Sadie-in-Waiting Read online

  “Wonderful! Mrs. Pickett is also in charge of the Council of Christian Women. So y’all had better be on your best behavior.” Lollie laughed.

  More head turning. More gaping.

  For one fleeting moment Sadie considered sticking her tongue out at the whole curious lot. But, of course, she didn’t. Instead, she sighed and trudged along as they moved up the familiar street.

  Lollie’s voice droned in the background.

  Wileyville had not one, but two main streets, forming an elongated V with the cemetery, the city works-department storage, what was left of the town park and the building where Sadie would have an office if she took the job Mayor Furst had offered, all bordering the bottom edge.

  Along the way lay the usual mix of stores and services. Owtt’s Eatery still had the same basic menu and the same motto—Let’s Eat Owtt’s Tonight!—it started with in 1959.

  Across the way, the signs in the window of Muldoon’s Home Furnishings, proclaiming Once-in-a-Lifetime Savings!, had hung there so long that their vibrant red, white and blue had faded to pink, cream and periwinkle.

  A-One Appliance and Repair with its shiny new gadgetry on display sat next to Szajkowski’s American Hardware, which still sold nails by the pound and dispensed all the advice a person could handle for free.

  Of course, just around the corner at Pep and Bobbie Jo Huckleham’s Boys and Curls Beauty Salon and Barbershop, Pep was all too happy to tell you the hardware store advice “weren’t nothing but a bunch of hooey” and gladly offer you some “rock-solid” advice of his own invention instead.

  In fact, a stop in any of the businesses around town could yield a person myriad opinions on anything from politics to pan-fried chicken recipes. Maybe that’s also why Wileyville had a full half-dozen law offices—in case the sum of all that learned counsel didn’t quite add up to the whole.

  Just down the way, tantalizing aromas from the Not By Bread Alone Bakery wafted out onto the sidewalk. Here and there stood empty old buildings with faded For Sale Or Lease signs in the windows. The courthouse, city hall and the library, all grand old buildings, each had a sign in front touting the need for public support for essential renovations.

  “This here is the first church founded in Wileyville.” Lollie jabbed her finger toward the small stone structure. The congregation had long ago outgrown the building and now it only held a small midnight service on Christmas Eve and a sunrise one on Easter.

  Churches played a big part in life in Wileyville. The four biggest ones anchored the north, south, east and west sides of town. Two still had bell towers and they took turns playing evening vespers, two hymns at 6:00 p.m., and on the Fourth of July and Memorial Day, something with a patriotic flavor.

  Their spires and crosses jutting above the town’s rooftops sometimes seemed to Sadie like the wagging fingers of ostentatious old matrons, out of reach and out of touch with the daily goings-on beneath them. But sometimes, in the twilight of the day or in autumn when the leaves showered down around them, yellow and orange and crimson, or when they stood silently swathed in fresh snow, they reminded her, and everyone around them, that now and then it was wise to look up and acknowledge your part in something larger than yourself.

  “And this place we’re coming up to in the next block—” Lollie stopped at the corner, spreading her arms to keep the children from crossing ahead of her “—the Weed ’Em and Reap Garden Supply and Nursery is owned and operated by Sadie’s older sister, April Shelnutt.”

  A little gasp slipped through Sadie’s lips. Walking along, lost in her own thoughts, she hadn’t even realized where they were. “Um, Lollie, this has been lovely. Very…um, enlightening. But I have to—” Sadie jerked her thumb over her shoulder, eked out a smile, waved goodbye then hurried off without further explanation.

  What could she say, really? Sadie loved her sister—half sister technically, though Sadie never thought of her that way. Though they shared the same mother biologically, their childhood experiences had created a bond that felt no different from the relationship Sadie had with her younger full sister. Still, she had no intention of passing within eyeshot of April’s place. The last thing she needed on this stifling late-spring day when she had planned to stay out of adversity’s way (and already failed not once but twice) was to run into any more of her family than absolutely necessary.

  Toward that end she zigzagged away from the second primary town thoroughfare, Wileyville Road, to bypass the medical clinic where her brother-in-law was finishing out his last year of residency and where her younger sister, Hannah, worked as a receptionist.

