The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat (10 page)

Clarice and Odette moved in with Barbara Jean after Lester died. For the last bit of July and on into August, they made sure she got dressed and ate something every day. They slept on either side of her in bed for the first few nights. Not that Barbara Jean slept much. Every night, they heard her creep out of her room and down the stairs to sit alone in her library. She would return to the bed just before sunrise and pretend later that she’d slept through the night.

Barbara Jean hardly spoke at all. And, when she did, not a word of it was about Lester. Most of her time was spent pacing the house, stopping in her tracks every so often to shake her head like a sleeper trying to wake up from a nightmare. She was in no shape to be left alone or to make any decisions. And there was so much that had to be done.

Clarice and Odette were surprised to learn that, although Lester had spent many years fighting off various near-fatal illnesses, the only preparation he had made for his passing was a short will leaving everything to Barbara Jean. So while Odette saw to Barbara Jean, Clarice could be depended on to organize the service and interment. She planned everything from Lester’s burial suit to the menu for the funeral dinner. She accomplished it all with a gracious smile, even swallowing her temper when dealing with the pastor and higher-ups of First Baptist Church—a piss-elegant crowd if ever there was one, all of them eager to demonstrate to his widow just how deeply they adored the wealthy deceased. It was quite an undertaking, but burying any signs of contention and making sure that everything moved smoothly and looked exactly as it should was what Clarice had been raised to do. And Clarice was glad that her unique skills, gained at considerable personal expense, could be put to use to help her friend.

When a rich man dies, the vultures descend quickly. And Lester had been wealthier than anyone had imagined. He’d been Plainview-rich back when he was courting Barbara Jean. He became Louisville-rich not long after they got married. And, it was learned, he died Chicago-rich/New York–comfortable. Lester’s greedier relatives were knocking on Barbara Jean’s door for a handout well before the first fistful of dirt hit the lid of Lester’s coffin. One previously unknown cousin came by claiming Lester had promised to fund her Hawaiian vacation. A great-niece wanted to interest Barbara Jean in “a surefire business opportunity” that just needed “a little start-up money.” Several of Lester’s leering male relations dropped by, basted in Old Spice, all prepared to provide guidance and a strong shoulder for the beautiful widow to weep upon.

This sort of situation, Clarice thought, was precisely why God made Odette. When the corners of Odette’s mouth turned downward and her eyes narrowed, nobody stuck around to see what was coming next. She stood guard over Barbara Jean, sending anyone who posed a potential threat running for their lives with just a glance. And she did it all while battling through hot flashes that set her on fire almost every night.

The Supremes were in residence at Barbara Jean’s for three weeks. Odette left each day to spend time with James, but always came back to be with Barbara Jean at night. Clarice went to check on Richmond a few times that first week, intending to cook his dinner and monitor his diabetes. But the fifth time she stopped by the house and failed to find him in or see any sign that he had come home at all since she’d been at Barbara Jean’s, she asked herself why she was doing it, and couldn’t come up with a good answer. So that day Clarice made sure the freezer was stocked with a month of meals, then she left Richmond a note saying she would return when Barbara Jean was okay. She stayed away for the next two weeks, limiting her contact with Richmond to one daily phone message that always went unanswered.

The morning after declaring temporary independence from Richmond, Clarice sat down at the piano in Barbara Jean’s sitting room after breakfast. The piano was a Victorian beauty, a Steinway square grand with a rosewood cabinet. Clarice had ordered it herself during
the initial renovation of Barbara Jean’s mansion. It was a fine instrument and Clarice thought it was a shame that its role of late was merely decorative. She ran a finger over the white keys and then the black and was pleased to discover that it was in tune. She began to play.

The music drew Barbara Jean to the room, closely followed by Odette. They listened and then applauded when she finished. “That was nice,” Barbara Jean said. “Sort of happy and sad at the same time.”

“Chopin. Perfect for any occasion,” Clarice said.

Barbara Jean rested her elbows on the piano. “Remember how Adam used to imitate you?”

“I sure do,” Clarice said, twisting her mouth to feign offense.

Barbara Jean turned to Odette. “Adam used to do the best imitation of Clarice after his lessons. He would hunch over the keys and sway and moan. It was the funniest thing in the world, watching him work up all that passion while he played—what was it? ‘Chopsticks’?”

