The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat

Chapter 38





My first Sunday back at the All-You-Can-Eat came three weeks after I didn’t die beneath my tree. The restaurant was packed. Every

chair in the place, except the ones waiting for James and me, was occupied. And from the unusual amount of trouble even skinny

James had squeezing between the patrons, it seemed to me that Little Earl had added some tables to the dining room to handle the

increased numbers.

As we made our way through the crowd, folks greeted me like I’d just returned from the battlefield. Erma Mae rushed up to me and

kissed me on each cheek. Ramsey Abrams hugged me—a little too tight and a little too long, as usual. Florence Abrams shook my

hand and contorted her face into that wince she believed was a smile. Every step we took, somebody stopped me to say how glad they

were that I was on the mend. People had done the same thing when I’d returned to church that morning, and I have to admit I was

flattered by the attention.

When we finally got to our window table, I took my seat between Clarice and Barbara Jean. James sat down at the men’s end of the

table, and we both launched into conversations with our friends.

It was like things had never changed, and it was completely different at the same time. Clarice, bold and braless in a gauzy,

shapeless white dress that she wouldn’t have been caught dead in six months earlier, was still the most dedicated gossip I knew.

But, courtesy of the Unitarians, she wasn’t so filled up with fury now that every story or observation had to have a bite to it.

And Barbara Jean was as beautiful as ever in a pearl-gray dress from her new toned-down and sobered-up collection, but she had a

way about her that said maybe her soul was truly at peace for the first time in all the years that I’d known her.

I could hear the usual sports talk coming from the other end of the table. But they’d shuffled up things a bit there, too.

Richmond had moved over one chair and now sat in the space that Lester had occupied for years. James sat where Richmond used to

sit. And Chick Carlson sat in James’s old spot.

Barbara Jean didn’t talk about the future. She said she planned to take each day as it came. But if you got her alone and pressed

her about it, she’d tell you that what was happening—her and Chick together, trying to learn to be happy—was a miracle.

I didn’t argue with Barbara Jean, but I’d grown partial to Mama’s take on that topic. What we call miracles is just what’s

supposed to happen. We either go with it or stand in its way. It seemed to me that Barbara Jean had just finally stopped getting

in the way of what was meant to be. But what did I know? I’d chosen to go with the flow and I’d ended up letting the drunken

ghost of a former first lady convince me that I was about to die.

When we headed to the buffet line, we found the pickings pretty slim. Erma Mae saw me spooning the last of the braised short ribs

from a tray. She said, “We’ll have some more soon. We thought we’d have a busy day today, but we didn’t plan on this kinda

crowd showin’ up. It’s like they all marked the date on their calendars and ran straight over here from church to see the show.

”

That was when I remembered. One year ago, Minnie McIntyre had announced to everyone that her spirit guide, Charlemagne the

Magnificent, had put her on notice that she had a maximum of 365 days to live. Now the All-You-Can-Eat was full of people who’d

come to see how Minnie was going to deal with waking up alive a year later.

Little Earl hustled out of the kitchen with an overflowing tray of short ribs. He saw me and said, “Hey, Odette, good to have you

back.” He put the tray on the steam table with one hand while sliding out the empty tray with the other in one smooth, practiced

motion. He said, “It’s crazy in here today. Sorry I can’t stay and talk.” Then he rushed back into the kitchen.

Erma Mae shook her head. “He’s not sorry at all. He’s tickled pink to have this crowd. Maybe we can persuade Minnie to predict

her death every Sunday. That way we could retire in another year.” Then someone waved at her from the cash register and she

hurried away.

All six of us filled our plates and headed back to our table. As soon as we sat, Clarice said, “I talked to Veronica last night.

” Veronica had started speaking to Clarice again immediately after everything went so wrong at the wedding. She’d been calling

Clarice just about every day since then to vent some steam about what Minnie had done to her with her bad predictions.

“Is Veronica doing any better?” Barbara Jean asked.

