Southern Living (17 page)

“Dewayne, look at this!” Margaret said.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Lemon grass! I can’t believe you have lemon grass! I haven’t seen lemon grass since I moved here.”

“What on earth you gonna use grass for?” he asked.

But she was off again. This variety of apples! It shamed the
Kroger near her house … Jonagolds and Fujis and Empires and the hard-to-find Cortlands. Across the aisle, rectangular baskets nearly spilled over with Anaheim chilis, habaneros, dried chipotles, anchos, and gingerroot. Laying alongside the omnipresent collards were the more exotic escarole and kale and mustard greens. And the melons! Casabas and canaries and …

“That’s the way to do it,” said a voice.

Holding a melon in her hands, Margaret looked up and saw a beautiful young woman in a Kroger uniform standing beside her. On her face was an odd scar shaped like the letter L.

“I’m sorry?” Margaret said.

“You know how to pick produce. With your nose. The best fruits don’t always look real pretty. Like these melons.”

The woman—her name tag said
Donna
—scanned the pile of crenshaws then finally picked one up. “See,” she said. “The shoppers who want the pretty fruit don’t always get the good fruit. Like these crenshaws. I see ’em every time, shoppers come in here and they try to find a clean melon, and I try to tell ’em, you
want
that flat muddy spot because that means it wasn’t picked early, and it was sittin’ on the ground gettin’ sweet and ripe.”

Donna had been sampling every item she sold and learned that the most delicious and beautiful of God’s creations often hid behind an imperfect epidermis. The sweetest, reddest pomegranates had dents and brown scabs. The mottled Fujis, not the storybook-perfect Red Delicious, were the sweetest and crispest and most predictable. And the kiwis! For years, Donna hadn’t touched them; brown and stubbly, they looked like they’d dropped off an old man.

She took Margaret’s melon and replaced it with the one in her hands. “Like this one, see?” Margaret looked at the smeared, brown spot that resembled a smudge on the knee of some pale-yellow pants that had slid into home plate.

“Is this your produce section?” Margaret asked.

“Well, not really,” Donna answered. “Mr. Tom—he’s the store manager—he hasn’t hired a produce manager yet so I’m kind of in charge. But, no, I’m not really the boss.”

“It’s beautiful,” Margaret said. “I wish mine had even half these wonderful things.”

“You think so?”

“Yes!”

Tom Green was not sure why—it might have been the heart potato sighting; it might have been the opening of the Target and Costco across the street—but the receipts in his store’s produce section had jumped twenty-two percent in the past three weeks. Like an American spotting his first McDonald’s overseas, these first-time customers were surprised and overjoyed to find bok choy or chilled, vacuum-packed soybeans between the collard greens and peanuts. It was Tom Green’s guess that the growing diversity of Selby would warrant such a store, and if he could give the city a true urban market it would draw customers for miles.

And while Donna still did not like the insecticidelike smell of grapefruit or having to clean dirt each night from beneath her fingernails, she did enjoy the attention she was getting from the heart potato, which was now at home, safe in her freezer in a large Tupperware container that included other cherished and perishable mementoes: two snowballs from the time it stormed in Selby when she was twelve; a Three Musketeers bar that Billy Ray Cyrus had taken a bite of and thrown into the crowd at his concert in the Selby Civic Auditorium; a serving of the last peach ice cream her mother made before dying.

Even more, Donna enjoyed the exposure to a variety of people so unlike those she had lived with all her life. The Yankees and Japanese bought much more produce than native Selbyites, excluding collard greens and okra, and they did not seem to be as intimidated by the papayas and baby zucchini and enoki mushrooms. They asked questions, plenty of them, even more than her
Lancôme customers did. And time and again Donna would have to find an answer from Mr. Tom or online and get back to them as they finished their shopping.

“Which Kroger do you shop at?” Donna asked.

“The one on Ben Pond Jr. Boulevard.”

“We call that the gold Kroger.”

“Because …”

“All the rich ladies shop there.”

Donna then leaned into Margaret so she could lower her voice and still be heard.

“And between you and me, the reason they don’t have much produce up there is ’cause the ladies in north Selby don’t cook. I even make meals for one lady … Miss Suzanne. I cook for her three times a week.”

