Southern Living (32 page)

“Do you take lunch breaks?” he asked Margaret.

“Sometimes,” Margaret answered. “Why?”

“You work downtown, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well there’s this new program for executives at the Mulberry Baptist Church,” he said, stopping to glance at his wife. “It’s called Power Lunch with the Lord, and everyone takes their Bibles and gets a sermon every Monday from a different Baptist minister. Maybe you can go with me some time.”

“Maybe so,” Margaret said. “That sounds real nice.”

“She’s been goin’ to Sunday school with me,” Dewayne said, eliciting from both parents looks of surprise that melted into smiles.

The four of them stood on the sidewalk in front of Dewayne’s house. It was obvious the elder Cases were waiting for something, but neither Margaret nor Dewayne could figure out what. So, as one looks for four-leaf clovers but in the meanwhile settles for interesting, exotic weeds, they exchanged empty items of chitchat.

Finally, after a long moment of silence, Ronna said, “Margaret, I don’t see your car, honey. Did Dewayne drive you over?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Do you want me and Sonny to take you home?”

“Dewayne can take me home.”

“Well, he has work tomorrow, don’t you, Dewayne? You probably better get goin’ to bed.”

“I’ll take her home, Momma,” he answered. “We’ve gotta clean up, first.”

“I can have your daddy come back and pick her up later.”

“No, Momma. I can manage.”

“I’m just tryin’ to help.”

“Yes, ma’am. I know. Thank you.” He leaned down to his mother and kissed her cheek. “Good night.”

After they pulled away, Margaret walked over to the glider beneath the carport and sat down. “They hate me,” she said.

“That’s a pretty strong word,” Dewayne replied.

“Okay, then, they don’t like me.”

“You can’t be sure about that.”

“I’m sure. I think it was the prayer.”

Before the meal, Dewayne had had to ask Margaret to join hands to pray. When he offered his arm across the table, toward hers, Margaret simply thought he was being romantic; she didn’t know she was supposed to grab Ronna’s as well to complete the circle.

“They did not want to connect with me, Dewayne. They did not ask one thing about me.”

“They did so.”

“Not about my past. Not about anything that would have shed some light on who I am. For a culture that’s always asking ‘Who are your people?’ they sure didn’t seem interested in mine.”

Dewayne sat down beside her and took her hand in his. Even after all these months, the juxtaposition of sizes made Margaret stare.

“They might’ve thought you didn’t wanna talk about it.”

“You mean the fact that I was born illegitimate?”

“No,” he said. “I mean about your momma’s job.”

There was much about her mother Margaret had shared with
Dewayne—the year of cancer, the alpha personality, even the anecdote of when Ruth Pinaldi gave her twelve-year-old daughter a
Ms
. magazine article with line-drawing illustrations showing masturbation techniques. Yet she had told him nothing about the clinic or what she did there. All he knew—or at least all she thought he knew—was that she had worked for her mother, the doctor.

“What are you getting at?” she asked. “What do you know about my mother?”

Dewayne gave a slight pained look as if he’d been caught in a white lie. “My momma’s secretary-treasurer of Middle Georgians for Life,” he said.

Margaret’s mouth dropped open. “Oh … my … God. They know? You know? How long have you known?”

“Couple of months, I guess. Momma ran a Google search on her, and she gave me lots to read. It’s not like your momma tried to hide behind a rock, Margaret.”

“Well, then, I suppose you think of me as the Devil in the flesh now, don’t you?”

“Why would I do that?” he asked.

“Guilty by association.”

“That was your momma.”

“Yeeeees. There’s a connection here, Dewayne. Do you see it yet?”

“Don’t get ugly at me. I might not agree with what your momma did, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna hold it against you.”

“That’s what pro-lifers do,” Margaret said.

“No,” Dewayne replied. “That’s what Yankees do.”

The sun had set, casting in the western sky a glow that reminded Margaret of orange sherbet. In anticipation of rain, the tree frogs had begun their tiny, whiny, seal-like barks.

