Brightleaf Page 14

  Doyle’s lazy eye lands right on me. I’m not in the mood for challenging the lazy eye, so I look away.

  “Stolen?” says Terry. “How about lost?”

  “Stolen,“ says Doyle with his good eye looking real serious, like he’s the Hercule Poirot of the canine community. Doyle is annoying now, like he thinks he’s got a mystery to solve. Like he’s been waiting to solve this his whole life. That lazy eye sure is a tattletale. It’s screaming to be covered by a black patch.

  Terry looks at Floyd and at me. I keep on stirring the broccoli. What am I going to do? I can’t have Terry Dorrie finding out I stole Floyd from his backyard during an attack of neurosis. Even though it happened before he became my gynecologist and friend and whatever else he may be.

  Someone asks about Marcelle, which thankfully shifts Terry’s attention. At least he quits focusing on Floyd’s gastronomical fortune.

  It’s around 10 p.m. I’ve just come in from the port-o-let, and I’m fixing to climb in the bed when the doorbell rings. Whoever it is, we don’t want any. Mavis is probably in bed, so I step into my slippers, tie my robe, head down the steps, and look out the peephole. Terry Dorrie is standing out there holding a pillow under one arm and a bottle of wine in the other. I smooth back my hair, rearrange my robe, and creak open the door.

  “Got any rooms? I’ll pay my rent on time and clean up after myself,” Terry says.

  He’s wearing the same wrinkly shirt from earlier, but his face has a weariness it didn’t have at Share Group. Even though he’s noticeably tired, I love how close he’s standing to me, so close I can smell the soap on his skin. My heart beats a little faster as I let him in. I never in a million years would imagine Terry would want to stay at the Rapturous Rest.

  “I can’t go home until she’s gone.”

  “Who?” I say.

  “Lizzie Borden.”

  “I thought you liked her staying there.”

  “She’s crazy. Also, she’s made some…how do I say...”

  “Made more lasagna?”

  “No, more like…she keeps making romantic overtures.”

  “Really? What does she do?” I’m disturbed but also curious. I don’t know how to ask without sounding eager to hear what Jeanine is doing. I try to imagine the kinds of things that would constitute an overture. Maybe she prances around in see-through negligees and lights candles all over the house at night. Maybe she asks Terry to bring her towels when she’s in the bathtub or begs him to give her a back rub. I can’t say I’ve ever tried to make any advances on a man, so I wouldn’t know where to start. Jeanine must read Redbook.

  He puts a finger to his lips and motions me to join him in the kitchen. He whispers, “I don’t wanna wake anybody.” He finds a corkscrew in a drawer, opens his wine and pours a glass. “Want some?” I shake my head, wanting to pick up the conversation where we left off.

  “Are you going to tell me what happened?” I say. “Not that you have to, but I guess I’m just surprised to hear about the romantic overtures and all.”

  He laughs and says, “Lets see…for one, tonight I was stretched out on the sofa reading, and she came over and started massaging my feet.”

  “She did?” I practically gasp. I’m shocked that Jeanine would have the gall to massage Terry’s feet. His ex-wife! What if Terry had a girlfriend? Doesn’t she think about anyone but herself? I can just see it: Jeanine, blonde and svelte, acting all innocent about trying to find a dog, but all along she’s waiting to pounce. As much as I hate this picture, there’s something in me that can’t wait to find out what happened next. I try to sound casual when I ask, “What did you do? You know, when she started rubbing your feet?”

  “It was embarrassing, so I pulled my feet in and told her they probably stink.”

  “That’s good.” I hesitate, so I don’t sound overeager then ask, “What did she do?”

  “She told me she would wash them for me.”

  “Your feet? Wash your feet? You’re kidding.” I don’t know how to ask this without offending him so just ask anyway, “So is that one of ya’ll’s things? From before, when you were still married? Foot washing?”

  “Of course not,” he says. “But I think she must be feeling a little lovelorn, and her living in the house again is making her feel like we’re still married or something. I don’t know.”

  Duh. Even I know that when you start having romantic dinners and conversations by the hearth in front of a roaring fire that it might-could make the individuals involved start feeling sappy.

