"The picnic pavilion," Ruby Bee added in a dull voice.
I shook my head. "It may hurt business for a few days, but it's not going to win anyone's heart for long. That kind of food's never good, and you're the best cook in the county."
Ruby Bee pointed a shaky finger at the empty room. "Just take a look for yourself Nobody's here."
I tried to figure out how to tiptoe around this one, but nothing all that clever came to mind. "I've heard lately that you've been…confrontational with your regular customers," I said carefully. "You've been getting hot under the collar, demanding loyalty oaths and, in general, running everybody off." Valuing my life, I did not add that the hottest topic at the pool hall was whether or not she was too old for PMS (she was).
"I never!" Estelle gasped.
Ruby Bee once again began to wipe the counter, but without her earlier energy. "Maybe I have. I'll be the first to admit I'm not pleased with this pavilion directly across the street. I'm too old to learn how to make croissant sandwiches and mousse. All I know how to make is regular food like meat loaf and scalloped potatoes.
"And all your customers will try the new place and then come right back here like they always did," I said soothingly.
"What about the Satterings?" Estelle demanded. "You think Ivy and Alex can count on folks' loyalty when their produce costs more?"
"I don't know what to tell you. What about you, Ruby Bee? You buy from them because the stand's convenient. Are you going to buy produce at the supermarket because it's cheaper?"
"Of course not," Ruby Bee said, although not with enough conviction to fool a toddler.
Estelle was still into the voice of doom. "And that Mexican fellow that bought the Dairee Dee-Lishus is right upset, I heard. Dahlia said Kevin said he liked to throw a pot of boiling chili at him. The Mexican at Kevin, not the other way around."
"There's not anything any of us can do about it," I said. "Believe it or not, not even Maggody can withstand a spurt of progress every now and then. We used to gripe about the lack of merchandise and the exorbitant prices at the Kwik-Screw. Now we're going to have to face a larger selection and reasonable prices. I'm afraid we're stuck with it, ladies."
"Unless this picnic pavilion at Jim Bob's SuperSaver Buy 4 Less goes belly-up the first day it opens," Estelle said in a casual voice.
"Why would it?" I said in an uncasual voice.
"You just never know."
"That's right," Ruby Bee said, gazing over my head. "You just never know."
The last bit of reading matter of any significance had not yet been read. It was a letter addressed to the Maggody town council, and it lay in a well-polished silver tray in the foyer of Jim Bob's house. He had ignored it on his way out the door, and Mrs. Jim Bob, who opened whatever mail caught her eye, was much too worried about the upcoming Corinthians II face-off in Sunday school to bother with local affairs.
Jim Bob would read it over coffee the next morning, and it would take him all day to figure out how best to use it to his own advantage, which was pretty much how he approached everything.
The letter was from the Starley City Youth Center and was thick with dates, guidelines, rules, regulations, methods of compliance, and boring stuff like that. The gist of it, however, was that Maggody was invited to enter its local championship baseball team in the Starley City Labor Day Weekend Invitational Intermediate League Baseball Tournament (in subsequent paragraphs referred to as the SCLDWIILBT, but don't try to sound it out, 'cause you can't without coming off like you're drunker'n Cooter Brown).
Maggody didn't have a local championship baseball team, but not because there wasn't a competitive spirit. It had a good high-school football team, and a darn tough basketball team. The local 4-H'ers always picked up their fair share of blue and red ribbons at the county fair. The Future Homemakers of America thrived under the enthusiastic guidance of Miss Lottie Estes, and the club's secretary secretary-treasurer had won third place in the state bake-off with her Lemon-Lime Surprise Dinner Rolls.
Maggody didn't have a soccer team, though, because it was a sissy foreign game where you wear shorts and don't get dirty. It didn't have a chess team or an IQ Bowl team, for obvious reasons. And because nobody'd ever given it any thought, it didn't have a championship baseball team. Not yet, anyway.
2
"Then the high-school band plays, right?" Lamont asked, a small notebook in one hand and a much-gnawed pencil in the other.
Jim Bob poured himself another four fingers of bourbon and sat down on the edge of the lumpy bed while he tried to remember exactly what the band director had said. "The band's going to gather behind the store at one-thirty, get theirselves lined up however they do it, and then come marching around to the front at exactly two o'clock."
"In full uniform?"
"Yeah, full uniform. White bucks, brass buttons, feathers on their heads, all that shit. But some kids are away for the summer, so there'll be holes. Both tubas are gone, along with all but one of the drums and a goodly number of the clarinets. There wasn't any way Wiley could make them come back for the grand opening."
"I suppose not," Lamont muttered, "but if we're down to a fat flutist and a pimply trombone player, I'm not sure it's worth it. We don't want to look foolish in front of the media. The ribbon cutting's at two-fifteen, and then we'll try to keep the camera crew and reporters around as long as we can with free food. I'll have a bottle of booze in the office."
Jim Bob bunched the pillows against the headboard and settled back on the bed, taking a wicked pleasure in putting his dusty shoes on the motel-room bedspread. "Hey, Lamont, I had a helluva an idea over the weekend. You're going to love it."
"Yeah, go ahead," Lamont said, making a note to check that the store uniforms were starched before they were distributed to the employees. Who were the dumbest people he'd ever met. Three-quarters of them were named Buchanon, and all of those blessed with simian foreheads and nasty little yellowish eyes. And therefore resembling, in varying degrees, Jim Bob Buchanon and his tight-assed wife, who'd been introduced as Barbara Anne Buchanon Buchanon. Lamont had been appalled, but not surprised.
Jim Bob looked as smug as a retriever with a splattered duck in its mouth. "I got this letter from the Starley City folks saying Maggody could enter a team in some damn fool baseball tournament. I started thinking about it, and I finally called over there and got some information."
"We're opening a supermarket, not a baseball season. Now I want to meet with the entire staff first thing tomorrow to review the stock procedures. Tell them to be in front-"
"Hold it, Lamont," Jim Bob said, his feelings hurt just a smidgen. "I know we're opening a supermarket, but there's a way we can get a whole lot of publicity and community goodwill without it costing us a plug nickel. I realize you own three supermarkets and know a damn sight more about it than I do, but I'm a businessman, too, and I can appreciate the value of gettin' something for nothing."
Lamont accepted the distasteful fact he was going to have to hear Jim Bob out before they could get back to business. He flipped a hand in the general direction of the bed, made himself a stiff drink, and lit a cigarette, all the while admiring the overall composition of his demeanor in the mirror. Jim Bob's brown hair was showing a trace of gray, but it lacked the impact of sterling silver.
"This baseball team has to be sponsored by a local business or civic organization, see? The boys wear uniforms saying who's sponsoring them so everybody knows. Then they go play ball in front of a whole bleacher of parents, who tell each other how nice it is of the Lions Club or the beer distributor or whoever the hell it is to encourage these little boys to play baseball."