Whistlin' Dixie in a Nor'easter (20 page)

“Mrs. Duke?” she said, when a woman answered.

“Yes.”

“Leelee Satterfield calling.”

“He’s still backed up, Ms. Satterfield. I suspect now he won’t get to your place b’fore five—”

“Here’s the deal, Mrs. Duke. I presume you are Mrs. Duke, is that right?”

“I am.”

“Good. I don’t care what time he gets here. All I know is I’m not shoveling any more snow today. I’ve spent
hours
creating an alley around my car. And it took me four hours before that to even
reach
my car. And, when I finished, I realized that there was as much snow
on top
of my car as there was around it! Would you like to know what happened to all that snow on top of my car, Mrs. Duke?” The lunatic didn’t even give Mrs. Duke a chance to get a word in edgewise. “I’ll tell you.
It landed in my alley!
Now, I don’t care what you have to do to get my car out of this driveway. You can bring in a backhoe if you like or you can send out an eighteen-wheeler tow truck.
BUT I AM NOT SHOVELING ANY MORE SNOW TODAY, THE NEXT DAY, OR THE DAY AFTER THAT! Please, just get this snow out of my life. Don’t y’all realize that it’s April, for God’s sake?”

“We don’t normally get out of the truck to shovel,” the woman said in a monotone.

“Every job has a price tag. That’s one thing I’ve learned for sure up here.”

“Well, I’ll see what we can do and get back with you.”

“Thank you very much,” the wild woman said. “You can call this your good deed
for life
!”

When Bud Duke finally arrived at 7:00
P.M.
, dusk had fallen over the Vermont Haus Inn. It was quiet as can be outside when his truck lights lit up my little car to free her at last. Another guy was in the truck with him and within twenty short minutes the two men had cleared a new three-foot alley around my car. His snowplow pushed the snow in my driveway to new heights, creating a snowy fort that made it impossible to see the road.

Much to my surprise, the man took pity on me. When he handed me a bill for his labor, it wasn’t the two hundred dollars I had expected. He only charged me fifty.

“Gosh, if I had known it would only be fifty bucks, I would have had you here a long time ago, Bud,” I said.

“Well, we don’t normally do this, Mrs. Satterfield, but I could tell by your path and the way you slung your snow shovel you hadn’t done much shovelin’ b’fore today.”

“You are extremely perceptive. I’ve never shoveled snow in my entire life. And I don’t plan to ever do it again.”

The look on his face told the story. He didn’t say anything but I knew what he was thinking:
Yeah right, sister. Not if you’re goin’ to live around here.

But I’m not, Bud Duke
, I said to myself.
I’ll never live through, nor will I ever visit, another Vermont winter again.

Chapter Thirteen

Mud Season, as it is affectionately called, begins somewhere around mid-April or the first of May. The Thaw is another term the Vermonters use to portray this dreadful time of year. When the sun finally decides to shine, and the temperatures rise above freezing, the remainder of the snow starts melting and it seeps back into the ground. It creates one big slosh of a mess. Mud is absolutely everywhere and it covers everything—the yard, the car, the floors, the walls, your clothes. It’s worse than kudzu.

To get from your house to your car, you have to walk tightrope style—across wooden boards stretched across the walkways—because of course, even the walkways are covered in mud. I broke down and ordered a pair of L.L.Bean duck boots and they never left my feet the months of April, May, and the better part of June. Every time I performed my circus act from the car to the house, and the boards wiggled and jiggled under my feet from the pressure of my weight in the mud, I was glad I had the boots.

The winter never seemed to want to disappear. The mounds of snow, piled up under the eaves of the roof, had the stubbornness of an old stain. They took forever to go away. And by this time of year the snow is filthy. What’s left on the side of the road is black from the car exhaust and
road grime. The Currier and Ives image of Vermont is replaced with dingy, dark, and depressing yuck. I decided to go on and unpack my shorts and sundresses anyway. I don’t know, just looking at them in my closet gave me the hope that warm weather was on the way.