  “Lovelorn, huh,” I say. The drama is killing me. “Anyway, what did you say when she said she’d wash your feet?”

  Terry looks at me over his glasses and smiles. “You’re pretty interested in this, aren’t you?”

  I look at the ground, like I could care less, and say, “It’s not like I need to know or anything.”

  “Well, I felt sorry for her. So I let her.”

  My mouth falls open. “You did? What did she do? Run get a bucket of water?”

  Terry shakes his head.

  “So she didn’t wash your feet?”

  “She did.”

  “With a washcloth?”

  “No.”

  “What? With some baby wipes or something?”

  “Her mouth.”

  “I don’t get it,” I say.

  “She used her mouth.”

  Words fail me. I wasn’t expecting that. Then I say, “She cleaned your smelly feet with her MOUTH?”

  Then he says, “She cleaned out my toe-jam with her tongue.”

  I’m speechless.

  He looks really happy.

  I stand up, “No way! I am sorry I asked. That is totally disgusting!” The image of Jeanine, that tramp, slobbering all over Terry’s feet like a dog makes me ill. And to think he liked it.

  Terry starts laughing.

  “Hey, your feet belong to you,” I say. “You are entitled to get your feet squeaky clean in whatever manner suits you. I don’t care.”

  He is still laughing and shaking his head. “No, no, no. That didn’t happen.”

  I don’t know what to believe.

  He says, “When she asked if she could rub my feet, I was blunt. I told her that I didn’t think it was appropriate since we’re divorced, and especially since she was the one who left me in the first place.

  “I probably hurt her feelings, but too bad. Then she went to her room and put on a nightgown and came back out. She said she was setting the timer on the coffee maker for the morning, but I gotta say her nightgown would make a Victoria’s Secret model want to hide behind a tree.”

  “Because it was so ugly?” I ask.

  “It was a beautiful nightgown, and extremely sheer.”

  I was right about Jeanine prancing about in see-through negligees.

  “What did you do?”

  “I asked her what she thought she was doing and she said, ‘Putting on the coffee.’ That’s when I grabbed my pillow and keys and left. I was scared to sleep in the same house with her.”

  “You think she’s…unstable,” I say.

  He shrugs, “Who knows.”

  “Maybe she came back for you and not her dog.”

  I’m standing in the kitchen with my arms crossed over my robe while he sips his wine and sits on the counter.

  I say, “I’d think you would be excited that she’s making passes at you. Seems to me like a lot of men would like that.”

  He looks at me like I’m really stupid and says, “What kind of a person do you think I am?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”

  Then he says, “The Devil can sometimes do a very gentlemanly thing.”

  “What?”

  “Robert Louis Stevenson.”

  “But what do you mean when you say ‘the Devil
’?”

  “Come on, Mary Beth. I mean, it’s not like I’m without defects, but I have standards.”

  “Maybe you should introduce Jeanine to Winslow.”

  Terry tilts his head like that’s not a bad idea, then says, “Hey, you better get some sleep. Sorry to bother you with all the sad and torrid details of my life.”

  He’s not bothering me one bit. I could listen to him speak with his New Jersey accent all night.

  I show him the room that will be his new home until Jeanine leaves. Until the dog returns.

  When I wake up at six, I’m keenly aware that Terry is somewhere in my house. I quickly get dressed, grab my toothbrush, face scrub and a washcloth, and head for the kitchen. Eleanor is already at the sink, brushing her teeth, so I start the coffee while I wait for her to finish.

  I say, “You’re up mighty early, Eleanor. Have some big plans today?”

  Eleanor whacks her toothbrush on the side of the sink and drops it in a plastic baggie. “I have no plans. I didn’t sleep a wink all night, thinking about Ned… We were kind of an item, you know.”

  I set the can of Maxwell House on the counter, flip the switch on the coffee maker, and say, “No Eleanor, I did not know you and Ned were an item. I don’t remember you two being that close.”

  “There were things you didn’t see.”

