Playing by the Rules: A Novel (8 page)

None of the men at the table dared to agree with Billy. He was on his own.

Elvira nudged her husband hard with her elbow.

“Ow,” said Billy.

“Can you punch him for me too?” asked Louise.

“Hey, if the system works, it don’t need fixing.”

Elvira hit her husband again.

“Ouch!” exclaimed Billy.

“Seriously,” said Louise, when she caught Nana’s attention. “The double standard on the sexes is problematic—even here in Lemon City.”

“If you’re complaining about how sex is,” Billy snickered, “your boyfriend ain’t taking care of business.”

“I’m speaking in terms of compensation and promotion,” added Louise.

“Not at the dinner table, Billy. Not in front of company,” said Nana. “Not on Christmas Day. You know better.”

“Sorry, Nana.” Billy sat back in his chair, making an effort to cover his laugh behind his napkin.

Nana just shook her head. “Bootsie, you still singing with the Pursuit of Happiness Jubilee Choir?”

“Yes, Ma’am. In fact, we have a concert New Year’s Eve at the church. Would love for y’all to come.”

“We’ll be there,” said Nana. “So will Medford. And Louise will be wearing a dress,” she added with conviction, which Louise took as a signal that it was time to change the subject.

After dessert, when the clanking of forks began to slow down, the sighs became heavy, the men expanded their belts another notch to accommodate their stomachs, and the ladies patted their bellies as if they needed consolation, Nana announced it was time to move into the living room. She asked Louise and Elvira to help her clean the table. Louise pulled Medford by the hand for assistance, and Elvira grabbed her husband, tied an apron around his waist, and led him to the kitchen without meeting too much
protest or resistance. While Billy had a lot to say in front of the fellas in public, at home where it was private he was as helpful as he could be, checking his male ego at the door.

Granddaddy entertained the remaining guests with conversation while Sadie played Christmas songs until everyone gathered into the living room.

When they settled into position around the tree, Nana gestured to Elvira to present the first gift since she’d been the first one to arrive for dinner. Elvira searched for a present underneath the branches and when she found it, she proudly handed it to Billy.

Taking the package from his wife, he put his ear against the box and started to shake its contents.

Elvira’s eyes grew large, and she grabbed his arm to prevent any potential damage. “You’ll break it,” she explained. “I just got the doggoned thing fixed. Be careful.” Her voice was sweet in spite of its warning.

“I wonder what it could possibly be?” Billy asked while tearing off the paper and opening the box. “I hear it ticking… could it be a bomb?” Billy started laughing, then looked inside the box and was pleased.

“Come on, let’s see,” said Nana, anxious to know what had her grandson’s attention. “We want to see too.”

Billy held up the Seth Thomas Stephan mantle clock. It was the same antique mantle clock he had found on Route 23 a year ago, broken, that someone had tossed and left as junk. Elvira had repaired it, and in addition to the ticking sound, he could see that it was working because the second hand was moving. It was polished and looked brand-new. “I just love you, baby.” He hugged Elvira, then handed her his gift after locating it under the tree.

Elvira opened the box slowly, knowing that her husband hated shopping, which made him unpredictable at picking out gifts. Instead of hurting his feelings whenever he bought her a present, she
was always prepared to look surprised and then grateful, no matter what. She pulled a lovely pink-and-white summer tent halter dress with a matching jacket and belt from the box.

“See, baby. You can wear it either way,” said Billy, excited. “You can wear it with the belt now, tight around your waist, when you ain’t pregnant and when the stork is on its way you can wear it without. The saleslady at the store said it has versatility.” He grinned with a great sense of accomplishment.

“Thank you, baby. I just love it. This is so beautiful. It’s just what I wanted.” Elvira held up the tent dress to take a closer look at the pattern of large pink begonias against white cotton for all to see and then smiled at her husband in approval of his fashion selection. She was actually relieved to be pleased with this year’s gift.

“How thoughtful,” said Nana, thinking how nice it would be for Elvira to fill out that dress by summer.

“Yeah, Billy. You think of everything,” said Louise. “It’s a two-for-one deal,” she added. “How clever.”

“You should have gotten something like that for your sister too,” Nana said to Billy. “She could use a dress.”

