And now, sated with wine and moonlit nights at the Colosseum, it was time for me to say "Arrivederci, Roma" and take a train to Venice. The weather had been glorious thus far, but I was hoping there might be a gray drizzle when I arrived in Venice. It seemed more appropriate for the darkly romantic decadence of the neglected palazzi, the narrow canals, the Bridge of Sighs, the haunting lament of a gondolier guiding his craft in a-
The telephone rang. "Police department," I said in my darkly romantic, decadent voice as the gondolier gazed up at me with a sad, knowing smile.
"You coming down with a summer cold?" Ruby Bee demanded.
With a sad, knowing smile, I put the travel book aside and propped my feet on my desk. "I'm thinking about it."
"Sometimes I just don't know what gets into you. I really don't. If you're so all-fired bored, why don't you go have your hair fancied up or buy yourself some decent clothes. No man's gonna look twice at a girl who wears her hair in a bun like a schoolteacher and walks around in baggy pants and a faded shirt.
"It's official police camouflage," I said, "designed to allow me to blend into a baggy, faded town where nothing happens. Well, that's not true. Raz Buchanon came by to lodge another complaint against Perkins, who's been slandering Raz's prize sow, Marjorie, by casting aspersions on her purported pedigree. Raz says he has the papers to prove-"
"You need to come down here. There's something important I need to talk to you about, and Joyce can't wait around all afternoon while you make smart-alecky remarks."
"I didn't start this," I pointed out in an admirably reasonable voice. "I was exchanging looks with a swarthy gondolier named Riccardo. I was thinking of meeting him at a tiny outdoor café for a glass of chianti. You called me, Ruby Bee."
"Because you need to come down here. I already told you that Joyce can't wait all afternoon. She needs to strip the kitchen floor on account of company coming this weekend."
I admitted defeat, promised Riccardo I'd be back, and went down the highway to Ruby Bee's to find out what was important enough to make Joyce Lambertino delay stripping the kitchen floor.
Joyce was sitting at the bar, dressed as usual in worn jeans and a high-school sweatshirt that had seen the tenth reunion but might not make it to the twentieth. Her face had acquired a few more lines and her ponytail quite a few more gray hairs. She gave me a wan smile as I perched on the stool next to her.
"Sorry I got Ruby Bee all stirred up," she said in a low voice.
"Don't worry about it, Joyce. Last season, they named three hurricanes after her. What's the problem?"
A tropical storm slammed out of the kitchen, banged a glass of iced tea in front of Joyce, and turned inland on yours truly. "Did Joyce tell you about this outrageous business?" I shook my head, Joyce opened her mouth, and Ruby Bee continued. "It seems that Mayor Jim Bob Buchanon, in a fit of civic pride, has decided Maggody is going to enter a baseball team in a tournament in Starley City. What's more, in this same civic fit, he and the town council voted to pay for the team's uniforms and equipment out of the budget. Now isn't that the most generous thing you ever heard?"
"It's not the most outrageous thing I ever heard," I said cautiously.
"Oh, no?" Ruby Bee rolled her eyes around for a minute, no doubt wondering how she could have produced such an obviously dimwitted offspring. "Would you like to hear about these uniforms the town's buying? I'm just a simple widow woman, and I haven't ever been to college or lived in Noow Yark, but I assumed when Joyce started telling me this that the uniforms would have the town's name across the back. But I'm just a simple widow woman, so there isn't any way I should be smart enough to know what to put on the uniforms."
I looked at Joyce. "The simple widow woman's incoherent. What do the uniforms have across the back?"
"Jim Bob's SuperSaver Buy 4 Less, with the address underneath. The only thing missing is a coupon to cut out at the end of the tournament. Larry Joe's going to coach the team. He brought home the uniforms yesterday and told me about the tournament and all." Joyce caught the end of her ponytail and began to twist it around her finger. I asked Larry Joe if my little niece Saralee could play on the team. She's visiting this summer while her parents get divorced, and she loves all kinds of sports. I said it might help take her mind off things and he said it was okay with him. Then last night he talked to Jim Bob about it and Jim Bob said absolutely not because she was a girl-but she could be a cheerleader. Saralee is not the cheerleader type, Arly. She's been in two wrasslin' matches in Sunday school already, and half the time I can't find her at suppertime because she's climbing trees or fishing in Boone Creek."
"That's outrageous," Ruby Bee cut in. "Even you got to agree it's outrageous."
"It's certainly not fair," I said, "but I don't know what we can do about it."
The door opened behind us, allowing in a flash of sunlight. Estelle marched across the room, a piece of paper in her hand and an excited look on her face. "I got it!" she crowed. "I told you I could get it, and now I got it!"
"Lemme see," Ruby Bee said. She took the paper from Estelle and moved into the muted blue light beneath the neon Pabst sign.
"What it is?" I asked Estelle.
Estelle waited for a minute to savor the triumph. "You know how Perkins's eldest cleans every other day for Mrs. Jim Bob? She used to clean every day when Jim Bob's illegitimate children was there, but now that they've been packed off to some special school, Perkins's eldest comes every other day."
"Fascinating," I said.
"Well, this very morning Mrs. Jim Bob went to Farberville to look at some fabric samples, so Perkins's eldest slipped into Jim Bob's little office off the sun porch and found the letter about the baseball tournament."
I managed not to flinch. "At your request, of course."
"Goodness gracious, Arly, you don't think Perkins's eldest would snoop through Jim Bob's office on her own, do you? Not all the burners on her stove get real hot."
"It's just what we thought!" Ruby Bee said before I felt obliged to mention conspiracy, theft, theft by receiving, and so on. "It says we're supposed to enter our local championship team. It doesn't say anywhere that Jim Bob can just put his supermarket's name on the uniforms and send the team out to advertise for him."
"We don't have a local championship team," Joyce contributed.
"Because we can't have a play-off," Ruby Bee said, giving Estelle a sly look. "If there was another team in Maggody, the two teams could have a play-off like they do in the television leagues. Then we'd know which team was champion of Maggody."
The stage was set, but one of the players didn't have a copy of the script. On the other hand, she had a long history of being manipulated by her mother, and she was beginning to catch the drift of the production. "You thinking of sponsoring a team?" I asked.
"What a novel idea," Ruby Bee said, getting slyer by the second. "And that way, Joyce's little niece Saralee could have an equal opportunity to play instead of being made to be a cheerleader. This letter says the players have to be entering fifth or sixth grade this fall. It doesn't say one word about boys; it says players."
"Saralee's going into fifth," Joyce said.
"Hizzoner's not going to like this," I said, shaking my head.
Ruby Bee slapped down the letter so she could get both fists on her hips. "And that's going to keep me awake nights? How about you, Estelle-is that going to keep you awake nights? Joyce, you think you'll lose sleep if Jim Bob Buchanon gets his comeuppance once and for all?"
I climbed off the stool. "All I said was that he wasn't going to like it. I have no objection whatsoever to any scheme that ruffles his tail feathers, ladies. In fact, I'll make myself a tissue-paper pom-pom and sit in the first row of the bleachers. I've got a date now, so I'm going to run along and let you all work on the list of all the things you'll have to do. Ciao!"