Tomorrow River

time came, but your mother, she wanted Sam to do it. She thought it best that a family member bring you.”

E. J.’s mouth drops practically down to the counter alongside mine. Sam? A family member? Why would she say something like that? What is wrong with… oh, poor thing. Working these long hours at the lunch counter. Those deep fryers can get awful hot. Vera probably has a severe case of heat exhaustion. Bootie Young told me there was this one time that his dairy-farming daddy was working too long under the sun and his mama found him trying to milk one of the bulls.

“Now, Vera,” I tell her in the voice you use when dealing with the sick or maimed, “a little rest and relaxation is what you need.” I’ve gotten up off my stool, taking care not to make any sudden moves. I’m going to walk over to the pay phone and call Doc Keller to come over here quick as he can. “You know Sam is our friend and not a relative, right? You just got mixed-up.”

“Well,” she says, throwing her hands into the air, “like they say in the Navy, the torpedo is outta the tube now. No sense pretending it ain’t.” Vera comes from around the counter and steers me back to my stool. “You’re gonna want to be seated when I break this to you. Me, too. Move over, E. J.” She gets situated between us. “A long time ago, when Beezy was just a girl, she worked for your grandfather cleaning his house, Shenny.”

What could Beezy have to do with Sam being a family member? Vera is getting more confused by the second. She really does need help. Is Doc’s number Hopkins 4563 or 4653?

“She hadn’t married Carl yet so she wasn’t called Beezy Bell back then,” Vera continues. “She was poor and pretty Miss Elizabeth Hortense Moody, and Gus Carmody was a rich and a very handsome young man.

I’m not sure what this has to do with the price of a cup of coffee either, but she’s saying the truth. That old coot wasn’t always uglier than a pig snout. Gramma Ruth Love has lots of pictures of him pressed into a photo album that has THE GOOD OLD DAYS stamped on its cover. As much as it pains me to admit it, Vera’s right- Grampa was a looker.

“I’ve heard customers remark many times that Gus was quite the charmer,” she says.

“You heard that wrong,” I say back, gruff. “My grandfather’s about as charming as a funeral.”

“That may be true now, hon, but back then? They say that your grampa could talk the sweet off a sugar cube.”

I’m trying to alert E. J. to Vera’s rapidly deteriorating condition by leaning behind her back and vigorously tapping my temple, but he’s too busy hanging on her every word to notice. Being a mountain man, he’s fond of tall tales.

“Then what happened?” E. J. asks on the edge of his stool.

“That depends.” Vera looks back and forth between us, her curls bobbing. “I don’t know much about kids. Are the two of ya old enough to know how babies are born?”

“Yeah,” E. J. and I say. He’s got a goat that he delivered babies to and I watched.

Vera pauses, like she’s about to change her mind, but then says, “When Beezy was young, she was desperately in love with Gus Carmody.”

“What?” I say, aghast. That’s proof positive that the woman has lost her mind. I have never in all my days heard something more harebrained.

Vera ignores me. “And when two people get hot and bothered like that, they… uh… they do it.”

“Do what?” E. J. asks.

“Shuck the oyster,” Vera says like she’s reciting the soup of the day.

E. J. looks as confounded as me.

“They zalleywhack. Play the game of twenty toes?” Clearly, Vera’s not getting the reaction from us that she expected. Exasperated, she says in a voice that echoes up the drugstore’s empty aisles, “Beezy and Gus fornicated.”

Root beer comes squirting out of E. J.’s nose and I jump up off my stool, “Oh, that’s so disgustin’ and… and… unappetizing and… Vera! What is wrong with you? Beezy wouldn’t shuck with Grampa. You’re her friend, you know how much she hates him. You’re the one that’s hot and bothered. I’m calling Doc Keller right this minute.”

Vera puts me back in my place. “You mean Beezy hates your grandfather now. Back then was different. Hear me out.”

She seems so convincingly upset, I grit my teeth and say, “Go on,” but the second she’s done, I’m rushing to the phone.

“Well,” she says, “after he got what he wanted from her, Gus turned his back on Beezy. Threw her right outta his house despite her condition.”

The condition Vera means is that Beezy was feeling sad and stupid about something he did to her. Grampa puts me in that condition, too. But this still doesn’t explain her earlier loopy remark about Sam.

Vera spins her stool my way, leans in close, and says, “You’ve got a lot on the ball, Shenny. You musta noticed the resemblance between your father and Sam. Their hooked noses, those same caramel eyes. How they both got an interest in law enforcement?”

I’m afraid she is giving my powers of observation too much credit. I’ve never noticed anything of the sort.

“What I’m tryin’ to tell you… what I mean to say is-” She breaks off like she’s having second thoughts.

“What, Vera?” I ask, curious now what her over-fried brain is trying to get at. “For God’s sakes, spit it out.”

“Just a second.” Vera digs into her apron pocket and slaps three rolls of Rolaids onto the counter before gushing out, “Sam Moody is the bastard child of Beezy and your grampa’s old-time love affair. Sam… he’s your uncle, Shenny.”

Chapter Twenty-five

Vera told us if we’d wait while she closed up the store, she’d give us a lift back home. I told her thank you for the offer, but we had to make a stop, and then E. J. and I ran out of Slidell’s before she started getting into the blow-by-blow account of how Sam came to be my uncle.

Half-uncle, really.

Now I know why Beezy hates Grampa as much as I do. She’s the gal they’re talking about in one of those “Hell has no fury like a woman scorned” situations.

How come I haven’t put this together before? I should’ve figured this out. One time when we were driving home from church the Mudtown way, we slowed down in front of Beezy’s place. Woody and I stuck our arms out the window and yelled, “Mornin’.” My grandfather turned to Uncle Blackie, who hardly ever goes to church because he doesn’t have a conscience that needs cleansing, that’s why I remember this trip. “Ya see that, son,” he said. “There ain’t much left of her now, but that nappy used to be fine. Legs like a nutcracker. Hardy har har.” Grampa saying something that nice about a colored person was so out of the ordinary that Woody and I talked about it later. She decided he must’ve been paying Beezy a good-at-lifting-furniture compliment since he’d just come from Mass, and that sounded about right. But that wasn’t what he meant at all.

Then there’s how Woody and I feel naturally close to Sam-that was another hint. And the way Beezy treats us like we’re her family. I thought her special kindness towards us was just a holdover from when she worked up at Lilyfield taking care of us when we were teeny-tiny, but it’s so much more than that. Woody and I are sort of her grandbabies.

I’m not angry at Beezy for not letting my sister and me in on all the spit swapping she did with Grampa Gus. I know why she never told us on one of those sultry nights on her porch when all sorts of secrets come out. She was afraid that Woody and I would think poorly of her. I confess, I do a little. Shucking oysters with our grampa shows a real lack of taste on her part. He probably tricked her. Did the same exact thing to Beezy that Blackie did to Louise Jackson. Those men seem to know just what to say to a girl to get them to do what they want, especially Grampa, who has years more experience being a horse’s ass. Gramma refers to our town as Sodom and Gomorrah, and I’m beginning to see her point. Does she know about this long-ago dalliance between Grampa and Beezy? Or like all the other skullduggery that involves the Carmody men, has my grandfather managed to keep it buried?

Man laughing and jukebox music, the sound of pool balls hitting against one another and the tantalizing smell of burgers is coming out of the open door of Elmo’s Bar as E. J. and I scurry by.

I’m so hungry my stomach thinks my throat’s been cut, which means Woody’s must, too.