“ ‘Heart and Soul,’ ” Clarice said.

“That’s right. ‘Heart and Soul.’ The first time he did it, Clarice and I both laughed so hard we ended up on our knees crying. It was a hoot.”

Odette had heard that story on the day it happened and hundreds of times since, but Barbara Jean was laughing and it sounded too good to put a stop to it.

Barbara Jean said, “He loved music. I bet he could’ve been really good.”

“Absolutely. He was musical. He had a natural facility. Adam had it all.”

“Yes, he did,” Barbara Jean said.

Barbara Jean talked about Adam for the rest of that morning. “Remember how he loved to draw? He’d spend hours up in his room with his crayons and colored pencils.” “I’ll never forget how he taught Odette’s boys to dance like James Brown. I can still see Eric shuffling across the floor in his training pants.” “Wasn’t he the most dapper little boy you ever saw? Never knew a boy to fuss over his clothes like he did. One scuff on his shoes and he’d pout all day.”

The following morning and the next few began the same way.
They had breakfast, and then Clarice played the piano. Then Barbara Jean talked about Adam, allowing memories of him to pull her back into her life. Eventually, there was so much conversation and laughter that it seemed as if the three of them were guests at an extended slumber party. Except, at this party, talking about men was carefully avoided. No Lester Maxberry. No Richmond Baker, which suited Clarice fine. And definitely no Chick Carlson, whom Clarice and Odette were both pretending they hadn’t seen at Big Earl’s house after the funeral.

In spite of the circumstances, on the mid-August morning when Barbara Jean thanked Odette and Clarice for their support and kindly, but firmly, ordered them out, Clarice was sorry to leave. She told herself at the time that her reluctance to end the slumber party was because she’d had such fun with her friends, reliving a part of their shared youth. Later, she admitted to herself that she was frightened of what she knew in her heart she would find when she got home.

When Clarice stepped inside her front door after two weeks away, she called out Richmond’s name to empty walls. None of the food she had prepared for him had been touched. And the sheets on their bed were as fresh as they’d been when she had put them on over a fortnight earlier.

When Richmond came home two days later, he gave her a peck on the cheek and inquired about Barbara Jean.

“She’s better,” Clarice answered. “Are you hungry?”

He answered yes, and then kissed his wife’s cheek again after she told him that she would prepare ham steak and roasted potatoes, one of his favorite meals.

Richmond showered while Clarice hummed “Für Elise” and cooked his dinner. He never offered an explanation about where he’d been sleeping, and Clarice never asked him for one.

Odette, Clarice, and Barbara Jean became the Supremes in the summer of 1967, just after the end of their junior year of high school. Classes had been out for only a couple of weeks and Clarice was at Odette’s house preparing to go to the All-You-Can-Eat. Big Earl occasionally opened up the restaurant to his son’s friends on Saturday nights. The kids thought of it as adventurous and grown-up, getting out of Leaning Tree and into downtown Plainview for an evening. A night at the All-You-Can-Eat was their first taste of adult liberty. In truth, they had escaped their homes and their parents to sip Coca-Cola and eat chicken wings under the most watchful eyes in town. They couldn’t have been more strictly monitored anywhere else on the planet. Big Earl and Miss Thelma had a talent for identifying and neutralizing troublemakers, and no kind of teenage mischief got past them.

Mrs. Jackson tapped on Odette’s bedroom door as Clarice rummaged through her best friend’s chest of drawers searching for something to liven up, or cover up, those dreadful dresses Odette always wore. The blind grandmother who had made her clothes back when she was a little girl was dead, but her grandma’s style and taste lived on in Odette’s sorry closet. Mrs. Jackson said, “Before y’all go to Earl’s, I want you to run this over to Mrs. Perdue’s house for me.”

She held out a cardboard box wrapped with twine. Grease stains covered most of the box’s surface, and it emitted an aroma of burnt toast and raw garlic. Even Odette’s three cats, all strays that had sensed her true nature beneath her get-the-hell-away-from-me exterior and followed her home to be adopted, shrank away from the odor of the package. They yowled and bolted out of the open doorway.

Odette took the box from her mother and asked, “Who is Mrs. Perdue?”

Mrs. Jackson said, “You know, your little friend Barbara Jean’s mother. Her funeral was today, so I baked a chicken for the family.”