“A little. She’s still too embarrassed to leave the house, but she got a new prescription for nerve pills and she doesn’t talk

about murdering Minnie quite so much. Now she does a fair amount of inappropriate giggling instead. It’s creepy, but I suppose it

’s an improvement.”

“I’m surprised she isn’t here today. I’d think she’d want to be on the scene to hear Minnie try to explain being alive. It

might give her a bit of satisfaction,” I said.

Clarice said, “No, she’s determined to lay low until people forget about the wedding.”

“She’ll have a hell of a long wait on her hands,” I said. “I heard a rumor that the wedding photographer was selling his

footage to America’s Funniest Home Videos.”

Clarice and Barbara Jean both squealed, “Really?”

“Well, no,” I confessed. “But a girl can dream.”

Barbara Jean asked, “What about Sharon? How’s she doing?”

Clarice said, “Not so good. I haven’t seen her, but, according to Veronica, she’s locked herself in her room and only comes out

to shoot evil looks at her mother. On top of that, her hypnosis is wearing off, so she’s struggling to stay away from the sweets.

It’s not easy for her, depressed as she is, living with three hundred servings of wedding cake in the deep freezer down in the

basement.”

Then Clarice said, “Excuse me for a second.” She lightly rapped on the table with her knuckles and cleared her throat. When she

had everyone’s attention, she said, “Richmond,” then she extended her right hand, palm up.

Richmond tried his unconvincing innocent look for a few seconds. Then he slid a large serving of banana pudding out from beneath

his napkin where he had been hiding it. He stood and brought the pudding to the other end of the table, depositing it in the hand

of his part-time wife.

Chick and James laughed at him and started in with the teasing as soon as Richmond sat back down in his chair. But Richmond just

grinned and said, “What can I say? My woman wants me to live.”

Clarice and Richmond seemed to have come to an understanding. Clarice had gotten over worrying about going to hell for wanting

love without misery, and Richmond had given up fighting for a return to the life they had led before she left him. I was happy to

see it. I loved Clarice, of course, and Richmond Baker was all right by me, too.

The main reason I’d chosen Richmond to take me out of the hospital and to my sycamore tree was that he was physically the

strongest person I knew. Fifty-seven years old and every inch of him still bulged with muscle. Also, of all my friends, Richmond

had shown himself the most willing to do things that other people thought were wrong. But it turned out he had some other valuable

qualities.

For one, years of sneaking around had taught Richmond how to keep his mouth shut. We made it back to the hospital that day before

anyone else returned. I did some apologizing to my doctor and Richmond did some flirting with the nurses. And by the time James,

the Supremes, my brother, and my kids came back, an agreement had been struck with the hospital personnel to pretend my escape had

never happened.

I thought about telling James what I had done. But I decided it would be better for everyone, especially me, if I didn’t. The way

I figured it, James had enough on his plate. He was a good husband whose wife had cancer. He was a lawman who had to go on

pretending, at least a little while longer, that he didn’t know I was smoking marijuana every day. And now James also had to deal

with having a chorus line of dead folks dancing in and out of his life. No, that whole thing about my escape to Leaning Tree was

something me and my new buddy, Richmond, would keep to ourselves.

Someone shouted, “There’s Minnie,” and Clarice lost any concern for Richmond’s diet, Barbara Jean quit gazing at Chick, and I

stopped mulling over my own little secrets. Along with everybody else in the All-You-Can-Eat, we stared out the window at the

house across the street.

I scanned the front of Minnie’s house and still didn’t see a thing. “Where is she?” I asked.

“Look up,” Barbara Jean said. “She’s on the roof.”

Sure enough, there was Minnie. She was crawling, rear end first, out of a second-floor window and onto the wedge of roof above the

front porch.

“What on earth is she doing?” Clarice asked as we watched Minnie gain her footing on the slanted shingles. Balancing up there

had to have been a tough task since, in addition to her purple fortune-telling robe with the signs of the zodiac pasted all over

it and her white turban, she was wearing her satin Arabian slippers with the curled-up toes.

“I believe she’s fixin’ to jump,” I said.

