Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (45 page)

“Look, she must have written me a letter.” She opened it and read the note:

Mrs. Hartman said, “Well, bless her heart, she wanted you to have those.”

Evelyn was sad as she carefully folded the note and put everything back. She thought, My God, a living, breathing person was on this earth for eighty-six years, and this is all that’s left, just a shoe box full of old papers.

Evelyn asked Mrs. Hartman if she could tell her how to get to where the cafe had been.

“It’s just a couple of blocks up the road. I’ll be happy to go with you and show you if you want me to.”

“That would be wonderful, if you could.”

“Oh sure. Just let me turn off my beans and throw my roast in the oven, and I’ll be right there.”

Evelyn put the picture and the shoe box in the car, and while she was waiting, she walked over to Mrs. Threadgoode’s yard. She looked up and started to laugh; still stuck up, high in the silver birch tree, was Mrs. Threadgoode’s broom she had thrown at the bluejays over a year ago, and sitting on the telephone wires were those blackbirds Mrs. Threadgoode thought had been listening to her on the phone. The house was just as Mrs. Threadgoode had described it, with her pots of geraniums, right down to the dog-eared snowball bushes in the front.

When Mrs. Hartman came out, they drove a few blocks from the house and she showed her where the cafe used to be,
sitting not twenty feet from the railroad tracks. Right beside it was a little brick building, also abandoned, but Evelyn could just make out a faded sign in the window: OPAL’S BEAUTY SHOP. Everything was just as she had imagined.

Mrs. Hartman showed her the spot where Poppa Threadgoode’s store used to be, now a Rexall Drug Store with an Elks Club on the second story.

Evelyn asked if it would be possible to see Troutville.

“Sure, honey, it’s right across the tracks.”

When they drove through the little black section, Evelyn was surprised at how small it was—just a few blocks of tiny, run-down shacks. Mrs. Hartman pointed out one little house with faded green tin chairs on the front porch and told her that’s where Big George and Onzell had lived until they went over to Birmingham to stay with their son Jasper.

As they drove out, she saw Ocie’s grocery store, attached to the side of a falling-down, wooden shotgun house that had once been painted baby blue. The front of the store was plastered with faded old signs from the thirties, urging you to DRINK BUFFALO ROCK GINGER ALE … MELLOWED A MILLION MINUTES OR MORE …

Evelyn suddenly remembered something from her childhood.

“Mrs. Hartman, do you think they might have a strawberry soda in there?”

“I’ll bet he does.”

“Would it be all right if we went in?”

“Oh sure, a lot of white people shop over here.”

Evelyn parked and they went in. Mrs. Hartman went to the old man in the white shirt and suspenders and began shouting in his ear. “Ocie, this is Mrs. Couch. She was a friend of Ninny Threadgoode’s!”

The minute Ocie heard Mrs. Threadgoode’s name, his eyes lit up and he got up and ran over and hugged Evelyn. Evelyn, who had never been hugged by a black man in her life, was caught off guard. Ocie started talking to her a mile a minute, but she couldn’t understand a word he was saying because he had no teeth.

Mrs. Hartman shouted at him again, “No honey, this isn’t her daughter! This is her friend Mrs. Couch, from Birmingham …”

Ocie kept grinning and smiling at her.

Mrs. Hartman was rooting around in the cold drink box and pulled out a strawberry soda. “Look! Here you are.”

Evelyn tried to pay for it, but Ocie kept saying something to her that she still could not understand.

“He says put your money away, Mrs. Couch. He wants you to have that cold drink on him.”

Evelyn was flustered, but thanked Ocie, and he followed them out to the car, still talking and grinning.

Mrs. Hartman shouted, “BYE-BYE!” She turned to Evelyn. “He’s as deaf as a post.”

“I figured that. I just can’t get over him hugging me like that.”

“Well, you know, he thought the world of Mrs. Threadgoode. He’s been knowing her since he was a little boy.”

They drove back over the tracks, and Mrs. Hartman said, “Honey, if you take a right on the next street, I’ll show you where the old Threadgoode place is.”

The minute they turned the corner, she saw it: a big, two-story white wooden house with the front porch that went all around. She recognized it from the pictures.

Evelyn pulled up in front, and they got out.

The windows were mostly broken and boarded up, and the wood on the front porch was caved in and rotten, so they couldn’t go up. It looked like the whole house was ready to fall down. They walked around to the back.

Evelyn said, “What a shame they let this place go. I’ll bet it was beautiful at one time.”

Mrs. Hartman agreed. “At one time, this was the prettiest house in Whistle Stop. But all the Threadgoodes are gone now, so I guess they’re just gonna tear it down one of these days.”

When they got to the backyard, Evelyn and Mrs. Hartman were surprised at what they saw. The old trellis, leaning on the back of the house, was entirely covered with thousands of little
pink sweetheart roses, blooming like they had no idea that the people inside had left long ago.

Evelyn peeked in the broken window and saw a cracked, white enamel table. She wondered how many biscuits had been cut on that table throughout the years.

When she took Mrs. Hartman home, she thanked her for going along.

“Oh, my pleasure, we almost never get anybody out here to visit anymore, not since the trains stopped running. I’m sorry that we had to meet under such sad circumstances, but I’ve enjoyed meeting you so much, and please come back just anytime you want to.”

