Playing by the Rules: A Novel (26 page)

“Ain’t that something about the President quittin’ his job last month?” Clement said with his eyes on the board, tilting up the brim of his straw Panama hat so he could see which piece to move.

“When you deal with bugs, you got problems,” Granddaddy replied, waiting patiently.

“They got bugs in the White House?”

“Found ‘em in a hotel. There was bugging in some hotel with the Democrats… where you been?”

“The Republicans were bugging the Democrats? About what?” Clement moved his rook across the board.

“That’s the whole reason the guy quit.” Granddaddy found it hard to believe that Clement didn’t know the details of the story. “Something about a cover-up. Tapes that got the President tellin’ tales in the White House and the FBI and the CIA and who knows who else was involved—it’s a mess—seems like more folks is coming out the woodwork every day with something new to say. The man had to quit before they sent him home a’packin’, just like I’m about to send you to steppin’ off the board.” Granddaddy removed Clement’s pawn and added it to his pile of the captured. “If the truth be told,” Granddaddy added, watching Clement accept defeat, then start the process of concentrating all over again, “the President ain’t quit, he resigned before they got rid of him.”

“Let’s just hope with the new President that the oil prices don’t go back up,” said Clement. “That’s what I care about.” He moved closer to Granddaddy’s queen.

“Ain’t that something about that young feller, Moses Malone, becoming the first high school kid in the country to join a pro basketball team and become a millionaire overnight?” asked Granddaddy, thinking about the best way to relocate his rook.

“They say that boy’s from around the way in Petersburg.”

“The Utah Stars got all six feet, eleven inches of him, I hear.”

“If I was that tall I’d be averaging thirty-nine points, twenty-six rebounds, and blocking twelve shots per game too.”

“If you were that tall and running down the court you’d be done tripped over your feet and died of a broken leg and a head injury,” said Granddaddy, claiming his second piece on the board.

“Doggone it…got’ blast it… dern it… shoot,” said Clement as he moved his queen a square to track down Granddaddy’s knight.

“You got your lady chasing after me,” said Granddaddy. “Just like Theola coming after you full speed ahead.” He pointed from the queen to the knight.

“I can’t be with no woman who’s on my tail all the time,” said Clement, eyes fixed on the board, planning his next strategy. “Besides, I like mean women who have a kick to ‘em like a good glass of whiskey; something that goes down slow and makes you go, ahhhh.” He took off his Panama hat and started waving away the heat.

Granddaddy moved a pawn that was protecting his rook one square forward. “The truth is, you don’t like women chasing after you ‘cause your knees are starting to go, and you’re too old to run.”

Meanwhile, Medford was at the hamburger stand, sipping a chocolate milk shake, waiting for his two cheeseburgers and large order of fries to arrive. He caught a glimpse of Ruby Rose and Jeremiah heading in his direction, but before he had a chance to turn his back and look away, the child raised her arm in the air, waving it to get his attention. He waved back, wishing she wasn’t with her brother. Ruby Rose let go of her brother’s hand and ran to Medford. As soon as his fries came, she slid one out from the pile and popped it into her mouth without asking.

“Are you hungry?” asked Medford.

Ruby Rose nodded her head.

“What would you like?” asked Medford. He and Jeremiah simultaneously reached into their pockets for their wallets.

Without thinking, Ruby Rose turned to Medford and said she wanted a hamburger and fries and a strawberry shake. Since it was his sister, Medford looked at Jeremiah for approval, and he seemed to be okay with Medford treating Ruby Rose to lunch.

Knowing that Ruby Rose was in good company with Medford, Jeremiah told his sister that he would catch up with her later. It gave him a welcome break, and he went off to search for Louise.

Medford and Ruby Rose ate their lunch and then set off to enjoy some of the carnival games while they gave their food a
chance to digest. After that, Ruby Rose and Medford rode through the haunted house to have a scary adventure.

On the other side of the fairgrounds at the bake-sale booth, Elvira had eaten so many sweets that she covered her mouth, turned her head to the side, and vomited in the trash can. Louise was able to pull her away from the table just in time to avoid any embarrassment and prevent any witnesses to the event. When Louise asked her what was wrong, Elvira said she thought she was coming down with the flu. But Louise knew better. It wasn’t a virus that was attacking her sister-in-law; it was her appetite that was causing her stomach to be upset. She made Elvira sit down in a folding chair and rest while she went back to business selling desserts and trying to raise a record-breaking amount of money for the church.

