A Piggly Wiggly Christmas (3 page)

Mr. Choppy immediately appeared more sanguine and picked up his fork. “I didn’t want to make any assumptions, though. The office is always fulla people askin’ for favors, and then there are the ones with the most unbelievable, ticky-tack complaints in the world, as well as the councilmen and all their territorial business. It’s not like dealin’ with the Nitwitts.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Gaylie Girl replied, keeping her amusement in check. “Favors, ticky-tack complaints, territorial business. Sounds an awful lot like the girls to me.”

“You know what I mean.”

Gaylie Girl laughed brightly. “Of course I do. So you want me to start the first of October?”

“Thereabouts, I think.”

“Call it a done deal.”

“You’re a trooper, Gaylie Girl.”

“Ha! I’m a Nitwitt. One of the newer ones, granted. But I’m getting the hang of it rather quickly.”

They began eating their dinner in earnest, occasionally pausing to give each other the sort of vaguely wicked smiles that had filled their honeymoon days and nights. Over Mr. Choppy’s favorite dessert of black walnut ice cream sprinkled with cocoa powder, Gaylie Girl decided to tell him all about her Santa Fe feeling and how it had been the impetus for her current Nitwitt Christmas project.

“The first time I laid eyes on Santa Fe, Peter had just bought our vacation house and he asked me to decorate it from stem to stern. So I immersed myself in that, and it took several trips out from Chicago to do it right. I scoured all the Santa Fe shops and galleries for that Southwest touch. But each time we visited, I became more and more at home. So many people seemed to have come to live and work with their special agendas. It was so different from Lake Forest and my life with Peter up there. That was so regimented. Santa Fe had a flexibility to it, allowing people to come and bend it this way and that. But they never broke it. It seemed to mold them as much as they molded the city. I know for a fact that Peter and I were so much better together in Santa Fe than we ever were in Chicago.” Then Gaylie Girl brought herself up short. “Oh, Hale, I hope you don’t mind my going on about Peter like this. I was just trying to make a point.”

Mr. Choppy put down his spoon and cupped his right hand under his chin, nodding thoughtfully at the recognition that flooded his brain. “I don’t mind one bit. Some a’ that sounds an awful lot like my life here in Second Creek, especially the part about people comin’ here with their agendas. I was halfway thinkin’ that your Santa Fe feelin’ might be akin to our Second Creek solutions.”

“That’s the way I see it, too. Oh, the architecture is different, and one place is the Old Southwest and the other is the Old Deep South, but they’re both special places determined to do things their own way and not lose their identities.”

Mr. Choppy finished off his ice cream and then helped his wife clear the table. Over the sink, he said: “Oh, I meant to tell you—I talked over the Caroling in The Square idea with all the councilmen, and I don’t think you and the churches’ll have any trouble gettin’ a special event permit from the city. And you haven’t said anything, but my guess is that things went well with your Nitwitts this afternoon.”

She rinsed out the ice cream bowls and put them in the dishwasher before answering with an undeniable friskiness in her tone. “And you knew that because?”

“Because if any of the ladies had raised a stink, I would have heard about it long before the ice cream came out. Am I right?”

Gaylie Girl’s laughter was masked somewhat by the dishwasher starting up. “You know you are. They all went along, and now we’ve divvied up all the duties to within an inch of our lives. Imagine—the Nitwitts soliciting heavenly music.”

Mr. Choppy paused for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. “How hard can it be to get people together to sing Christmas carols? Not much controversy in that, to my way of thinkin’.”

T
he Nitwitt trio of Gaylie Girl, Novie, and Laurie set out on their mission to the various Second Creek churches the very next week. Unexpectedly, however, Novie called up the other two and insisted that she was going to be their driver and escort. “Par excellence. I have a fun surprise in store for the both of you,” she explained, offering no details when Gaylie Girl pressed further at her end.