“So you can honestly tell me,” Margaret said, “that when you look at me you don’t see the patient counselor of an abortion clinic who shepherded thousands of unborn children to their death?”

“No,” Dewayne answered. “I see a girl who lost her momma to cancer.”

While working at the clinic, Margaret received a version of the same phone call at least three times a week.

“There are two red lines,” the woman would say. “But how can I be sure?”

“Two red lines?”

“Yes.”

“And this is from urine voided this morning?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’d best set up an appointment to see Dr. Pinaldi.”

“But how can I be sure?”

“Two red lines? Not one … but two?”

“Yes.”

“A thick line and a skinny line?”

“Yes.”

Margaret knew the reliability and indicator signs of every home-pregnancy test on the market—a thin blue line, a green circle, a blue diamond, two red lines. All meant yes. All would plunge the caller into either despair or guarded euphoria.

“It’s positive,” she would say. “I have an opening next Thursday, would that work?”

Now, standing before her own bathroom vanity, holding the disposable, white-plastic device in her hand, Margaret unconsciously repeated the words out loud.

“Two … red … lines,” she said. “Oh … my … God.”

And then she thought of the new Planned Parenthood on J.B. McDonough Road. She wondered if they simply doled out pamphlets and birth control pills or also had a clinician on staff.

“If not, there’s always Atlanta,” she said to herself.

D
onna was crouched before her easel in front of the tropicals, pieces of orange, yellow, and green chalk in her hands. From the corner of her eye she saw Koquita entering aisle eleven, coming into work, her purse around her shoulder and a McDonald’s milkshake in hand.

“Koquita!” she yelled. “Can you come over here, please?”

Koquita ambled into the produce department. “Whatchu want?” she asked.

“Can you tell me what this is?” Donna asked, pointing to her easel.

“No, ma’am, I ain’t takin’ no produce test today.”

“I just wanna know if you can tell what this is. I’ve been drawin’
pictures on my daily tip board. People just notice ’em more if I do.”

With her large, round, Garfield-like eyes, Koquita took in the drawing. “That’s easy,” she said. “That’s a papaya.”

“You are absolutely correct.”

“That’s good, Donna. You draw real good.”

Donna stood back to admire her work.

“I drew it cut open like that ’cause I wanted my customers to know what it looks like inside,” she said. “Sometimes I think they’re afraid of what’s inside, especially if it’s not the prettiest thing in the world. That’s why I’m always cuttin’ open a kiwi and layin’ it out on a foam tray.”

As Koquita left for the employee lounge, Donna bent down to pick up someone’s crinkled shopping list and put it in her pocket. She’d grown to love the deep front pockets of her uniform that could easily accommodate the fallout from her entire day—broken rubber bands from broccoli stalks; crispy leaves that had dropped from a bunch of red grapes; a penny found on the floor in front of the apple bin; a blue Chiquita sticker that no longer stuck; contorted twist ties; lost buttons; a two-for-one coupon for nacho-cheese Doritos; Christian poems that Adrian would write and give to her.

Even more than the pockets, though, she had learned to appreciate how a uniform gave her so much more time in the morning. She no longer had to search for a combination of clothes that fit her budget, laundry schedule and mood of the day. Donna found
she had nearly an extra hour each morning, and she could linger and drink her coffee and read Chatter and spend time with her new three-legged tabby, Miss Kitty, whom she’d found at the Perry County Humane Society.

Suddenly, Donna spotted Boone Parley standing before the lettuces. She had never seen him at Kroger. Slowly, with great effort, as if he were a patient undergoing occupational therapy, he used the chrome tongs to fill his plastic bag with the organic baby-lettuce mix that Suzanne usually picked up herself.

Something’s not right, Donna thought. Maybe he thinks he’s got the wrong greens. She started walking over to say hello and offer help, but the look of consternation on his face was so intense that she changed her mind in front of the plums, did an about-face, and retreated to the stockroom to fill out her orders for the next day.

