Eighteen
Leta Pearl
I should have learned my lesson the last time: trying to bake Haskel’s biscuits on a Saturday was a bad idea. But Dub was at the store while Trudy and Pete had gone with Haskel over to the Fried Pie Festival at Riverwood Park. Right as I was pulling them out of the oven, the phone rang.
“Leta Pearl,” Louley Gooch said. “I know it’s only September, but there’s a trick-or-treater at your door.”
Emily’s timing was spectacularly awful; she was the only other person who knew about the love biscuits.
And because I’d run to the window to look for the trick-or-treater, she now stood between me and the kitchen, the phone cord the only thing blocking her direct path.
If she saw my dropper bottle of Aberdeen Mountain Oil, just sitting out on the counter in front of God and everybody, clear as day, she would know exactly what I was up to.
“Sorry I didn’t let you know I was coming, Mother,” Emily said, removing her scarf and reaching down to unzip those boots. “There was a line for the payphone. The last thirty-six hours have been dreadful; I’ve hardly slept.”
“Well, that’s plain to see,” I said. “So why don’t you go right to bed?” I needed her out of there; but I kept that phone cord stretched tight hoping to block her.
“Two businessmen from Miami in first class kept asking me to say things in my Southern accent. My cheeks are still sore from all the pinching.” I thought she meant her face, of course, but then she started giggling and rubbing her heinie.
Emily’s always been one for theatrics—absolutely starved for attention.
From the time she was a little girl until she moved away to be a majorette with the University of Alabama’s Million Dollar Band.
Of course, at first, I’d been proud. “Imagine!” I’d said.
“Only fourteen girls get to twirl for Bama, and my daughter is one of them!” Dub, on the other hand, had threatened to never speak to Emily again.
It was Teddy Whitehead’s fault, Emily’s high school boyfriend who talked her into going to Alabama instead of Auburn where her daddy had wanted her to go.
Nothing, it had seemed, could break the bond of Emily’s teenage love, but wouldn’t you know, barely halfway through Emily’s first semester, Teddy Whitehead fell in love with a Kappa Delta from Talladega and dumped Emily.
It didn’t break Emily’s spirit, though; she went right on shaking her tushy in front of thousands of people in that skimpy little sequin getup.
Emily slipped off her boots then froze. Then grimaced. She stood and peeked over at the kitchen. “Are those biscuits I’m smelling?” she asked.
I cleared my throat. “For church tomorrow.” I should have never fallen for that open-air living-dining space trend when we built the house; you can’t hide a thing. “They’re for my Sunday school class; people always get so hungry whenever we study Leviticus.”
Emily moved toward the kitchen, and I tried to stop her with the cord, but the phone slipped out of my hand. She headed right toward the dropper bottle which she’d obviously spotted. She swiped it before I could catch her. “Is this ... ?”
Her lips parted in disbelief. “Mother!”
“That does not belong to you, young lady!” I grabbed Emily’s arm like I did that time when she was only fifteen and she’d put a black, lacy push-up bra on my credit account at Lexington’s Department Store. “Put that down.”
She outmuscled me, unscrewed the cap, and sniffed, then stood there, slack-jawed in stunned silence, as if someone had just run a cheese grater over her velvet dress for winter formal.
“It isn’t what it looks like.”
“I thought you stopped this.” She shook the bottle, scolding me. “Have you lost your mind?”
“They are for your daddy and me! Okay? So mind your business!”
“Why are you doing this? Especially after what happened the last time. We agreed!”
“Like I said . . . it’s for me and—”
“Stop it!” She was screaming now, and I knew I had to come clean. If I didn’t, she might bring Trudy or God knows who else into this.
“Lower your voice,” I said. “Now listen. I can explain.”
Emily didn’t blink.
“It was only supposed to be once. I wanted to ensure this thing with Haskel and Trudy worked out. So, I just made one little innocent batch to move things along between them, just until they got engaged, just to be sure they stuck.”
“Well, now they’re engaged. So now you can stop.”
“No. I can’t.” I grabbed the paper from the kitchen table, showed her Barbara’s latest column, explained about Trudy’s boy cheerleader. “Haskel could come to his senses any minute. If I don’t keep him under the influence—”
“He’ll break up with her to save his campaign.”
“Exactly.”
Emily placed the paper on the table. “It doesn’t matter. You have to stop.”
“I would. Really, I would. But to make it even worse, Jerry Don Beaumont is building a mall and is threatening to put in a Zale’s . Having the mayor in the family will only help us if that’s true. Haskel must win the election, and Trudy must be his wife when he does.”
Emily pondered it all for a moment, shaking her head. Very likely remembering the last time I’d used the Aberdeen Mountain Oil and the calamity that ensued. “But what if Trudy doesn’t love Haskel?” she asked.
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. Of course Trudy loves Haskel.”
I thought Emily’s head was fixing to spin right off her shoulders like that little demon girl in The Exorcist; I’d never seen her face that color red before.
“Only until the election,” I said. “Just two months away. Then I’ll stop, I swear on my life.”
The receiver, still lying where I’d dropped it, started squawking and I realized Louley Gooch might’ve heard everything.
“And then what will you do, Mother? Hope Haskel doesn’t change his mind?”
“Change his mind about what?” Trudy asked from behind us. How had we not heard her come in? I thought for sure I’d had a stroke.
“Sister!” Emily squealed and ran over to give Trudy a big hug while I hung up the phone and slipped the Aberdeen Mountain Oil in my apron pocket.