Doing It at the Dixie Dew (3 page)

“Wrote she'd be in Littleboro three days and come by to see me. Said we'd talk old times, catch up on our lives.” Verna turned, started across the porch. “Now look what it's come to. But that's what we all come down to in the end, isn't it?”

I didn't know any answers except to extend the cake back in Verna's direction. “Please,” I said. “You keep it.”

But Verna insisted. “Beth, honey, you don't know when you'll need it. At times like this you just don't know what you'll need.” She patted my hand with her soft, old, wrinkled, spotted one. “After all, what are neighbors for, if not at a time like this?” A dark, hairy mole on Verna's cheek wiggled when she smiled. I'd seen that mole all my life, wondered why it never got any bigger. When I was little, I thought it looked for all the world like a bug and would crawl off any minute.

Lord,” I said after Verna left. “Word spreads fast. Around here all you have to do is whisper and it's all over town.”

“Who could miss it?” Ida Plum stacked sheets in the linen closet. “It's hard not to notice an ambulance backed up to a house, a body being hauled out in broad daylight.”

Miss Lavinia had looked so natural. Just old, eighty plus, maybe heading hard toward ninety. People die in their sleep, I told myself. She just happened to be a guest and sleeping in my house when it happened.

“That's the way I want to go,” Florence Carelock said when she came to the back door with her Lemon Creme Delight Cake. “It's such a peaceful thing. Of course we don't get to choose, but if we could, that's what I'd want.”

I tried to give back the cake.

“I have been your grandmother's friend all these years,” she said, “and I want to do this much to help you out.”

If you want to help me out, I thought, you'd let me forget this ever happened in my house. You'd help me get clean linens on some beds, vacuuming done and guests welcomed and checked in. But I only smiled and thanked Florence.

Four cakes came in after that. Delmore Simpson brought a pound cake, and the preacher, John Pittman from the Presbyterian church, brought another. His wife always kept a cake in the freezer for such emergencies, he said, and her name was already taped to the bottom of the plate, though there was no hurry getting the plate back.

It's not an emergency, I wanted to say. By this time, though, I'd learned to accept these food gifts and be grateful. Plus gracious. That was the least I could be. People meant well, I supposed. But in the back of my mind, I also wondered how much was simply curiosity and a cake was a ticket in the door.

“I wanted to go over some of the plans with you,” Pastor Pittman said.

“Me?” I said. “What plans?”

“The funeral services for Lavinia Lovingood are to be at First Church and I thought Thursday would be a better day to do it than Friday. We're not supposed to have rain and I already have a golf date that morning and a wedding at four in the afternoon. Of course we don't want to wait until Saturday or Sunday … that's much too long, I think, don't you?”

“For who?” I said, though of course I knew. Miss Lavinia. But who decided these things? Surely she had family somewhere. Cousins? Nieces, nephews? Somebody? A life she left for a few days that had now become a life she left forever.

“All her family is in Littleboro Cemetery. There was so little of it really. She's the last, I suppose.” He penciled in his appointment book. “Two o'clock suit you? We could make it three?”

“I didn't know her,” I said.

“But of course you want to be at her services,” Pastor Pittman said. “After all, she passed in this house … your house, your grandmother's house.”

“That was an accident,” I said.

“Sad, but it can be expected,” Pastor Pittman said. “The Lovingoods were one of the founding families, foremost families, if I might call them that, of Littleboro. You ought to read our church history. Lavinia was the only child, the last of the Lovingoods, and she'd been away from this town over fifty years.” He looked sweetly at me, gave a strained, patient smile. “Why, her family gave four of the eight stained-glass windows in our church … surely you've noticed. The Herringfield Windows.”

Herringfields? Lovingoods? I thought. Where did they fit together?

“The wife's family,” Pastor Pittman said. “They were the wealthy ones originally, and all the windows were given in old Mrs. Lovingood's maiden name.”

Pittman was the pastor at First Presbyterian, but Miss Lavinia had been having tea with Father Roderick at St. Ann's. Why? Had she converted when she lived in Italy? I could see that. Maybe she even saw the Vatican every time she looked out her window. Maybe she even had tea with the Pope on occasion. Who knows? I guess now we'd never know.