Louise made the corners of her mouth rise for her grandmother, while telling herself she’d never be caught dead wearing anything like that in her life.

“I got a little something for you,” Granddaddy said to Nana, making an effort to ease the unexplained tension between his wife and his granddaughter.

“Let Louise and Medford exchange,” Nana replied, anxious to see what was inside the big box Medford had wrapped for Louise.

“Okay,” conceded Louise, handing Medford his gift while passing a sly look at her grandmother. Nana scowled at Louise for depriving her of seeing what Medford had bought her first.

Medford quickly unwrapped his present and pulled back the
tissue paper. “Just what I needed.” Inside the box was a heavy flannel red-and-black plaid jacket, the kind that lumberjacks wear. “How did you know I needed one of these?”

“I just figured since you work outside on your construction jobs you could use something warm.”

Medford was grateful and gave her a hug and kiss. “My turn.” He handed his present to Louise, and Nana gave the opening ceremony her undivided attention.

Louise ripped off the wrapping paper, and there on the side of the cardboard box was a picture of a Sunbeam blender.

“You said you needed a new one the other day,” Medford announced, happy that he’d paid attention.

“I sure did say that,” Louise responded, opening her gift, thinking she should have kept what she needed to herself. “Look, Nana, it’s got a one-piece blade that twists off for easy cleaning, fourteen speeds, and it’s easy to operate.” She read the description that was next to the picture on the side of the box. “I can make milk shakes, salad dressings, grind up baby food for Elvira when she gets pregnant, stretch out leftovers if I need to.”

“Humph.” Nana forced a smile, trying not to show how horrified she was at the sight of the gift.

“Do you like it?” Medford asked Louise.

“As far as blenders go…I think it’s really cool,” Louise replied, not knowing what else to say. “It looks like it does everything except prepare the ingredients for you.” She hugged him, not letting on that she was expecting something different, perhaps a little more personal. The truth was, even though they had known each other for most of their lives, they had only been together for six weeks. “Thanks.”

Nana wasn’t only disappointed that Medford hadn’t bought Louise a ring, she was also annoyed that he’d given her a gift with
a picture on the box so she didn’t even have to open it to find out what was inside. Then she heard strange noises coming from her husband’s direction, like hogs snorting at feeding time. When she turned to face him, he was covering his mouth with his hand to hide the snickering underneath.

“What’s wrong with you?” Nana asked Granddaddy. “Your throat itch and need scratching or something? You catchin’ a cold?”

“Nothing,” said Granddaddy. “Just thinking about something funny, that’s all.”

“You want to share the fun with the rest of us?”

“No. I prefer to keep it to myself,” he said, trying to calm down. “I know that’s rude, but the only thing I want to share right now is this gift.” He handed his wife her present. “Here’s what I got for you. Open it up and don’t try to predict what’s inside.” He started laughing again. “You know you ain’t too good at guessing.”

“Humph,” Nana said under her breath. She opened her present and pulled out a shiny set of garden tools small enough to fit into the individual pockets of the brand-new canvas belt that she could wrap around her waist when it was time for her to go outside and plant her tomatoes.

“This here garden belt is for good luck to kick off a new year to compete in the Annual County Fair,” Granddaddy said, loud enough for Ole Miss Johnson to hear.

“I love it. I just love it.” Nana snapped the belt around her waist and strutted like a model walking down a runway to show off her new accessory to her guests.

“You’ll need more ‘an new tools to take away my crown next year,” said Ole Miss Johnson, half-joking. “In fact, now that I think of it, beating me is dern near next to impossible, like holding back a copperhead from biting when it’s made up its mind to strike. And by the way,” she said, pointing her finger, “for as many
years as we’ve been growing tomatoes, that important piece of information should have sunk in real deep by now, as easy as a pickaxe driving into fertile earth.”

“Now, ladies.” Granddaddy was diplomatic. “It’s not springtime yet. You’ve got a few more months to go before you start hurling insults at each other.”

Nana had had about enough of her neighbor. Now that dinner was over, she felt she had lived up to her charitable Christian obligation and was ready for the old lady to leave. But Ole Miss Johnson stayed in her seat, and it looked to Nana as if evil were her anchor.

