Buried In Buttercream (19 page)

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Authors: G. A. McKevett

BOOK: Buried In Buttercream
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She caught sight of Savannah and Dirk and stopped abruptly. The cross look on her face deepened into something akin to loathing.
“You two again?” she snapped. “I thought we'd already said all we needed to say to each other.”
“Do you know a Celia Barnhart-Wynn?” Dirk asked without bothering to exchange any mundane pleasantries.
Savannah agreed it was the right move. Odelle didn't seem to be in a “pleasantries” sort of mood.
“Of course I know her!” she returned. “She's one of the reasons I had to sell my house! I had to settle up with her, and at least half a dozen of Madeline's other highly dissatisfied customers.”
“But why is that?” Savannah asked. “If they were her customers and not yours ...”
“We were partners, remember? And when she started to go downhill, I couldn't get our assets untangled fast enough. She brought me down with her.”
“I'm sorry,” Savannah said, sincerely meaning it. She'd seen too many people dragged under by their associations with the wrong people.
It seemed so unfair. But then, many things seemed unfair. The older she got, the more she was pretty certain that the whole concept of “fair” was a hoax played on children, like Santa and the Tooth Fairy, only minus the magic and fun. The world wasn't a fair place, and to expect it to be only ensured disappointment.
“We just went to see Celia Barnhart,” Savannah told her. “She has a lot of hatred for Madeline, blames her for ruining her wedding.”
“Oh, pleeez. Celia's no different from any other spoiled, impossible-to-please bridezilla.”
“Impossible to please? Madeline never even showed at the wedding. Celia had no flowers. No hotel room for her honeymoon night. That goes beyond just being spoiled, now doesn't it?”
Odelle walked past them to an oversized antique vase that was only half wrapped in padding. She began to tug the cover around it, securing it with a stretchy cord.
“Sure, Madeline was getting sloppy and Celia Barnhart probably didn't get all she paid for,” she said, “but still ... You have no idea what we put up with in this business. There are a lot of controlling, nasty women out there, and when they're about to get married, it
all
comes to the surface. They bark and expect everybody to jump. They tell you they want one thing and then throw a temper tantrum when you get it for them and they don't like it quite as much as they thought they would.”
“It's a lot of stress, putting a wedding together,” Savannah said, feeling the need to stand up for her sister brides everywhere.
“Yes, and a lot of that stress can come from indecisive, bossy brides. Celia Barnhart's one of them.”
“Do you think she'd hurt Madeline?”
Odelle shrugged and walked over to a wall niche that held a beautiful bronze statue of a mermaid combing her hair with a sea shell. Lovingly, as though attending a baby, she started to wrap it as well.
“I suppose she could have. I don't know. Does she have an alibi?”
“Sort of,” Savannah said. “Not a very solid one.”
“Well, then, I guess you'd better keep her on your short list, huh?” Odelle paused, ran her fingers through her hair, and then wiped her hand across her face, as though refusing to see what was abundantly clear ... herself moving out of her beloved home.
“We'll leave you alone now, Ms. Peters,” Dirk said. “Thank you for your time ... and I'm sorry about your home.”
Odelle gave him a mildly surprised look, as though not expecting comfort from that quarter. “Okay,” she said. “I appreciate that.”
“I'm going to be moving soon myself,” he told her.
“I hope you're moving up in the world, not down, the way I am.”
Dirk gave Savannah a sweet smile and said, “Oh, I am. I most certainly am.”
“Then you're a lucky man,” Odelle told him.
“Oh, you have no idea
how
lucky.”
Chapter 17
“
D
o you really have to do this?” Dirk asked Savannah as they pulled up in front of her house. “You can come back to the trailer with me and hide out.”
“I do. I really do. They're my family, and they've come all this way to visit me. I can't keep avoiding them forever,” she replied, staring at her yard, which was littered with toys. Her hedge was draped with a Minnie Mouse beach towel. Her bougainvillea had sprouted a pair of Mickey ears. A couple of
Toy Story
dolls were lying in the middle of her lawn. She wasn't sure if Woody and Jessie were doing something naughty or wrestling.
Dirk noticed her looking over the carnage. He shook his head. “Did it occur to Vidalia when she let the kids buy all that stuff that she's going to have a helluva time getting it all into a suitcase when she goes home?”
“She won't bother,” Savannah replied. “I'll be the one packing it into cardboard boxes and standing in line at the post office to mail it back to them.”
He reached over and took her hand. “Has it ever dawned on you ... um ... how can I put this nicely ... that you do a bit too much for your family?”
“You mean, has it ever occurred to me that I'm a doormat, an enabler of bad behavior, a flunky, and a pushover?”
“That would about sum it up.”
Savannah rolled her eyes. “Of course it has. I've read the self-help books about setting boundaries and all that good stuff. I may be codependent as hell, but I'm not stupid or ill-informed.”
“Then why do you do it?”
