The Queen of Sleepy Eye (7 page)

Adults can be quite enamored with their cleverness. They can't help telling the whole world about their achievements, whether the world, meaning me, wanted to know about them or not.

He continued. “Now, if I could just convince Mrs. Clancy to add steps directly out the front door. The narrow porch makes that rightangle turn quite difficult with a heavy casket. I've seen more than one casket dropped.” He sighed. “As you can imagine, the families are upset when that happens.”

Hoping to shift the conversation away from bodies moving hither and yon, I asked, “How long have you been a mortician?”

Charles told me all about his family who had owned a funeral home in Lexington, Kentucky. His father taught him the family business, but Charles wanted to go out on his own. From how he described his father, he had been a tough act to follow. I sure understood that. Charles had answered an ad placed in the Clearwater County Herald for an itinerate mortician. “Every day is different,” he said, folding his napkin. “I'm rarely in the same town two days in a row. I'd be happy to show you how I prepare a body for burial. It's quite fascinating. Do you have plans after lunch?”

These types of situations made me happy I'd been a member of the debate team. I could think on my feet. “Sorry, I have to clean the oven.”

The post office closed before Mom came home in the evening, so on the days when Mrs. Clancy went to the Stop-and-Chomp for lunch, I pleaded with Mom to eat her lunches at the funeral home. That way I could keep my promise to write Lauren every day. After Mom and I ate our bologna sandwiches, she sat behind the garage drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes while I went to the post office. Mom said she could hear the phone from where she sat, but she never took one death call that whole summer.

Myron the postal clerk knew my name by the end of our first week in Cordial, and he asked about Mom regularly, the kinds of questions I'd answered for men since I could talk. No, she's a widow. Yes, she likes movies. No, she's not much of a bowler. And the answer I hated most of all—yes, people do confuse us as sisters.

Jane Austen would have described Myron as an affable man with an alabaster dome with no regard for physical exertion, a rare contrast to the great majority of Cordial's ruddy citizenry. Since
I wasn't sure if Myron read the postcards I dropped into the mailbox, I told Lauren that Myron was nice enough to ask after Mom's well-being. Lauren would know what I meant.

A woman with hips broader than her shoulders and a teeny-tiny waist stepped up to the counter. Myron slid a sheet of stamps toward her. “Here ya go, Clarice.”

Stamps in hand, Clarice leaned against the counter. “You might want to stop by the house around eight or so. Oscar was out pickin' strawberries as soon as the sun came up this morning, and he sent me to buy cream and rock salt.” She patted Myron's hand. “You can bring Sheila, if you've a mind to.”

Myron glanced at me and blushed. He busied himself brushing invisible bits of dust off the counter. “I'll have to see about that.”

Clarice tucked her stamps into her purse, and the next customer, a woman I placed as a rancher's wife with her jeans and mud-crusted boots, took her place at Myron's counter.

Myron called after Clarice. “Tell Oscar I'll take a turn at the churn for some of his ice cream.”

Clarice returned to the counter, nudging away the rancher's wife who rolled her eyes for the people waiting in line. Behind me, a man cleared his throat. The shoulders of the man in front of me sagged. Clarice whispered loud enough for all of us to hear. “You'll get an earful, Myron. He's all perturbed about what's going on up on the mesas. Won't shut up about it.” Clarice glanced at the man in front of me. He wore his hair pulled into a shaggy ponytail that reached the middle of his back. I'd already moved as close to him as I dared to get a good whiff. He smelled like a musty barn where the straw hadn't been freshened in a long time, but he didn't smell as bad as Lauren's brother after wrestling practice.

Clarice stood on tiptoe to put her face close to Myron's. “He heard they don't wear no clothes up there.”

The long-haired man shifted his weight and expelled a sharp breath.

Myron shot the man a glance. “You can't believe everything you hear, Clarice.”

“Tell that to Oscar,” she said, pivoting toward the door. With a wave over her shoulder she was gone.

Myron gave his attention to the woman with the crusty boots.

“I need a money order, Myron,” she said, setting her feet in a broad stance.

