The Party Line

Chapter Twenty-One

W hat kind of name is the Ambrosia?” Jasper’s tone matched his expression on Sunday morning—downright grouchy. But I was determined not to let him bring me down off the pretty white cloud I had been floating on since my date with Connor.

“Evidently, the new owner thought it was cute,” I said as we walked across the church parking lot to Aunt Gracie’s Ford after service that morning. “I’m so glad you felt like going to church today.”

“I didn’t plan on it, but when I woke up, God told me to get my sorry, skinny butt out of bed and go to church,” Jasper declared. “I tried to bargain with Him, but He wouldn’t have none of it. He sent Sassy to whine at the edge of my bed. I got up to let her out and figured I might as well fix myself a cup of coffee and stay up.”

“God speaks to you?” I asked.

“He don’t speak to you?” he fired right back.

“Not audibly.”

“Well, I hear His voice in my ear. Like He’s sitting right here.” Jasper tapped his shoulder with his bony hand.

I couldn’t argue, since Aunt Gracie seemed to sit on my shoulder and whisper in my ear more often since she had passed away than ever before. I helped him get settled in the passenger seat. “So, did you get a message out of the sermon this morning?”

He folded his arms over his chest and nodded. “I got the message, but I don’t like it. Don’t tell me that you did.”

I slid into the car and started the engine. “I might have, but my mind kept jumping track and wandering off to pick wildflowers.”

“In other words, you were thinking about Connor and that date you had down by the river,” Jasper snapped. “You’re supposed to go to church to get a message to your soul, not sit there and relive a date.”

I drove from the church to the new café. “Maybe that was God’s message to me.”

“Hmmph,” Jasper snorted, then coughed. “God don’t bring a person to church for them to think about their boyfriend. You’re supposed to listen to His word when you’re sitting on the pew.”

“I guess I just applied His word differently than you did. The message I got was to trust and not have doubts,” I said with half a giggle. “What did you get?”

“I don’t want to talk about it right now.” He looked out the side window. “I hope that this new place didn’t throw out Annie’s menu and we can get chicken and dressing today.”

Annie’s Café always had a full parking lot as soon as church services were over, but that morning, I only counted six vehicles. “Looks like we won’t have any trouble getting a table.”

“Empty parking lot. Poor food and service. I bet they even use instant tea,” Jasper muttered, and was out of the car before I made it around to help him.

“If they do, we won’t come back.” I looped my arm through his to steady him. His croup—as he still called it—had left him a little wobbly.

“If the food ain’t no good, we’ll go to the Dairy Queen and have a burger next week,” he said, loud enough the angels in heaven heard it.

“Jasper!” I scolded.

“I’m making a vow to God. He is not only speaking today but He’s listening, because I sure heard Him loud and clear this morning,” he said.

The inside of the restaurant was the same as it had been when Annie owned and ran it, except all the old pictures of Poteet had been taken down, leaving white spots on the light brown walls.

“You guys can sit anywhere you want,” a waitress called out from a table across the room. “We haven’t gotten the place fully remodeled and all the decorations up yet, but we’re in business.”

“She ain’t from around here,” Jasper whispered.

I led him to a booth near the back of the dining area and slid into the seat across the table from him. “How do you know that?”

Two of his fingers shot up. “One is that she didn’t say y’all , and the other is that she ain’t got no accent.”

The lady hurried right over to us when she finished getting the orders from the other folks. She laid a menu in front of each of us. “My name is Kiki. We are offering our basic burgers all the time, but starting on Sunday, the rest of the menu changes each week. That way no one gets bored with the same old menu all the time. We also have vegetarian options.”

“Pleased to meet you, Kiki. We like our bacon and our chicken-fried steaks, so we aren’t interested in a vegetarian menu,” Jasper said. “You ain’t from around these parts, are you?”

Kiki tucked a strand of her brown hair behind her ear. “No, sir, I am not. I grew up in a little town outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. What can I get you guys to drink?”

“Sweet tea?” Jasper asked.

“We only have unsweet, but I can bring you some sugar packets,” she said.

“Then I’ll have a root beer.” From the set of his jaw, I could tell that we would be going to Dairy Queen next week.

“Same here,” I said and then studied the menu. For the next six days we had a choice of three different kinds of soup, six sandwiches or wraps, and salads. And of course, several different burgers, all with cute little names.

In only a few minutes, she brought a glass of ice and a can of root beer for each of us. “Ready to order?”

“I’ll have the soup and sandwich—club and baked-potato soup.” I handed her the menu.

“I want a burger and fries,” Jasper said.