  It took a few machinations to manage it but finally, tucked down a shady little side street, in what was once an old railroad tavern, Sadie arrived at the local chapter of the VFW.

  She wanted to keep right on walking.

  She wondered what would happen if she dared try it, if she ignored this unwanted obligation and just got herself to the pharmacy without anybody noticing. Maybe that would break the grip of whatever had her spirit in knots. Maybe, just maybe, if she rushed in breathless and beleaguered, Ed would take one look at her and say, “Sweetheart, you look frazzled. Let’s hop in the car and just drive and drive until we find a nice little bed-and-breakfast where no one can find us. Then we can finally have that second honeymoon you so richly deserve.”

  And maybe Mayor Furst would roller-skate by to bestow on her a brace of flying pigs to pull her along in a rainbow carriage to her new job in the marshmallow gardens beside the gold-plated playground in the world’s best city park.

  One was just as plausible as the other, and she knew it.

  Drawing a deep breath, she pushed open the VFW Hall’s heavy glass front door and confronted her father, who was seated in the foyer lined with metal folding chairs and a fair number of curious onlookers. Wherever Moonie held court there were always curious onlookers. “Daddy, I do not have time for one of your shenanigans today.”

  The instant she crossed that threshold, her daddy’s eyes sparked to life from under his charcoal-colored hat. He smiled, and the lines in his face fell into familiar folds. And like the perfect gentleman farmer that he definitely was not, he stood and gave a little bow. “Well then, tell me when you do have time, Sadie-girl, and I’ll pencil my next shenanigan in at your convenience. Anything for my darling daughter.”

  No. She would not bend. She would not cave in at the sight of him brimming over with tenderness and tomfoolery.

  “But it’s a sad, sad day—” he shook his head and took his seat again, neither his gaze nor his broad smile faltering “—when an old man has to make an appointment just to get a little attention from his own flesh and blood.”

  Attention. Like everyone gathered around the silver-haired man with the twinkling blue eyes didn’t know that getting attention was at the very heart of everything Solomon Shelnutt had done for most of his seventy-one years. And it had worked. It had worked on his mama and on his big sister. Young Solomon had been given his nickname by his sister, Phyllis Amaryllis—Phiz to all those who adored the redheaded Amazon, which was just about the entire human race, give or take a handful of people she’d caught mistreating animals and the odd embassy spokesperson in countries where she’d come close to causing international incidents.

  “We called him Moonie,” she tells it, “because we had to. Gracious, girls, back in the day when your daddy was coming up, why, everyone he flashed with that wicked grin and those angel eyes, well, they thought he just about hung the moon.”

  Sadie’d seen that effect firsthand. Her best friend adored her father. The widows at church fawned over him. Even her sister April’s temperamental greyhound, Squirrel, sighed and rested her head on her paws when he came into the room. Polite and polished and absolutely unashamed of his adoration of every embodiment of femininity, no female seemed able to resist Moonie Shelnutt’s charm.

  Except for Sadie’s mother. Some thirty-five years ago, she ran off in the middle of the night—probably to spare her heart
the torture of looking into those eyes and resigning herself to the fact that this man always got his way.

  No, not always, Sadie amended. Not today.

  “Come on, Daddy.” She waved for him to get up from the metal folding chair to accompany her home. “Memorial Day is only ten days away, and these nice ladies have enough to do to get ready for the festivities without you sticking your fingers in the pie.”

  “Pie? There’s pie?” He sat up straight and turned to a plump woman in pink polyester. “Why wasn’t I informed?”

  The lady in pink giggled.

  “I say bring us pie.” He held his arms wide. “Pie for everyone.”

  “You’re going to be eating humble pie here in a heartbeat, Daddy, if you don’t—”

  “Thank you for coming on down to pick up the old fool, Sadie.” If charm were rocket fuel, Deborah Danes wouldn’t have enough to hoist her hindquarters over a ramshackle henhouse. But she got things done. And in a town where the likes of Sadie’s father constantly sought to “undo” everyone and everything, that made the six-foot-something, former Miss Maryland and Ladies’ All-State Shot-putter a veritable bounty of blessings.