While Myron issued the money order and received an update on Macon and Karen's upcoming wedding, I read the postcard I'd written to Lauren the night before. I'd made tiny circles instead of periods or dots just as we'd done since we started passing notes in Sunday school.

There was just enough room under my signature to add,

Myron took the hippie's package and placed it on the scales. “Parcel post?” he asked without looking up.

“That's cool.”

“Insurance?”

“No, thank you.”

“Anything else?

“This will be all, thanks.”

“Next.”

The hippie pushed the glass door hard enough that it swung to bang the side of the building. He trotted across the street, shaking his head.

“Amy? Can I help you?”

I hesitated before I took my place at the counter. Myron grinned broadly. My stomach churned. “The usual?” he asked, sliding a postcard across the counter. “How's your mother?”

I dropped a nickel and two pennies into his glistening palm. “Fine.”

“How's she getting by at Gartley's Hardware?”

“Fine.”

“Does she like strawberry ice cream?”

“The last time she looked at strawberry ice cream, she went into anaphylactic shock. She would have died if a doctor hadn't been nearby.”

Myron coughed into his hand. “Give her my regards.”

Mom had no idea that Myron the postal clerk existed, and I planned on keeping it that way. “Sure.”

“Next.”

* * *

I TURNED TOWARD the funeral home and stopped. What was the hurry? Mom said she would answer the phone. The Gartleys gave her a half hour for lunch. That left me ten minutes to do some exploring.

I walked down Main Street. Erase every romantic notion ever held about small-town Main Streets. They didn't apply to Cordial.
I passed a realtor and a barber and the First National Bank, which possessed all of the conventions of longevity and security—stone, brass, and gold lettering on the window—but I walked past the building in only eight paces. I half expected a resident of Lilliput to stumble over the threshold. When I came to Gartley's Hardware Store, I crossed the street, even though the sign in the window reminded me of the chicks inside. Main Street ended at Second Street where a steep rise of earth and the railroad tracks marked the end of the shopping district, such as it was. I followed Second Street past a lumber yard, a feed co-op, and a plumbing outfit with a giant faucet hanging over its door, the only attempt at charm I'd seen in Cordial. The town wore working clothes of blistered paint and rust, not at all like my hometown, Gilbertsville. As a resort town, Gilbertsville bulged with souvenir shops like the Whirligig and a dress shop called The Girl from Ipanema and my personal favorite, Get 'Em While They're Hot, a cookie shop near the marina.

A flash of color caught my eye down a residential street, so I turned to investigate. A row of identical houses about the size of boxcars lined the street, each one painted a rainbow color. Babies slept in the shade on dandelion lawns, and their naked brothers and sisters ran squealing through sprinklers. The mothers, all with long hair and wearing homemade skirts with peasant blouses, sipped tea from mason jars. Between two trees, gauzy hankies the colors of crayons rose and fell with the breeze.

A mother holding a sleeping infant called out to me. “Hey, what's happening?”

“Oh, I'm new in town. Just passing through, really. Thought I'd walk around to get my bearings.”

She left her perch on the steps to walk toward me, her baby undisturbed by her movement. “Would you like some tea?”

The mothers on the porch returned my smile. “I don't have much time.”

She handed over her sleeping child. The weight of him surprised me but not as much as the joy that bubbled in my gut at his touch.

“It won't take me a minute,” she said and disappeared into the lavender house. By the time she returned, I'd taken her seat on the step and rested my cheek on the baby's damp forehead. His white hair rose to tickle my nose with each shift of the breeze. I wasn't thirsty anymore.

“It's chamomile tea,” his mother said. “I grew the herbs and dried the leaves myself. I traded some babysitting for the honey.” She introduced herself as Sasha and her friends as Mildred and Tana. She smiled open-faced, like a sunflower on a cloudless day. She bent to kiss her infant's head. “And this sweet little babe is Zachary, a carbon copy of his old man, Jackson.” She pointed over her shoulder with her thumb towards the front door. “He's there, on the couch, doing what he does best.”

We talked as newly acquainted people do to find the commonalities that linked us. I doubted Sasha and I would find that ground. I told her about Gilbertsville, how the population swelled each summer and receded each fall. “I'm only in Cordial because Mom insists on driving a really old car and the transmission finally died.”