“Which burger?” Kiki asked. “The top three are made with hamburger. The last are black bean burgers.”

Jasper rolled his eyes. “I want meat in mine.”

“Then do you want the brunch burger with meat, eggs, and cheese; the one with mushrooms and slathered with brown gravy; or the standard one with mayo, lettuce, and tomatoes?” she asked.

“The last one, only I want mustard and pickles.”

“We always put a pickle on the side with our sandwiches,” Kiki told him.

“I want dill pickle slices on the burger.” His voice left no doubt this would be our last visit to this place.

“Sorry, sir, we don’t do that with our burgers,” Kiki said with a big smile. “But they do come with potato chips.”

“Are you open seven days a week?” he asked.

“No, sir, closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. My sister, Deanna, is now the owner of the former Madge’s Diner, which is now Pastalicious, and she will be open on those days and closed on the weekends. She’s serving up pasta and different kinds of sauces, plus an assortment of salads and flavored teas.”

“Like chicken-fried steak?” Jasper asked.

Kiki’s smile seemed forced. “No, but she is also open for breakfast and offering bagels with lox and cream cheese, and her pasta and salads for lunch. My hours are eleven to six Wednesday through Sunday. I’ll get your order right out. Oh, I forgot to ask how you want that burger cooked. Rare, medium, well done?”

“Well done,” I answered for him.

“Dairy Queen next week?” I whispered when Kiki was out of hearing distance.

“I’d walk all the way to San Antonio to eat Sunday dinner before I would come back here,” he said out the corner of his mouth. “A steak is mighty fine with pink in the middle, but not a burger.”

My sandwich and soup were pretty much the same as what I’d gotten at a lunch place in Austin. But Jasper’s burger was open-faced, with a lettuce leaf, a slice of tomato, and a pickle spear on the side, along with a package of mustard. An individual bag of potato chips was on the other side of the fancy oblong plate.

“Enjoy,” Kiki said and rushed away to wait on another group coming inside.

“Do I get a discount for building this thing myself?” Jasper asked. “The bun hasn’t even been toasted, much less put on the grill until it’s nice and brown. We need to send Gina Lou down here to teach these people to cook.”

“Next time maybe you should order a cold sandwich and hot soup,” I suggested and got his noon pills out of my purse.

Jasper swallowed the pills with a sip of root beer. “There won’t be a next time. This is the first and last. Can we go get ice cream at the Dairy Queen after we eat this?”

“Yes, we surely can,” I said with a nod. “I’ve got a question.”

“About?”

“Why didn’t Aunt Gracie and Mama ever want me to have little friends that were boys?”

“Well ...” He set about putting his burger together.

I could almost see the little wheels churning in his head with some kind of answer about the weather or Sassy.

He shifted his eyes to the right and then to the left. “It’s a bit of a story, and not to be told in a café where there’s other folks. Let’s go see Gracie and Davis after we eat and then come back to the Dairy Queen for ice cream.”

“Whatever you want,” I agreed.

“Well, I wanted a big old greasy burger, fries, and sweet tea,” he huffed. “Experience is what we get when we didn’t get what we wanted.”

“Who told you that?”

He opened the bag and shook the potato chips out onto his fancy plate. “My granny did, and it’s the gospel truth about this place. I can’t believe that we aren’t ever goin’ to have chicken and dressin’ again.” He sighed and took a bite of his burger.

“I could ask Gina Lou to make it for us at least once a month,” I offered.

“I can live with that, but every two weeks would be better,” he said.

“Consider it done, but you can’t just make a little bit of chicken’ and dressin’, so you might have to eat leftovers for a few days.”

“You’ll get no complaints from me,” he declared. “The burger ain’t bad, but Dairy Queen’s are a dang-sight better and a heck of a lot cheaper.”

I didn’t care about the food. What I couldn’t hardly wait for was the answer to my question. I wasn’t sure why Jasper wanted to tell me about it in the cemetery, but I wasn’t going to even say a word about the why or where he wanted to talk.

Jasper sat flat down on the ground and leaned back against Gracie’s gray granite tombstone. He patted the place next to him, and I eased down beside him. “She didn’t like to be hot, so I’m glad she’s resting beneath this shade tree.”

A flash of red flew past us and lit on a low limb.

“I was about to ask God for a sign, and He’s delivered it,” he said. “That bird is telling me that the time has come, and I imagine that Gracie has told God not to let me come to heaven without me doin’ what she told me to do.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, but I liked the idea of Gracie watching over us.

