Cannot Wait to Get to Heaven - Fannie Flagg [49]
Susie had worked long and hard to get to where she was finally able to help other people; she had struggled through a long agonizing period of ten and a half years, losing around a hundred and ten pounds, going from a size eighteen down to a size eight. And it had not been easy. She had tried every diet, from Pritikin to Atkins, from low fat to high fat and back again, but she had never been able to keep it off for more than a few months. Her last stop had been Overeaters Anonymous, and along with Weight Watchers, and praying every day, it had worked so far. Her sponsor in Overeaters Anonymous had told her to stay away from trans fats, walk every day, and pray like a son of a bitch, which she did, but it had still been a daily battle.
She had become a Christian Scientist for a while, had studied Buddhism, Hinduism, the Kabala, Catholicism, Scientology, read the Book of Miracles; studied and searched and prayed to just about anybody and everybody at one time or another, but somewhere along the line, something had happened. In September of 1998 while attending a “Silent Retreat” week at Unity Village outside of Kansas City, she had received a calling to become a Unity minister, and the little Unity Church in Elmwood Springs was her first congregation. So far they had over fifty members. Few people who saw the five-foot-four minister would have believed by looking at her that there was a huge, fat woman sitting inside her, who at the slightest sign of stress was ready to run to the nearest International House of Pancakes. She had to be careful. Death was a stress-producing situation, and the thought of having to deal with seeing Norma’s poor old Aunt Elner dead in her coffin made her want to eat an entire coconut cake. But she would have a glass of water and a protein bar instead, then she would get dressed, suit up, and show up for Norma.
Telling Lies
As Linda Warren ran through the private hangar at the airport, and boarded the plane, one thought kept running over and over in her head. Aunt Elner is dead. She knew that’s what her daddy had said, but still she couldn’t quite believe it. As the plane took off headed for Kansas City, another wave of guilt hit her as she remembered what she and her father had done to Aunt Elner. Lying about the mice was not the first time she had lied to Aunt Elner, and the first time had been even a worse deception.
Over the years Aunt Elner had had a series of orange tabby cats named Sonny, and seventeen years ago, when her mother and Aunt Elner had gone to visit Aunt Elner’s niece Mary Grace, Linda had volunteered to stay in her house and take care of Sonny number six while she was away. But on the second day, the cat disappeared. Linda had been frantic and had called her daddy in hysterics, and for the next four days she and Macky had looked everywhere, but had not found him, nor had he come home. On the sixth day, when they realized he was gone for good, they were now both frantic because they knew how upset Aunt Elner would be when she came home and he was not there. They started calling all the humane societies and pet stores within a hundred miles, looking for an orange cat to replace Sonny.
Finally a woman from the Poplar Springs Humane Society called them back and said they had a male orange tabby cat over there named Marmalade that a woman had to get rid of because he was clawing up all her furniture. She and her daddy had jumped into the car and rushed over to see him, and thank heavens, although he was younger, and a few pounds heavier, Marmalade was the spitting image of Sonny. They grabbed him and rushed back