“It's your karma,” she said, lifting the babe from my arms. “Make of it what you will.”

Oh boy.
Baptists did not talk about karma. Baptists talked about praising God in the midst of their trials. Being stuck in Cordial to answer death calls and bake meatloaf for a mortician definitely qualified as a trial in my book. But truthfully, I wasn't singing hallelujahs. I ignored the karma remark and chose to wow the
mothers with my scholarly pursuits. “I'm headed to California to attend college.”

“Cool. What will you study?” asked Sasha.

“Mom wants me to study nursing or become a teacher. You know, something that will get me a good job.”

“What do you want?”

“I love Jane Austen. In fact, I prefer the earliest novels, and by that I mean the eighteenth century. England.”

“You're going to study English literature then?”

“Yeah, which means I'll probably end up as a high school English teacher anyway.” I pictured Miss Benedict in her orthopedic shoes. She never smiled, not even when we read about the Yahoos attacking the Houyhnhnms in
Gulliver's Travels.
I must have shuddered because Sasha touched my arm.

“Just because you have a degree in English lit, doesn't mean you have to do something you hate.”

“It's real important that I support myself.”

“There's lots of ways to do that.” The baby stirred, fussed. Sasha lifted her blouse to expose her breast. Zachary attached himself greedily. My face got hot and I stood.

“I have an M.A. in English literature,” she said.

“You do?”

Her smiled disappeared. “From Harvard.”

“I'm sorry. It's just—”

“No, it's cool. I'm used to it.”

“Are you teaching?”

She laughed. “In Cordial? They'd never …”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“My old man and I were working on our doctorates when we found out I was pregnant with Christina—the mischievous one there,
chasing poor Alex with the hose. She's named after Christina Rossetti, poet, nineteenth century. You're familiar with her, of course.”

I wasn't.

“Anyway, living in the city was getting us down. The whole adversarial process of getting a doctorate wasn't our bag. Nothing Gregory wrote or said pleased his dissertation committee, so we called a friend who owns an organic farm here. We packed up the car the next day. He's in Texas now—or Florida.” Sasha raised Zachary to her shoulder to pat a burp out of him. “You can know a lot of stuff without knowing how to live, Amy. Life is a journey.”

One of the churches in town let out a single bong from its bell tower to mark the half hour. “I have to go.”

* * *

AT THE FUNERAL home, Mom paced the front porch. “Amy, where have you been?”

“There was a long line at the post office.”

“I'm ten minutes late.” She sat on the bench by the door to tie her tennis shoes.

“I'm really sorry. I stopped to talk to some ladies drinking tea, and they offered me some. I lost track of time.”

She sucked a long drag off her cigarette. “Were they hippies?”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“Were they wearing shoes?”

I pictured Sasha's long toes curled over the edge of the step. “I don't remember.”

“Walk with me,” she said, shouldering her purse. “Listen, I want you to stay away from the hippies. Do you hear me? You should read the newspaper. The hippies aren't exactly loved around here. Things go missing from the store whenever they come in. Their children are
wild. Russell says most of them believe the world owes them a living.” She snuffed out her cigarette under the toe of her shoe and handed it to me. “Flush this for me, will you? I left some hamburgers thawing on the counter. Put them in the frig in an hour or so.”

Mom walked toward the corner. She made her work uniform—Wranglers and a chambray shirt—look fashionable. She had tied the shirt at her waist and rolled the sleeves to her elbows, but no amount of bleach would whiten her tennis shoes again.

“Be home on time,” I called after her. “There's a viewing tonight for Miss Bigelow.”

Mom skidded to a stop on the gravel and turned. “Oh rats, Amy, I've already made plans with Bonnie.”

“I was hoping you'd help me.”

She blew me a kiss. “I will,
fofa
. I promise. Another time.”

The hamburger hit the back of the freezer with a thud. “No hamburgers for us,” I said, slamming the freezer door. Because of the viewing, we would have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner.

I knelt by my bed and prayed. “Lord, you have to save my mother. She's driving me crazy. Amen.”