without me? Maybe I got too hasty about selling out and moving to the Paradise. I’m needed here.”
But you are needed more in Texas, the annoying voice in her head reminded her.
“I’m going to miss this,” she whispered to Pepper as she headed across the room.
“But it’ll be a small price to pay if I can get all seven of Mary Jane’s girls settled down and starting a family.
I want to live long enough to see Mary Jane’s grandchildren running around in that big old house.
I’ve got more years behind me now than I’ve got in front of me, so I have to get busy. ”
Viola, a regular customer for the last thirty years, was sitting in the corner with at least four empty shot glasses on her table. Mascara had turned her tears into black streaks running down her cheeks. “Oh, Bernie, what am I going to do?” she sobbed.
Bernie pulled a chair close to her, sat down, and draped an arm around her shoulders. “The first thing you can do is talk to me,” she said.
Viola left a smear of black across her cheek when she swiped the tears away. “He’s finally done it, Bernie.”
“What did he do? Drop dead? Did he leave behind an insurance policy?”
“Hell, no!” Viola hiccupped. “I wouldn’t be crying if he’d died.
He left me, and not even for a younger woman like he always said he would.
He kicked me out of the house and moved Darlene Branan in with him.
She’s got to be seventy years old if she’s a day, and from what I hear she’s got money from her dead husband’s insurance.
Poor man ain’t been dead but a month, and she ain’t got the sense God gave a rock.
Claude will have that money in his bank account within the week. ”
“When did all this happen?” Bernie asked.
“When I came home from working a double shift at the café in Duncan,” she answered. “I’ve got nowhere to go, and he’s even cleaned out our joint checking account.”
“Did you do what I told you to do a couple of years ago?”
Viola nodded. “I have been putting all my overtime money in a separate bank account.”
“Then you put on your big-girl panties, pull up your bootstraps, and go find a cheap motel for a couple of nights. Rent your own place over in Duncan and move on with your life. You are only sixty years old, girl. It’s not time for you to lie down and die over a cheating bastard like Claude Wilson.
You gave him twenty years of your life. That’s enough, and when he comes crying to you because he can’t make rent or buy a six-pack of beer on his salary, tell him to go to hell,” Bernie told her.
“Unless his new woman is willing to support his expensive tastes, he’s going to have to get a full-time job. ”
Viola stood up and nodded. “I know that’s what I need to do, but I just needed to hear you say it.
I can stay with a friend a couple of days until I find a place.
And if I ever even think of getting married again, shoot me with that sawed-off shotgun you’ve got under the counter.
I’ll write up a permission slip saying I made you do it, so you won’t have to go to jail. ”
“I don’t imagine it will come to that,” Bernie got to her feet and gave her a sideways hug. “You’ve learned your lesson. Now it’s time to prove to yourself and to him that you are independent and strong without a man.”
“I do tend to fall in love too fast, don’t I?” Viola sniffled.
Bernie walked her to the door. “Yes, you do, but now you know what your problem is, you can tackle it.”
Viola blew her a kiss and left with a smile on her smudged face.
“Okay, kids,” Bernie said as she locked the door. “It’s past time for our Saturday night therapy session. I was about to pour the whiskey when this little problem came up.”