“It’s perfectly fine with me, then,” Gaylie Girl answered. “Both you and Laurie know the town a whole lot better than I do. I have no idea where several of these churches are. So, drive on, my good woman!”

Early Monday afternoon, Gaylie Girl was sitting quietly on the rose-colored Belter sofa in her freshly decorated drawing room. She was also finishing up a cup of herbal tea while scouring the latest issue of
Southern Living
for recipes when she was startled by the extremely loud honking of a horn. Of course, she knew that it would be Novie picking her up, but she was hardly prepared for what she encountered when she walked out onto the porch and closed the front door behind her. There, parked before her at the end of the boxwood-edged brick walkway that divided her diminutive front yard, was an enormous white-paneled van with a window or two thrown in for good measure. The kind, in fact, that some churches used to transport their indisposed members to and from services, pancake breakfasts, and potluck suppers. Or, more notoriously, akin to the model favored by drug dealers making their clandestine deliveries in the middle of the night.

“Great heavenly ham and a plate of applesauce, Novie!” Gaylie Girl exclaimed, reaching out gingerly to touch the side of the van as Novie rolled down the window. “Where in the world did you get this monstrosity?”

Plump little Novie then shut off the engine, climbed down out of the captain’s chair, and waddled her way around the ostentatious vehicle, unable to suppress a giggle. “Isn’t this sheer lunacy? My Caddy is in the shop, and they were supposed to get me a loaner, but this is all the rental car place had. They said it once sat fifteen passengers.”

“What do you mean—once sat?” Gaylie Girl said, frowning. “Is there something wrong with it now? Is it the ‘incredible shrinking van,’ by any chance?”

Novie opened the front passenger door and gestured dramatically at the empty space that revealed itself inside the vehicle. “No, nothing like that. They just took all the seats out except for the captain’s chair and the back row and made it into a cargo van. You and Laurie will have to sit back there while I drive. But at least you can keep each other company.”

Gaylie Girl folded her arms, half in frustration, half in amusement. “For heaven’s sake, Novie, why didn’t you tell me about it? We could have gone in my car. Why in the world do you want to put up with this clunky old thing?”

Novie drew herself up defiantly, thrusting out her chin. “I wanted to keep it a surprise. Besides, I like the challenge of it. I fully intend to get my money’s worth. The Caddy won’t be ready for three more days. It’ll be fun. I’ve always wanted to drive one of these.”

Gaylie Girl blinked in disbelief. “You have? I could live a hundred more years and not get the urge. Can you even see over the steering wheel?”

“Of course I can. I’m not that short. Have you no sense of adventure? You know
I
have. Now, come on, let’s open the sliding door and get you back there. We’ve still got to pick up Laurie, and I don’t want to be late for our appointment with Reverend Somerby.”

Dutifully, Gaylie Girl stepped up, lowered her head, and carefully made her way to the back row, where she took her seat all by her lonesome. From this distance, Novie had all the accessibility of an airport shuttle bus driver. It soon came to Gaylie Girl that the two of them were likely going to have to shout or at least raise their voices to conduct a conversation.

Novie looked back briefly and smiled before fastening her seat belt. Then she turned the key, and whatever it was she was saying to Gaylie Girl at the time was utterly drowned out by the sound of the humming engine.

“What?!” Gaylie Girl shouted back, cupping her ears.

Novie quickly picked up on the difficulty and upped her voice a decibel or two. “I said, ‘Fasten your seat belts! We’re flyin’ high!’ ”

Gaylie Girl quickly surveyed the area around her and shrugged as she shouted back. “There’s no seat belt back here!”

“Oh, well, hang on!” Novie returned, giggling like a giddy schoolgirl.

Gaylie Girl braced herself as Novie pulled away from the curb and the adventure began in earnest. Laurie seemed even more perplexed when the van pulled up in front of her little raised cottage a few blocks away but soon fell to and joined Gaylie Girl on the backseat, where the two of them immediately began conversing in whispers.