However, the truth was, Ole Miss Johnson was in so much pain that she couldn’t get up without assistance. She wanted to go home, but part of the problem was that she was too stubborn to ask for help to rise out of her chair, the other part that she found a small sense of satisfaction in making her host feel a tinge of discomfort too.

After all the presents were exchanged and opened and the various lemon dessert gifts handed out, Sadie took her place at the piano and Bootsie began singing “Away in a Manger.” When he finished that song, everyone launched into “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,” totally throwing themselves into the Christmas spirit because they wouldn’t get another day like this until next year.

Jeremiah and Ruby Rose followed the road to Lemon City like the smell of tobacco hitchhiking a ride on a gust of wind.

“Are we there yet?” Ruby Rose asked, staring out the window.

“Yep. There’s the sign up ahead,” Jeremiah pointed out. “We’re here.”

The modest announcement carved from wood stood proudly alongside the road. It read: lemon city, population 6,596.

For the first time Jeremiah felt relaxed enough to enjoy the beautiful scenery that the Blue Ridge Mountains provided. They had been driving for most of the day, and it seemed the sun was setting fast. As he looked through his windshield, the snow-covered peaks and high summits of the great mountain range surrounding them made him feel small upon approach. As he scanned the sprawling chain of magnificent rock, he was easily reminded that there is a God and that only He could create such a masterpiece to welcome them with expansive arms and a long embrace. Looking up at the sky, he admired the hawks soaring overhead, flapping their wings, rising with the drafts on motionless flight, making travel look effortless, a stark comparison to the life journey of him and Ruby Rose. Even though the forest was still, the bare trees that opened up to extraordinary vistas also exposed him and his sister to the officials that might already be on their trail. Rescuing Ruby Rose from her unforgivable situation made him feel more like an escaped convict than her savior.

“You know what Dick Gregory did?” Jeremiah asked.

“What?” Ruby Rose answered, unable to peel her eyes away from the new view.

“He actually ran nine hundred miles from Chicago to Washington, D.C.”

“Was he running from the law, like us?”

Jeremiah smiled. “Nah, he was running to protest world hunger.”

“What sense does that make?”

“It was his way of getting attention in the newspapers and on TV, to make people aware of the crisis and hope that they would care and do something about world hunger too.”

Just as Jeremiah said that, smoke came out from underneath the hood of the car. The sound of a pipe banging against metal started up again, but this time it was louder and made the car
shudder as if something were about to break. The car stalled, then shut off and sputtered to a complete stop.

“What happened?” asked Ruby Rose, leaning into the dashboard as if that would get her closer to the hood to locate the source of the problem.

“I don’t know.” Jeremiah turned the key in the ignition, but the 1964 Dodge Dart knocked and clattered and refused to start. “Damn it!” He put on his gloves, got out of the car, cleared the smoke away with his hands, and carefully lifted the hood. Coolant started spurting at him from every direction. He looked underneath the car, only to find liquid pouring out—a major leak. He checked the hose. It was cracked. When he unscrewed the radiator cap and looked inside it was drained—no antifreeze left. With no coolant flowing through the engine and radiator, two major systems were down. He checked the fuel pump, which he determined wasn’t delivering properly to the carburetor, which was also causing part of the problem. Lifting the fan belt, he could see that it was worn. After testing the spark plugs one at a time, he could tell the ignition system was shot.

“Ruby Rose,” Jeremiah called to his sister.

She rolled down the window and stuck out her head.

“I’m afraid I don’t have good news.”

“By the looks of things, I wouldn’t think so,” Ruby Rose replied.

“We’re gonna have to continue our journey on foot.” Jeremiah looked at the sun to see how much farther it had to go before it disappeared. There wouldn’t be much daylight left. Then he glanced at his watch. “Let’s grab a few things from the trunk and get moving. It’s going to get dark soon.”

Jeremiah opened the trunk and placed the essentials on the road. He took a screwdriver from his tool kit to remove the license plates from the car and tucked them away safely inside one of the bags. Shifting the car into neutral, he gave it a shove from the rear
and watched as it rolled off the side of the road down a cliff into a thickly wooded ravine. He stayed until the car came to a halt and vanished into the shrubbery and trees.