The Potluck Club—Takes the Cake (21 page)
If I knew Vernon—and I most certainly do know Vernon—it would matter. He may even postpone our wedding to sort out his feelings. Dang that man! And dang Doreen for keeping this from him for all these years. Vernon had a right to know... a right to know that he has another child.
As I pointed my car toward the street leading to the Gold Rush Tavern I allowed my mind to figure the whole thing out: Doreen must have been pregnant when she’d left with the old choir director. Must have been carrying Vernon’s child, though surely she didn’t know it. Doreen Roberts, selfish woman that she was and is and always will be, would have waited until she gave birth, dumped both kids in Vernon’s lap, and
then
taken off with... oh, what was that man’s name?
I decided that I didn’t even care to remember.
My cell phone, resting on the passenger’s seat next to me, rang. I grabbed it as I slowed for a red light and looked at the face. It was Lizzie.
“Hello, Lizzie,” I said.
“Evie,” she said, sounding as though she’d just climbed Pike’s Peak. “I’m getting ready to go get Mother, and it hit me. Dee Dee McGurk. Doreen Roberts. They’re one in the same, aren’t they?”
“How’d you know? How’d you figure it out?” I asked her. If Lizzie could figure it out, maybe others would too, and, oh Lord, what a mess that would be!
“Had to be the Lord. Had to be. I’m just standing in front of my closet, trying to decide what to wear, and it hit me. Hit me out of the blue. I remembered you telling me that Doreen was back, but I know
I
haven’t seen her. But she’s Dee Dee McGurk, isn’t she?”
“You go to the head of the class,” I said. “And I’m going to the tavern right now.”
“Oh no. Evie. Wait. You should wait. Let’s talk first.”
“You have enough on your mind, Lizzie.” The light turned green, and I gunned my accelerator with the toe of my boot. “I can handle this. If Doreen was pregnant when she left here, that means that
Vernon has another daughter.”
“I don’t know about that, Evie, but what I do know is... wait a minute.” Her voice became muffled.
“What?... I’m trying to get
ready to go get Mother... I’ll be there in a minute... In a minute!”
There was a break, then Lizzie said to me, “Lord help me, I’ve never sounded this much like a fishwife in my life.”
I spied the Gold Rush Tavern in front of me. “I’m at the tavern,” I said. “I’m going in, Lizzie. You can pray for me or you can just wish me well.”
“Well, of course I’m going to pray for you,” she said. “But I think
you ought to talk to Vernon first, don’t you?”
“Mr. Passive? No. He promised me he’d talk to Donna about Doreen being back in town, and he hasn’t done that yet. No. I’m
handling this one. That woman will
not
ruin my wedding day.”
“Well, if you feel that way, Evie. Okay, Samuel is calling for me. I have to go. I’ll pray for you, and you can pray for me, okay?”
I said I would and then hung up as I pulled into the parking lot of the tavern, sliding a bit in the icy slush left over by the week’s snowfall. I got out of the car and stomped my way to the front entrance, swung it open, and stepped into its darkness. The lunch crowd had already gathered there, their silhouettes outlined in the smoky dimness. It took me a minute, but I finally spied Doreen carrying a tray of bottlenecks to a table in the back. She saw me too; her chin tilted in that way it always did when she was bracing herself for a fight.
Well, she was about to get one.
I headed straight for her and then stood nearby as she placed the beer bottles on the table. I crossed my arms, waiting for her to turn to me. She took her own sweet time, I’ll give her that much. “Here you go, fellas” and “What else can I get for you?” and “You want an order of fries with that?”and “Chili on the fries?”
For heaven’s sake, Doreen. Give ’em their food and hush with the
small talk.
But far be it from me to tell a barmaid how to do her job.
She finally turned my way. “Evangeline,” she said, pursing her lips.
“We need to talk.”
“We do?” She brushed past me. I turned and stayed on her heels.
“I need five minutes of your time, Doreen Roberts,” I said.
She spun around. “I’m Doreen Vesey, remember?” she asked with a smirk.
“You are most assuredly not. I know about you, Dee Dee Mc-Gurk. I know about the marriages, the children, and I even know about your time in the... what do they call it? The pokey? I know about your time in the pokey for prostitution.” My head was bobbing like one of those little dogs you see perched in the back of a tourist’s car. Or, at least you used to see them. I haven’t seen one in years.
