Goose in the Pond - Earlene Fowler [39]
“There’s no food in this house,” Rita whined.
“Get a job,” I said, and started to hang up. I quickly amended my statement. “But not in San Celina.”
“I ran into Gabe this morning,” she said, her voice carrying that smug tone I knew too well.
“How?” I asked, seeing as when I walked him to his car this morning, she wasn’t even up yet.
“He forgot his briefcase. We ran into each other when I was coming out of the shower.”
I groaned inwardly and asked, “Oh, geez, were you dressed?”
“For pity’s sake, Benni, of course I was. What kind of trailer trash do you think I am?”
I took the fifth on that one.
6
“I’M STARVING,” she said. “Want to go to lunch? I’ll tell you all about Skeeter—that no-good, double-dealing bull jockey.”
“Gee, I’d love to, but—”
“Please, Benni.” A small sniffle came over the line. “I don’t have anyone else to talk to.” Another sniffle. Louder this time. Then she brought out the big guns. “You’re family .”
I curled my toes in frustration and gave in. “How about meeting me at Blind Harry’s in a half hour? You can walk there from the house.”
“Walk?” she squealed. I jerked the phone away from my ear. “Can’t you pick me up?”
“No,” I said firmly, determined at least to have a modicum of control. “It’s only about a half mile. You did it fine last night.”
“I wasn’t alone last night. Walking is so boring.”
“It’s great for stress.”
“I’ll tell you what’ll relieve my stress,” she snapped. “A quick divorce. That lyin’ son—”
“Rita, hold that thought for Blind Harry’s.”
“Not there,” she said peevishly. “That Mexican friend of yours, Elena What’s-her-name, always gives me sour looks. I can’t enjoy my lunch if someone’s glaring at me the whole time.”
“It’s Elvia,” I corrected for the millionth time. But I caught her not so subtle drift. Elvia couldn’t abide Rita and made no bones about showing it. “Okay, there’s a new cafe around the corner from Blind Harry’s. It’s called Eudora’s Front Porch. It’s on the corner of Alvarez and Elm. You’ll like it. The menu reads like one of Aunt Garnet’s Sunday dinners.”
Since I was driving, I reached Eudora’s in five minutes, which gave me time to relax before being bombarded with Rita’s marital woes. Ash had done an incredible job in carving a niche for Eudora’s in a town already close to the saturation point with restaurants and coffeehouses. He’d taken an old two-story Victorian house and transformed it into a popular meeting place for local musicians and artists as well as attracting a large clientele for his authentic Southern menu. The house was painted a pale butter yellow with white trim, the wraparound porch crowded with white wicker furniture. Inside the spacious house, the living room, now the main dining room, was filled with artfully mismatched antique chairs and resin-coated oak tables. On the walls were framed copies of all of Eudora Welty’s book covers and black-and-white prints from her photo essay of Depression-era Mississippi. In the center of each table were glazed widemouth pots made by one of his regular customers. Inside the pots were small tablets and freshly sharpened pencils. “We don’t ever want a brilliant idea or image to go unrecorded,” Ash was fond of saying. To the right was a coffee bar where drinks and food could be ordered. At the end of the bar sat an antique brass cash register that made that satisfying brriing when it swallowed your money, making you feel as if business was still being conducted, sans computers, in a civilized person-to-person way. Elvia told me that Ash had talked three very prestigious citizens into investing in Eudora’s on the strength of his personality alone. One of them was Constance Sinclair