“You know what a cardinal means,” Jasper said, then went on to tell me again. “It means someone that has gone on to eternity is thinking about you. Gracie is telling me everything is going to be all right. Her spirit is here among us. You asked me about why Gracie and Sarah never wanted you to have boys as friends. Well, the answer is that Gracie was hurt once very badly, and she never trusted men or boys again. Same with your mother. But you’ve got to understand that Sarah was barely eighteen, and Gracie was only fourteen when she got hurt.”

“But you are a guy, and you were her very best friend,” I argued.

“Me and Davis both were,” he nodded. “I was ready to die when you hauled me to the hospital. Do you have any idea why I got well?”

There he went, changing the subject again. I wasn’t going to get any answers from him today.

“Good medicine, rest, and food.” I watched the cardinal sit there and stare at us with his beady little black eyes.

“No,” he disagreed. “It was because I made a vow to Gracie that I would answer your questions before I died. I want to get this life over with so I can go on to heaven and see my two best friends again, but it was so hard to come out with. You idolized her.”

“I love my mama and Aunt Gracie, so there’s no tarnishing,” I said.

“There isn’t just one secret,” he whispered and looked all around.

“Jasper! This is turning into something out of Dynasty , and boy, did Aunt Gracie like that one.” I nudged him with my shoulder.

“Fine. But you got to understand the past to be able to look forward to the future. Gracie was born November 11, and Davis came along a week later and me at the end, right after Thanksgiving. Granny said there was a big party to welcome Gracie into the world when she was about a month old. People came from miles around to see the new baby girl that would one day run Clarence’s estate.”

He stopped and seemed to be trying to gather his thoughts. “When Davis and I were born, there were no parties. My mama left me with my grandmother a week after I came into this world, and we never saw her again. So, anyway, my granny took me to work with her every day from the time I was a week old. She was nanny to Gracie as well as cook and housekeeper until Davis’s mama, Rita, recovered from giving birth to him. Then all three of us babies were in the house together every single day.”

“I kind of figured that out on my own,” I told him.

He nodded and pointed at the cardinal. “Gracie is giving me the sign to keep talking. So get comfortable because this is not a short story.

“I remember the day that we went to first grade. Rita held Davis’s hand, and Granny held mine and Gracie’s, and we all five marched into the room to meet our teacher.”

He was taking me so far back that we could still be sitting in the front of that tombstone until the cardinal found a mate.

He coughed and went on. “I cried and didn’t want to be left behind, but Gracie and Davis did no such thing. They waved at Granny and Rita and went right over in the corner and started whispering to each other. I didn’t want to be left out, so I let go of Granny’s hand and joined them. We were inseparable from that time on. Not that we hadn’t been before, but that day seemed to be a turning point.”

“I figured all that out, too,” I said.

“Aren’t you sassy? Just let me tell this in my own way. I want you to understand that there was a bond between us, but the one between Davis and Gracie went even deeper. I think they might have fallen in love when we were all still crawling around on the kitchen floor.”

“Really?” I didn’t dare tell him that I had snooped through her diary.

“Yep. Now, fast-forward—as you kids say these days—to that summer before we were fourteen. That was when we got drunk on the strawberry wine and when Davis and Gracie went about holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes. Always seemed to me that they could talk to each other without words.”

“Did that make you feel left out?” I asked.

“Not in the least. We were all together every day, and we didn’t keep secrets from each other. I knew the minute that they admitted they had feelings for each other, and I wasn’t a bit jealous of Davis. Seemed like it had been written in the stars even when they were just babies that someday they would be together,” he told me.

“Then he got killed, right?”

“No, that came after ...” He sucked in as much fresh air as his lungs could hold and didn’t cough when he let it all out.

“After what?” I expected him to tell me that it was time for us to go get ice cream and go home.

“The party line thing,” he whispered. “She always kept those two old phones in the house to remind her of what she heard that night when Davis kissed her for the first time. She said that they were a constant reminder to never trust a man again.”

“Did Davis hurt her that badly?” I asked.

Jasper shook his head. “Wasn’t Davis that caused her to go to her room for a whole week. Did I tell you why he was named Davis?”

“No, why?”

“His mama was Rita Poteet, and her mama’s maiden name was Davis. Her daddy was Billy Poteet.”

That part of history didn’t mean anything to me. I figured Jasper was rambling, but I kept quiet because I wanted to hear the rest of the story.

“Was he a part of the family that founded the town?” I was confused. Why would Rita be cleaning houses if she came from the county’s royalty?

