The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat (23 page)

And poor Lester. World War II had only succeeded in adding a hitch to his step, but his son’s death defeated him. He turned into an old man that year. The first in a long list of chronic ailments—a kidney problem, if memory serves—made its appearance just a month after Adam’s funeral.

Lester dosed himself with work the same way Barbara Jean medicated her sorrow with alcohol. With Adam gone, Lester started taking more business trips, staying away from home longer. And when he returned, he looked more exhausted and more miserable.

When he had Adam, Lester’s work energized him and kept him young. Barbara Jean might have seen her son as a future painter because of his elaborate crayon drawings or a musician because he was such a natural at the piano, but Lester knew that his boy was meant to work with the land like his daddy. On the weekends and during Adam’s summer break from school, Lester brought his son with him whenever he had jobs around Plainview. Lester joined in doing the sort of grunt work that was customarily left to low-level employees so that Adam could see and understand every aspect of the business he would inherit one day. And Adam had loved every minute of it. Dressed in his overalls, he followed his father everywhere, planting, digging, and raking with his miniature tools.

Now that he wasn’t creating something to hand over to his son, there was no reason for Lester to touch a shovel or lift a rake. His body withered along with his spirit, and his life’s work turned into a numbers game. He made deal after deal and piled up cash like he thought it might make him and Barbara Jean happy one day.

Even though they were from different generations and even though the one thing, or so it had always seemed to me, that bound them as a couple was gone, Lester and Barbara Jean stayed together and sometimes managed to look like all that money really was bringing them happiness. Richer, sicker, sadder, and older, as the shock of Adam’s death faded, they built new lives.

It was during that awful first year that the Supremes and the fragile new life Barbara Jean and Lester were building nearly came to an end, with some help from Richmond Baker.

We were at our table at the All-You-Can-Eat on a Sunday afternoon. Clarice’s twins were seated in their highchairs between her and Richmond. Denise was on James’s lap, making a macaroni and cheese sculpture. The other children were at a table of their own just a few feet away, within snatching distance.

Clarice tried to keep up a conversation between yawns. The twins had really knocked the stuffing out of Clarice in a way the older two hadn’t. She could barely keep her eyes open some days.

Barbara Jean looked divine that Sunday in a dress of layered taffeta that was traffic-cone orange. Big Earl stood and applauded her when she walked into the restaurant. Lester was out of town again, so she was alone. She was relatively steady on her feet, but she talked in an uneven, overly careful way that telegraphed her drunken state to those of us who really knew her.

During that meal I watched as a curious and troubling scene played out. We were discussing the latest round of renovations going on at Barbara Jean’s house. It was one of the few activities that seemed to really interest Barbara Jean around that time. Things started going funny when she said, “What I need to do right now is get a carpenter in there to do some work in the bedroom closets. Somebody put in metal shelves at some point, and those things are coming
down practically every day. One of them almost took my head off last night.”

Richmond said, “You don’t need to hire anybody to do that. Lester can take care of that with an electric drill and some masonry screws in no time.”

Barbara Jean shook her head no. “Lester’s gone for the next two weeks and I’ve got to do something about it right away.” She laughed and said, “I think that for everyone’s safety I’d better not try to do it myself.”

Richmond, the charitable Mr. Fix-it, said, “I’d be happy to come over and help you out.”

Barbara Jean leaned across James to pat Richmond’s arm. “Richmond, you are a lifesaver.”

The thing with Richmond was that he
would
help a friend in need without giving it a second thought. As much as he annoyed me, I had to admit that he really was that guy who’d hand you the shirt off his back. Unfortunately, when an attractive woman was involved, Richmond would hand her the shirt off his back and then toss her his pants and underwear, too.

Alarm bells went off in my head when Richmond turned his
at your service
smile on Barbara Jean. I looked at Clarice and James to see if they were hearing the same warning signal I was. But Clarice was focused on the twins, not her husband. And James was bouncing Denise on his knee and not paying a bit of attention to anything else that was happening at the table.