Barbara Jean said, “That’s a long way to go to make a prediction come true. If she goes through with it, you have to admire her

dedication to her work.”

Clarice rolled her eyes. “Oh please, she’ll never jump. You know as well as I do that Minnie McIntyre won’t die until she

contracts some lingering mystery disease that she can whine about for decades till somebody snaps under the strain of listening to

her running her mouth and smothers her with a pillow.” She snatched a chicken finger off my plate and bit into it.

I said, “Sounds like you’ve given this a bit of thought, Clarice. What happened to that fresh, mellow outlook on life you said

the Unitarians were giving you?”

“I haven’t been a Unitarian long,” she responded, waving the stub of the chicken finger. “I’ve still got some work to do.”

Always the most charitable of the Supremes, Barbara Jean said, “Someone really should go over there and talk her down.”

But no one moved. I’m sure Barbara Jean knew even as she said it that she’d be hard-pressed to find a soul in town who would try

to talk Minnie McIntyre out of leaping. In that very room was an assortment of people who would gladly climb onto that roof with

her, but only to give her a shove, convinced that they were doing the world a favor by hastening her departure. No, these folks

were not a crowd of likely suicide prevention counselors.

Minnie stood now with her arms outstretched like Jesus on the cross, her purple robe billowing in the breeze like the sails of a

ship. A particularly strong gust came along and snatched the turban off her head. When she tried to grab for it, she pitched

forward so awkwardly that everyone gasped. Minnie wobbled for a few seconds, but soon righted herself. Then she stuck her arms out

and struck her martyr pose again, looking angry and defiant as the little wisps of gray hair that poked out from the hairnet she’

d worn under her turban danced in the wind.

We all watched for a while longer. Then Little Earl, who had been summoned from the kitchen by his wife, let out a groan. “I

guess I better go have a talk with her.” He took off his apron and came out from behind the steam tables. But he halted at the

front door when he saw that someone had appeared on Minnie’s lawn and was having a lively conversation with her.

A slim young woman carrying a pale pink cardboard box labeled “Donut Heaven” under her left arm stood in the center of the lawn.

She was wearing a long white dress that looked like it had seen better days. Strips of cloth hung from the ragged hem of the

dress, like somebody had taken scissors to it. Stains of assorted sizes and colors dotted the fabric. At first it seemed she and

Minnie were having a casual conversation, but then the young woman began to shake an upraised fist in Minnie’s direction.

Suddenly it was clear that the exchange they were having was anything but casual.

Clarice said, “I can’t believe it. It’s Sharon.”

I squinted and saw that it was, indeed, Sharon, the almost-wife of the now re-incarcerated Clifton Abrams. As I watched, Sharon’s

movements graduated from testy to furious. Now, instead of a fist, she jabbed her middle finger up toward the old woman.

Clarice said, “I should call Veronica.” She twisted around to get at the pocketbook that hung on the back of her chair and

fished inside until she found her phone. Then she dialed her cousin.

“Hi, Veronica, it’s me. I’m having supper at the All-You-Can-Eat and Sharon just showed up … No, she’s not having supper with

us. She’s across the street and it appears she’s having words with Minnie … Uh-huh … And, Veronica, she’s in her wedding gown

… Really? Every day? … Well, right now she’s just standing there yelling at Minnie with a Donut Heaven box under her arm.”

The shriek that came from the other end of the phone line at the mention of Donut Heaven was so loud that Clarice jerked the phone

as far away from her head as the length of her arm would let her. When the wailing subsided, Clarice put the phone back to her

ear. She listened for a moment and then told Veronica, “I can’t really say for sure from this distance, but my guess would be it

’s the family-size box.” Another shriek. This one came and went too quickly for Clarice to pull the phone away. She listened for

a few seconds longer and then turned off her phone. Then, to us, Clarice said, “She’ll be right over.”