Margaret looked over her shoulder at Dewayne. “I’m Margaret Pinaldi,” she said to Donna, holding out her hand.

“Donna Kabel,” she replied. “I’d shake hands but mine are all sticky—I’ve been cuttin’ watermelon. My sales of watermelon increase by three hundred percent if I cut ’em up. Can you believe that?”

Dewayne lived in south Selby, in a small, tan, ranch-style home with white ornamental shutters on the windows. A white-washed, life-size deer stood in the front yard, something Dewayne inherited with the house when he bought it five years ago. The doe, her head and ears perked in alertness, had weathered down to the gray concrete, and the friend Dewayne hired to paint his house suggested he color the deer to match the shutters. Dewayne thought that would be just fine, though he later called him back to paint a black mouth and eyes on the face because Dewayne thought it looked too much like an animal trapped in some evil snow queen’s spell.

With Margaret in the passenger’s seat, he slowly pulled under
his carport. The roof was made of corrugated, translucent green sheets of fiberglass, and when the sun was high it cast an Emerald City glow on everything below.

“Does he have a name?” Margaret asked.

“Who?”

“The deer.”

“His name’s Casper.”

Inside was plain and utilitarian, the furniture mostly shades of brown or blue and most of it matching. Pictures of Dewayne’s mother and father and two sisters hung on the wall over the television. A wooden cross with a shiny-gold, plastic Jesus was suspended on the wall over what looked to be Dewayne’s TV-watching chair. From across the room, Margaret noticed two small black-and-white figurines on an end table. She left Dewayne’s side to get a closer look.

“Oh, my gosh, these are so cute!”

She then saw another, this one a sitting Beanie Baby that leaned against a blue vase. She turned to Dewayne. “Dewayne … you have penguins in your living room!”

He lowered his gaze to the floor and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well,” he said. “I collect penguins.”

“You collect penguins?”

“Everybody collects somethin’.”

“I’ve never known anyone who collects penguins, Dewayne. How interesting! Why penguins?”

“I don’t know … I just like ’em. They look like they’re havin’ fun.”

“Is this something you do to get women to go to bed with you?”

“Ma’am?”

“Because I’m sure it works.”

Dewayne held out the paper Kroger sack to her. “I thought you wanted to learn how to make good biscuits.”

“Show me the kitchen.”

Over the next few hours, Dewayne not only baked the flaky,
moist biscuits he promised but also cornmeal-and-vidalia-onion dumplings that simmered in ham hock–flavored collard greens. Margaret enjoyed watching his arms as he slowly sliced large, musky, beefsteak tomatoes that he would serve alongside the entrée.

As a cold, crisp complement, Dewayne included spicy okra that he had pickled himself with garlic, dill, and dried red pepper pods. And Margaret was surprised at the simplicity of his smothered chicken. All Dewayne used was the bird and its drippings, along with flour, butter, salt and pepper.

“No other herbs?” Margaret asked.

“Do you like chicken?”

“Yes.”

“Do you like butter and flour?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, then,” he said. “Why glue glitter on a dog’s fur?”

The only awkward moment of the date came early on, when Margaret opened the refrigerator and began rummaging through its contents. Dewayne, who was chopping onions on his butcher block, suddenly stopped, and Margaret looked over her shoulder to see on his face a look of amused bewilderment.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”

Dewayne resumed his chopping of the onion. “Do you always do that?” he finally asked.

“Do what?”

“Do they do that in New York—go into other people’s refrigerators like that?”

“Like what?”

“That’s okay. Never mind.”

“No, Dewayne, please. I’ve obviously done something wrong here. Please, tell me.”

Again, he stopped chopping. “Well … it’s just kinda forward.

That’s all.”

“Opening the refrigerator?”

“That’s how I was raised.”

“Is this a family rule or cultural rule?”

“I thought everybody was raised that way—you just don’t go into other people’s refrigerators unless you’re family.”

“Wow,” Margaret said. “That’s fascinating. Why?”

He shook his head. “Just always been that way.”

“So, it’s the same as rifling through someone’s panty drawer?” she asked.

Dewayne said nothing and looked down at his hands, which were still dicing the onion.