That night at home I stewed over what I’d heard earlier at the All-You-Can-Eat. I told myself it wasn’t any of my business and that my friends were responsible adults. They would come to the right decisions on their own. And even if they didn’t do the right thing, it wasn’t my place to step in. Finally, when it was clear that turning things over in my mind was going to ruin
Kojak
for me, I told James that I had an errand to run and I left the house to act upon my true nature.

I smelled Richmond before I saw him. Since he was a teenager, he’d worn the same lemony, woody cologne. It always marched into the room several seconds before he did. I was waiting in the shadows, sitting in one of the wicker rockers on Barbara Jean’s front porch when he stepped up to the door.

I said, “Hello there, Richmond,” just loud enough for him to hear me.

He jumped, put his hand to his chest, and said, “Odette, you damn near scared me to death.” Then he asked, “What are you doing here?”

“Just enjoying the night air. What about you, Richmond? What brings you by Barbara Jean’s tonight?”

He produced a smile that I would have believed was innocent through and through if I hadn’t known him better. He said, “I told Barbara Jean I’d come by and take a look at those shelves of hers that keep falling.”

“That’s truly sweet, Richmond. But I’ve got some bad news for you.”

“What’s that?”

I pointed to the sack in his hand and said, “Looks like you were in such a rush to come over here and be a Good Samaritan that you went and picked up the wrong bag. Instead of your drill, you accidentally grabbed a bottle of wine. Must be the stress of dealing with the twins.”

He lost his smile then and said, “Listen, Odette, it’s not what you’re thinking. I was just—”

I interrupted him. “Richmond, why don’t you come over here and sit with me for a minute.”

He hemmed and hawed, saying that he should probably get back home.

“Just for a minute, Richmond. Really, I insist.”

He groaned and then took a seat in the chair next to mine, falling into it like a teenager who’d been called into the vice-principal’s office.

He placed the bottle of wine on the floor between his feet and said, “Odette, I was just paying a friendly visit. Nothing’s happened and
nothing’s going to happen. But Clarice might get things mixed up. You aren’t going to tell her, are you?”

“No, Richmond, I’m not going to tell Clarice. But you and I have to have a conversation because there’s something I need to tell you.”

I rocked back and forth in the chair a few times to think about what I wanted to say. Then I said, “If I weren’t married to a man everyone loves, I probably wouldn’t have a true friend in this world, except Barbara Jean and Clarice.”

He said, “That’s not true. You’re a perfectly charming woman.”

I waved off the compliment, saying, “Richmond, you have lovely manners. I’ve always admired that about you. But you don’t need to waste time blowing smoke up my ass. I know who I am.”

I continued, “I’m a tough woman to be around. I don’t try to be, I just am. I don’t know how James deals with me. And to top it off, I was never pretty enough for people to overlook me being a pain in the ass.”

He started to interrupt once more, but again I stopped him. “Please, Richmond, let me go on. I promise to get to the point.

“I know that you probably think I don’t like you. Maybe Clarice told you that I warned her not to marry you.” In the dim light from the street lamps out on Main Street, I saw an expression of surprise on his face. “She didn’t tell you, huh? Well, I did. I told her you’d always be a cheater no matter how hard she tried to change you and that she was better off without you. I shouldn’t have said it, but I did. That’s kind of my way.

“But I want you to know that I really don’t have anything against you. And I understand why Clarice loves you. You’re polite. You’re funny. When I watch you with your children, I see a kind, warm side of you that is absolutely beautiful. And, even though I hate to admit it, you are one of the best-looking men I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

He relaxed then. A discussion of his physical attractiveness was something Richmond had always been comfortable with. “And I love Clarice, I really do.”

“I believe you. But what you need to understand is I’ll do absolutely anything to protect the handful of people in this world who
truly love me. And, Richmond, if you follow your dick and go in this house with Barbara Jean, she’ll never be able to see herself as a decent human being again. She’ll come to her senses tomorrow and hate herself for letting it happen. It’ll eat her alive, almost as bad as losing Adam. Clarice will eventually figure it out and feel more humiliated than she has ever felt with any of your other women. And then, Richmond”—I reached out and placed my hand on his muscular forearm—“I will have to kill you.”