“Oh.” I remembered the stained-glass windows at church, two on each side of the pulpit. I'd spent a lot of Sunday mornings of my life until I went away to art school staring at
Jesus in the Garden,
his red flowing robe;
Jesus in the Temple
with the cat-o'-nine tails; Jesus suffering the little children (Mama Alice explained the scriptures on that one for years) and Jesus with the woman at the well.

Mama Alice had been a lapsed Catholic and First Presbyterian had the best youth group, so I went to both churches. Early Mass at St. Ann's, then regular service at First Church so I could go to Youth Group that night and on Wednesdays. It was the only social life for teens in Littleboro. My friend Malinda had done the same except she and her mom, Rosalie, had been pillars of St. Ann's.

“One always wants to come home, doesn't one?” Pittman said. A slight smile played at a corner of his mouth. He drummed his appointment book. “No matter how far one goes, home is still the place you want to come back to.”

He left through the front door and admired the leaded fanlight as he went. “You're doing wonders with this old house,” he said. “Paint really perks things up.” Paint and the sweat putting it on, I wanted to say, plus what it cost. “I think it would have been cheaper to just cover it with money … paste on bills like wallpaper,” Ida Plum said once.

I closed the door. Mama Alice always kept the glass door panels curtained, but I liked them bare, more light in the gloomy hall, on that dark curving staircase. Sunday evening Lavinia Lovingood had gone up those stairs alive, Monday afternoon she had been carried down dead. I turned quickly toward the kitchen where Scott and Ida Plum sat eating cake. “This Lemon Creme is heaven on a plate,” he said. “There ought to be a law against doing something this good with food.” He sliced another piece, slid extra icing off the knife with his finger, then licked his finger, closed his eyes and smiled.

“So what do I do with the rest of them?” I asked.

“How are you fixed for freezer space?” Ida Plum asked. “You could be in the tearoom business tomorrow.” Ida Plum was on my side. Bless her. By converting the glassed-in side porch into a usable space, I would not only provide breakfast-eating space for the overnight guests but also be able to serve light lunches and snacks. The tearoom would provide extra income … after it got started and business built up. Mama Alice had been known as the best cook in Littleboro. She catered weddings, bridesmaids' luncheons and monthly meals for various civic clubs in town. In addition to the house, she'd left me a treasured hoard of tried and truly great recipes.

“This funeral business,” Scott said. “I'm surprised Ed Eikenberry didn't put a wreath of white flowers on the door and some signs out front. He loves to advertise. In fact, I've never seen anybody enjoy the way they make their living quite as much as Ed Eikenberry.”

“Oh, he wanted to,” Ida Plum said. “I stopped him.”

“Thank God,” I said. “That's all I need to greet arriving guests. Word would spread fast in the B-and-B business. ‘Come to the Dixie Dew and Die,' or ‘At the Dixie Dew They Do You In.' Can't you just see it? ‘At the Dixie Dew We Specialize in Resting in Peace.'”

“You could add an ‘R.I.P.' on your logo,” Scott said. “Or ‘For Your Final Rest, Dixie Dew Is the Best.'” He drew a banner in the air with his hands.

Ida Plum hooted from the hall, then went upstairs.

I laughed and laughed until my cheeks burned and my eyes watered. “Stop, stop. It's not funny. It's awful.”

“You're right,” Scott said. He put his plate in the dishwasher. “But don't let the ghosts get to you. The Guilt Ghosts. None of it's your fault. It could happen to anyone, anywhere, anytime. The Dixie Dew and you weren't singled out as a spot on the map for Miss Lavinia's demise.” He wrapped cakes for the freezer, put his name on the label of the chocolate pound cake and drew a skull and crossbones underneath.

“Scott!” I said.

“Don't get rattled. That's just to ensure this baby is mine. In case anybody robs freezers.”

“Nobody robs freezers. Or if they do, they take roasts and steaks. Not chocolate cakes.”

“Insurance,” he said, and started to the basement to Mama Alice's freezers. The freezers were two oversized commercial units that stood side by side like giant white coffins. Mama Alice bought them when a restaurant in Raleigh went out of business. She got them for a song, she always said, and in the catering business she said they saved her life. She baked weeks ahead for a party or wedding reception.