Savannah thought about it a long time before answering. It was a good question and deserved an honest answer. “It isn't what people think. It's not because I'm too weak to stand up for myself.”
“Knowing you, that never occurred to me.”
“I guess more than anything else, it's a habit ... a habit that started years and years ago, and I've never changed it. When I was little, my mom was always saying, ‘Watch the kids, fetch Vidalia a bottle, change Macon's diaper, get Waycross out of that mud puddle before he drowns hisself.' And, of course, if I didn't watch them close enough, and they got into trouble—which was bound to happen ten times a day with so many of them—I'd get a whoopin'.”
Dirk was quiet for a long time. And when she turned to look at him, she saw what could only be described as fury on his face. And tears in his eyes.
“Your mother brought all these kids into the world and then made a child take care of them? And she gave you beatings when you didn't do it to suit her?”
“Wasn't exactly beatings. Just your old-fashioned hide tanning.”
“Did it leave marks?”
“Are you kidding? After she took a switch to the back of my legs, I'd have to wear knee socks for weeks. You'd be surprised the sort of bruises and welts a hickory switch can raise.”
He gently squeezed her hand and said softly, “Savannah, that's a beating. A felony. How many times have we hauled a guy outta his house in cuffs for doing way less than that to his old lady ... a grown woman, not a kid?”
“I never thought of it that way,” she said. “I guess if it's your parent doing it, it's just a spanking.”
“If a stranger did that to someone's child, everybody would be up in arms about it. He'd be arrested on the spot. So, if it's your parent leaving bruises on you—the person whose job it is to protect you from harm—and not a stranger on the street, that makes it worse, not better. Acting like it's okay just adds insult to injury.”
They sat in silence for a long time as Savannah thought over what he'd said. It was as if he had switched on a bright light inside a dark room in her soul.
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it. “You know, baby,” he said, “times have changed. That crap's all in the past. They aren't kids anymore. And your mom's sitting on a bar stool in Georgia, drinking her way into an early grave. She's never going to hit you again.”
“No, she isn't. Nobody's ever going to hit me. Never again. I decided that years ago.”
“So, nobody's going to beat you if you go in there and tell Vidalia to take care of her own kids. Or if you tell Marietta to make her own damned bologna sandwiches. Or if you tell Macon to get up off his fat ass and pick up his empty pizza boxes and soda cans.”
Savannah sat, staring at him for a long time, as his words found their way from her ears, through her brain, and down into a place much deeper.
And in that place, deep in her soul, she heard him loud and clear.
More importantly, the little girl who had been beaten because her baby brother had broken his bottle, spilling the last bit of milk in the house, heard it.
Savannah jerked the car door open, got out, and slammed it so hard that Dirk thought his windows would break.
“Uh-oh,” he muttered as he watched her storm up the sidewalk to her front door. “Hell's broke loose in Georgia and the devil deals the cards.”
 
“Where's Granny and the children?” Savannah demanded, standing in the middle of her living room and looking around at her siblings, who, from what she could tell, hadn't budged an inch from the last time she'd seen them.
“They're upstairs, taking naps. Butch, too,” Marietta told her without taking her eyes off the television.
“And not a minute too soon,” Vidalia said from the sofa as she flipped through her movie magazine. “I'm so tired, I'm draggin' my tracks out, just tryin' to corral 'em. It's time Butch lifted a finger to be a father to those younguns.”
“Gran and the kids are upstairs? Good,” Savannah said. “Then I don't have to watch my language none when I tell y'all what's what.”
Jesup, who was sitting in Savannah's comfy chair, painting her toenails black, glanced up—as did the rest of them—slightly surprised looks on their faces.
“Well, boy ... you got a nasty tone there, Sis,” Marietta said. “You best mind how you address us.”
“Shhh, Mari,” Cordele said. “Can't you see that Savannah's experiencing some sort of anxiety attack? It's no doubt related to the post-traumatic stress she's suffered from the shooting. We all need to be patient with her as she works through her issues. She's quite fragile at this time and—”
“Oh, can it, Cordele,” Savannah snapped. “The last thing I need right now is hearing your psycho-babble. I'm not fragile; I'm fed up. And if I'm stressed out, it ain't just from getting shot or having three attempted weddings go down the drain. It's also from putting up with the likes of you!”
Their mouths dropped open.
“Well, I never heard such abuse,” Vidalia said, sitting up and slapping her magazine down onto the coffee table.
It occurred to Savannah that she looked downright unnatural without it, and what sad commentary on her daily life that was.
“Well, you're gonna hear what I've got to say,” Savannah told them. “So listen up, all of you.”
She drew a deep breath. “Vidalia, I love those children of yours to pieces, but I swear, if you don't keep them from tearing up my house, I'm gonna send you a bill that'll knock your eyeballs out. And I'm gonna expect you to pay it. So far you owe me for two African violets, three rose bushes, the plumber's bill from Jilly flushing that toy teacup down the toilet, the dry cleaning to get the peanut butter and jelly off my good bedspread—who the hell sends a kid off for a nap with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in his hand? Oh ... and a toothbrush.”
