Chapter Eleven

PARSING OUT THE turkeys among the Baptists and Presbyterians was an unexpected trial. The Presbyterians wanted to deep fry their turkeys, something Beulah had never heard of before. She had lain awake the night before the potluck, imagining the Baptist turkeys lined up all nice and golden brown with butter, and the Presbyterian turkeys charred to a black crisp. However, she was not prepared to fight the entire presbytery over turkey preparation. If their birds flopped, it was their fault.

As it turned out, all her fears were for naught. The deep-fried turkeys were gnawed to the bone, while the Baptist turkeys provided the leftovers the Somerville Baptist Youth Group delivered to the shut-ins that evening.

Beulah added pecan pies, like she had always wanted to, and they were eaten in equal measure to the pumpkin pies. She’d found orange tablecloths to cover the fold-out tables, but the faded little cornucopias and pilgrims still fanned out in the middle of the tables. One step at a time. All in all, the community potluck went off without a hitch, thanks to the ecumenical spirit of all the volunteers.

Ernestina Chadwell would be proud, she thought. Through the whole painful episode of the last week or so, she had learned a lot about letting go. There was truth in Betty’s words after all; she did have a tendency to be a little bit controlling when it came to the kitchen. Maybe even more than a little bit.

The day had worn her out, standing on the concrete floor of the family life center kitchen for hours. While she had hoped to visit Betty on Monday after the potluck, it was Tuesday before she actually made the trip, thanks to Jake, who had a meeting in Lexington and dropped her off right at the door of the hospital.

Beulah pushed the buzzer on the wall outside the ICU unit. The door clicked open and she made her way to room 402. Joe faced the door from a chair in the corner and his expression brightened when she entered, setting Beulah at ease. He stood up and moved toward the edge of the bed, reaching out to pat an exposed arm.

“Guess who’s come to see you,” he said to his wife of over forty years.

Betty’s curly blonde hair was unwashed and flattened against the crisp, white hospital sheet. Clear oxygen tubes looped from her nose. The room’s scent was a mixture of body musk and antiseptic chemicals.

“Hello, Betty,” Beulah said, and moved close to the bed.

Betty turned her head slightly and her eyes lit up when they rested on Beulah.

“I sure am glad to see you looking better,” she said, and tried to keep her voice from shaking.

“Beulah,” Betty said in a soft voice.

“Betty, I’m awful sorry for everything. I don’t ever want to let anything get in front of our friendship again,” she said.

Betty’s eyes narrowed, as if she suddenly got sleepy, and her lips murmured soundless words.

“What’s that?” Beulah asked and leaned over the bed. Joe stood up and leaned in with her.

Betty moved her lips again, but no words came out.

“She said she’s sorry, too,” Joe said. Betty’s eyes popped open and she cut them sideways at Joe. The effort was wasted, since he turned his back on her and sat down in the seafoam green vinyl chair. When he looked back at Beulah, out of Betty’s line of sight from the hospital bed, he winked.

Betty Gibson had never once managed to utter the words “I’m sorry,” so why in the world did Beulah think she would now?

“Well, I accept your apology, Betty. Now let’s move on from this.”

“They pried my chest open like a tin can,” Betty said, suddenly finding her voice. “But I’m all fixed up, they say.”

“You look good,” Beulah said. The lie slipped right out of her mouth as if she were a slick-tongued lawyer. Who looked good laid up in a hospital bed?

“Joe’s took good care of me,” Betty smiled faintly, her straight white teeth exposed for a moment. “Thank you for seeing to him that morning. It was a terrible fright.”

Beulah nodded. “You would’ve done the same for me.”

Betty nodded. “I’ve tried to be a good neighbor.”

“You get some rest now. Is there anything you need done at the house?”

“The girls are taking care of things. Pray for me, Beulah. You know they’ve put me on the cardiac diet and right here at Thanksgiving. I’ll be eatin’ turkey off a hospital plate; better than bein’ dead, I reckon. I don’t know how I’ll feed Joe when I get home, what with me having to eat healthy and him eatin’ whatever he wants.” Betty’s bottom lip trembled.

“Now, now,” Beulah said and patted Betty’s shoulder. “Let’s cross that bridge when we get there. You concentrate on getting well so you can get out of here.”

Betty nodded, obedient as a child.

“I’ll see you real soon, all right?” Beulah said, and turned to go, catching Joe’s eye.

“I’ll walk out with Beulah and get some coffee,” Joe said, following her out of the room. They moved down the hall in silence. Joe pulled out a small chew of tobacco and stuck the wad in his jaw, right as they passed a sign reading Tobacco Free Campus.

“Doc says she might go home this weekend if all goes well,” Joe said.

“Land sakes, that is fast. Do you have help lined up?”

Joe worked the tobacco in his jaw and took his time answering. “Peggy’s working on it. Seems they’ve got weekends and nights covered, what with Missy able to stay with us at nights for a while, but the day time is when we really need help with me working. She was going to call you to see if you have any suggestions.”

“Evelyn and I will be glad to help as much as possible,” Beulah said. “We’ll ask around about someone to help during the weekdays.”

Joe stopped and looked at Beulah, his eyes soft with gratitude. He reached for her hand and held it in his rough, weathered hands.

“Thanks for coming, Beulah,” he said.

***

Jake dropped Beulah off at the back door and she took extra care as she stepped across the jagged limestones, still cautious after her knee operation last summer.