An even scarier thought than the treacherous winter weighed heavy on my mind. The idea of breaking the news about Baker to my mortgage holders was enough to make me sick. After all, they had handpicked the Satterfields themselves. They had chosen Baker and me to carry on their legacy. There was only one courageous way to handle the situation. I’d let Ed Baldwin do it.
You owe me that much . . . you asshole.

I asked Ed to meet me for coffee at the only place in town to get a cheeseburger, JoJo’s. Biggest problem with JoJo’s was it was the hot spot, with George Clark and every local in town eating there almost every day. The booths and tables were close together, making it very difficult to carry on a confidential conversation. It was the kind of place where the people eating are so bored with one another that people-watching was the pastime of choice. Any time I walked into JoJo’s everyone stopped and looked up at the same time. Blank stares from forty pairs of eyes, then all at once they’d drop back down to their meals.

Roberta came over to watch Issie while I stole away to JoJo’s. Ed was already seated when I arrived. He stood up, offered me a phony hug, and then scooted back into a conspicuous middle booth. A cola drink was waiting for me on my side of the table. (Let me stop right here and say that everyone in Vermont refers to Cokes as sodas. It is only for clarification that I refer to my Coke as a cola drink.) My first sip let me know that Ed Baldwin still hadn’t gotten my order right. Not only was it a Pepsi, this one was a diet. I hadn’t seen ole Ed in nearly five months so when he opened his mouth to speak, I was taken aback all over again by his extra-thick veneers.

“You’re looking well, Leelee. Vermont life must be agreeing with you,” he said.

I wanted to say: Is that so? I’m as pale as a ghost. It’s May, you know, and
May is still winter up here
. And, my husband has left me for another woman. But as usual I didn’t confront him. “That’s kind of you to say,” I lied.

I made sure to keep my voice down, sometimes even whispering. After
we ordered, I exposed the turmoil in my life, even though I was sure he already knew.

He
seemed
genuinely concerned. “I’m sorry to hear this. I thought Baker was gung ho about the restaurant business.” Ed had to keep wiping his fingers on the napkin next to his plate due to slathering his french fries in ketchup.

“So did I.” I sat glumly in the booth and stared down at my cheeseburger.

Obviously he didn’t know how to handle my grief because his tone changed from disturbed to upbeat. “So you say he’s the OM at Powder Mountain now, huh? How’s it working out for him?”

“I . . . sshhh,” I whispered, and pressed my hand up and down to let him know that I would appreciate him keeping his voice down. “I don’t know and I don’t really want to know.”
Oh yes I do.
“How much do you know about Barb Thurmond?” I whispered, even lower.

“I only know what I’ve heard on the streets.” He leaned in and whispered back. “She’s divorced from a super-wealthy guy, a Wall Street mogul. They were real jet-setters from what I hear. Her ex still lives in New York and—I should pay her a visit sometime.” He sounded like he had just come up with an idea of how to strike gold.

Talking about outrageous. Here I was in the middle of a disaster and this ne’er-do-well was planning his next commission check. Looking back on it now, I should have gotten up and walked out on the spot. But all I could think about was getting the place sold right away, and I thought surely Ed could find another sucker.

Ed, the slick wheeler-dealer, suggested a list price of $450,000. That was $65,000 more than we paid in the first place, a chance to recoup some of our expenses. Ed, of course, had a blank contract in his briefcase and filled out the listing agreement right there on the spot. I signed a contract giving him an exclusive on the property for one year. He reassured me it would never take that long to sell and that it was just a formality.

“May I ask you a favor?” I had just signed my name to the contract, so I felt like this was the time to get what
I
wanted.

“Of course, you may ask me a favor. What else can I do for you?”

“Would you mind breaking the news to Rolf and Helga for me, about the sale of the inn? I’m sure they’ll hear about Baker as soon as they fill up their car, if they haven’t already received a cross-Atlantic phone call by now. But I would so appreciate it if you told them that I’m gonna be selling the inn. Rolf is nice enough to me, but Helga’s another story. She can’t stand me for some reason.”

“Huh,” Ed said, seemingly confused. “I’m surprised to hear that. I’ve never heard of anyone else having problems with Helga. But, be that as it may, I’ll go over to their home personally when they return from Germany. How’s that?”

“That’s perfect. Thank you. That’s one mountain I don’t want to climb.”

