Drizzled with Death(7)

Suddenly, the happy rippling of a contented crowd vanished. A general sucking in of breath made it sound like the room had fallen into a hurricane. Roland Chick was on his bunion  -burdened feet before Alanza could cross the room. His face was changing color as if his mother had been an octopus. First green then gray, then almost purple. Even the babies stopped crying. Alanza Speedwell headed toward us, her wispy eggplant-colored hair streaming behind her as she moved. Clacking from her thigh-high boots was the only sound echoing through the hall as she mounted the stage and found her place card at the contest table. She tugged at her zebra-striped miniskirt, which had migrated so far north it was threatening to become a cummerbund.

“Well, don’t all stop eating on account of me,” she said, dragging her chair back and settling herself, crossing one plump thigh over the other. Most women in New Hampshire don’t wear skirts on a daily basis. They certainly don’t once the temperature at night drops below freezing. Just looking at hers dropped the temperature in the room by several degrees. Alanza was like a portable air-conditioning unit. I only wished it were July instead of November.

“I think your arrival has caused most people to lose their appetites,” Roland said from the other end of the table. At least someone had enough sense not to seat them together.

“I can only hope that’s true of the other competitors since I’ve got my eye on the pewter pitcher.”

“Nobody puts me off my feed, especially not with my favorite cheerleader here to egg me on,” Grampa said, blowing a kiss at Grandma. He took his spot between Alanza’s seat and the one held for Jill Hayes, who had yet to appear, then nodded at the high school boys on the far side of Alanza. Myra took a break from flipping sausage to be sure the competitors were ready. It was already ten minutes past when the contest was scheduled to begin, and even though Jill still hadn’t arrived, Myra announced we should get started. She signaled for the pancake servers to stream in from the kitchen. The official referee blew his whistle and the competition began.

Cheering erupted from the hall and children stood on their folding chairs to get a better view of adults eating in a way they’d be sent from the table for imitating. Roland held his own for the first three towering stacks of pancakes despite his heart troubles and his wife’s admonishments to consider his health. The teenagers came on strong at the beginning but faded fast once the fourth and fifth stacks were placed in front of them. Only Alanza and Grampa remained by the sixth stack of steaming cakes.

Grampa shifted in his seat in just the way he did every year at Thanksgiving to make room for pie. Alanza seemed to favor saturating the pancakes with so much syrup they dissolved into a pile of mush and needed no chewing. Only slowing to swat his beard out of his plate, Grampa maintained a steady pace through his seventh stack. Alanza, however, began to slow down. Her shoulders slumped and her eyes became glazed. Squinting at her carefully, I noticed a bit of foam forming at the corners of her mouth. Before I could ask if she was all right, she swayed gently, let out a deep moan, and pitched face-first into her plate.





Three





I stood, stunned, unsure whether to cheer or to call for the ambulance. It looked like a win for Grampa, bringing his streak to thirty-seven in a row. The junior firefighters were on their feet attempting to administer first aid. One pulled Alanza’s face out of her plate, the other felt her syrup-covered neck for a pulse. Grandma, a nurse before her marriage, stepped up to help him. After a couple of moments she looked at me and shook her head.

I looked out over the crowd, searching for Bob Sterling, the town’s only full-time EMT. Graham materialized beside me.

“I guess now might not be the right time for my announcement,” he said. I was distracted from answering him by Lowell Matthews, the police chief and my godfather, emerging from the kitchen, his business look on his face. It was the one he pulled out for speeding teenagers, men attempting to get friendly with underaged girls, and drivers with boozy breath. I worked my way closer to Grandma once more. She placed her bony hand on my elbow and squeezed harder than I can remember her doing other than the time I started to tell Aunt Hazel what I really thought of the birthday present she sent me when I was six. Suddenly, she looked frail and not entirely like the grandmother I knew.

I felt a cold wash of fear pour over me, as if Alanza’s death had suddenly made death real for us all and I wanted its cold fingers off my loved ones. I scanned the room for my mother and siblings but couldn’t make them out in the chaos. Even though I stood on the stage area, many of the breakfast goers were still taller than me and blocked my view. At least Grampa was in sight. He bent over Alanza along with Lowell. They seemed to be conferring and I nodded at Grandma before sliding closer to them.