“A toothbrush?”
“Yes. Your son decided to pee on mine. God knows why.”
“He didn't!”
“He did! I caught him in the act.”
Savannah turned to Marietta. “And I'm not going to tell you again that when you're in my house, you'll watch family-oriented programming on that television or not watch it at all. With children and our saintly grandmother in the house, you'll show some restraint and respect, or I swear I'll unplug the thing and hide the cord.”
“Well! I—”
“And while I'm talkin' to
you
... from now on you make your own damned bologna sandwiches! You're over forty years old, for Pete's sake! Learn to feed yourself!”
She glanced toward the foyer and saw Dirk standing just around the corner, a big grin across his mug.
On a roll, she turned to Macon. “Haul your butt up off that floor,” she told him, “and make yourself useful for once! Pick up all this food trash you've been throwin' down for the past week and drag the garbage to the curb. Tomorrow's collection day. And when you get back in here, go put on some clean clothes and throw those in the washing machine. You haven't changed since you been here, and frankly, you smell like the south end of a north-bound polecat.”
It was Jesup's turn. “If you want to spend your life painting spiders and bats and blood drops and other weird things on your body, that's your business. But do it outside, 'cause you've already got that glittery makeup crap all over my couch, and if you get it on my comfy chair, you're gonna pay to have it reupholstered.”
“Well! I never had anybody speak so disrespectful to me in all my livin' life!” Vidalia said, jumping up off the sofa with far more energy than Savannah had seen her display in years. “And frankly, Savannah, I'm disappointed in you that you'd speak so harshly to anyone, let alone your loved ones. I thought better of you.”
“Oh, come down off that high horse before you get a nose bleed,” Savannah told her. “You kept us all awake half the night, yelling at Butch because he said he likes your big butt! You've got a big heinie, Vidalia! Of course you do; you're a Reid! And lucky for you, you've also got a sweetheart of a husband who loves every inch of it. Get over it and move on! Geezzzz!”
“Well! If that don't just cap it all!” Vidalia said, as she stomped across the living room, passed Dirk in the foyer, and huffed and puffed her way up the staircase.
“Quiet down, or you'll wake up those younguns of yours,” Savannah called after her. “And then poor Butch'll have to watch 'em, 'cause Lord knows, you'll be too busy reading about what nit-wit movie star's screwin' what other 'un.”
Vidalia continued to huff and puff, but she did lighten her step as she disappeared up the staircase.
With a bit of effort, Macon raised his bulk from the floor and did a pseudo brush off of his sweat pants. “Well, I guess I'll go change clothes, since I've been told that I
stink
!”
“Eh,” Jesup said, “ain't like it's the first time somebody told you that.” She gathered up her makeup and tossed it into a skull and crossbones kit. “And I'll take my grooming supplies out to the backyard. That is, if Savannah isn't afraid I'll get nail polish on her lawn furniture.”
“Actually, I am. Sit on the grass.”
Jesup disappeared, too.
“Well,” Marietta said, making a great show of changing the channels on the television to one with cartoons, then tossing the remote control onto the coffee table. “If this ain't a fine how-do-you-do. We come all the way out here to watch you celebrate your nut-chew-alls and—”
“Nuptials, Marietta. For God's sake, it's pronounced ‘nuptials! '” Savannah walked over to her chair and plopped down in it. “When will you ever learn how to talk?”
“Well, excuuuse me! I'm sorry I don't pernounce things exactly the way that you—”
“Pronounce. It's pronounced ‘
pro-
nounce.' Not
per-
nounce.”
“Well!” Marietta stood and flounced out of the room by way of the kitchen door, saying, “That does it! You've always been bossy, bad-tempered, and high-strung, Savannah ... but this takes the cake!”
Only Cordele remained—a patient, condescending look on her face. “I understand, Savannah,” she said. “I was expecting this. I knew it was coming, this overreaction you're having to simple, everyday family issues. You totally fit the diagnostic criteria for PTSD, that's post-traumatic stress disorder, or at least ASR, that's acute stress response. So—”
“Stop it!” Savannah said, gritting her teeth.
“So,” Cordele continued, undaunted, “unlike the rest, I'm not going to take your verbal abuse personally. I'm going to take into account the stress you're experiencing with your wedding plans falling through ... not to mention your near-death experience and—”
“Cordele, I'm warning you, girl. If I have to get up out of this chair and come over there and smack you, I'll do it twice. Do not pretend that you know me better than I know myself. It's annoying as hell. So are your stupid labels and diagnoses. Just keep 'em to yourself!”
Her chin lifted several notches, and nose high in the air, Cordele headed for the kitchen door, too, her normally ramrod-straight posture even stiffer than usual. “That's what I get, trying to help someone who won't admit they need help. Clearly the denial stage of grieving ... grieving for the loss of a sense of security. . . loss of ...”

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