Clarice looked at the clock and felt that she had to say something. She had made plans to meet Richmond and one of his buddies at 7:00. It was only 5:30, but Clarice knew from experience how long it could take to transform Odette from her usual self into someone a boy might want to wrap his arm around. There simply wasn’t time for anything else.

Clarice was indignant. She was a good girl. She got excellent grades. Hardly a season passed without her piano playing winning her a prize or affording her a mention in the newspaper that would join the articles about her birth that adorned the walls of her parents’ home. Still, she was monitored every hour of her day. All of her socializing took a backseat to the four hours of piano practice she did daily in preparation for the two lessons she had each week with Zara Olavsky, an internationally renowned piano pedagogue who taught at the university’s music school. She was required to check in hourly whenever she was away from home. And she had the earliest curfew of any teenager in town.

Her parents grew even more vigilant that year, with Richmond in college and Clarice still in high school. There were no dates at all unless she double-dated with Odette. Clarice was certain that, with Odette’s gruff personality around boys and those horrible outfits she wore that growled “
keep away
,” her parents viewed Odette as walking, talking virginity insurance. Not that Odette’s face was all that bad. She could be cute in the right light. And her figure was decent, top-heavy and round. Lord knows there were plenty of boys who longed to slip a hand down her blouse. But no boy wanted to cop a feel off the fearless girl. She was just more trouble than she was worth. Richmond had called in all kinds of favors to get his college friends to go out with her. Pretty soon he was going to have to start paying them.

But Richmond had a date for Odette that night and Clarice’s parents had agreed to allow her to stay out an hour later than usual. It
was going to be a perfect evening. Now Odette’s mother was trying to ruin it.

Whining often worked on her own mother when she wanted out of an unpleasant chore or wanted her curfew extended, so Clarice gave it a try with Dora Jackson. She said, “But, Mrs. Jackson, we’re going to the All-You-Can-Eat and Barbara Jean lives the other direction and I’ve got on heels.”

Odette mouthed, “Shut up.” But even though she knew from the look on Mrs. Jackson’s face that she should stop talking, Clarice piped up with “And besides, Barbara Jean is not our friend. She’s nobody’s friend, except the boys she runs around with. And she stinks, Mrs. Jackson. She really does. She drowns herself in cheap perfume every day. And my cousin Veronica saw her combing her hair in the bathroom at school last year and a roach fell out.”

Mrs. Jackson narrowed her eyes at Clarice and said, slow and low, “Odette’s gonna take this chicken over to Barbara Jean to show that child some kindness on the day of her mother’s funeral. If you don’t wanna go, then don’t. If you’re worried about your feet, borrow some sneakers from Odette. If you’re worried about roaches fallin’ off of her, then step back if she gets to flingin’ her head around. Or maybe you should just go on home.”

The only thing Clarice could think of that was worse than delaying her date with Richmond to run this ridiculous errand Mrs. Jackson couldn’t be dissuaded from was the idea of going back home and, with her chaperone otherwise occupied, being forced to stay in and keep her mother company all evening. Seeing her plans with Richmond fading away, Clarice rushed to save them. Speaking quickly, she said, “No, ma’am. I’ll go with Odette. I didn’t really believe that roach story. Veronica likes to make stuff up.”

Mrs. Jackson left the room without another word, and Odette and Clarice headed to Barbara Jean’s.

Plainview is shaped like a triangle. Leaning Tree comprises its southeast section. To get to Barbara Jean’s house, the two girls had to walk south along Wall Road and then along side streets into the very tip of the triangle’s corner.

The wall that gave the road its name was built by the town when
freed blacks started settling in Plainview after the Civil War. A group of town leaders led by Alfred Ballard—whose house Barbara Jean would one day own—decided to build a ten-foot-high, five-mile-long stone wall to protect the wealthy whites who lived downtown when the race war they expected finally came. Though further north, the poor whites were on the east side of the wall with the blacks, but the town leaders figured they could fend for themselves. When the new inhabitants proved less frightening than predicted, commitment to the wall project faded. The only section of Ballard’s Wall that made it to the full ten-foot goal was the portion that divided Leaning Tree from downtown. The rest of the proposed wall ended up as isolated piles of rocks, creating a dotted dividing line through town.