Ida Plum had gone upstairs to vacuum. The door to Miss Lavinia's room was sealed and would be left that way for a while; even the bed was not to be changed. Police Chief Oswald DelGardo had sent his best and brightest, Bruce Bechner, over with the crime scene tape Monday night. Bruce bustled about like he was sealing off a presidential suite. That still left plenty to do, and who knew what tonight would bring? I didn't want to think about it. One dead guest in my bed-and-breakfast had been one too many.

“Honest,” I said. “It wouldn't help business if word got out in the trade. Three days in business, I'm trying to get listed in the guidebooks and registers, approved by the B-and-B national board, and zonk, I have a death on my hands.”

“Forget it,” Scott said as he put the pineapple cake in the refrigerator. He surprised me being so easy to work with in a kitchen, but then he lived alone (I assumed) and was used to the ways of a kitchen. He seemed at ease here, almost from the first day. Instead of bringing a thermos of coffee from home, he brought coffees, freshly ground cinnamon and mocha coffees, hazelnut, amaretto, rum and almond, and made them here.

“Since when did any grocery store in Littleboro go gourmet?” I asked.

“Who says I only shop in Littleboro?” He poured me a cup of some exotic mixture that had perfumed the whole house as it perked. Coffee always smelled better than it tasted, I thought, but wouldn't say such a thing aloud for anything.

My hand touched his as I took the cup and I thought how warm his fingers were, how strong. Fingers that had taken this house and started pulling it into shape. Helping make it into a business. Warm hands and a sturdy, dependable presence that had too quickly become an everyday part of my life, which scared me a little. I took the coffee and turned away. You learned a lot of things through pain, and one of the things was not to get too close to whatever caused it. But Scott wasn't Ben Johnson and Scott was here when I needed him, at least for now.

Scott always said he came when I called him. That much was true. When I first came back to the Dixie Dew, he pulled his truck into my driveway, got out and strode, both hands in the pockets of his jeans, straight toward a stack of materials Jake Renfroe had ordered and not used. Scott walked around the tarp-covered stuff, inspected it as if it were a used car and he could hardly restrain himself from kicking the tires … if there had been any. He stepped onto the porch, introduced himself and shook my hand, then went back to his truck for a clipboard and tape measure.

I offered to show him around, but he said, “I'd rather poke around on my own for a while. Then I'll have better questions and save you time. I charge by the hour, but I'm not on your clock yet.” He bent to check a loose board on the front porch, lifted it looking for termites, then poked the decay to test for dry rot. He didn't comment. I knew the house was solid. It just needed a million gallons of paint and a new roof and a heating and cooling system and a new kitchen and enough wallpaper to roll out a road to China and … the list was endless.

“Uh-huh,” Ida Plum had said when I came in the kitchen. “You got a live one now.”

“Who is he?” I asked. I thought Scott looked familiar, but I wasn't sure.

“You know him,” Ida Plum said. “You've known him all your life.”

“Me?” I asked. “Not really.” The name rang a faint bell, but I think I'd remember that face, those eyes so blue they took your breath away, those dark curls. “He would be better looking if he didn't have that smart-aleck smile pasted on his face,” I said.

“He married Cedora,” Ida Plum said as she rinsed a dish.

“Ohmygosh,” I said. “Not the Hollywood Princess. Not Miss Broadway Bound. Not Miss Talent Running out Her Rear End.”

“That one. Nobody ever understood it. Both sets of parents tried to have it annulled.”

“So what then?”

“She went to Broadway and took him along.”

“She went to Hollywood and he came home. I think I get the picture now,” I said. Cedora Harris, who called herself Sunny Deye, could now be heard singing commercial jingles: dishwashing liquids, body soaps, floor mop stuff. You had to know her voice, that clear, distinctive, lovely voice, to know it was Cedora. I had been two years behind Cedora in school. Her presence was so strong it probably still had an aura in the halls of Littleboro High. She was like something God dropped in the wrong place. That red-gold hair, green eyes and a figure the boys fell over. Poor Scott.