A little care in watching her step was nothing compared to what Betty Gibson now faced. A lifestyle change in diet and exercise, she imagined. Betty loved sweets about as much as Beulah and had been told by her doctor she needed to lose weight several months back. Betty had laughed at the advice, saying her body had settled on a number and there was no budging it.

Betty’s Kentucky nut pies were famous in town and had won the blue ribbon at the county fair for over twenty years in a row. Except that one year when one of Betty’s jealous fellow homemakers injected salt water into Betty’s pie right before the judging, but that was a special circumstance.

It was hard to imagine making a pie without eating a slice.

Truth was, Beulah’s doctor had recommended she lose a few pounds a year ago, too. She had tried for a time giving up sweet tea, but she found herself as grouchy as a bear and went right back to it after a miserable week. Fad diets failed the test of time and she didn’t want to go down in size and then right back up again, buying a new wardrobe and then bursting out of it again. No, it had to be a discipline a body could keep from now on, a depressing thought.

With all that had happened to Betty in the last few days, it did make Beulah think about her own lifestyle. She never smoked and never did drink until that week recently when Janice’s Italian mother-in-law came to stay and brought all manner of wine into the house. She had done a little partaking to be sociable, but that was it. There had been her daily morning walks, but when her knee had gone bad, that exercise had flown out the window. Her appetite had not diminished, nor had her love for sweets. Now that she thought about it, it was probably time for a medical check-up like Annie suggested.

Beulah grabbed the metal pot scrubber and attacked a pan she’d left soaking in the sink while she turned over the possibility of new eating habits. It was two days from Thanksgiving, the on-ramp for a month-long careen down the road of gluttony.

At the end of the sugar euphoria there was January, the blessed month of second chances. Yes, that was the best time to begin such deprivations. The Lord surely wanted his flock to celebrate his birth, and how in the world did a celebration happen without food? Either way, it wouldn’t hurt to run in for a check-up after all this rigmarole.

Although Beulah hadn’t noticed the sound of crunching gravel, a banging commenced on the back door. Drying her hands, she went to open the door right when Woody poked his head inside.

“Can I come in?”

“Of course, come on.”

Woody had a habit of showing up at meal times, but this was too early for supper.

“Would you like some tea?”

Woody folded his long, lanky frame into a chair. He wore faded overalls over a flannel shirt and his wiry red hair was ruffled from the November wind.

“Beulah, I know you said to wait until next week and all, but me and Stella, we’ve got a problem,” he said.

She waited, hoping to goodness they weren’t in the family way.

“Stella’s rent is paid through the end of this month, which brings us to this weekend. She’s trying hard to get out of debt and do everything Jake’s advised her to do. We got to talking, and since she’s on a month-to-month, there’s no harm in her going ahead and getting out of her place here in a few days, especially since it’s Thanksgiving and she was coming on down here for the weekend anyway. See, we can leave her stuff there and get it next week, then she don’t have to pay rent in December. So, we’s wondering if you wouldn’t care to let her move in this weekend? Now, she can help do anything you need her to do. She wants to earn her keep as long as she’s here, and if you can teach her a few things about cooking, we’ll go on and get hitched sometime after the first of the year, so it won’t be forever.”

Beulah sat still, hardly knowing how to respond. She knew Woody Patterson was raised up rough. Still, it was awful presumptuous of him to ask such a thing from her. It wasn’t that she minded giving cooking lessons for a week or so. But this was beyond hospitality. He was asking her to let Stella move in with her for an undetermined period of time, a dangerous gamble with Woody’s track record on following through with marriage.

Then she thought of the conversation she had with Joe Gibson about needing help taking care of Betty during the weekdays. While she and Evelyn could certainly be on the schedule the next few weeks, there was no way the both of them could handle every day, all day. Stella could do it, and that left her and Evelyn to fill in and prepare meals for Joe. In fact, the meal preparations could serve as Stella’s cooking lessons.

“Well, I know it’s an awful lot to ask,” Woody said. “If you need to say no, I’ll understand. I could move her into my house, but I was hoping to do the right thing here and not get the cart before the horse for once.” His blue eyes opened wide under raised, wiry eyebrows.

Beulah nodded. “I’m thinking it through Woody, but it might work. Joe’ll need help with Betty, there’s no doubt about that. I reckon I could provide her a room and board if she’s willing to do light housekeeping, fetching things for Betty, seeing to her comfort, and making sure she gets her medicines.”

“Oh yeah, she’s good at that. She did organizing and cleaning at her library job. When can she start?”

Beulah wasn’t sure it was a great idea to negotiate all this with Woody instead of Stella, but if she was as eager as he was, it might be the answer to a prayer not yet prayed. As far as living with her, there still needed to be boundaries and house rules, and a deadline of when Stella would move out.

“All right. I’ll agree to have Stella live here awhile, but let’s you and me agree that she’ll need to move out by the middle of January. Either you all can get married by then or she can find a place to live and a job. In exchange for her working the weekdays at the Gibson’s, she can stay here until then and I’ll provide her room and board. I don’t know how long Betty will need help, but I think for a few weeks, anyway. We’ll see she gets time off to go to job interviews if she gets something lined up. Of course, if she gets a job and moves out before then, there’s no obligation to stay with Betty, but we’ll be counting on her these first two weeks for sure.”

Woody shot up out of his chair and hugged Beulah, nearly knocking the breath out of her.

“Mercy sakes,” Beulah said. “Just keep your end of the bargain.” Woody saluted and made his exit.

Beulah sighed and picked up the phone to call Joe Gibson. It was done now and she wouldn’t go back on her word. She hoped to goodness it was the right thing to do.