Cold Tea On A Hot Day. Curtiss Matlock Ann

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СКАЧАТЬ to task by her daughter Belinda for perpetrating a hoax, Vella said with practicality, “People like thinkin’ the glasses are old, and they would rather not be apprized of the truth. Besides, they will be antiques in another fifty years—and I sure pay enough for them to be looked at.”

      As Marilee and the children entered the store, the bell above the door chimed out. Immediately Marilee was engulfed by the dearly familiar scents of old wood, simmering barbecue and faint antiseptic of the store that had not changed since she was a nine-year-old child and so often came running down the hill to escape the sight of her father sitting in his cracked vinyl recliner, beer in hand and glassy eyes staring at the flickering television, and her mother in the kitchen gone so far away into country songs on the radio that she would not speak.

      “We have come for ice cream,” Willie Lee said as he went directly to his Great-Aunt Vella, who was sitting at the rear table, with glasses on the tip of her nose so she could more easily read the IGA ads in the newspaper spread wide before her.

      “You’ve come to the right place then, mister,” said Winston Valentine, who was sitting across from their aunt and who nudged an empty sundae dish that sat in front of him. Being yet spring and midmorning, the place was empty except for these two.

      “Hel-lo, Mis-ter Wins-ton,” Willie Lee said.

      “Hello, Mister Willie Lee.”

      Willie Lee extended his hand, as Winston had taught him, and Winston shook the small offered hand with great respect.

      Marilee saw that Winston’s big, gnarled hand, when it released Willie Lee’s, shook slightly. The blue veins showed clearly when he used that same hand to push his tall frame up from the table.

      “If you ladies and gentleman will excuse me,” he said, polite as always, “I have to walk on home and make sure Mildred has not drowned Ruthanne in her bath this mornin’. The nurse has the day off.” He checked his watch. “They ought to be done by now.”

      Mildred Covington and Ruthanne Bell, two elderly ladies, shared Winston Valentine’s home. Since Winston’s stroke the year before, a home health nurse came in to check on all three of them three times a week. Aunt Vella had once told Marilee that on the days the nurse did not come, Winston, after making certain the women had breakfast, tried to leave home at midmorning, so as to not be present when the women were getting bathed and dressed; Mildred seemed to have a penchant for running around naked in front of him whenever she had the chance.

      “Winston’s really aging now,” Marilee said, watching the old man lean heavily on his cane as he went out the door. He was eighty-eight this year, and only since his stroke had he slowed any.

      “There’s more life in him than many a man I know,” Vella said, and in a snapping manner that startled Marilee a little. It only then occurred to her that her Aunt Vella was not getting any younger, either; no doubt it was distressing to her aunt to see a dear friend declining and heading for the border.

      Marilee found the fact depressing, as well. She felt as if her life were going down a hole, and she could not seem to find the stopper.

      “Now, what’s this about my darlin’s wantin’ ice cream?” Aunt Vella asked.

      “We want sun-daes,” Willie Lee told her and scampered over to haul himself up on a stool at the counter.

      “We’ll have three chocolate sundaes, please,” Marilee said, slipping onto a stool.

      She set herself to getting into a better mood. Children learned by example and picked up on things easily. She did not need to add to any of their numerous wounds by being in a poor mood.

      “Me and Mun-ro want va-nil-la,” Willie Lee said. “Cor-rine says dogs should not ev-er have choc-o-late.”

      Marilee only then remembered the dog and looked down to see him already curled beneath Willie Lee’s feet, as if knowing that he would need to be quiet and unseen to remain.

      Aunt Vella took a cursory look around the end of the counter, then said, “We surely can’t leave Munro out.”

      “No, we can-not,” Willie Lee said.

      “Is your choice chocolate, too?” Aunt Vella asked Corrine.

      Corrine frowned in contemplation.

      “I’ll give you another minute.” Aunt Vella went about lining up four dishes and making the sundaes—cherry for Corrine, it turned out. While doing this, she threw conversation over her shoulder, telling about the Rose Club meeting held the previous evening—“We had ten people!”—and how they had already voted as a first project to plant roses around the Welcome to Valentine signs at each end of town.

      “Winston and I are goin’ up to Lawton tomorrow to buy bushes,” Vella reported, feeling increasing excitement with the telling.

      She had been very pleased with the respectable turnout of people for the first rose club meeting, and felt a glow that her idea of a rose club had proven out. Especially after Perry had rather pooh-poohed the idea as frivolous. She almost had not pursued the idea, after his attitude, but it had turned out that a number of people, such as their mayor’s wife, Kaye Upchurch, had liked the idea immensely. While Kaye Upchurch could be on the frivolous side, she was truly knowledgeable about what was good for the town. Her enthusiasm for the Rose Club’s place in the community was heartening.

      Vella was also becoming more and more excited about going up to Lawton with Winston. She had never been anywhere with Winston, outside of her own backyard or here at the store.

      “We’d like to get the bushes in the ground soon. It’s already so late to be planting,” she added, bringing her thoughts back to the moment. “We could very well get a repeat of last summer and all that heat. Winston thought we could install some sort of watering system by the welcome signs,” she said, focusing on a plan. “If the city doesn’t want to pay for it, Winston said he would.”

      In Vella’s opinion, Winston was a little free with his money, and this was both quite amazing and refreshing. Her husband Perry pinched a penny until it gave up the ghost. Vella thought she needed to take lessons from Winston in being more free and easy. She did not want to spend her remaining years being as controlled as she had spent her entire life to this point.

      Marilee, only halfway listening to her aunt’s conversation, other than to observe that the Rose Club seemed to make her aunt very happy, watched the loose skin at the back of her aunt’s arm wiggle, while her biceps worked sturdy and strong. Marilee had lately been trying to exercise the backs of her own arms, which were the first thing to go on a woman; she was amazed that her aunt was so strong, though, despite the sagging back of her arm.

      Then Marilee found herself looking over the counter, at the age-spotted long mirror, the shelf of neatly lined and glimmering tulip glasses, the modern licenses in dingy frames, and the yellowing menu with the Dr Pepper sign at the top. The drone of Uncle Perry’s television reached her from the back room of the pharmacy, where her uncle would be sitting in his overstuffed brown chair.

      Aunt Vella brought a dish of ice cream around the end of the counter and set it down for Munro. “I didn’t think he needed whipped cream or a cherry,” she said, then stood there, watching the dog, as they all were.

      “I sure hope this doesn’t give him a headache,” Vella said, as the dog began to lick the cold sweet ice cream with some eagerness.

      “He СКАЧАТЬ