“My pleasure.” I knew it was his pleasure all right. He was going to make a fat commission on the same property twice in the same year. “I’ll be contacting you soon with potential buyers. Keep the place in shipshape condition. You never know when I’ll call with only a moment’s notice.”

I wanted to say: Don’t forget to brag about the superb owners’ quarters in your ad, but I knew I didn’t have to.

The last thing I wanted was for it to appear to be a distress sale, even though everyone involved knew it absolutely, positively
was
a distress sale.

May was here and the girls were finally,
finally
able to play outside without snowsuits, hats, scarves, gloves, and boots. Actually, I take that back. We still had to wear jackets and boots and toe heaters but it was still wonderful to be outside.

Notwithstanding the fact that my departure was drawing near, the garden was still beckoning me. Crocuses were popping up and the peeping heads of the daffodil foliage were making their first show of the season. It looked like February back home instead of May to me, but I was elated to finally get a glimpse of color. White was the only color I’d seen in Vermont for months—white houses, white snow, white skies, white people, Rolf’s white beard—I surely had had enough of white. Back home, the azaleas and dogwoods had finished blooming by this time and the leaves on the trees had long since popped out.

“Something’s stinging me.” Sarah ran toward me, crying. “Right here on my neck.” When she pulled her hand away her little fingers were spotted with blood.

“What in the world?” I pulled up her dark wavy ponytail to see the back of her neck. Seconds later, Issie had the same complaint only she could hardly get a breath from crying so hard. Upon examination I learned that undeniably both the girls’ little necks had been bitten. But by what? Mosquitoes don’t draw blood, and neither do bees nor hornets. (The real reason for this unexpected disturbance, I would soon learn, would have been enough to put any relocated Southerner in bed for a week.)

“It’s gonna be fine, sweet girls. Go on back to play. It was just a freak accident.” The girls headed back to the swing set and I got back to digging.

I was daydreaming about my backyard in Memphis when something stung the back of
my
neck. I jerked my hand around almost as fast as it happened to try and catch the predator. No luck. It kept on hurting but I kept on digging—until it happened again. This time when I touched my neck, and blood stained my muddy fingers, I did the only thing I knew to do. I called the definitive authority on the state of Vermont herself, Roberta Abbott. She and Moe were to be spending the day chopping wood to store up for
next
winter. I told Roberta that it was still
this
winter as far as I was concerned. Lucky for me she was inside getting a drink of water and answered on the first ring.

“Roberta! Have y’all started chopping yet?”

“You bet we have. Me and Moe have chopped two cords already. What’s wrong? You sound upset.”

“I am upset. The girls and I were outside no less than five minutes when we were bitten by some vampire bugs. All three of us have blood dripping down our necks. Do you have them at your house?”

“Welcome to spring in Vermont.”

“Hang on, Roberta, I must be hearing things. I could have sworn I just heard you say ‘Welcome to spring in Vermont.’ ”

“I did! I’m talkin’ about blackflies. Don’t yous have blackflies in Tennessee?”

“Of course we have blackflies in Tennessee. But I’ve never in my life had one bite me, much less
draw blood
.”

“Well, they draw blood here, and it hurts like a son of a gun.”

“I’ll say it hurts. Our flies back home hang out in the windows and around the food. Then, of course, there are the green ones that buzz around the dog . . . well, never mind, that’s gross. They may drive you crazy by flying around your head but they don’t
bite
you, for heaven’s sake.”

“You’ve gut the wrong fly. I’m talkin’ about the blackflies that are nearly impossible to see.”

“No-see-ums? We have those. They’re annoying but they don’t bite you. Tennessee doesn’t have y’all’s kinds of blackflies.”

“Well, don’t worry, you’ll get used to them. Just make sure to use bug repellant every time you go outside and keep the rest of your body bundled up, too. They love kids. Moe’s kids got covered in bites every year because their darn mother was too busy to wrap ’em up.”

“You’re not gonna tell me this goes on all summer, are you?” I said, just kidding around.

“Nuup, I’m happy to report they only last about seven or eight weeks.”

“SEVEN OR EIGHT WEEKS?” I shrieked into the phone.