"So you decided to come to Maggody, Arkansas?" I persisted. "Had you been here before? Do you have friends here?"
"I was drawn here by some unknown force, as if my destiny were to be unfolded and made known to me here in this peaceful little village," she said briskly, making me suspect she'd recited it many a time. She glanced at her watch. "Now I am very busy. You must leave so that I may prepare for my next appointment. It will be a most difficult session for me, and I must have time to arrive at the proper frame of receptiveness. I use your mother's credit card number, yes?"
I had a whole truckload of questions left, but I suggested she bill Ruby Bee time and a half for the additional few minutes, then went down the porch steps and along the road to my car. I hid out at the PD all afternoon and, with sly anticipation, went home for a can of chicken noodle soup just before Kevin's arrival. Conscientious enforcer of law and order that I was, I clipped my beeper on my belt as I scooted out the door.
Later that evening, I went over to David Allen's house and told him about the reading, which had been as perceptive and personal as a syndicated horoscope column in a newspaper. We agreed that the whole thing was apt to blow over, and on that optimistic note shared a six-pack and played Trivial Pursuit until midnight. It beat sitting at the front window of my apartment, counting the Mercedeses that went through town in one evening. If you're wondering, the world record to date was three.
"How'd she act?" Ruby Bee demanded as she wiped the surface of the bar. "Did she stop by afterward to say what happened?"
Estelle popped a beer nut in her mouth and chewed it pensively. Once she'd washed it down with soda pop, she said, "Well, if you want my opinion, I'd say Arly was a tad nervous when I took her over, but she settled down nicely after I'd introduced her to Madam Celeste. Nearly an hour later, I saw her come back and get in her car, but just as I put down my styling comb to run outside and ask her what happened, Elsie started telling me about her last obscene telephone call. I told Elsie she had a filthy mouth, and that sort of led to a prickly discussion. By the time I looked out the window again, Arly'd left."
"What all did Elsie say the caller said this time?" Ruby Bee put down the dishrag and propped her arms on the bar. "Four-letter words or sexual remarks or what?"
Estelle repeated the conversation as best she could remember. She and Ruby Bee decided that Elsie sure enough had a filthy mind-if not a filthy mouth. Anyone who relished those calls…Course the caller was mentally deranged and sure hadn't laid eyes on Elsie…They were really getting into it good when the door opened and the newest barmaid trudged across the room. The light fixture above the dance floor quivered but held tight. The customers in the booth hunkered over and stuck their noses in their beers.
"Am I late?" Dahlia O'Neill said.
"Yes," Ruby Bee said, "but don't fret about it. As you can see for yourself, business is right slow. Put on an apron and go ask those folks in the corner if they want another pitcher."
Dahlia's mouth opened and closed slowly, like an immobile fish feeding on plankton. "I don't"-close, open, close, open-"recollect where the aprons is kept."
Ruby Bee studied the girl's monumental girth. "That's all right," she said kindly. "You don't need to wear an apron now. This evening when I get home, I'll run up a special one on my Singer Deluxe. If I have time, I'll embroider your name on the top of the pocket."
"That'd be real nice," Dahlia said. "Now what is it you want me to ask them folks over in the booth?"
Even though she figured it was too late, Ruby Bee couldn't stop herself from having Second Thoughts, not to mention a few Severe Misgivings.
Mason Dickerson got back to town about midnight. There wasn't a parade to welcome him; in fact, there were only two lights visible along the whole stretch of highway-and both of them were streetlights. Mason wasn't surprised. He took the opportunity to drive his BMW faster than the signs suggested, and whipped around the corner by the Emporium in a spew of gravel, dust, and chicken feathers.
He was in a fine mood. A little bleary from the wine, but his stomach was full and his sexual drive met for a while. For Mason, who was thirty-seven and healthy, bronzed to perfection, dressed with impeccable taste and proud of it, well groomed and always a gentleman, the lack of decent women in the podunk town was the most difficult thing to deal with. High school girls were too young and silly. Maggody didn't boast a sorority house with nubile occupants or a junior League with perky young matrons in sable jackets and designer suits. They'd be married, anyways, Mason thought as he pulled into the yard and cut the engine. The three single women he'd thus far met in town had good reasons for their marital status; he had no inclination to alter it. Not, of course, that he had exalted standards. He just couldn't imagine kissing a woman who was hairier than a summer groundhog, or older than the hills. Or tipping the scales at three hundred pounds plus. Mason wanted a nice girl-nothing spectacular, but nice.
The house looked dark, but as he came inside, he saw a light in the back sitting room. He wondered if he could slip upstairs without being caught, then glumly decided he couldn't and went on to the kitchen. "You want I should bring you a beer or a glass of sherry?" he called to his sister.
"No. Why are you out so late? Do you realize it is midnight? Do you care that I have stayed up to worry about you, even though tomorrow I will have hideous dark circles under my eyes? Do you-"
Mason rattled the refrigerator door, drowning out the final rhetorical demand. Sarah Lou Dickerson Grinolli Vizzard had been in the sherry, he told himself as he took out a beer and popped the top. The bottle in the garbage can confirmed his theory, although he hadn't had much doubt. He once again considered flight, but instead went to the sitting room and poked his head through the door. "I'm right sorry you waited up, Sis. I didn't mean to worry you," he said.
"But you did," she retorted, her eyes harder than emeralds.
"I realize that now, and I'm truly sorry. I stopped for a drink and got to chatting with some folks. One thing led to another, and pretty soon we ended up eating enchiladas at a little place on the edge of town."
"For seven hours? How many enchiladas did you eat in seven hours?"
"Well, after dinner we went to a couple of bars to listen to music. Listen, Sarah Lou, I'm old enough-"
"Do not call me that. It is not my name." She found a glass of sherry on the table and drank the contents in one gulp. "I have told you never to call me that again. Sarah Lou is some child who lives in a hovel and wears hand-me-down clothes. She is some mindless womanchild who whimpers while her drunken husband beats her until her eyes are so swollen she cannot see. Sarah Lou is dead." She broke off with a scowl and pointed a finger at Mason. "Bring me another bottle of sherry."
Mason found a bottle in a kitchen cabinet and came back to the sitting room, still wishing he were upstairs in bed. "If she's dead, why don't you arrange a seance and see what all she has to say about the other world?"