The Oleander Sisters. Elaine Hussey

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      The clock in the café chimed three, and Sweet Mama knew she was already an hour late leaving. If she didn’t get a move on, she wouldn’t make it home before Sis and Emily got back from their shopping trip. Emily would worry and Sis was liable to call for a search party.

      She scanned through her book till she found a page titled “Locking Up.” It told how to turn the open sign to Closed, how to find the key to the café on a peg in the pantry, and how to put it in the top zippered pocket of her purse after she’d gone out and locked the front door behind her.

      Sweet Mama read the entry twice before she got up enough courage to execute it. Then she gathered her hat and her purse and stood awhile, trying to think if she was forgetting something.

      Finally, she ended up at the front door where the key seemed to have outgrown the lock. It took her five minutes to discover she was holding it upside down.

      By the time she got to her Buick, she had sweat patches under her arms and a bead of perspiration lining her upper lip. Thank God the key she put in the ignition caused the car to roar to life. Sweet Mama drove out of the parking lot as smooth as if it were 1921 and she was driving her Tin Lizzie, heading to her brand-new bakery with Beulah at her side.

      With the windows down, the Gulf breeze got under the brim of her black straw hat, making her feel twenty-seven again and ready to show the Jazz Age that a young divorcée with two little boys could start a business the same as a man, only ten times better if it’s a bakery.

      She started to sing, but was shocked at the thin, reedy voice she heard. She and Beulah used to ride along in that Tin Lizzie, singing in harmony as good as the Boswell Sisters, Sweet Mama belting out the alto and Beulah adding her soaring soprano.

      Determined not to be depressed on such a beautiful day, Sweet Mama glanced toward the beach. Terns called from sandy knolls and seagulls wheeled over the Gulf and everything was exactly where it ought to be. Sweet Mama didn’t know why Sis worried so much about her driving. She’d lived in Biloxi all her life and knew it from one side to the other.

      The usual souvenir shops lined the highway, eventually giving way to a row of waterfront houses. Her own pink Victorian house would be coming up any minute now.

      The bridge loomed in front of her, and she eased off the accelerator. Sweet Mama didn’t believe in crossing bridges at full speed. It was a sure way to cause an accident. As much as she enjoyed looking out over the water, she kept her eyes straight ahead till she was over the bridge and cruising down the highway where long-legged storks lifted toward the tops of cypress trees sprouting out of the shallows.

      Always a lover of nature, she admired the sight while the Buick hummed along the highway.

      Was that the sun already sinking over the water? Where was her street? Where was her house?

      Panicked, Sweet Mama eased her Buick into a side road that looked like it didn’t lead anywhere, let alone her house where Beulah would be waiting with a glass of sweet tea. She stumbled out of her car and held on to her hat, searching her surroundings.

      It seemed to her the sun was sinking in the east.

      Then it occurred to her that she’d been driving along in exactly the opposite and wrong direction.

      Frantically, she grabbed her purse out of the car and dug out the Remembering Book. But it was already too dark to read driving directions from the café to her house, and there was nothing written about a bridge to the unknown.

      She was lost. And no matter how hard she searched the little notebook in her hand, it wouldn’t tell her how to find the way home.

       Seven

      DRIVING TO THE BRIDAL SHOP Sis felt as if she were in two places at once, behind the wheel of the car where she was borne along in a rushing torrent of Emily’s chatter and on the beach with the crowd of little boys playing a game of baseball.

      “There’s no use counting on flowers from that new rose hedge,” Emily said.

      Sis refused to think about the rose hedge till after the wedding. Even when she was in the garden, she skirted around the roses.

      “Nothing’s surviving the heat except the oleander and the day lilies,” Emily added. “White oleander will be fine, but maybe I can use some baskets of pink roses to camouflage all that orange.”

      His baseball cap was orange, that little boy on the beach who lobbed the ball toward center field and then spewed up a fine storm of sand as he slid into first base. He looked about ten, the age Sis’s son might be...if she had one. If she had a house and a husband and a dog in the backyard. She’d have a large breed, a golden retriever, maybe, or even a Border collie. Her son would call him Boy and play fetch with him in the backyard using a small baseball mitt to match the one she’d used when she was a child.

      Her fantasy became part of Emily’s enthusiastic monologue.

      “I thought for the music, we’d just move Sweet Mama’s turntable to the back porch and put on a record.”

      The little boy in the orange cap was stealing into home. If she’d had a son, he would have done exactly that. He might even have grown up to be a professional baseball player.

      “Sis, are you listening to me?”

      “I’m listening.”

      “I was going to use Judy Garland singing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow,’ but Larry doesn’t like that song.”

      Just the mention of that fool’s name had Sis tightening her grip on the wheel.

      “Emily, if you want to use that song, use it.”

      “After what happened to her, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

      “Good grief!”

      Judy Garland had died last month of a drug overdose. The famous singer’s death had made no impact at all on Sis. Music was just something to fill the days that seemed to go on forever. When had she realized she’d never marry, never have children of her own? When had the door slammed shut to a future that included a man with dark eyes and gentle hands who would hold her close and whisper her real name?

      She could almost hear his voice. Beth, Beth, Beth.

      “Sis!” Emily grabbed ahold of the dashboard. “Slow down.”

      “Why? I’m not five miles over the speed limit.”

      “You’re going to whiz right past the bridal shop.”

      If Sis had her way, she’d fly past. She’d sprout wings so strong they would carry her and her sister far above the shop with pink-striped awnings where fairy tales were wrapped in pearls and lace and sold to gullible women who expected life to be one big happily ever after.

      Wondering if she was being cantankerous or practical or just plain jealous, she parked under the spreading branches of an ancient magnolia tree so huge it shaded three spaces. The only good thing she could say about this shopping trip was that she didn’t have to lock the car. СКАЧАТЬ