I stood up on the sgabello and read the card myself. There were only those four words across it.
“Is that from Little Lion?” said my father.
“Who else?” my mother said. “Now, there’s someone after my own heart. Original, amusing, poignant, too, there’s something very poignant about it—that dear little darling, and here this was waiting for you all the while he was standing there begging you practically on bended knee to come down the aisle and walk with him.”
“Mrs. La Belle?” Mrs. Hootman appeared in the doorway.
“Yes, Mrs. Hootman, just a minute. Little Little?” my mother said. “This is a very touching gift if you ask me, which I realize no one did.”
“No one ever has to,” my father said.
“And even you, Larry, have to admit this is a dear little birthday remembrance. You yourself never matched this in all the time you were courting me, and you weren’t unoriginal.”
“Thank you,” said my father.
“So, honey, you put on that little sky-blue dress Mrs. Hootman made for you (of all her dresses, Mrs. Hootman, that’s my favorite) and you get yourself ready for Little Lion. He went to all this trouble to have this waiting for you.”
“Mrs. La Belle?” Mrs. Hootman tried again.
“Yes, Mrs. Hootman?”
“That giraffe isn’t from Little Lion.”
21: Sydney Cinnamon
IT WAS FIVE-THIRTY when they entered the pantry. The banquet was running late. The waiters were just clearing away the dinner plates. I was resting, out of sight so I’d be a surprise. I was stretched out on top of a sack of Magic Mashed Potato Flakes, in the storeroom just behind the pantry.
“Dora”—I heard Little Lion’s voice—“the Lord sent you to me.”
“Eloise,” she corrected him.
“Eloise, the Lord sent you to me.”
“I hate that Little Little La Belle! I hated her when I first met her and I still hate her!”
“This is not a time to talk of hatred, hon. Hallelujah!”
“I hate these TADpole affairs, too. You don’t know how many I’ve been dragged to by my parents, and PODs is a good name for my parents, because they are pods! If I’d been one inch taller than normal, they’d have gone through the Yellow Pages looking for an organization of giants!”
“Walk with me, I was begging, and you came down that aisle toward me with the face of a Botticelli angel, with your golden hair.”
“Don’t touch it, please, because I can’t get a wash and set tomorrow morning, and I have a real early appointment…. I couldn’t believe it when I went to that church to hear you, and there they all were—the Munchkins!”
“I have a great many dwarfs among the Faithful, Dora, being a dwarf myself.”
“Eloise,” she corrected him again. “Well, I’m four foot one!”
“Every inch a beauty!”
“That little shrimp doesn’t think her own pee smells.”
“Dora, Eloise—never mind Little Little right now.”
“Don’t tell me she’s your girlfriend? A dynamite little guy like you?”
“Eloise, a man of God needs many inspirations. Where do you go from here?”
“You’ve got big hands for such a little fellow, don’t you? I’m making supermarket appearances in the Tri-State Area for my client.”
“These hands do the Lord’s work.”
“Is that what you call it?” She chuckled.
“Where are you going next?”
“I’m due at the Super-Duper Market on Salina Street in Syracuse, nine-thirty tomorrow morning. Oh, darlin’, be real careful of my hair, hmmm?”
“Will you be at the Inn tonight?”
“Do you want me to be at the Inn tonight, Little Love?”
“Hallelujah, Babe!”
“Well, hallelujah yourself, Preacher.”
They stopped talking for a while and I didn’t have to see them to know what they were up to. I sat up on the sack of Magic Mashed Potato Flakes, moving as quietly as I could, easing my stocking feet down until they touched the floor.
“I’ve seen you on television,” she said.
“I’ve seen you, too.”
“I saw you on The Powerful Hour.”
“I used to turn on the set just to wait for you to come on. Sometimes you did”—smack, smack—“and sometimes you didn’t.”
“You pulling my leg?”
“Not yet.”
“I really mean it about my hair, hon. It’s been so darn humid here all day, too.”
There was a pause in the conversation while I inched my way past the potato sack toward the door.
Then she said, “I hate her hair. Looks like a monkey styles it.”
“We don’t have to talk about her,” Little Lion said.
“The same monkey that does her hair makes her clothes, if you ask me.”
“Honey? Babe? Give yourself to the moment and don’t be worrying your angel’s head about another female.”
“They’re going to be serving that little insect her birthday cake any minute, Little Love.”
“What time is it?”
“How’m I going to not worry my head about another female if you’re going to worry yours about what time they present that ugly cake to that little gnat all dressed in baby blue?”
“Well, I am a guest of the family, my angel.”
“I say let’s us vamoose and the hell with her and her cake.”
“Well, now—”
“You could get our coats and I could just slip out the back and be waiting for you in your car.”
“Oh, babe, the devil tempts the mighty with the answer to his prayers, and how does the mighty resist? You tell me.”
Just as I peered around the doorway, I saw Reverend La Belle charging through the swinging doors of the kitchen. I ducked back inside the storeroom.
“Little Lion! Here you are!”
“Hello, Reverend! You know Dora … Eloise. It’s time to carry the cake in, and Eloise here has promised to help me do the honors.”
“The honors are overdue, Little Lion! … How do you do, Miss.”
“Well, we’ll do the overdue honors then, Reverend,” said Dora. “I was just saying to Little Lion how pretty that little granddaughter of yours is!”
“Cake’s heavy!” Reverend La Belle barked.
“All lay load on the willing horse,” said Little Lion.
“And I’d like a word with you first, Little Lion,” said the Reverend. “Alone.”
“I’ll just wait in the kitchen,” said Dora, “like a good little lettuce leaf.” She chuckled.
“Little Lion,” Reverend La Belle said after the sound