We continued to watch the spectacle across the street. The restaurant was so quiet now and Sharon was yelling so loud that we

could hear an occasional word even though she was dozens of yards away and separated from us by a thick pane of glass. Her

gestures got bigger as she became angrier. She escalated things by opening the donut box, removing a long chocolate éclair, and

lobbing it at Minnie like a javelin, which drove the audience in the restaurant to hoots of amusement and shock. The pastry sailed

wide of its target and missed by two feet. Minnie made an obscene hand signal back at Sharon and then they screamed at each other

for a while longer. Little Earl sighed again and opened the restaurant’s front door to go outside and play referee.

Clarice, Barbara Jean, and I glanced at each other, each of us trying to come up with an excuse for following Little Earl across

the street that didn’t seem like pure nosiness.

Barbara Jean got there first. She said, “I hope Veronica gets here soon. Sharon needs family with her.”

Clarice said, “I would love to offer her a shoulder to cry on, but I’m afraid she’d believe I was just butting in. And I wouldn

’t want Veronica to think I was overstepping. You know how she can be.”

“Nonsense,” I countered. “When you’re a blood relative it’s not butting in. It’s a family responsibility.”

“And a Christian duty,” added Barbara Jean.

Clarice asked, “Do you really think so?” She said it like she still had to be persuaded, but she was already standing up to

leave, her eyes fixed on the front door.

Barbara Jean said, “I’ll go with you … for moral support.”

Not one to be left out of a mission of Christian mercy, I tagged along. In fact, I nearly beat Clarice to the door.

When we got to Minnie’s yard, Little Earl had taken off his All-You-Can-Eat cap and was fanning his face with it. He said, “Miss

Minnie, please, just go on back inside the house. We can have a cool drink and work this out.”

She said, “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Then, addressing us—the Supremes and the other spectators who had decided to

leave the All-You-Can-Eat and brave the heat for a closer look at the goings-on—she said, “You’d all love that, wouldn’t you.

You’d love to have me live through this day and have everybody calling my gift for prophecy into question.”

Sharon cried out, “Gift? That’s a laugh.” Then she flung a powdered donut at Minnie. Her aim was true that time. She got Minnie

in the chest, leaving a chalky white circle of confectioner’s sugar on Minnie’s purple robe.

Just then, I heard the screeching of car wheels behind us. I thought, Veronica got here fast. But when I looked over my shoulder,

instead of Veronica’s sharp gray Lexus, I saw a rusted old Chevy shuddering to a stop. Yvonne Wilson, the most devout believer in

Minnie’s fortune-telling abilities, hopped out of the car with a baby in her arms. Her boyfriend and the six underachieving child

stars she’d given birth to after Minnie’s prediction that one of them would make her rich piled out of the car after her.

Panting for breath, Yvonne sprinted in front of Sharon and gasped, “Don’t jump, Madame Minnie! Please don’t jump. When I heard

you were up on the roof I just about keeled over dead. You can’t jump until you see the new baby.” Then she raised the infant

she was holding high above her head, turning the baby’s scrunched-up little face toward Minnie and the sun. “Don’t jump until

you tell me if this is the one!”

Minnie snarled, “Go away, Yvonne. I can’t be bothered with you now.”

Yvonne waved the now-crying child in the air. “But I really need to know.”

Minnie put her hands on her hips. She twisted her mouth in annoyance and then hollered down, “Charlemagne says no. Try again.”

Then she extended her arms back out to her sides and scooted the curled toes of her slippers even closer to the edge of the roof.

Yvonne handed off the yowling baby to her boyfriend, who was already carrying another of their offspring. She said, “Dammit! Let

’s go home.” The nine of them piled back into the rusty Chevy and rattled off.

As I watched Yvonne’s family disappear in their shivering, smoke-belching car, I found myself thinking of Mama. I wished I could

share this with her. If she’d been there, I’d have said, “Mama, this is one of those moments, one of those times that is so

good I’ll want to carry it with me when I really do cross over one day.” I also wished that I could’ve shared that feeling with

Clarice and Barbara Jean in a way that would make sense to them. They did their best with the topic of Mama and the community of

ghosts I’d started keeping company with, though we hadn’t really talked much about it since I left the hospital.