A year’s worth of excitement and anticipation was coming to a peak like a rock climber’s struggle to reach the summit. Nana’s hard work to be a contender in the tomato competition had paid off well enough to gain her recognition as one of the top five finalists. Now she was counting down, through process of elimination, hoping the judges would pluck off her competition one by one like petals on a dandelion in a child’s game of “she loves me, she loves me not.” Only this wasn’t a game. It was way more serious than that.

The wind swept its way through the spectators, making the wide-brimmed hats of hundreds of ladies, gathered in front of the raised platform, look like a sea of wheat waving in a field. The five finalists with their tomato offspring placed in front of them were like mothers doting over children in a school play, secretly hoping that theirs would be picked for the lead.

With all her bad luck this summer, Nana hadn’t expected to get this far in the running and she still felt she had a fair shot at the crown. Nana was at one end of the platform and Ole Miss
Johnson was at the other. Ole Miss Johnson leaned over the table, faced her opponent, and snarled.

All the contestants had their tomatoes lined up for inspection by the judges. By now, they had passed the beauty test, the texture test, and the color test. The judges jotted down their notes. All that was left were the flavor and the juicy tests. The judges strolled by the finalists with their sharp knives and cut the tomatoes in half. When the knives came down on the table, Nana thought it was her breath that was being cut short. She looked down at her perfect Champion and beamed because the skin didn’t tear from the force of the blade and the seeds slipped off the edge as smooth as butter, revealing a cavity that was well formed. She smiled at the judges and they smiled back, and the crowd that was gathered around the platform clapped for the underdog. As Ole Miss Johnson looked at the happy faces rooting for Nana, she rolled her eyes and sucked her teeth.

One more test, Nana thought, and she’d be home free; since everything else was going well, the taste test should be a breeze. Each judge stood in front of one of the contestants. Ole Miss Johnson’s judge took a bite into her Bragger, savored the taste, and jotted something down in her notebook. Ole Miss Johnson’s smile spread as wide as the low branches on a white spruce. One by one the other judges tasted the tomatoes from the finalists until it was Nana’s turn. Nana took a deep breath, held it in, and waited. The judge bit into the tomato, then spit it out.

“Yuck, bug spray!” the judge declared, wiping the nastiness from her mouth.

Nana let out a gasp. She knew she was in deep trouble. She glanced down the table at her neighbor, who gave her a knowing smirk, and all Nana could think of was her whitefly invasion, that she hadn’t wiped out all the stages of larvae before it affected the tomato’s flavor, or perhaps the insecticide had even permeated the
skin and made the fruit taste bitter. Either way, she was mad at herself for being a magnet for pests for a second year in a row and mad at Jeremiah for giving Ole Miss Johnson that hoodoo herb to make her tomatoes grow. Now she couldn’t wait to get her hands on the Outsider. Even though she didn’t have any concrete proof that he’d aided and abetted her neighbor in this act of crime, she was sure he must be guilty. A life of criminal activity didn’t stop with abducting his sister; he was probably just launching his lawbreaking career. After all she had done for the Outsider! Now she was so furious that she couldn’t wait to find Billy. In the meantime, taking her anger out on her competitor would just have to do.

“She cheated!” Nana pointed a finger at her neighbor, who stood at the end of the table looking innocent. “She put something in those tomatoes to make ‘em win!” she shouted with her hands on her hips.

“Ernestine, don’t be such a sore loser!” Ole Miss Johnson yelled back at her.

Nana saw several folks in the crowd nodding their heads in agreement. To keep from being accused of acting childish, Nana kept her mouth shut as the judges added up their scores, draped the red cape around her neighbor, and restored her emerald gold-plated crown. Nana had no choice but to graciously yield to public defeat. The judges handed out the runner-up ribbons and like a good sport, Nana accepted. As the crowd cheered and clapped for the Tomato Queen, Nana reluctantly put her hands together twice. No matter how many times she lost this competition, she never got used to it. She didn’t want to be known as a loser or a quitter, but perhaps she could settle for being a retiree.

Billy stopped by the bake-sale booth and discovered his wife sitting in a folding chair, clutching her stomach, sick as a dog.

“I told her to go home,” Louise said to Billy. “She’s not helping us sell anything looking as pale and as pitiful as she is.”