  “While he was living in the carriage house?” I ask. “It’s a good thing I didn’t know about that, or ya’ll would have been out on the street on the double.” Eleanor knows I wouldn’t have the heart to kick her out, but I have to keep up the act. Sounds more like a fantasy, but you never know. Stranger things have happened besides Ned and Eleanor being a secret item.

  “Good morning, ladies!” Terry enters the kitchen wearing a coat and tie with his laptop under one arm. “The coffee smells delightful.”

  “Dr. Dorrie?” says Eleanor. “What are you doing here?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to tell anyone you’re staying here,” I say. “If you hang out a little longer Mavis is gonna heat up an egg casserole.”

  Terry pours himself a cup of coffee and seems joyous as a puppy. He tells Eleanor, “I’m here because I have company at my house, and there isn’t enough room for me.”

  “Oh.”

  Then to me he says, “I’m gonna hafta miss out on that egg casserole. Early meeting, but give Mavis my best. He winks at us then goes upstairs for something.

  “You should bring your company to Share Group,” Eleanor calls after him.

  “I doubt he’ll bring his company,” I say, pulling a coffee cup from the cabinet. “It’s his ex-wife.”

  “Why is his ex-wife staying at his house?”

  “It’s a long story,” I say. “Hopefully it’ll be temporary.” I wonder how long Jeanine will stay at Terry’s looking for the dog. Surely she’s got to return to her parties and yachtsmen or whatever soon. Not that I mind Terry staying here.

  “Ned and I talked about marriage,” says Eleanor.

  Terry walks back into the kitchen and grabs his coffee cup. He heard it, too.

  I’d like to call her on that so bad, but maybe she did talk about it, and maybe Ned nodded, stoned out of his gourd. Terry lifts an eyebrow, then motions for me to follow him to the front door.

  “Is she serious about Ned?” Terry asks in a whisper.

  “Can’t tell,” I say. “I have a policy against romances between boarders. Once they figure out they’re in love they need to find someplace else to live, because eventually there will be drama. So I know for sure, or at least think I know, that when Ned was living in the carriage house nothing was happening between those two.”

  Terry shakes his head and walks out the door.

  28

  Dry Cleaning

  Mavis

  “Mavis speakin.” I got the phone in one hand and Floyd in the other.

  “Hey, Mavis, it’s Terry. You doing alright?”

  “Never better, Dr. D. I hate it that you missed my famous egg casserole this mornin cuz it was deee-lish, and it ain’t very often I cook somethin that didn’t start out in the freezer.”

  “Sorry I missed it, too. Hopefully, next time. Listen, is Mary Beth around?”

  “MB just left to take the toddlers to the preschool, then she’s off to who knows where. You want me to have her call you?”

  “Actually, I was calling to see if she would pick up my dry cleaning. The laundry service delivered it to my house about thirty minutes ago, and it’s hanging on the front door. I would get it myself but I don’t want to see Jeanine.”

  “Well, hey, Doc, I’m fixin to head down to the Goodwill. On my way back I can catch a bus and swing by your place. It ain’t too much trouble.”

  “Mavis, I can’t have you do that. I’ll just take my chances at lunch and pick it up myself.”

  “I already told you it ain’t no trouble. You go on and save your energy for your ladies in the waitin room. I’m gonna fetch your dry cleanin like I told you.”

  “If you’re sure, then thank you. You’re a sweetheart.”

  “No sweat, baby.”

  The Goodwill puts out all the newest donations on Mondays. I like to get there real early, just as it gets laid out. It would shock you to see all the thangs people just up and give away. Like perfectly good stuffed animals. How I love me some stuffed animals. Lord a mercy. And the household stuff ain’t bad neither. Once I got me a lamp that turns on when you touch it, turns off when you touch it. Who in their right mind would give that to the Goodwill for nothin? I brought that lamp home, and it tickled me for near a month, touchin that thang on and off. They didn’t have Goodwill in the town where I’m from. Back then there wasn’t much in the mountains. No Family Dollars or nothin. We pretty much made do with whatever hand-me-downs were circulatin through the relatives or whatever the Lystra Springs Baptist Church was handin out from the clothes closet. Most of the clothes that was passed along was homemade to fit a particular person and not me. The Goodwill is a one-stop shop. If your house burnt down today, you could go to the Goodwill and get you all the furniture, clothes, towels, bed sheets, and kitchen stuff you need for a hell of a lot cheaper than what you’d pay at the Family Dollar. And the Goodwill has the best t-shirts in town, but I ain’t gettin none today. I’ll have my hands full with Dr. D’s dry cleanin…and this stuffed bear.

