The Sassy Belles (17 page)

17

S
omehow during lunch I had managed
to hide a mountain of secrets. Sonny and me. All those Lewis letters. And the
news about Vivi’s baby. The letters would start an absolute wildfire with Harry,
and poor Meridee would be at the center of it. She had no idea. I could just see
her on that boat, throwing dice and laughing hard with a salty margarita in her
hand. She always threw her head back when she laughed. She loved the gambling
boats on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. She never bet much. Didn’t win much. Didn’t
lose much. At least that I know of. Since reading those letters, I wasn’t really
sure what I knew about her. That tiny woman had kept her secrets. And who knew
if there was more to it than just those letters?

I saw I had a missed call from the office so I called Wanda
Jo.

“Hey, Wanda Jo, what’s up?” I asked as she answered.

“That package from the state real estate office came in. You
know, that one you ordered on the Brooks Mansion?”

“Great,” I said. “I’ll be right there.” I hung up and headed to
the office. I knew that new file would have a lot of answers for me. It had all
of the information about the dates of the real estate offer filed by the Myrnas
and their partners. That old place held special memories for me. It’s where
Sonny first kissed me when we were only fifteen years old. Our ninth-grade prom
had been held there. It was a Tuscaloosa mainstay, and one I intended to save. I
hurried over to the office from the University Club. I knew Wanda Jo had to drop
some papers off at the courthouse for Harry, so she would be gone or on her way
out by the time I arrived.

I settled into my desk chair, opened the large envelope and
pored through the materials. I studied the dates of the offers but even more
importantly the dates of the acceptances, as offers on the Brooks Mansion had
come in by the handfuls over the years. All of them were lowballs because of the
ghost stories and all the ghost hunter groups that showed up on a regular basis.
But it was such a stately place, sitting in the geographical center of town.
Most of the surrounding grounds of the old plantation house itself had been
sold. Over the years, the town grew up around it. So the mansion sat alone,
surrounded by a frenzy of modern-day activity and newer structures, sort of
like a spirit hovering over Tuscaloosa. It had a definite feel and personality,
standing tall for over one hundred and seventy years. I couldn’t imagine a
Tuscaloosa without its centerpiece, and I knew I had the power to save it.

Just then, I saw it. The dates of the acceptance of the offer
from the Myrnas and their partners. It was one day
after
our halt petition was filed in order to present our petition from Alabama
Places in Peril. That was it; the petition that stopped all activity until a
review is performed. I knew it! I had to prepare a brief on it now, and let
Wanda Jo know to set up the next meeting. Besides, the old place wasn’t zoned
for commercial property anyway, so that would be another hurdle they would have
to jump before an actual shopping center could be built. They could still mow
the mansion down if they got their hands on it. But I was determined they would
never own it.

Just as I was getting ready to leave, Harry walked in through
the back door.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” he asked, like he was surprised
to see me.

“I work here,” I replied straight-faced.

“Ha-ha, very funny, Blake.” He was rushing around looking for
something.

“I’m actually here working on that Myrna file. Over my dead
body will that old Brooks Mansion be torn down,” I said as I stood and gathered
up my things.

“I never understood your love affair with that old place,” he
said.

“I’ve told you a hundred times. I had my first prom there, my
first kiss there. It’s just a part of me. Plus it’s a major part of Tuscaloosa
and so many people feel just the same way. I’ll stop those Myrnas, believe
me.”

“I thought your first kiss was with Sonny in junior high or
something?” He found whatever he was looking for and actually stopped and looked
at me while he put a file in his briefcase.

“It was,” I said. “And it was there, in the Brooks Mansion
during our ninth grade prom.”

“Well, good luck,” he said, but I could tell he still didn’t
get it. “I’ll be late tonight. Got a campaign thing.” And he turned to the door
without waiting on me to answer. The back door shut and I was standing alone in
my office. Why did I feel like a storm just blew through?

I left a note for Wanda Jo on my findings and instructions to
set up the next battle—ahem, meeting. I locked up and left to head over to
Vivi’s.

