Chapter 14
The dark clouds that had been blowing up from the southwest had thrown a shadow over the backyard that Sunday morning when Bernie went outside with Pepper.
A gentle breeze cooled the area and shook the leaves of the pecan and oak trees.
Bernie sucked in the aroma of honeysuckle blooming somewhere out there in the wooded area.
She sat down in a lawn chair and sipped her coffee that had a little kick of Jameson added to it.
Had it been possible, she would have patted herself on the back.
Whether they called it a date or not, Clara and Nash were together, and that was the first step in falling in love.
Church had let out at precisely eleven thirty.
That meant her niece was in one of those vehicles that Bernie could hear driving down the road and hopefully on her way to a happy-ever-after.
The crunching sound of gravel in the bar parking lot told her that someone had forgotten something at the church and was turning around to go back for whatever it was.
She chuckled when she thought about a little kid leaving behind one of their tablet things.
Back when she and Vernie Sue were little girls, they did not get to take a coloring book or anything to entertain them to church.
They were expected to sit still on a hard pew for what seemed like three days past eternity.
Their mother preached that children should learn to listen to the preacher’s sermon, and if they did, they would grow up to be good girls.
Evidently all that holiness danced right past Bernie and landed on Vernie Sue.
She laughed so loud that Pepper forgot about the squirrel he had been chasing and ran back to sit in front of her. “I’m giggling, not crying,” she told him.
He cocked his head to one side and growled down deep in his throat.
“You’ve already put the fear of a Chihuahua into more than one squirrel,” she said. “You don’t have to convince him that you are as big and mean as King Kong.”
The hair on his back stood straight up and he barked several times.
“You’ve scared them all away,” Bernie reminded him, and then saw the shadow of a couple of folks coming around the end of the building.
Her first notion was that the church service did not go well, and Clara had refused to go to Sunday dinner with Nash.
She hoped that Nash didn’t feel obligated to walk Clara all the way to the door, even though they were arguing.
He didn’t need to see Bernie in her I love Jesus but I drink a little T-shirt and pajama pants with Betty Boop all over them.
“Dammit anyway,” she swore. She had been so ready for some good results for her efforts of leaving them together in the bar so many nights.
Then she saw that neither of the two women was Clara. She frowned and sucked air between her teeth when she recognized Vernie Sue and Marsha in their high-heeled shoes, gingerly picking their way around the gopher holes in the yard.
“What the hell? Why are you coming around here ruining my Sunday? It’s my only day to do whatever I want,” she grumbled and then glared at Pepper. “Why couldn’t you be the size of a mountain lion and scare them away?”
He took refuge under her chair and kept a low growl.
“Did y’all get lost on your way to church this mornin’?” she called out.
“No, we spent the night in Duncan last night and attended an early morning service before we came over here. I’m going to ask our pastor if he could start having two on Sunday to give us who want to prepare dinner more time,” Vernie Sue said as she sat down beside Bernie without even asking.
“You look like hell, and I hate that shirt.”
“This is my place, not yours, and it’s not a family reunion where you are the queen bee. I will wear what I damn well please. Now I understand those storm clouds.” Bernie snapped.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Aren’t you afraid that lightning will shoot down out of the sky and strike you dead for sitting so close to a bar?”
Marsha eased down into the third chair and sighed loudly. “Can you two be civil long enough for us to have a discussion? We have driven all the way down here, so be nice.”
“I’ll try if she will,” Vernie Sue agreed. “You got old and wrinkled since I saw you last, but then you have always lived a rough life.”
“Have you looked in the mirror lately?” Bernie snapped without taking her eyes off her twin sister. “We are identical twins except that you got fat and let your hair go gray.”
“Oh, for the love of God,” Marsha groaned. “We came to see Clara and to apologize for the way we made her feel when she needed help.”
“Marsha, darlin’, sometimes it’s too late to do what you should have been doing all along,” Bernie scolded.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Vernie Sue asked.
“If you can’t figure it out, then you aren’t even as smart as I thought you were,” Bernie told her.