  “Montague and Oak!” shouts out the bus driver, but I already know it’s my stop. I take the bus cuz I never did get me a driver license, but that ain’t never stopped me from gettin around. I’ve got friends who carry me when I can’t get a bus, and my feet do the rest. I hug my new bear and step off the bus. I only need to walk two blocks and turn right to get to Doc’s house.

  Somebody sure is troubled about their dog bein lost because there’s pictures of this white dog nailed to every telephone pole on the street. When I get up to Doc’s yard, it looks like somebody done took all the leftover signs, and dumped them here—right in the middle of his yard. Every tree has a picture of the dog, and there are them little realtor signs that normally says, For Sale, except the dog is on near five of them.

  Doc’s dry cleanin is hooked on the front door. I lift the hangin pile of shirts covered in that silky plastic, and underneath is a big ol’ poster of the same damn dog. Doc’s ex is serious about finding it. I take me a good hard look at the picture cuz who knows? Maybe I seen it.

  But it don’t take me long to recognize this dog. I recognize it all right, like I would my own son.

  I’m fixin to grab that knocker and bang till the ex opens. But I stop myself. If her lost dog is my Floyd, it don’t make sense that Dr. D has seen Floyd two thousand times and don’t know him. So maybe they ain’t the same dog. I look at that poster again—look deep in the eyes.

  It sure as hell is Floyd.

  I says to myself, I says, Mavis, you gotta think here. This her
e is a mystery. Dr. D couldn’t never be the abusive pervert Mary Beth was tellin you about.

  So I set myself down at the bus stop and start to thinkin about how Floyd came to us in the first place. It dawns on me that one thang is for sure, that me and Miss Mary Beth Green is gonna have us a talk.

  29

  Yohimbe

  Mary Beth

  Yohimbe is a dark herb. A lust potion. It is indeed used during occult ceremonies like Detective Metz was saying, as a love sacrament for pagan matrimony. I got all that off the Occult Accents website, the Wicca’s answer to Southern Accents, I guess. I didn’t peruse it long to enough to find out if it lists favorite pagan home decor, or cutesy pagan holiday meal serving suggestions like, Use your old skulls for serving guacamole on Halloween! I went straight to the page dedicated to yohimbe, and now I’m sorry I ever did. According to Occult Accents, after some pagans get married, they have an orgy that can last up to fifteen days with the help of yohimbe. Fifteen days. Just reading that made me totally exhausted and thirsty for a gallon of bleach. Yohimbe is also used in all-night raves as a hallucinogen. But taking too much can cause… death. Seems like too much of anything can cause death. I bet too much scallop lasagna could cause death.

  On the bright side, yohimbe is the only other substance approved by the FDA to treat impotence other than Viagra. So basically, either you solve your impotence problems or hello afterlife.

  There’s a lot you wouldn’t know about a person by just looking at him. Was Ned an all-night rave kind of guy? Who can tell? Everyone has a skeleton in his or her closet or, at the very least, undisclosed information they do not wish to share with the whole community. Now unfortunately, with my newly acquired knowledge, whenever I imagine Ned he’s either tearing off his clothes under a full moon or in a graveyard stabbing baby dolls to death.

  Terry is still renting a room here for fear of sleeping in the same house with his ex-wife. It’s been nice having him around for the last week or so. He helps out more than the other boarders. Not that I expect my boarders to help out. I only require them to pay the rent on time and stick with the rules. But Terry takes out the trash, helps with the dishes, and changed a light bulb once. It’s nice in other ways, too. We often sit around the kitchen table chatting with Mavis or dilly-dally on the front porch after supper.