* * *

I drove along the river and before I knew it I was on
the long gravel driveway to the McFadden plantation. I rolled my window down to
smell the jasmine and the honeysuckle. I heard the gravel crunch under my tires
as I pulled around to the front porch near the fountain.

“Hey, Arthur,” I called over to him as I parked and climbed out
of my car.

He looked up from the tomatoes planted on the side yard, wiped
his hands on his apron and started over to me.

“What brings you by, Miss Blake?”

“A girl’s gotta have a reason to come see her favorite people?”
I chided.

“’Course not.” He was grinning as he reached out to hug me. “So
good to see ya.” And I knew he meant it.

“You look nice today, Arthur.”

“Well, Miss Bonita’ll be around directly. She’s gonna be
helping me sample some new recipes at my BBQ place. That woman has good
taste.”

“Uh-huh, and she sure loves your cooking, too,” I said with a
wink.

“Miss Vivi’s inside making iced tea. Why don’t you go on in and
have some,” he said, trying to hide his bashfulness.

“Arthur, if I drink any more tea today, I’ll be floatin’ down
the river myself,” I laughed. “But I’ll go on in and have a visit.”

“Okay. Tell her I’m almost through here, then I’m headin’ out
to my restaurant to wait on Bonita.”

The Moonwinx was out back and to the right side of the
plantation itself, with its own little gravel drive to the front of the stand.
It was the type of place where you walked up to the screened counter and
ordered. It wasn’t really meant to be a restaurant, just a few picnic tables and
the smokehouse kitchen—small, mostly for pickup and takeout. Arthur kept himself
busy getting ready for the fall grand opening. Of course he wanted to be ready
for football season and all the tailgatin’ parties. And now with Bonita by his
side, he’d have a partner.

“Okay,” I said over my shoulder as I headed up the stairs. The
screened front door slammed behind me and I immediately smelled homemade
buttermilk biscuits and heard the teapot singing. I had been coming in this
house for as long as I could remember. The beautiful round solid mahogany table
sat in the front foyer with an oversize milky-white vase of fresh blue
hydrangeas. They grew in massive bushes on either side of the wide front porch.
A curved staircase invited you upstairs to the left and parlors bathed in
sunlight framed the back of the entryway just behind the staircase.

I walked through the right parlor and headed back to the
kitchen.

“Hey, Vivi,” I shouted. I waited for the usual, “Hey, honey,”
but all I got was silence. I walked into the kitchen to see a big rear end bent
over and a head shoved into the back of the fridge.

Vivi was in a yellow sundress with an old apron tied around her
waist. Her rear end was bouncing to the radio, causing the sundress to swing
wildly back and forth.

“What the hell are you doin’?” I said, laughing. She bumped her
head bringing something out of the fridge.

“Oh, hey, honey, come on in. I’m lookin’ for some lemons. I got
me some tea made and Arthur has cut me some mint. But, oh, well, no lemon.”

I walked over and hugged her.

“Okay, spill,” she said. “I know that hug. What’s going
on?”

We sat for an hour and hashed everything out again.

“You know, Blake, we’re all just needin’ each other in a time
like this. You gotta let those walls crumble, honey. Let all the ones you love
in. It’ll help. It’s not a bad thing to be needy every now and then. I know. I
even enjoy it sometimes.”

“What am I doing in the middle of all this? I’m making out with
Sonny. I’m married. I am a fool. I have jumped in with sharks. Everyone has so
many secrets and I’m in on all of them. How can I help anyone without betraying
someone else?” I didn’t want to bring up the question Sonny asked me at lunch
about me moving to D.C. I knew it would just upset her.

“Sweetie, you have secrets of your own brewing and I am here
for you like you are here for me. You don’t always have to be the strong one.
Sometimes I can be that for you, too, you know? So let’s come up with some
answers here, okay?” She got up from the table to get a pen and paper. She was
serious. I got a hold of myself and grabbed napkins from the center of the table
and dried my eyes.

“Okay, then, first things first. Number one: you gotta make
sure I’m not giving birth in jail.”

We both burst out laughing. Yes, Vivi had a point. That did
seem to be the most important thing, that she not go to jail—not now, not
ever.