“Did you see this coming?” Gaylie Girl began. “It feels like one of those old
Candid Camera
stunts. Do you think Fannie Flagg will be waiting for us when we get to the church?”

“Or the ghost of Allen Funt?” a snickering Laurie whispered back, rolling her eyes at the same time. “What do you suppose has gotten into Novie?”

“Probably travel withdrawal symptoms. She told me the other day she hadn’t been on one of her travel junkets in well over six months. I guess she just needs that touch of excitement in her life, even if it’s just a trip around town in a rental van only Godzilla could love.”

Just then, the van hit a pothole, causing Gaylie Girl and Laurie to fall against each other like a couple of toppling bowling pins. Up front, there was only the sound of Novie’s incessant giggling, followed by a loud “Oops-a-daisy!”

“Did you have a little snort before you headed out this morning?!” Laurie shouted.

“Nothing of the sort. I’m firmly in control!” Novie shouted back.

After a few more unscheduled bumps in the road, the van finally pulled up in front of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, where the Reverend Zane Somerby greeted them in front of the Gothic façade with a look of bewilderment.

“My word, ladies! I thought you were from the nursing home in this thing!” he began, as Gaylie Girl and Laurie stepped out of the vehicle and took deep breaths when their feet hit the ground. Novie soon joined them, looking as if she had just been decorated with Olympic gold.

“That was invigorating, wasn’t it, girls?!”

Gaylie Girl smiled but was unable to restrain herself. “If a bit edgy without seat belts.”

Reverend Somerby, a rotund, jovial man with a trimmed red beard that often put parishioners in mind of Henry XIII himself, gestured toward the towering redbrick Parish House next door. “Well, ladies, shall we head on in and discuss the pressing business at hand?”

Choirmaster Lawton Bead awaited them in Reverend Somerby’s cozy office, which was colorfully accented by a small, stained glass window. He lost no time in reacting to the caroling issue after the perfunctory introductions and offerings of coffee and tea. Gaylie Girl found Mr. Bead’s pale, ascetic appearance a bit off-putting, not to mention that he remained standing throughout the entire conversation with the distracting habit of bending over at the waist and popping back up to emphasize certain words. It was almost as if some clever puppeteer had seamlessly attached him to wires in the ceiling.

“I particularly like your idea of choir members occupying the lacework balconies around The Square,” Mr. Bead was saying. “
In excelsis Deo
, you know. But there is a complication we need to consider.”

Gaylie Girl took the plunge cheerfully. “And what would that be, Mr. Bead?”

“Simply put, our choir members must be positioned all along the same side of The Square. They must all be able to see me directing them from some central point below. They can’t just be scattered here and there. I can’t be running back and forth all out of breath.”

“Yes, I can see your point,” Gaylie Girl answered, secretly amused by the frantic imagery. “And since you’re the first church we’ve called upon, you’ll have your choice of exactly which side you’d prefer for your fifteen minutes of fame, so to speak.”

Mr. Bead spent a few seconds in contemplation. “Ah, yes, you said each choir would get approximately fifteen minutes each before the public? Are you sure that’s going to be long enough?”

“Considering what the weather could be like on Christmas Eve, we don’t want anyone to have to spend too much time outdoors. A well bundled up fifteen minutes of carols for each choir should be just about right. We certainly can’t count on seventy-degree temperatures that time of year. Let’s err on the side of comfort, shall we?”

Reverend Somerby straightened up in his desk chair and gestured emphatically in his choirmaster’s direction. “Well, which side is it to be, Lawton?”

Mr. Bead’s eyes shifted from side to side as he mulled things over. “The north balconies, I think. I prefer the view from there.”

“North it is, then,” Gaylie Girl replied. “Novie, make a note, please.”

Novie went to work, scribbling in her notepad. When she had finished, she looked up and said: “I also have a reminder here to be sure and mention Euterpe’s role to Mr. Bead.”