But maybe there are some things that you don’t need knowledge of an unseen world to understand. Just as I was thinking of how I’

d like to talk about the wonders of this day with Mama, I felt Barbara Jean hook her left arm around my right. Then, on my other

side, Clarice’s elbow wrapped around mine.

The three of us stood there on Big Earl’s lawn, regarding each other with the kind of expression that could have broken out into

a face-splitting grin just as easily as it could have collapsed into tears. A feeling passed between us that didn’t need words,

an understanding that there was no other place on earth that we should be right then, no one else we could quite so fully share

this strange and beautiful day with. We squeezed closer to each other and leaned our foreheads together, forming our own tight,

private triangle. Finally, Clarice said, “Let’s get back across the street where we can laugh out loud. You don’t need to be

out in this heat, Odette. And we all know that old fake isn’t about to jump.”

From the roof, Minnie, with that good hearing of hers, shouted, “I heard that! Don’t you call me a fake!” We turned toward her

just in time to see her launch herself out into the open air with her long purple painted nails aimed at Clarice, ready to scratch

her eyes out.

It seemed to me that it wasn’t until Minnie’s feet had parted with the metal gutter that she remembered she was up on the roof

and not on ground level with Clarice. I clearly recall seeing the expression on her face transform from white hot fury to surprise

and terror as she fell. Minnie screamed as she came hurtling down toward the lawn, her purple robe fanning out all around her like

a parachute.

As it happened, she didn’t hit Clarice or the lawn. She landed on Sharon. The impact caused Sharon to fall back against Little

Earl, and all three of them tumbled across the lawn in a purple and white blur. Because the yard sloped slightly toward the

street, the Minnie-Sharon-Earl bundle tumbled downhill until it came to a stop against the low yew hedge that lined the front of

the property.

The three of them were immediately set upon by rescuers. The first challenge was untangling them from the purple robe and the torn

lace of the wedding gown. Then, as a throng of people asked if they were hurt, Minnie shoved helping hands away from her and

hopped right up, still ready to take a swipe at Clarice. But as soon as she took one step in Clarice’s direction, she crumpled

back to the ground and grasped her foot. She howled, “Oww!” Then, pointing at Clarice, she wailed, “You broke my ankle.”

Erma Mae, who had come running when she saw Little Earl hit the ground, was checking her husband over for injuries even though he

kept insisting that he was just fine.

Tearful and grass-stained, but unhurt, Sharon crawled across the yard on her hands and knees picking up crushed pastries and

tossing them back into the pink box.

I heard tires squealing again and I looked toward the street and saw Veronica leaping from her shiny gray car. She trotted over to

where Sharon crouched in the grass in her ruined wedding gown and, getting onto her knees, embraced her daughter. She kissed the

top of Sharon’s head and tried to comfort her, while at the same time attempting to pull the Donut Heaven box from her daughter’

s grasp.

From the edge of the growing crowd in Minnie’s yard, I heard a voice say, “Now that was somethin’ to see.” I turned, and there

was Mama.

Everyone else was occupied. Clarice was trying to prevent a tug-of-war between Veronica and Sharon over the Donut Heaven box.

Barbara Jean was playing nursemaid to Minnie. The rest of the crowd was busy discussing what they’d just seen, already starting

to exaggerate. So I walked away from the commotion and took off down the street with Mama.

I had seen my mother milling around the hospital during the days between my leaving the ICU and my being released to go home. And

later I had noticed her roaming through my backyard, frowning over the condition of my flowers. But we hadn’t talked since that

day in Leaning Tree when I thought I was going to join her in the afterlife.

Mama said, “You’re lookin’ good.”

“Thank you. I’m feeling all right, considering middle age and cancer.”

She said, “Well, you won’t have to deal with cancer too much longer. I’ve got a feelin’ you’ll be past that soon.”

“No offense, Mama, but I think I’m done listening to predictions about whether or not I’ll be recovering.”