  “Family matter, ladies.” With a snap of her fingers, Deborah rousted the small group of women up out of their seats. In broad sweeping gestures she herded them toward the adjacent room where banners, bits of tissue paper waiting to be made into flowers, bags of candy and boxes of small American flags covered rows of long, sturdy tables. On her way out she pointed at the man sitting at the center of the musty-smelling VFW lobby and narrowed one eye at Sadie. “He’s insisting we give him a slot in the Memorial Day parade.”

  “Oh, Daddy.” Sadie rubbed her temple. “Why?”

  “Why?” He crinkled up his nose and leaned forward, his age-spotted hands on his knees. “I think the better question is why not? There’s going to be a celebration in town, and I say why not be a party to it?”

  “Daddy, everything in life can’t be your own personal celebration.”

  He laughed and adjusted his hat just so. “I’d have to ask you again, Sadie-girl, why not?”

  “Because…” She raked her fingers through her hair, marveling that she didn’t pull it out altogether in total frustration.

  “Because…” Deborah spun around. Her hair, beautiful chestnut waves with a shock of blond in the front, which somehow looked relaxed and regal all at the same time, did not move even when she leaned out to seize the doorknob and bark, “It simply won’t do! If I let all the people who wanted to be in this dog-and-pony show just up and join the parade, then nobody would be left to watch it.”

  The door slammed.

  Moonie removed his hat and scratched his head.

  Sadie pinched the bridge of her nose and looked at the floor. A pale reddish-brown wisp of hair fell forward over her eyes, and the play of the low-watt lightbulbs overhead highlighted a single gray hair. She sighed and got back to business. “Daddy, clearly Deborah wants me to reiterate to you that they reserve the honor of participating in the Memorial Day parade for veterans only.”

  “Is it my fault I couldn’t put on a uniform and serve my country?” Hat in hand, he spoke softly. He always spoke softly. But that never kept his words from carrying the power of that proverbial big stick. “After all, I had to stay home and raise you three girls after your mama run off. And with your baby sister…”

  “I know, I know, with my baby sister just three weeks home from the hospital.” Sadie didn’t think in her whole life she had ever heard her daddy refer to her mother’s leaving without tacking on that bit about Hannah.

  “Besides—” his grin spread out slowly in catlike satisfaction “—it’s not just veterans. They let them girls in.”

  “What?” Sadie threw her hands up and shook her head. “What girls?”

  “The ones with sparkly doodads all over and the high hair that they perch up on the back seat of open-air cars.”

  “They perch their hair on the back seat of cars?”

  “You know what I mean.” He did a passing fair imitation of a beauty queen in all her glory giving the regal wave to an adoring audience.

  He didn’t have to act it out for her, of course. She had once been one of those girls gone gliding through town with a smile as immovable as her lacquered hairdo. And because of her former glory, she was still asked to join the annual float.

  Dogwood Blossom Queen. An honor bestowed on “the sweetest bloom of the senior class, a girl lovely of face and fair of temperament,” or so the Wileyville High School yearbook always touted her. Wholesome. Chaste. And dutiful to a fault.

  In other words, if the good folks of Wileyville had been a passel of heathens instead of, as the monument across from the Point proclaimed, “A community built on four faiths: God, family, patriotism and self-reliance,” being chosen Dogwood Blossom Queen would have been the equivalent of getting selected “girl most likely to be thrown into a volcano.”

  “They have to have the queen and her court in the parade, Daddy. They’re like…” She pictured her sweet, obedient, younger self jumping into a smoking crater and managed to muster up a half shrug. “They’re like old-fashioned apple pie.”

  “Half-baked?” He winked.

  “Oh, excuse me, but that’s a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t it?”

  “You the kettle? Because you’re one of them girls, and I don’t recall you ever serving in any wars.”

  Wars? She fought one daily just to get by, and his nonsense did not make it any easier on her. But she couldn’t say that out loud, so she just sighed and muttered, “Daddy, that’s just a tradition. They ask that every woman ever elected a Dogwood Blossom Queen ride on the float. And honestly, I don’t consider it any great honor, either, to be hauled through town on the back of a flatbed truck wearing a faded prom dress under the banner Our Bygone Blossoms.”

