Page 64 of The Party Line

I thought about Aunt Gracie drawing her first breath in the room a few feet across the wide hallway from my bedroom and then taking her last one in that same room. I pulled on a pair of pink bikini underwear and a nightshirt that had been worn so much that it was soft and comfortable.

I heard the bathroom door open and then close, and then Gina began to sing. I’ve never been musical, either in playing an instrument or in singing, so I couldn’t be a good judge, but she sure sounded likeMiranda Lambert of the Pistol Annies when she belted out “Hell On Heels.”

“Yep, we are hell on heels, and even though we might not be looking for a sugar daddy like the song says, we aren’t going to let anyone else tell us what to do or how to live our lives,” I said, then headed downstairs for a glass of sweet tea.

I forgot all about what I was doing when I passed by the door to the basement. Before I knew it, I was turning on the light and easing down the rough wood steps in my bare feet. When I got to the bottom, I glanced around the room and my eyes landed on a shoebox sitting over to my left on one of the shelves. “Gracie’s Stuff” was written on the end. How could I have overlooked that when we were down there earlier?

Without even thinking about the dust on the floor or my bare feet, I walked across the room and picked it up. Not wanting to share the contents with Gina Lou, I hurried back up to my bedroom and wiped my feet on the damp towel I’d wrapped around my head. Then I used the other one to clean the outside of the box before I crawled up in the middle of my bed and set it down in front of me.

Rather than being taped, the box was tied with a faded-red satin ribbon. I pulled on the string, and the bow let go. I eased the top off and found at least a dozen dried roses covering an old wine bottle with a note stuffed inside. I tried to shake it out. That didn’t work, but I didn’t give up. Tweezers from the manicure set Aunt Gracie gave me for my birthday was what finally rescued the piece of paper.

I carefully unrolled it and read:These are the roses that Davis gave me for my birthday, and this is one of the wine bottles that we used to make our own strawberry wine. I don’t ever want to forget the days we had. It seemed that we only had a minute together before he was killed, but it was a precious one. I loved him, and he was taken from me.

I sighed as I put the lid back on the box. Her red panties weren’t the secret at all, but her love for Davis. I wondered why they couldn’t be together. Had her parents forbidden it because he was the help? Had her father paid his mother—what was her name?

“Rita!” I snapped my fingers. “That was her name. Did Gracie’s daddy pay her to break up a budding young romance? Why didn’t they rebel when they graduated from high school? Had he been made to believe that he wasn’t good enough for her?”

The answers to my questions were at the cemetery with Gracie. That was probably where they belonged because, as Jasper had said many times, “If she had wanted you to know, she would have told you.”

Chapter Eighteen

What’s the matter?” Mama asked as we went into the Dairy Queen.

“Nothing.” I looked up at the menu above the counter while we waited behind a couple of bikers in leather, chains, and gray beards.

“Are you thinking about me being gone?” she pressed on with a worried expression.

“Honest, nothing is wrong. I’m over-the-moon happy that you are taking a vacation, as long as”—I leaned over and whispered in her ear—“you and Annie don’t take up with bikers and become road-queen mamas.”

“We make no promises and have no shame. What happens on a road trip does not come back to Ditto,” she said out the side of her mouth. “We might gohogwild while we are away.”

“So you might come home with another secret that no one can figure out?”

Mama smiled back, and we stepped up to the counter.

A middle-aged woman with short gray hair dried her hands on a paper towel and hurried over to the counter. “Hey, Sarah, I hear you and Annie done retired and that you are about to go on a trip to Nashville. I’ve always wanted to go there. Think you’ll get to see George Strait?”

“That would be nice,” Mama said. “When are you going to retire, Miz Brenda?”

“Never.” She frowned. “The boss doesn’t get to take days off, much less retire. Not with as tough as it is to keep good help these days. You want a job when you get back from your vacation? I’ll let you pick your hours. Or ...” She leaned over the counter and whispered, “I’ll sell this place to you.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Mama said. “I don’t know what I want to do, but I know it’s not café work. We’d like a couple of burger baskets. Mustard, no onions, on both burgers. French fries on one and onion rings on the other and make that to go. And we’ll need another one with fries, too, for Jasper.”

“We’ll get that right out.” Brenda glanced over at me. “Lila, do you want a job?”

“I’ve got one,” I assured her. “I’m learning the strawberry business.”

“I heard that you were out there working in the fields yesterday.” Brenda hung the order on a round rack, just like I’d seen Mama do so many times where she worked, and then set two empty cups on the counter. “Are you really not going to renew Everett’s lease?”

“I don’t have to make a definite decision until January.”

Mama picked up the cups and headed to the drink fountain.

“But who would have ever guessed that you would come home and take over the strawberry business? Or that the big secret is just that Miz Gracie had a wild side?”

“Not me, for sure,” I declared. “And where did you hear about Aunt Gracie?” My voice had an edge to it. Even though I knew there were rumors, it still angered me that folks had heard about her red underwear.

“Gossip travels fast in small towns,” Brenda said and lowered her voice. “I would have never thought such a thing from a prim and proper lady like her.”

---