Richmond laughed and then said, “Okay, Odette, I get it. I’ll stay away from Barbara Jean.”

“No, Richmond, I don’t think you really get it yet.” I squeezed his arm tighter and said, very slowly, “I am as serious as a heart attack. If you ever come sniffing around Barbara Jean again, I will kill you dead.”

I held his gaze and added, “I won’t want to. And it will bring me no pleasure to do it. But, still, I will kill you.”

Our eyes locked for several seconds and I watched the last traces of a smile leave his face as he took in that I was telling him God’s honest truth.

He nodded. “I understand.”

I patted his arm and said, “Well, this has been real nice. I don’t know about you, but I feel a whole lot better.”

I pushed the sleeve of his shirt a few inches higher on his wrist and read his watch in the faint light. “And would you look at that,” I said, “I can still catch the end of
Kojak
.” I stood and stepped to the edge of the porch. “Why don’t you walk me home?”

Richmond picked up the bottle and came along with me, down the stairs and onto the stone walkway that led to Main Street. I looped my arm around his and said, “It really is a lovely evening, isn’t it?”

I looked over my shoulder as we turned onto the sidewalk. Just for a second, I caught sight of Barbara Jean peeking out of an upstairs window at me and Richmond, a man who now understood me in a way that even James didn’t, as we strolled away from her magnificent house.

After saying goodbye to her last piano student of the day, Clarice went to visit Odette. Late February had brought with it a spell of false spring. Temperatures were almost twenty degrees above normal and she felt energized by the warm weather.

Odette was having a bad month. She didn’t complain, but Clarice could see that she had practically no energy. The previous Sunday at the All-You-Can-Eat, Odette had terrified everyone at the table by leaving an entire pork chop untouched on her plate at the end of supper. So Clarice decided to drop by bearing a slice of peach cobbler, a bag of gifts, and some decent local gossip she’d picked up. (Rumor had it that Clifton Abrams, less than five months from marrying Sharon, had something going on the side.)

Everyone in town was celebrating the unexpected warm weather by airing out their homes. For the first time in months, Clarice passed by open door after open door as Plainview’s residents welcomed in the unseasonable breeze. Odette and James’s front door was also open, and standing on their porch, Clarice peered through the screen door and saw them in their living room. James sat on the sofa and Odette sat on the floor in front of him with her back to him and her legs stretched out on the rag rug. She petted an enormous calico cat that Clarice didn’t recognize. Odette still picked up strays, so this one could have been added just that day. Two other cats lounged across her shins. Her eyes were closed and her head was tilted back. James, who had half a dozen bobby pins squeezed between his lips, attempted to coax Odette’s hair into a semblance of the style she’d worn it in most days for the last three decades, pulled into a tight bun on the back of her skull.

Odette had lost a lot of hair by that time, and what was left didn’t want to cooperate with the twisting and tugging of James’s long, clumsy fingers. Repeatedly, he would lift one of the remaining tendrils of hair only to have it slip away from him or simply break off at the root and float down onto Odette’s shoulder.

When a particularly large clump of hair came off in his hand, he spat out the bobby pins and said, “I’m sorry.”

She said, “That’s okay. Most of it’s already come out anyway.” Then she reached back and grabbed his shirt and pulled him down toward her. She kissed him on the mouth.

When Odette released her husband, she looked at him with a softness in her face that Clarice only saw when Odette looked at James. It was a warm glow that never failed to make her look pretty.

Through the screen, Clarice watched James redouble his efforts to style Odette’s hair. She had just raised her hand to knock when she heard Odette chuckle and say, “Clarice is gonna be thrilled when I go bald. She’s been wanting me to cover up this mess on my head with a wig since we were in the eighth grade.”

Clarice knew that Odette hadn’t meant anything unkind by that remark. She knew that Odette would happily say the same thing directly to her with a broad smile on her face. But that knowledge didn’t help her at that moment. All she wanted to do was rush inside and shout to Odette that she loved the sight of her just as she was—good hair, bad hair, or no hair. But Clarice didn’t move. She couldn’t.