Mama made a face like my remark had stung her. “I’m so sorry about that. Believe you me, I gave Eleanor a piece of my mind for

misleadin’ you. She swears up and down it wasn’t a prank. And I’m inclined to believe her. It was a big blow to her confidence,

bein’ wrong about you. She took it real hard.” Mama whispered, “She’s drinkin’ like a fish.”

I said, “You can tell her I’m not mad. If there’s one thing I’m not going to get too angry with somebody about, it’s them

being wrong about me dying.”

Mrs. Roosevelt appeared at Mama’s side then, like she’d been waiting nearby to hear that all was forgiven. She favored me with a

wide, bucktoothed smile and a shy wave.

I nodded to her and we kept walking.

At the corner, we turned around and headed back. When we were about a half a block away from Minnie’s house, I saw an ambulance

pull up to the curb. I watched paramedics take over tending to Minnie and saw Barbara Jean return to the All-You-Can-Eat now that

she wasn’t needed. Veronica climbed into her Lexus with Sharon in tow, and Clarice walked back across the street, too.

I told Mama, “Hey, I’m having my last round of chemo on Tuesday—leastways I hope it’s my last.”

Mama said, “Wonderful. We should have a party. I’ll get everybody together to celebrate—your daddy, Big Earl, Thelma, Eleanor,

and maybe your aunt Marjorie.”

I said, “How about just you and Daddy. I’d like to keep things a little quieter from now on.”

“You’re right. That probably would be nicer.” Her voice dropped so low I could barely hear her as she added, “Besides, you can

’t have your aunt Marjorie at the same party with this one.” She pointed at Mrs. Roosevelt, who weaved along beside Mama,

sipping from a silver flask that was emblazoned with the presidential seal. “Put the two of them in the same room and it’s

nonstop arm wrestlin’ and drinkin’ games.”

The paramedics were strapping Minnie onto a gurney as we approached. The hot weather had driven the spectators away. Now only

Little Earl remained. As they wheeled her off the lawn, Minnie told her stepson, “Be sure to tell everybody that I had a near-

death experience when I hit the ground. And tell ’em all I said it counts as fulfillin’ my prediction.” I waved goodbye to

Minnie as the back doors to the ambulance closed. Little Earl hurried off to his car to follow his stepmother to the hospital.

Now that all of the action was over, I started to feel the sun scorching my skin. I said to Mama, “I’ve gotta get out of this

heat.”

“I’ll see you on Tuesday, all right?” Mama said.

“All right.”

We parted ways then. Mama and Eleanor Roosevelt walked toward the swing on the McIntyres’ front porch. I crossed the street and

headed back to my friends.

Through the window I saw Barbara Jean and Clarice with their heads together. I suspected they were arguing about whether or not

they should ask me if I’d wandered off alone in order to talk to ghosts. At the men’s end of the table, Richmond drew laughs

from Chick and James as he tried and repeatedly failed to coax small cubes of sugar-free cherry Jell-O onto his spoon without

losing them down the front of his gold silk shirt.

James must have felt me looking at him. He turned away from his buddies and made eye contact with me through the glass. He winked.

This was a pretty picture I’d been allowed to paint—my man and my friends all together. It was the best it could be, really,

even though the hand that had sketched it was unsure and in spite of the fact that age had washed out some of the colors. And I

wasn’t about to worry over my picture’s frame, not when there was so much more good painting to do.

I reached out to open the door to the All-You-Can-Eat.





Acknowledgments



My most sincere and heartfelt thanks to:

Julia Glass, for her incredible kindness and generosity. My phenomenal agent, Barney Karpfinger, for his encouragement and advice.

My editor, Carole Baron, for allowing me to be the beneficiary of her immense talent. My first readers, Claire Parins, Harold

Carlton, Grace Lloyd, and Nina Lusterman, for their patience. My father, Reverend Edward Moore, Sr., for a lifetime of lessons in

real strength and true goodness. My mother, Delores Moore, for that first library card. And Peter Gronwold, for absolutely

everything.