Standing in the Rainbow - Fannie Flagg [204]
“Yes, honey, go on.”
After ten minutes Norma handed the phone to Macky.
“Daddy, what do you think?”
“It’s up to your mother, whatever she thinks.”
Norma threw up her hands. “You always do this.”
“Well, Daddy, it sounds like a good deal to me. If you get there and don’t like it, you can always turn around and sell it but it sounds like you have a chance to get a nice place at a good price. I think you would always be sorry if you didn’t take advantage of it. Do you know anybody other than Verbena’s nephew who lives in Vero Beach? Anybody you could ask?”
“No.”
“Let me call around and I’ll try and find out something.” Twenty minutes later she called back. “Daddy, listen to this: Vero Beach, Florida, Indian River country home, home of famous Dodgertown, USA.”
“What’s that?”
“Daddy, it’s where the L.A. Dodgers have their spring training. You and Mother can go and watch the Dodgers play.”
The next afternoon Norma called Linda. “Well, honey, we did it. Your daddy and I have just bought a pig in a poke. He’s told the man yes. I just hope to God we don’t get down there and find out we’re in the middle of a swamp.”
“Great! Aren’t you excited?”
“I don’t know what to think, it all happened so fast. I just hope your daddy made the right decision.”
After they packed up and sold everything, it was time, as Merle had said, to shake the dust off and see some new scenery. When Merle and Verbena had moved to Florida they had flown, but Macky decided to buy a Minnie Winnie and see the country on the way down. He bought a captain’s hat and hung a sign on the back that said THE CHUCKLEHEADS and the next day he put Norma, Aunt Elner, and Sonny Number Four in the back and took off. Macky was excited. He had remembered all the little charming, out-of-the-way cafés his family had stopped at the last time he went to Florida, in 1939. But as he soon found out, things had changed. For days all they saw were Burger Kings, Taco Bells, McDonald’s, Jack in the Boxes, and Cracker Barrels. Norma said, “Macky, there are no more little places and Aunt Elner and I don’t want to get ptomaine poisoning just so you can take a trip down Memory Lane.” The one place he did find, Norma refused to go in. “Let’s just go to the Cracker Barrel, where we know it’s clean and the food is good.” The road was not as he remembered either. It was nothing but a blur of huge trucks. There were almost no cars anymore. It seemed like the entire country was nothing but trucks following other trucks. Every town looked exactly like the last. Every gas station had the same mini-mart inside. It was hard to tell one state from another.
In Vero Beach, the man had said to look for a shopping center with a big Publix drugstore, but every shopping center they passed had a big Publix drugstore and Macky finally had to stop and ask directions. A man poked his head in and said, “Sure, go about five miles up past the Winn-Dixie and take a sharp left, right into Leisureville.”
They found the sign with the arrow that said WELCOME TO LEISUREVILLE CENTRAL, FLORIDA’S FINEST GATED COMMUNITY but as they drove in they saw row after row of little mint-green, oleander-pink, or lavender stucco houses that, Aunt Elner noted, were the same color as those candy mints that Miss Alma used to keep in a glass bowl by the cashier.
As they drove in they did not see any vital, silver-haired, good-looking couples, as were shown on the brochure, standing around the pool, cocktail in hand, laughing and chatting with others of the same age with the look of “I’ve got the world by the tail.” All they saw was a bunch of people who looked old to them but looked young to Aunt Elner.
They soon discovered that what had been advertised as Citrus View Patio Homes meant there was an orange grove across the street and a slab of concrete in the postage-stamp backyard. When they walked into their new home Norma was silent. The cottage-cheese ceilings were lower than expected and there were stains all over the mustard-gold shag rug, which did nothing to enhance