Doreen’s brow knit together, and even in the dim light I could see her turning red. “Shut up, Evangeline,” she said, clenching her teeth. Then she jerked her head toward the kitchen. “Come on. We can talk in the office back there.”
On our way through the grease-laden kitchen, Doreen yelled at the head cook, “Hey! Two number sixes, hold the pickle on one of them, and two number threes. Oh, and chili on the fries on all four. I’ll be in the office with Miss Priss. I won’t be more than a minute. I can promise you.” She sashayed past all the men dressed in big white aprons, their hair held back with clear plastic caps and their hands shoved in clear plastic gloves. With all the grease dripping off the walls back here, I wondered what a little hair or fingernail dirt would hurt. But I wasn’t here to inspect the kitchen. I had another mission.
When we reached the manager’s office, a tiny little thing with what appeared to be a chain link fence for a back wall (and behind it all sorts of restaurant-size cans and boxes stacked on sagging shelves), an old metal desk, and a Playboy of the Month calendar—the only wall hanging—gracing the wall next to it, Doreen swung around and said, “I’d offer you a seat, but there ain’t one.”
“Ain’t? Did you learn to speak like that in prison?” I cut my eyes over to the naked girl posed on the calendar. “Can you take that thing down long enough for me to talk to you?”
She pointed a sharply manicured finger at me, ignoring my request. “Look here, Evie. I haven’t ever been in prison. I’ve been in jail, but that’s nobody’s business out there except the manager’s. He knows my record, and he hired me, and I can’t afford to lose this job. You got that? You make me lose this job, and you can be sure bettin’ I’ll see to it that you lose Vernon or half the hair on your head, whichever comes first. You get what I’m saying to you?” She took a step toward the calendar and jerked it off the wall, laying it face down on the desk. “Now, I
ain’t
got no beef with you,” she continued. “I’m not planning to do anything to upset your little wedding plans. I have no designs on Vernon Vesey. You can have
him. My leftovers, anyway—”
“Hold on a minute,” I said, taking a step forward.
“No. You hold on. I have caused you not one minute of trouble since I got here. You wouldn’t have even known I was in town if you hadn’t of busybodied yourself in here, snooping around after Vernon.”
“That’s none of your business. And Vernon is none of your business.”
She planted her fisted hands on both hips. “Oh, but he is. He’s the father of my child, lest you forget. We still have Donna between
us—”
“Donna and Velvet?” I spouted back.
That got her. Her mouth clamped shut so fast, a fly could have been caught had it been buzzing by. Then it opened again, shut again, and opened one more time. “How do you know about Velvet?” she asked, her tone subdued.
“I know, that’s all. One thing you don’t know about me, Dee Dee McGurk, is that since you’ve been gone, I’ve pretty much run
this town. I know everything that goes on around here.”
Doreen stepped over to the desk and rested her scrawny rear end against one corner. She opened the middle drawer, and for a minute I wondered if a gun was inside. Maybe she’d pull out a.22; she’d shoot me dead and claim self-defense. “She went mad,” she’d say to the authorities—ironically her ex-husband and her daughter. “I had to protect myself.” Then she and Vernon would fall into each other’s arms, make passionate love, and get married, and the four of them—Vernon, Doreen, Donna, and Velvet—would live happily ever after.
In my house. Wanda Whittman would be quick to put it on the market, and Doreen would be just as quick to buy it.
I shook my head, freeing the insane imaginings as I watched Doreen pull a pack of cigarettes and a Bic lighter from the drawer. She pulled a cigarette from the pack, squinted her eyes as she lit it, drew on it with lined lips, then blew the smoke in my direction. She studied me for a minute, taking in another draw, blowing it out again, this time toward the ceiling. “Well, apparently not,” she finally said. “Apparently you don’t know everything.” She ran her tongue across her bottom lip.
My shoulders sagged. “Then, it’s true. Vernon has another daughter.”
She flicked the ashes from the cigarette to the stained concrete floor below.
I rubbed my hands up and down my arms. I was suddenly very
cold. “When will you tell Vernon?” I asked.