“This baby, after all, will be your niece or nephew and it
deserves a better start than to draw her first breath in a 6x12 cement
block.”

“Vivi,” I said, “you are not going to jail. There is no way
that is ever going to happen. No one has yet been able to even say whether Lewis
is actually dead. And nobody anywhere believes you are a murderer! Plus, you’ve
got his baby growing inside you. It will never happen. Got it? On Mother
Teresa’s grave.”

“Okay, number two: you gotta tell someone about those letters.
I mean, besides Kitty and me. You gotta tell someone who can actually do
something with them. I think they have a lot of clues and they might help
us.”

“Well, Kitty said she’ll go to Meridee when she comes home
tomorrow and see what she can find out.”

“Okay, we’ll give her a couple of days. But then you gotta go
to Harry or Sonny. Deal?”

“Deal,” I agreed.

“Next,” she continued, “we gotta find out about that
hot-pink-colored cigarette. Honey, the thought of that has made me sick. I can
hardly sleep over it. And that pink…well, it makes me think of Dallas, which
gives me the willies. I just cannot believe Lewis would be with someone else
twelve hours before he was playin’ cowboy with me—and especially if it was
Dallas. That’s not like him. Not since we, he and me, well, since
us.
You know. Well, that’s really number one on my
list. Next to finding him. I guess that would be my number one.”

“Okay, that’s a given,” I said, laughing.

“Next, Sonny.” She raised an eyebrow. “After I don’t go to jail
and my Lewis is found…” She hesitated, and I knew she was thinking that there
was still a chance he could be found…not alive. She cleared her throat. “When he
is found alive, and you get to the bottom of those letters and the damned
cigarette, and all of this is untangled, you better figure out those feelings
for Sonny and how deep they run. Are they real, or were they just symptomatic of
everything else going on? If they are symptomatic, it’s totally understandable
considering the pressure you’re under. But if they are real, Blake, you may have
your own set of long-term problems.”

“Thanks. I think.”

“Now, that’s the entire list,” she said with finality in her
voice, hitting the pen to the pad with a flourish as she wrote the last question
mark. She shoved the paper across the table to me.

1. No giving birth in jail for Vivi.
   
2. Find Lewis—alive.
   
3. Figure out those letters.
   
4. Pink cigarette. What the hell? (Dallas?)
   
5. Sonny. Real or symptom?
   

That was our to-do list. Vivi had a way of simplifying things
and making them black-and-white. From a missing body, a possible murder and a
pregnant suspect, we now had a list of five simple things to do and we’d all
live happily ever after. At that moment I wished I was more like Vivi.

I looked out the back window over the sink and saw Bonita and
Arthur finishing up some ribs at one of the picnic tables. She cleared things
away and then made her way up to the house.

“Hey, girls, how’s it goin’ today?” she asked as she came
through the back door.

“We are doin’ just fine and how ’bout yourself? Can I get you
somethin’ cold to drink?” Vivi offered.

Bonita shook her head and rested her hand on her ample belly.
“Honey, I could not fit one more sip of anything after that lunch. Mm-mmm, that
man can cook.”

“Any word from the other lab on those cigarettes?” I said.

“Nothing yet, but we are expecting the results pretty soon. We
had hoped we’d get them sooner but we had to send them all the way to
Birmingham.” She changed back to her favorite subject. “Ain’t that Arthur just
something?” she said, going over to the sink to wash the rib sauce off her
hands. “He is just the sweetest thing. He’s taking me to the movies tonight.”
She didn’t realize how big her grin was growing as she spoke. She was wearing a
pink-and-black Chanel suit and black patent heels. Her silver charm bracelets
caught the afternoon sun and sparkled as she dried her hands on a nearby dish
towel. She was a lucky woman to have Arthur and I knew she was good to him. They
weren’t quite a thing yet and he was nearly twelve years older but she liked the
gentleman in him and he loved her sassy ways and bubbly personality. And of
course, she loved to eat and he loved to cook. It was a really good match. When
two people have that much fun together, the rest just seems to fall into
place.

“Have y’all seen those billboards of Dallas all over town?” I
asked, changing the subject to see if Bonita had anything new on the calls
coming in.