“Yes, he was a cousin to them, but when he married Rita’s mama ...” He stopped and scratched his head, then grinned. “I remember now. Her name was Esther. Anyway, the family blacklisted him because she was kind of what we used to call ‘loose legged.’ He wound up working as a truck driver and drinking up whatever money he made on the weekends. I got sidetracked with my story. Betty—that would be Gracie’s mama—hired Rita to help my granny in the house. Rita was a beautiful young woman, maybe about nineteen when Miz Betty hired her. And about a year later, all of us babies were born. Davis was a family name on Rita’s side of the family, so when she gave birth to a baby with no father, that’s what she named him. Folks said that she was just a chip off her worthless father’s shoulder. Back then, having babies out of wedlock was a bigger deal than it is these days, and Rita and my mama were paddling the same canoe.”

I really didn’t want to hear the background of every woman who ever strolled down the streets of Poteet, but suddenly I understood—or thought I did. Gracie’s folks were the upper class, and they didn’t want their only child tangled up with an illegitimate son.

He glanced up at the cardinal, who was still sitting on the tree limb right above us. “Things kind of rocked on until the night of Gracie’s fourteenth birthday, and us being kids, we thought the world was perfect. Except that Gracie was the queen, and me and Davis were the fatherless kids of the help. Davis wanted to do something special for Gracie, but neither one of us had much money. I suggested that he pick the last roses of summer from the bushes beside Rita’s house—that would be the one where I live now—and if there wasn’t enough to make a bouquet, I would bring some from Granny’s old place. He thought that was a romantic idea, and together we fixed it up and tied it with a red ribbon.”

I laid a hand on his shoulder. “I found a shoebox tied with a red ribbon down in the basement. Inside was a bunch of dried roses and a wine bottle.”

“Probably the same one,” Jasper said. “This next part is hard, mainly because it reminds me of Gracie’s broken heart and Davis’s anger.”

“Was he upset because her parents didn’t want her tangled up with the help?”

“Well, there was that, and if it hadn’t been for the bigger issue, I imagine they would have sent her off to boarding school to get her away from him.”

“Bigger issue?” I whispered.

“That night, after her birthday dinner with her folks, she climbed out her window and met Davis in the backyard. He gave her the roses and kissed her. They thought that it was late enough no one would see, but Rita did, and the next morning she called Clarence on the party line that three people shared—my granny, Rita, and Gracie’s folks. Miz Betty had the phones put in so that if she wanted Rita or Granny in the middle of the night, she could get a hold of them.”

“And Gracie listened in on the conversation, right?” I asked.

Jasper nodded, his face turning very, very serious. “Gracie stormed downstairs and confronted Clarence right in front of Betty.”

“What had she heard that upset her so badly?”

“That, darlin’ girl, is the big bad secret,” Jasper said softly, as if he couldn’t say it out loud. “She overheard Rita telling Clarence that they either had to tell the kids the truth or he had to help her move. Clarence said it was for the best and said he would set her up in a nice place in Poteet because he didn’t want to stop seeing her.”

“What was the truth?” I was all ears by then.

There was a long, pregnant silence that seemed like the air just before a tornado hit. Finally, Jasper broke through the thick, heavy stillness.

“That Davis was Gracie’s brother.”

That almost took my breath right out of my chest. My poor Aunt Gracie. No ... poor Davis, who had been shunned and treated like the help.

The world stopped turning, and I sat there in stunned silence, unable to think. Tightness filled my chest, and tears rolled down my cheeks.

“Are you going to faint?” Jasper asked.

“No, but that doesn’t mean I’m not shocked and sad for Gracie and Davis,” I whispered. “Go on with the story, please.”

“The story that Gracie told us was that she stormed down to the living room and confronted her father with a big fight. Betty heard it all, and the two of them had a screaming match right in front of their daughter. Clarence accused Miz Betty right to her face of being cold in the bedroom. Then, in a fit of anger, he said that all she had produced was a daughter, and he couldn’t even acknowledge his son because he was married to her . Back then, divorce was a pretty big deal—not as huge as fatherless boys, but still it wasn’t accepted like it is today. Gracie went back up to her bedroom. She told me and Davis in between sobs that she would never forgive her father for abandoning him or for not telling her that Davis was her brother.”

“What happened then?” I asked around a baseball-sized lump in my throat.

“Miz Rita moved into a house in Poteet. We still saw each other at school. ’Course we didn’t talk about those things there, and then me and Davis went to the army, and you know the rest. It wasn’t long until Miz Betty left. She tried to get Gracie to go with her, but there was no way she would leave me and Davis. I expect, although I do not know for sure, that Clarence kept seeing Rita until the day she died. And now you know the secret of the house.”

“Why did Gracie want me to know?” I asked.

“You can ask her when you get to heaven,” he said. “She just told me to tell you. What do you intend to do about it?”