“Why should I tell him? If Velvet wants to tell him, she can. She ain’t had no real daddy since the day she was born. If she don’t want
Vernon to know, who am I to tell him?”
“But you have to. It’s immoral.”
Doreen coughed out a laugh. “Immoral? Like I’ve ever worried
about immoral.”
She was right about that. “You should stop smoking,” I said.
“You sound awful.”
“Like you care,” she said and drew on the cigarette again. “Look here, Evangeline,” she continued, each word wrapped in a puff of gray smoke. “Leave my kid alone, you hear? I won’t bother you, and you don’t bother her, you got it? She’s had it rough enough in life having me for a mama.” She took another draw, then dropped the cigarette to her feet and ground it out under the sole of her black
shoe. “I ain’t much. But I’m all she’s got.”
Dear Lord, I was actually beginning to feel sorry for Doreen.
I looked down, then back up. “What about Donna?” I asked, keeping my
voice as tender as I could.
She pushed herself off the corner of the desk and took a step toward me. “I’d like to talk to her. Vernon won’t like it, but... well, you’ve never been a mother, so you may not understand. I still love my baby girl. I don’t want to do nothing that’s gonna hurt her. I’d like to have something with her. Some kind of a relationship. Girls need their mamas. That’s why Velvet followed me out here. Bad of a mama as I’ve been, she’s still gotta be near me for some reason.”
I nodded. “So, what do you want me to do, Doreen?” Lord have
mercy, this was not going like I’d planned.
“Just leave me and mine to me, okay? And I’ll leave you and yours to you. If Velvet wants to tell Vernon, that’s for her to do. Deal?” She stuck out her hand for a shake, and I took it.
“Deal,” I said.
Clay was on his way to the Hallmark store, hoping to surprise Britney with some takeout from MiZuppa, a small soup bar and bakery chain that made the absolute best homemade soup in the entire ski-resort area. Not to mention Denver. He’d ordered chicken ‘n’ dumplings for Britney and Indian mulligatawny for himself. But when he saw Evangeline Benson nearly speeding on the icy roads and headed toward the Gold Rush Tavern (talking on a cell phone, no less) he knew trouble was brewing and in a big way. He slowed his Jeep down, made an illegal U-turn, and then followed behind her. By the time he’d made it into the parking lot of the tavern, she was pulling the door open and stepping inside.
A sick feeling hit him in the pit of his stomach. He sat for a minute, trying to decide whether to go in or let it go. After all, it was none of his business.
But
, he thought,
very little about the
Potluck Club is my business.
Somehow he always managed to make it so.
He waited five minutes, then slipped out of his Jeep and quietly into the tavern. He scanned the room but could see neither Evangeline nor Dee Dee McGurk, who he assumed she’d come to see.
He’d known about Donna’s mother’s and Evangeline’s feud since he was a boy. His mother had told him it was the stuff legends were made of. But this... this “legend” might hurt Donna in the long run. And
that
he didn’t think he could stand. After all and no matter
what, Donna was and always would be his good friend.
He took a seat in a dark corner and waited for several minutes. If his guess was correct, Evangeline was going at it nose-to-nose with Dee Dee in a back room somewhere. He pulled out his leatherbound notepad and began to hen scratch some notes. After a few
minutes more of that, his face broke in a grin.
Yeah, Donna was his friend, but a good plot twist was still a good plot twist.
Lisa Leann
It had been a merry Christmas season. Henry and I had flown our son Nelson as well as our son-in-law, Ray, in on Christmas Eve as a special gift to our very pregnant daughter Mandy. When first Nelson, then Ray walked through the front door, Mandy had hollered loud enough that I thought Donna would be summoned to tell us to stop disturbing the peace. Mandy had thrown her arms around Ray and wept so hard she’d soaked his shirt clean through. It made me wonder if she thought her father and I were holding her hostage. But that was ridiculous. We weren’t the ones who’d given her the doctor’s order of “no travel” as well as “complete bed rest” following that terrible scare she’d given us in the ER last month. She was lucky she had us to look after her. I sighed. It was too bad Ray had to return to work at his job in Houston after Thanksgiving. Mandy had been terribly lonely for him. But the baby would arrive in the next month, and Mandy’s little family would be back together in Texas lickety-split. I had to take advantage of the time we’d been given here and now. It would too soon be over.