“What’s the matter, baby?” Billy asked his wife, lifting her crouching body by the shoulders to see her face.

“I’m pregnant,” she said.

“What?” he asked, making sure he heard correctly.

Louise turned around to make sure her ears weren’t mistaken too.

“I’m four months pregnant,” Elvira repeated.

Billy let out a yahoo that seemed to reverberate through the mountains. Elvira managed a weak smile, and Louise hugged them both.

“Why are you just now telling me?” Billy asked, looking at his wife, holding her shoulders to keep her steady to prevent her from falling over.

“I wanted to be sure,” Elvira said. “I wanted to get past the first trimester before I told you. I was so happy, I didn’t want it to be another false alarm.”

“We have to tell Nana. We have to tell Nana,” Billy repeated, just in case no one heard him the first time.

“I have a feeling she’ll need some good news,” said Louise. “I hear folks murmuring about how she lost again.”

They shook their heads as if they weren’t surprised, but they knew the good news about the baby would cheer her up.

Billy grabbed the first two people that stopped by the booth and got them to take over the selling of desserts. As the three of them began searching for Nana, Billy was so happy and light on his feet that he felt like he was skipping on air.

Five years ago, the Sadie Hawkins dance was replaced by the Soul Mate Auction. The Ladies of Mt. Zion Baptist Church thought it would be the perfect fund-raiser, because individuals could auction off their services to the highest bidder and raise money for the town’s community chest. At the last fair, Louise had bought Medford’s
services. The year before that, he had bought hers. This year, Louise was on the auction block again.

Louise stood on the stage with her hair in beaded cornrows. She wore a V-neck halter top held together by thick braided yarn, exposing her back, and a pair of denim bell-bottom jeans. The fact that both men in her life might show up at the auction made her uncomfortable, and her nervousness caused her to rock back and forth in her Earth Shoes. Regardless, nothing prepared Louise for when Medford and Jeremiah’s faces seemed to pop out of the crowd like the unexpected in a horror movie. On the heels of her shoes, Louise felt she might tip over and fall.

Medford was standing, peering over people’s heads on one side of the crowd to get a clear view of the stage, and Jeremiah was on the other side trying to get her attention. As Medford looked down, he started talking to his feet and Louise could see that the little person he was communicating with was Ruby Rose. Louise smiled at Medford when he finally looked in her direction, but it was her eyes that welcomed Jeremiah when he glanced her way.

The sun was beating down on the top of Louise’s head and she hoped that her scalp wouldn’t turn into a tic-tac-toe board, created by the lines of her cornrows. She wished she had thought to wear a hat, and now she was thinking that she should have brought a pair of large sunglasses as well to hide some of her embarrassment.

The auctioneer opened the bidding on two other people before getting to Louise, giving her a chance to catch her breath. Then it was her turn. Through the microphone, the auctioneer described her as one of God’s most beautiful creatures; young, strong, and hard-working, an excellent cook, baker, and housekeeper, who could clean dust barely visible to the human eye out of corners. She was extremely well read, he added, and whoever
bought her services would have the added benefit of good conversation and perhaps a free magazine subscription or a publication or two from the public library thrown in with the deal because she was the town’s head librarian. Having provided that introduction, the auctioneer reminded bidders that the proceeds would go to a worthy cause and opened the bid at thirty dollars. Jeremiah was quick to enter the bid at thirty-five, and Medford immediately countered at fifty.

When Ruby Rose recognized her brother’s voice, her confusion bordered on panic. She jumped up and down to see if she could spot him in the crowd, but there were too many tall and wide bodies pressed against each other blocking her view. She glanced up at Medford as he shouted out another dollar amount and detected an intense look on his face that she’d never seen before. Then she heard her brother’s voice again as Jeremiah and Medford started shouting numbers like they were hurling rocks at each other. Torn between the two men, Ruby Rose didn’t know where to stand, which one to be with, or whose side to be on, and she hadn’t felt such chaos since growing up in Livingston and moving to Mattoxville. What she did know was that Louise was at the center of all this activity. Ruby Rose felt she should migrate over to her brother because he was family, but she didn’t know if that was a good enough reason. And she didn’t think she should stay with Medford, either, since his mind seemed to be tangled up somewhere between his wallet and the stage. Upset with the two grown men in her life, she decided to duck them both in exchange for Nana and Granddaddy, where she’d be guaranteed to find peace of mind and comfort.