Although it was late, Evelyn decided to drive by the old house one more time. It was just getting dark, and as she came down the street, her lights hit the windows in such a way that it looked to her like there were people inside, moving around … and all of a sudden, she could have sworn that she heard Essie Rue pounding away at the old piano in the parlor …

“Buffalo gals, won’t you come out tonight, come out tonight …”

Evelyn stopped the car and sat there, sobbing like her heart would break, wondering why people had to get old and die.

I am sorry to report that this will be the last issue. Ever since I took my other half to south Alabama for a vacation, he has been having a fit to live there. We found ourselves a place right on the bay, so we are going to move down in a couple of weeks. Now the old coot can fish night and day if he wants to. I know I spoil him, but with all his orneriness, he’s still a pretty good old guy. Don’t know what to say about leaving, so I won’t say much. Both of us were raised right here in Whistle Stop, and had so many wonderful times and friends. But most of them have gone somewhere else. The place doesn’t seem the same, and now, with all these new super highways they got, you can hardly tell where Birmingham ends and Whistle Stop begins.

Now that I look back, it seems to me that after the cafe closed, the heart of the town just stopped beating.
Funny how a little knockabout like that brought so many people together.

At least we all have our memories, and I’ve still got my old sweetheart with me.

 … Dot Weems …

P.S. If any of you ever get to Fairhope, Alabama, look us up. I’ll be the one sitting on the back porch, cleaning all the fish.

…      …

The second Easter after Mrs. Threadgoode died, Evelyn was determined to make it to the cemetery. She bought a beautiful spray of white Easter lilies and drove out in her new pink Cadillac, wearing her fourteen-karat studded bumblebee pin with the emerald eyes, another award.

Earlier today, she’d been to brunch with her Mary Kay group, so it was late afternoon. Most of the people had been there and gone already, but the cemetery was filled with spectacular Easter arrangements of every color.

Evelyn had to drive around for a while before she finally found the Threadgoode family plot. The first grave she found was Ruth Jamison’s. She walked on down the row and found the big double headstone with the angel:

BELOVED PARENTS
NOT LOST
BUT GONE BEFORE
WHERE WE SHALL MEET AGAIN

Next to them was:

JAMES LEE (BUDDY) THREADGOODE
1898–1919
A YOUTH CUT DOWN BEFORE HIS TIME
WHO LIVES ON IN OUR HEARTS

She found Edward’s, Cleo’s, and Mildred’s graves; but she couldn’t find her friend’s, and she began to panic. Where was Mrs. Threadgoode?

Finally, one row down on the right, she saw:

ALBERT THREADGOODE
1930–1978
OUR ANGEL ON THIS EARTH
SAFE AT LAST IN THE ARMS OF JESUS

She looked beside Albert’s grave, and there it was:

MRS. VIRGINIA (NINNY) THREADGOODE
1899–1986
GONE HOME

The memory and sweetness of the old woman flooded back in an instant, and she realized just how much she missed her. Tears ran down her face while she placed the flowers, and then she went about the business of pulling up all the little weeds that had grown up around the tombstone. She consoled herself by thinking that one thing was for sure; if there really was a heaven, Mrs. Threadgoode was certainly there. She wondered if there would ever be a pure, untouched soul like her on this earth again.… She doubted it.

It’s funny, Evelyn thought. Because of knowing Mrs. Threadgoode, she was not as scared of getting old or dying as she had once been, and death did not seem all that far away. Even today, it was as if Mrs. Threadgoode was just standing behind a door.

Evelyn began quietly speaking to her friend. “I’m sorry I
haven’t gotten out here sooner, Mrs. Threadgoode. You’ll never know how many times I’ve thought about you and wished I could speak to you. I felt so bad I didn’t get to see you before you died. I just never dreamed in a million years that I would never see you again. I never did get a chance to thank you. If it hadn’t been for you talking to me like you did every week, I don’t know what I would have done.”

She paused for a moment, and then went on, “I got that pink Cadillac for us, Mrs. Threadgoode. I thought it would make me happy, but you know, it didn’t mean half as much without you to go for a ride in it with me. I’ve often wished I could come and pick you up and we could go on a Sunday drive, or over to Ollie’s for some barbecue.”

She moved to the other side of the headstone and continued pulling the weeds and talking. “I’ve been asked to do some work with the mental health group, over at the university hospital … and I might do it.” She laughed. “I told Ed, I might as well work for a disease I’ve had.”

“And you’re not going to believe this, Mrs. Threadgoode, but I’m a grandmother now. Twice. Janice had twin girls. And you remember Ed’s mother, Big Momma? Well, we put her over at Meadowlark Manor, and she likes it much better, and I was just as glad.… I hated going out to Rose Terrace after you died. The last time I went, Geneene told me that Vesta Adcock is crazy as ever, still upset over Mr. Dunaway leaving.

“Everybody misses you: Geneene, your neighbors the Hartmans … I went out there and got the things you left me, and I use those recipes all the time. Oh, by the way, I’ve lost forty-three pounds since the last time you saw me. I still have five more to go.

“And, let’s see, your friend Ocie died last month, but then, I guess you know that. Oh, I knew there was another thing I had to tell you: