Rebel McKenzie (7 page)

My mouth drooled at the sight of itty-bitty chicken salad and pimento cheese sandwiches in the shape of hearts, spades, diamonds, and clubs, wafer-thin slices of buttered date-nut bread, frosty grapes, and tea cakes dusted with confectioner's sugar.

“Miz Odenia,” I whispered as I set her plate down, “can we have the leftovers?” Lynette hadn't gone grocery shopping. For lunch, I'd nibbled a few bites of Rudy's hot dog spaghetti. It was either that or a pine float (glass of water and a toothpick).

“If my guests don't want seconds,” she murmured. Fat chance. Those ladies ate like a pack of wolverines. They'd have seconds, all right, and probably lick the dishes sitting in the sink.

Lacey Jane served Bambi's mother with a big smile, but the woman ignored her.

I followed Lacey Jane back into the kitchen and hung over the counter to listen to the ladies gab.

The older woman dressed like a Christmas tree was Viola Sandbanks. She sold Madame Queen costume jewelry. Palmer Sandbanks was her daughter, the famous Palmer who scared the mailman so bad, he stuck the mail in the wrong boxes.

Mimsie Lovering was Bambi's mother, a fact she wouldn't let anyone forget for a second. According to her, Bambi was the prettiest, most talented girl on this planet.

Then I saw a dark brown paw snake out from under the tablecloth. I knew the owner of that foot and prayed it hadn't been splashing in the toilet lately. The paw waved around until its claws snagged the hobnailed edge of Mrs. Lovering's plate and slowly began to pull. I shut my eyes. I couldn't bear to watch.

Mrs. Lovering's scream made my eyes fly open. The plate flipped in her lap, and buttery date-nut bread smeared all over her white dress.

“A rat!” she shrieked, jumping up and scattering the rest of her lunch. Tea cakes, sandwiches, and grapes tumbled on the rug.

The others screamed, too, and hopped up like they were sitting on an anthill.

Doublewide darted out, snatched a club-shaped chicken salad sandwich, and ducked back under the tablecloth. His paw flicked out once more to snick a stray grape.

“What
is
that?” Viola Sandbanks asked, one hand on her chest.

“Lacey Jane, bring me a damp sponge,” Miss Odenia said. “I'm sorry, Mimsie, but I do not have rats.” She dabbed at Mrs. Lovering's skirt with the sponge. “There, that's most of it. In this heat, that wet spot will dry in no time.” She looked at me. “Who let that lummox of a cat in here?”

“Doublewide must have slipped in when nobody was looking.”

“Fetch him and put him outside.”

But Doublewide wasn't having any of it. When I raised the tablecloth, he growled and crouched over his sandwich, probably thinking I was going to steal it. Or maybe he was insulted because Bambi's mother had called him a rat.

“He—he's—” I searched for a polite way to say that a stick of dynamite wouldn't budge him. “He's indisposed at the moment.”

“Indisposed!” flared Viola Sandbanks. “Well, I never!”

“Let him stay,” Palmer said. “Maybe he'll bring me luck.”

Miss Odenia said crisply, “Girls, would you clear, please?”

After the last crumb was swept off the tablecloth, Miss Odenia opened a shiny black box and took out a deck of cards.

“Y'all playing poker?” I asked.

“Euchre,” said Mimsie Lovering. It sounded like
yuker
.

“Bless you,” Lacey Jane said. “Need a Kleenex?”

“That's the name of the
game
.”

Miss Odenia expertly dealt the cards, one at a time, around the table, then stacked the leftover cards in the center of the table. “Spades are trump.”

“First jack deals,” said Palmer, holding up the jack of spades. “Dealers rotate clockwise.” She shuffled the leftover deck and began dealing a second round.

Mimsie Lovering talked more than the other three put together. It was Bambi this and Bambi that till I wanted to gag. Or gag
her
. Every time Bambi's name was mentioned, Lacey Jane's lips pursed, and she rattled the dishes.

I didn't know anything about euchre, or whatever it was called, but I noticed that Mimsie Lovering, who sat across from Palmer, gathered the cards after the first game and slung them around. She tossed the last four cards in the center of the table, facedown. They called that pile the kitty.

“Spades trump?” she asked, casually flipping the top card of the kitty. She slid the card into her hand with a satisfied smile.

“Hey,” I said. “Isn't it supposed to be Miz Odenia's turn? If you were going clockwise, I mean?”

“Caught stealing the deal, Mimsie Lovering!” Viola Sandbanks exclaimed. “And by somebody who doesn't even know the game!”

“The card's in my hand,” Mimsie said tightly. “It's legal.”

“
This
time,” said Miss Odenia. “Do it again, you'll take a penalty.”

Viola waved me over in a jangle of charm bracelets. “Rebel? Would you and Lacey Jane serve at my Madame Queen party tomorrow evening? I'll pay.”

Money! I looked at Lacey Jane. She nodded back.

“We'll be there!” I wanted to ask exactly how much she was paying but knew it wasn't polite. Just so long as it was cash on the barrelhead.

I headed back for the kitchen, but Violet Sandbanks grabbed my arm.

“Stay here,” she said, “and keep an eye on Mrs. Lovering.” She laughed to show she was only joking.

Mimsie Lovering glowered at me. Clearly she was not amused.

The mother of my biggest rival in the beauty pageant was now my enemy.

T
he card game broke up at exactly four o'clock. Mrs. Lovering opened the door, turning to tell the others good-bye. Rudy, dirty from one end to the other, tried to squeeze inside past her, but stumbled.

“Sorry,” he said, slapping grubby handprints on her white dress. “Gotta go to the bathroom.”

“Didn't I tell you to stay in the yard?” I said. “You listen real good.”

Bambi's mother sniffed. “Were these children raised by cougars?”

At last the company left. Miss Odenia sagged against the wall as Rudy hurled himself into the living room. The hand he'd washed held a tan object.

“Look what I dug out of the ground, Rebel! An old tool from the Cool Age!”

“It's Ice Age, not Cool Age.” I examined the pointy object. “Rude, they didn't have plastic knives in the Ice Age with ‘Made in China' stamped on them.”

“Aw! I thought for sure I found something.” He passed it to Lacey Jane. “Want to see?”

She backed away. “Keep your filthy mitts off my brand-clean dress.”

“March back into the bathroom,” Miss Odenia said to Rudy. “Wash your face and
both
hands. Don't use the little pink towel. That's for good.”

Miss Odenia turned on the kitchen faucet, squirted dish soap in the sink, and snapped on a pair of yellow rubber gloves.

“You look like you're in a TV commercial,” I told her.

“I
was
in a TV commercial once,” she said. “I used to be a hand model.”

“Say again?”

“Hand model. That was my job.”

“So
that's
why you have all these pictures of hands around,” Lacey Jane said.

Miss Odenia dropped silverware into the soapy water. “Those were ads for magazines and newspapers. The statues were cast from my hands. At one time, my hands were kind of famous.” She sighed. “But I never got to be an Avon hand model.”

Rudy staggered in carrying Doublewide, who was as heavy as a Christmas ham. “Three guesses what I found on the toilet and the first two don't count.”

“That cat better not be using my toilet!”

“Be still,” I ordered Rudy. “Miz Odenia's about to tell us her life story.”

“Y'all don't want to hear about stuff that happened way before you were born.”

“Yes, we do!” Lacey Jane and I said at the same time.

Lacey Jane took Miss Odenia's place at the sink. “Rebel and me will clean up.”

I didn't sign on to be waitress
and
busboy, but I didn't want to miss this story.

Miss Odenia sank down on the sofa beside Rudy. Doublewide plunked his big self onto her lap, thinking he was forgiven.

“I grew up in Terrapin Thicket. When I was little, I'd sit on the porch with the Sears, Roebuck catalog. I cut out ladies in their evening gowns and day suits and pasted them on corn flakes boxes to make stand-up paper dolls.” She rested her head against the back of the sofa and closed her eyes.

“Soon as I could thread a needle, I was sewing my own clothes on Mama's knee-press Singer. I bought material with money I earned working in the garden. No bleached feed sacks for me. Sometimes Ercel Grady—he lived on the next farm—he'd come over and visit. Once he brought me a box turtle he'd found in the garden. I was painting my toenails with Revlon's Cherries in the Snow polish.”

I began to wish I hadn't made Miss Odenia tell her life story. Turtles and sewing and paper dolls. Yawn.

“Ercel took the little brush and painted ‘EG + OM' on the turtle's back. He liked me and I liked him, but only as a friend. That summer, the Simplicity Pattern Company sent their new spring fashions to our 4-H club. I was one of the girls picked to model the outfits. Oh, how I loved wearing those beautiful dresses. From that second on, I craved to leave Terrapin Thicket and be a fashion model.”

“What happened to the turtle?” Rudy asked, bouncing on the cushion.

“Quit interrupting,” I said. “And sit still.”

“The next summer,” Miss Odenia went on, “what should mosey through the garden but that turtle with our initials on its shell? We named him Job because he seemed to be carrying a world of troubles with him. Job came back the next summer too and the summer after that. Ercel said it was a sign that we'd be together forever. I didn't want to get married. I had plans. When I was eighteen, I left home for Washington, D.C. That summer, Job didn't come.”

I dried the same lunch plate over and over. Miss Odenia's story wasn't boring anymore. Her low voice almost hypnotized me.

“Modeling agencies didn't want me,” she said. “I wasn't tall enough or pretty enough. So I worked as a photographer's secretary. One day he had a job, but the hand model he hired never showed. Then he noticed
my
hands. Next thing I knew, I was holding a Sears iron like I was presenting the crown jewels. Nobody saw my face or my figure. Just my hands.”

“This is like a story in a book,” Lacey Jane said with a sigh. “Were you rich?”

Miss Odenia smiled. “Hand modeling is hard work. In those days pictures weren't airbrushed. I kept my hands out of the sun so they wouldn't get tan. While I was on the set, I had to hold my arms up in the air to drain the blood. See, blood settles in the hands and makes the blue veins stand out.”

All of us except Doublewide checked our hands. My veins were like spiderwebs.

“I took my portfolio of photographs to agencies to get jobs. One day I was at an agency when in comes a woman about my age. The other girls whispered, ‘She's the Avon hand model.' Plain as mud with a figure like a scrub board. But her hands were flawless. She never opened doors or windows or cans. She didn't garden or clean. She
always
wore gloves. And she was treated like a queen. I wanted to be a hand model for Avon, like her.”

By now I had nearly rubbed a hole in the plate. “Did you get to be one?”

“I moved to New York City. Mama threw her apron over her head. She thought I'd be killed in the big, wicked city. I went on all the casting calls for Avon.” Her voice dropped a notch. “But I was never picked. My hands weren't good enough for hand lotion photographs. They were only good enough to push the button on a blender or pour soup in a bowl. Or model gloves. And my hands were cast to use as jewelry store displays.”

“But you were famous,” I broke in. “How come you're here—” I stopped, realizing that everyone but me lived in Grandview Estates trailer park.

“Living in a mobile home? Never married? No children or grandchildren?” Miss Odenia shook her head. “I lived the life I wanted. I got out of Terrapin Thicket and traveled all over the country. I have no regrets.”

Before I could ask what she meant by that, Lacey Jane said, “What happened to Ercel Grady?”

“Mama wrote to me every week faithful,” Miss Odenia replied. “She kept me up on the doings back home. Ercel Grady married the Scott girl, Rusleen. They had five children, eleven grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren. Two years ago Ercel sent me a Christmas card. His wife had passed.”

“Was it a big funeral?” Rudy butted in. “Open or closed casket? Did a whole bunch of cars drive out to the graveyard? That means the dead person had a lot of friends.”

Lacey Jane stared at him. So did I. What was
with
that kid and his obsession with funerals? I dropped my tea towel on the counter and hustled Rudy toward the door. Doublewide jumped off Miss Odenia's lap.

“Time we were getting home,” I said, shooing Doublewide ahead of me. “Lynette will worry. Thanks for the lesson, Miz Odenia. See you later, Lacey Jane.”

“Thanks for serving,” Miss Odenia hollered after me. “Be here tomorrow morning at ten. We'll learn to pivot turn.”

The Clunker was parked in the driveway. Its engine cracked and popped in the heat, which meant Lynette had only been home a few minutes. She trudged from the cluster of mailboxes, gripping a fistful of mail.

She fixed me with an angry glare. “I walk in after a long hard day and what do I find? Doublewide's throw-up on the bathroom rug, laundry strung all over the floor, and no supper.” Then she noticed Rudy, whose neck, knees, and elbows were caked with dirt. “
Where
have you been?”

“Digging fossils down by the sewer. Rebel and Lacey Jane went to a party,” the little snitch replied. I could have throttled him.

“The sewer! You know you're not supposed to go down there! Rebel, why weren't you watching him? What kind of a babysitter are you?”

“The free kind.”

Lynette shifted her weight so one hip jutted out. “Well, I'm glad you were having a big time while my son was wallowing in filth.”

“I was
not
having a big time, unless you call being a waitress at Miz Odenia's card party a blast,” I tossed back.

“I didn't notice Doublewide's accident or I would have cleaned it up. The way that cat eats, no wonder he gets sick. I told Rudy three times to pick up his clothes. And like Old Mother Hubbard said to her dog, the cupboard is bare.”

I folded my arms over my chest, daring Lynette to rip into me some more.

But she said, “Shoot. I've been so busy with school I forgot to go grocery shopping. Look, I just got Chuck's check. We'll stop by the bank on the way to Kroger. And I'll fix us a good supper when we get back.”

“I want Tater Tots!” Rudy said.

Lynette steered him toward the trailer. “You aren't going anywhere like this.”

I hurried in after them, wiping up Doublewide's mess on the rug and collecting Rudy's underwear. Fifteen minutes later, we were tooling down Frog Level Road in The Clunker. Lynette zipped by the drive-up window of the bank, then mashed the gas to Kroger.

“We're all starved cockeyed,” she said, swerving into the parking lot. “The absolute worst time to go grocery shopping. Don't buy too much junk.”

Even though he was way too old, Rudy hopped into a cart. His knees tucked under his chin, he hung on to the sides as I raced down the aisles. We filled the cart with all sorts of nutritious stuff like Hostess Sno Balls (pink
and
white), Clark bars, Nesquik, and Lucky Charms for Rudy, who finally decided to brave a bowl of cereal for breakfast. I didn't think Lucky Charms was much of an improvement over RC floats, but if he didn't eat it, I would. Gotta love that leprechaun!

We met Lynette at the cookie aisle. Her cart was loaded with soft drinks, grape jelly, peanut butter, saltines, Wonder bread, milk, Velveeta, TV dinners, tuna potpies, and Rudy's Tater Tots.

She eyed the package of pink Sno Balls Rudy was holding. “Rebel, I told you not so much junk.”

“Your cart wouldn't win any home ec prizes, either,” I said. “We need cookies.”

Lynette reached for the two-pound bag of gingersnaps that were on sale.

“Not those,” I said hastily. “I don't really like them.”

“Then how come you ate a half a bag last night?” Rudy blabbed. “Mama, Rebel stayed in the bathroom a looong time this morning. Doublewide had to go in the yard.”

I poked him. “Do we have
any
secrets in this family?”

“And you complain about the way Doublewide eats. I could have told you gingersnaps give you the runs.” Lynette set the bag back on the shelf.

I spotted a package of vanilla and chocolate cookies in different shapes. Some were frosted and some were plain. Stella D'Oro Lady Stella assortment. “These look delicioso.”

“Four ninety-nine!” Lynette exclaimed when she saw the price. “Rebel, there are only about twelve cookies in that package.”

“With that classy name, they'll be worth it.”

While Lynette fixed us a payday supper of tomato soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, and Tater Tots, Rudy and me put the groceries away. I tore the package of Stella D'Oro Lady Stella assortment open.

“Don't spoil your supper,” Lynette warned.

“‘Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.' I read that somewhere.”

Lynette stirred the soup. “I don't think school will ever get any better. Today Marcie—her station is next to mine—she begged me to cut her hair. She knows we're only allowed to work on our mannequin heads. But she went on so, I took her in the break room and gave her a haircut.”

“Did she like it?” I bit into a white-iced chocolate cookie.

“Are you kidding? She said it looked like I used a chain saw. I told her she didn't have the kind of hair for a choppy bob, but did she listen? So now Marcie's telling the other girls I ruined her hair on purpose.”

“Sic Lacey Jane on her. She'll straighten her out,” I said.

“Speaking of Lacey Jane,” Lynette said to me, “what were you and her up to today?”

“We served the food and washed the dishes at Miz Odenia's card party.” The chocolate cookie didn't have much taste. I nibbled on a square pink-frosted vanilla.