“Well,” Vernie Sue huffed, “I’m smart enough to know that we’ve been sitting here at least five minutes, and you haven’t even offered us a drink of water. Have you lost all the manners our mother taught us?”
Bernie held out her mug. “This is my coffee, and it has a little kick of Jameson in it. The kitchen is right through that door, so help yourself to whatever you want. Refrigerator has food in it. You are family, not guests, so I’m not obligated to wait on you.
Coffee is in the pot, but you can have a sip of mine if you are dying of thirst. I would never want you to die behind a bar.
That might keep you from going to heaven. ”
Vernie Sue reached for the half-empty mug and then shook her head. “I can smell whiskey in it all the way over here.”
“A sip or two might loosen you up a little,” Bernie said.
“Are you calling me…” Vernie Sue started.
“That’s enough, Mother,” Marsha said in an icy-cold tone. “We didn’t come all this distance for you and Aunt Bernie to argue. Where is Clara? We really do want to talk to her and maybe, hopefully, even take her home with us.”
“I’m surprised that her old car even made it this far,” Vernie Sue said.
Bernie took a sip of her lukewarm coffee and decided that when she refilled the mug, it would fill it to the brim with Jameson. She deserved no coffee in it at all if she was going to have to put up with her sister until Clara came home.
“Y’all might as well come on in my apartment. It’s getting hot out here, and the mosquitoes are starting to buzz around.” She hoped that they declined and went on back to Duncan.
Vernie Sue crossed her arms over her chest. “I will not go into a beer joint.”
“I didn’t invite you into the bar. I don’t want you in there spreading your condemning aura all over it,” Bernie said.
“There’s a storage room between the Chicken Coop and my apartment.
I don’t want y’all in my place of business, but out of family courtesy, I will let you come into my apartment and let you make yourselves a sandwich. I’m more hospitable than y’all are.”
“I’m very welcoming,” Vernie Sue argued.
“You threw your own sister out of the family reunion if I remember right,” Bernie reminded her.
Vernie Sue shook her chubby finger at Bernie.
“That shirt, the very one you are wearing now, was and is sacrilegious. And for your information, people come to my house all the time, and I always offer them something to drink, and most of the time I even give them some homemade cookies or a slice of pie.”
Bernie stood up and took a step toward the back porch.
“I ain’t got pie or cookies except for the store-bought chocolate chip ones, but I’m hungry so I’m going inside where it’s cool to make myself a sandwich.
Y’all can sit out here in the heat all afternoon if you want, but Clara is out on a date, and most likely won’t be home until dark. ”
“Who…what…where…” Marsha stammered.
“She went to church this morning with Nash Murphey, the guy who is going to buy the Chicken Coop, and after the services she was going to his grandparents’ house for Sunday dinner.
Nash is a good man, and he really likes Clara.
From what I see, she likes him, so y’all are wasting your time trying to get her to leave Ratliff City. ”
“Church!” Vernie Sue fumed and then she saw Pepper and put up both palms. “Get that thing away from me. You know I’m allergic to cats and dogs.”
“Not to Chihuahuas. They are the only dog that folks with allergies can have,” Bernie told her.
“Pepper lives with me and Clara. So, get over yourself, Vernie Sue. And Clara has even asked for him. I’m leaving a note in my will that if I die before Pepper does, she will inherit him.
Are you sure you want her to live in Fritch with a sassy little dog?
” She marched into the house and closed the door behind her.
Let them both sit out there and suffocate in their fancy church clothes, high-heeled shoes, panty hose, and possibly even a girdle.
“Dammit!” she swore again as she got all the sandwich makings from the refrigerator, along with store-bought potato salad and coleslaw, and brought paper plates and chips from the pantry.
“I only get one day a week to relax, and they have spoiled it. I hope those Texas-sized mosquitoes come up over the Red River and carry them away. Allergic to dogs, my royal hind end.” She fussed and fumed the whole time she made herself a plate.
She had just sat down at the table when the back door opened and Marsha came inside. “Thank you, Aunt Bernie, for the offer to stay in a cool house and make ourselves a bit of lunch. We had planned to take you and Clara out to a café, but there’s not much of a place here, is there?”