Well Read, Then Dead(3)
His buddy flapped both hands to quiet him, but it was far too late. Miss Augusta blasted across the room. “Wreckers! What do you know about wreckers?”
Tiny as she was, with a face that was all sharp beak nose and skin shriveled from a lifetime in the Gulf Coast sun, you’d expect Augusta Maddox to chirp like a parakeet. But, no. Her thunderous baritone bounced off every surface in the room, shaking the tops of the sugar bowls. She was the direct opposite of her lumpy, cuddly cousin Delia Batson, who rarely spoke and never above a whisper.
Lionel Messi glared at his pal as if to say, “Now look what you’ve done.” Then he turned to the Emily Dickinson table with an apologetic smile. “Sorry, ma’am. We’re on vacation. A friend is taking us out on the water. Said he’d show us some places where the Spanish galleons are rumored to have been sunk by hurricanes.”
“Been sunk by pirates, more likely. We been here more’n a hundred years.” She pointed to Miss Delia and let her index finger snap back and forth between them. “Our families come when the Florida Everglades and Islands was the only frontier left in these United States. And we still own the family land. As to wreckers, we got salvage maps older than me. Didn’t need no wrecker permit to hunt treasure years ago. Grampas did what they did.” Now she waggled the finger in their direction. “You boys have a nice time on the water, but don’t go looking for treasure what don’t belong to you anyway.”
Trying to avert calamity, I pulled the calendar off the wall and stood directly in the firing line between the two tables. “Miss Augusta, Miss Delia, the end of hurricane season is coming up fast. Could you help me pick a date? Plan the End of Hurricane Season party?”
Miss Delia offered me an uncommonly direct look. I’d swear her rheumy gray eyes twinkled a bit. Then she lowered her eyes, folded her hands neatly and buried them in the fabric of her palm frond and bird of paradise muumuu. Clearly she was waiting for Augusta to answer.
Miss Augusta looked thoughtful for a while. Absently, she twirled the fragment of rope tied at her waist to keep her sun-faded jeans from sliding off her frail hips when she stood. Then a near smile broke through her face, shifting her wrinkles from vertical to horizontal. “I suppose if you need the help, we’re obliged to help you. Give it here.” And she snatched the calendar out of my hands.
I glanced at the Robert Frost table. The cyclists were long gone. My practiced eye spotted two ten-dollar bills crossed over each other, clamped down by the salt shaker. They hadn’t even waited for their food. Still, the money they left would more than cover what they’d ordered and a generous tip besides.
“Need to get past Thanksgiving. Give some of them snowbirds a chance to land.” Augusta’s skinny finger couldn’t quite cover the single digit of the date she chose. “First Saturday in December should do.”
Of course we’d held our End of Hurricane Season party on the first Saturday of December each year since Bridgy and I opened the Read ’Em and Eat. Still, I beamed.
“Perfect, absolutely perfect.” I slid the calendar from under her bony finger and made a huge production of writing in the date. Then I circled it for good measure.
Miss Delia stretched out her hands on the table, a sure sign that she was working up the enthusiasm to speak. I waited, patiently counting, one Mississippi, two Mississippi, in my head. I was at twenty-nine (and halfway through Mississippi) when she opened her mouth. I leaned in to hear her whisper. “When do you want us to meet, dearie? You know, to plan?”
Well, I’d set myself up for that one, hadn’t I? Before I could answer, an enormous crash echoed from the kitchen, along with a bloodcurdling scream. Then, dead silence.
Bridgy and I both ran, bottlenecking at the kitchen door like a Saturday Night Live skit channeling Lucy and Ethel. With a little adjusting, we pushed through the doorway.