  The humor of that had not been lost on the town. Every Fourth of July the eldest members of the South and Central Civic Charities Club made an appearance in that parade, standing in the back of a pickup decked in toilet-paper “gowns” while someone walked ahead carrying the sign Our Old Queens. Given an option, Sadie would rather have ridden with them.

  “Your sisters can be in the parade. Is April a veteran? Is Hannah? Hardly.”

  “They were Petal Maidens.” The all-girl court that attended the Dogwood Blossom Queen each spring. “And they don’t do the parade, Daddy.”

  Something for which Sadie admitted a grudging admiration.

  “Maybe they don’t, but what about our towheaded little pistol of a pal? Martha Tatum Fitts McCrackin.”

  Moonie loved to say the whole name of Sadie’s best friend, who rented the back half of the Downtown Drug building to run the Royal Academy of Charm and Beauty. He loved the cadence of it, he said, especially since she married Royal McCrackin fifteen years ago. And he never missed a chance to shout it out to the woman everyone else called simply, Mary Tate. Mary Tate egged him on, waving and cooing and blowing him big exaggerated kisses whenever or wherever he called to her.

  “Now, our Martha Tatum waltzes her brood down the street every year, doesn’t she?”

  “Daddy, I’ve told you a thousand times those are not Mary Tate’s children. Those are some of her students doing what she calls a salute to our American service people in tap dance and precision flag twirling.”

  “I don’t care if she calls it Betsy Ross and the Star-spangled Supremes. It’s a bunch of rhythmically impaired youngsters with glitter glued on their gym clothes waving ribbons on sticks, clomping down the street in shoes that sound like they got bottle caps stuck to the soles.” He brandished his hat in the air, caught up in the pure joy of the image he’d created. “And all the while that sweet pixie of a gal walking alongside carrying a boom box bigger than she is, blaring music so loud and distorted she might as well be hauling along a trash compactor in a rusty wagon.”

  If he hadn’t just described the ragtag troop to a tee, Sadie might have ha
d a bit more conviction when she jerked her chin up, crossed her arms, narrowed her eyes and said, “Fine. You want to be in the parade with the rest of the little children? I’ll arrange with Mary Tate for you to march with them.”

  He stood at last, his smile lighting all the way to his eyes, and asked, “You think I won’t do it?”

  “Daddy, I don’t think there’s anything you won’t do.” She dropped her arms to her sides, turned toward the front door, then paused. She should probably just let it go but…“What I don’t understand is why. Why are you the way you are?”

  His hand flattened warm and soothing against the small of her back. “Sadie, honey, I could ask you the same question.”

  “Maybe you should ask yourself that. Doesn’t it say in Proverbs, ‘Train up a child in the way he should go…’”

  “‘And when he is grown he will not depart from it.’”

  “Old.”

  “What?” His faded plaid shirt rasped against the sleeve of her shapeless denim dress.

  “When he is old,” she corrected. “Not when he is grown. The verse says, ‘When he is old he will not depart from it.’”

  “Well, maybe that’s my problem, then.” He pulled her close to his side, his cheek to hers, and took her hand in his. “I grew, but I never have let myself get old.”

  “You mean you’re still very childish?” she muttered.

  “Childlike.” He kissed her cheek and drew away, his hand still clinging to hers. “Filled with joy. I thought…I most surely did hope…that I had done my very best to train you up that way, Sadie-girl. To always be a child of joy. But these days when I look into those world-weary eyes of yours…”

  “I know, Daddy.” She gave his rough fingers a squeeze. “I’m just tired, that’s all.”

  It wasn’t really a lie. She was tired. But that did not tell the whole story, and she could see her daddy knew it.

  “Sadie, honey, you can’t go on like this.”

  “Don’t start, Daddy.”

  “Why not? Someone has to start, Sadie. Whatever you’re doing isn’t working—surely you can see that? If you won’t do it for yourself, someone has to start—start talking the truth, start looking at things in a new light, start reaching out.”