Anyone who knew Boone Parley would recognize that something was indeed wrong. For starters, he was wearing his surgical scrubs, and Boone thought it unprofessional to leave the hospital in anything other than his jacket and tie and Brooks Brothers button-down-collar shirts. Also, he had not showered after surgery, as he always did, and his straight, brown hair was dented along the sides of his head from the straps of the surgical mask.

Seconds after emerging from surgery that morning, Boone’s secretary greeted him at the doors of the surgical suite with news that the sheriff was waiting for him in his office.

“The sheriff?” Boone asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Why?”

“Wouldn’t say.”

“Can I shower first?”

“He says he’s kinda in a hurry.”

“The Perry County sheriff?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tommy Barnes?”

“Yes, sir.”

When Boone got to his office, Tommy Barnes was standing before a wall, his beefy hands crammed into his back pockets as his attention bounced from framed diploma to framed diploma.

“Mr. Tom?” Boone said, and he turned to greet him. “I haven’t had the pleasure of talkin’ with you for a long, long time. How’s Timmy?”

Timmy Barnes, now a truck driver for Middle Georgia Budweiser Distributors, Inc., was Tommy Barnes’s son and Boone’s center when he quarterbacked for Canterbury Academy fifteen years ago, and Boone suddenly remembered many a post-football-practice steak dinner at the Barnes’s house. Normally a jocular man with dimples deep enough to hold a peanut (indeed, he would perform this trick for boys who came to the house), Tommy Barnes looked at Boone with the same sober expression a law officer uses to inform someone of a death in the family.

“I think you better sit down for this one, Boone,” he said. “I’ve got some news gonna break your heart.”

And by the time the sheriff finished divulging all that he knew about Suzanne and the dogs of Red Hill Plantation, Boone had leaned back in his chair, deflated, his chest sunken, his head woozy, feeling as if something had just sucked every ounce of oxygen from his body. So his mother was right after all—something
was
wrong with Suzanne. And before he could lift the lid off the pan of boiling anger within, Boone suddenly remembered how ugly he’d been with his wife, the mother of his son, about the pee stains in the yard, and how he hounded and hounded her to take care of the situation. Of course she’d poisoned the stupid dogs! What else could she have done?

Unconsciously, to help revive his senses and jerk him back into his body, Boone pulled open his top desk drawer, reached for a rectangular tin of peppery Starbucks mints, and popped four of them into his mouth. He breathed through his nose, and the vapors
from the so-called turbo-charged candies cooled his nasal passages like ice.

“Are you sure about this, Tommy?” he asked.

“Yep. I got lab tests and my best detective’s word.”

“I just don’t know what to say. I feel horrible about this.”

Tommy Barnes nodded his head in silence.

“Boone,” he finally said. “Your momma says Suzanne’s got a drinkin’ problem. Maybe some depression.”

“My momma doesn’t like Suzanne, Mr. Tom. That’s pretty well common knowledge,” he answered. “Suzanne likes her chardonnay just like any other lady in Red Hill Plantation. But she’s not drinkin’ now, Tommy.”

“No?”

“She’s pregnant.”

Tommy Barnes’s jaundiced eyes opened wider. He pursed his lips and nodded his head again in thought.

“Well now, that might explain somethin’.”

“What’s that?” Boone asked.

“Women can do some crazy things when they’re expectin’ babies.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You almost expect ’em to do somethin’ a little crazy. It’s natural, don’t you think?”

“Yes, sir, it sure is.”

The sheriff, who was leaning back in the chair, sighed deeply, his great belly rising then falling again. His brown-leather belt creaked from the sudden expansion and contraction. “If these dogs was to stop dyin’, I think people just might forget about all this. Then I could forget about it, too.”

“Yes, sir,” Boone answered.

“I’m assumin’ those dogs are gonna stop dyin’ here real soon?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll see what I can do. You know I’ll do my best.”

“Problem is, I’ve got someone with loose lips in my lab.”

Tommy Barnes stood up, placed his hands on the edge of Boone’s desk and leaned forward. “If that newspaper finds out what’s goin’ on, I’m gonna have to do somethin’, Boone.”