“You’re blushing!” Margaret said. “My God, Dewayne you’re a bigger prude than I am.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” he said.

“About what?”

He paused, letting courage accumulate like water behind a dam of mud so that it could gather in mass and finally burst through: “Panties,” he finally said.

T
he turnout for the emergency meeting was so great that Margaret had to park her mother’s Mercedes two blocks away. As she walked down Red Hill Drive—there were no sidewalks in this subdivision—Margaret smelled the paper mill south of town, an odor she likened to wet spitballs with slight notes of anise root and mint and sour milk. Almost weekly, newcomers to town railed about the odor in Chatter, worrying about airborne carcinogens. Yet natives swore the smell had actually improved over the years, and that every nose got used to it if it stuck around long enough, just as ears learn to ignore the ever-present buzz of fluorescent lights.

A man, presumably the owner of the house, answered the door. He smelled of a musky cologne and wore a blue, pinpoint-oxford-cloth shirt with the initials HDR on the pocket.

“I’m Margaret Pinaldi,” she said, eliciting no response. “With the
Reflector
?”

Suddenly, his eyes widened. “Oh, yes, yes,” he said, offering his arm to be shaken. “I’m Harnod Ristle. Pleased to meet you. Please, please come on in, come on in. Thank you so much for joinin’ us tonight.”

Margaret walked into the foyer of polished limestone floors and a wallpaper of blooming peonies. “What an unusual name,” she said. “Is it H-A-R-N-O-D?”

“That’s it. That’s my momma’s maiden name.”

Considering the patriarchal leanings in Southern culture, Margaret was intrigued by this tradition that gave women’s surnames one last leg to hobble on before they collapsed and decayed into the earth. She had encountered men named Haney, Verney, Walker, and Chalmers and women who went by Word and Tucker and Munnolin.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t catch your name the first time.”

“Margaret Pinaldi.”

“Are you new at the
Reflector
?”

“Relatively new … yes.”

“Well, come on in, make yourself at home. Everyone else is back here in the den. I sure do wanna thank you for comin’.”

The den had a men’s club feel to it, with an abundance of dark wood, broad leather furniture, a stuffed pheasant on the fireplace mantel, and a wildcat of some sort immortalized on a fake outcrop in a corner of the room. Next to that was a freestanding globe the size of a beach ball. Later, when walking by, Margaret would notice that each country—and not all the countries were represented—had been carved of semi-precious stones and inlaid into black-onyx seas.

Chardonnay and bourbon flowed freely in crystal tumblers and stemware. A black, uniformed maid offered cheese straws from a silver platter. To show solidarity, some of the women wore sweaters or vests with dogs crocheted or embroidered on them. Margaret noticed a uniformed Perry County sheriff’s deputy sipping a can of
Coke. And holding court in a corner was an ebullient middle-aged woman with a flame-red, perfectly round bouffant that reminded Margaret of the halos in medieval paintings. From earrings to shoes, she was dressed in yellow so pale it almost resembled French-vanilla ice cream. Margaret had seen her around town, driving a Cadillac of the very same color.

Despite Margaret’s objections, Randy had sent her to cover the meeting as a news story, and she knew she could not leave without quotes from people in attendance. Margaret began to work the crowd. All the while, she caught glances from the woman in pale yellow who, with her hand perpetually stuck out front like a campaigning politician’s, seemed determined to interact with every person in the room.

“Hey, y’all!” yelled Harnod Ristle, clapping his hands. “I need your attention up here.… Y’all now!… Y’all now!… Everybody!… up here!”

The buzz in the room died down, quiet enough that Margaret could hear buoyant ice cubes tinkling in the glasses.

“I wanna thank y’all for comin’ tonight, and I’m gonna hand the gavel here to Lieutenant Thorpman of the Perry County Sheriff’s Department. He’s fixin’ to tell us about this crazy mess.… Lieutenant Thorpman?”

Over the next fifteen minutes, Nordy Thorpman briefed the concerned listeners on what the department had learned. To date, thirteen dogs had been found dead, all in Red Hill Plantation. No puncture wounds. No bullet holes. No signs of trauma from being run over. They looked as if they had simply laid down and fallen into a Rip Van Winkle–like sleep.