“Not one thing,” I replied. “For all I care, everyone can think that she had a little wild streak because she wore red panties. If she had wanted the whole state of Texas to know, she would have put it in the Dallas Morning News or maybe went on Oprah and told it on live television. I have no idea why she’s trusted me with it, but she has.”

“What about Connor? You going to tell him?” Jasper asked.

“Not even Connor,” I vowed. “What’s in the past should stay there. It’s Gracie’s secret, and I can’t pass it on.”

“That’s good,” Jasper said. “She never loved another boy, and as far as I know, she never even kissed another one. I would have just as soon taken the story to the grave with me, but she wanted you to know.”

“Probably because I was always a nosy little brat.” I tried to laugh, but it came out more like a snort.

“She told me that you would find things in the house that would make you wonder. She had pinned notes to her clothing in case she got that forgetful disease. She wanted to remember the past, especially after you came into her life. She always said you were a little piece of heaven on Earth and had brought light back into her heart,” Jasper said.

Tears began to stream down my cheeks and drip onto my olive green shirt. Swiping them away was useless because more kept taking their place. “That’s quite a thing to have to live up to.”

Jasper put his arm around my shoulders. “Let it out, Lila. You haven’t had a really good cry since Gracie died. You’ve had to be strong for your mama and for me, but it’s time for me to be a rock for you now. And like I said, that’s not the only secret I have to tell you.”

“I’m not sure I can handle much more today.” My tears left wet circles on his suit coat.

His whole wrinkled face changed to be even more serious than it had been. “Well, you have to, because I’m not going to live forever, and someday I might need some help like she did.”

My breath caught somewhere in my chest, and I couldn’t make myself exhale. “What are you talking about?” I asked, even though I pretty well knew what the answer was.

“She never forgave Clarence for what he did or her mother for leaving her, but she did sit beside her father’s bedside the last two weeks of his life. He had congestive heart failure, and he refused to give up his cigarettes or his liquor. Then he got lung cancer, and he died a hard death, gasping for every breath. He wanted to die at home, so she granted him that wish. He begged her to forgive him, but she couldn’t do it, not until a few minutes before he passed.”

“I’m not so sure I could have forgiven him, either. I’m glad I didn’t have to meet my own father,” I said in a low voice.

“She finally said the words that let him go in peace. I didn’t ask if she meant it or if she was just too tired to argue anymore. His last words were ‘Davis, I am so sorry I didn’t do the right thing by you.’ Then he was gone.”

“Is that the second secret? That she forgave her father?” I asked.

“No, ma’am. The second one is that last year, the doctor told her she had congestive heart failure and spots on her lungs that should be biopsied for cancer. She told him no on the biopsy thing and that she was too danged old for any of that chemo crap. She and I had a good year together knowing that it was our last one.”

“Hey, now, how did she know that?” I argued.

“No one could ever tell Gracie Evans that she would finish this life on anyone’s terms but her own or that anyone else could set her expiration date. We decided on a time, and I tried to back out, but she wouldn’t have none of it. The cough had gotten worse, and she was in pain. Going up the stairs took three or four tries, and she would be exhausted at the top.” Now tears were rolling down his thin cheeks, settling in the deep wrinkles.

We both simply sat there for a few minutes. I was sure I knew what was coming next, but I didn’t want to hear it. The cardinal left his perch on the tree limb and flitted down the cemetery a ways until it came to rest on Davis’s tombstone.

“I guess that’s my second sign,” Jasper finally said. “So, to get to the end of this story, the date came that she had marked on her calendar. She had the pills ready, and all I had to do was crawl up in the bed with her and hold her until she went to sleep. She warned me that if I called 911 or Sarah before she quit breathing that she wouldn’t let Saint Peter open heaven’s gates for me. She told me she loved me and that I’d been the best friend a woman could ever want, and that she was going home to be with Davis. Her last words were ‘I loved him so much.’ And then she went to sleep. I held her until she stopped breathing. It was so peaceful, sitting there in her bedroom with her in my arms. I was with her when her dad died, and her passing was nothing like when we watched Clarence take his last breath.”

“Then you called 911 and Mama?” I sobbed.

He handed me the blue bandanna from his pocket. “That’s right, and if a doctor tells me that I’ve got maybe a year or two to live if I don’t get treatment, I will be doing the same thing she did. Promise me you’ll be the one who sits by my side until my soul has gone to be with Gracie and Davis.”

“I promise,” I whispered and hoped that I wouldn’t have to make good on it for a long time.

“Good, and now would you look at that? The cardinal has flown away. Gracie is at peace at last. Help me up, Lila. It’s time for us to go get our ice cream.”