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MARY-ALICE SPENT THE rest of the afternoon on her shady back porch, reading a murder mystery and sipping iced tea. She did her best to ignore the hammering and whirring sounds coming from her kitchen. The construction noise reminded her that Boon wasn't there.
When it was almost time to leave, Mary-Alice remembered the cardboard box by the entryway. She decided she had better take a look at it in case she ran into Celia at Bingo Night.
Mary-Alice took the box over to the dining table and opened it. Inside she found a quart-sized Ziploc bag filled with newspaper clippings sitting atop a stack of plastic tiaras. She lifted the tiaras out to find a collection of folded satin sashes, yellowed at the edges. At the bottom of the box lay a well-worn writing journal and a small silver cross on a broken chain. It was from Pansy's first catechism. Mary-Alice remembered the little girl yanking off her necklace and throwing it onto the ground, although she didn’t remember why.
Mary-Alice took out the brittle newspaper clippings and leafed through them. They were all about the beauty pageants that Pansy had entered, starting at age 4. She replaced them carefully in the plastic bag and took out the journal next. It was scuffed-up and looked as if it had been dropped in the mud.
Mary-Alice opened it to a bookmarked page. She saw neatly-written rows of names and dates, each followed by a number and then some kind of code. Pansy had dotted each “I” with a heart. And all of the names were men's names. Mary-Alice flipped through the pages. They were all like that.
The bookmark slipped out and fell onto Mary-Alice's lap. When she picked it up she saw it was an evidence tag.
Mary-Alice stuck the tag between the pages and placed the journal back into the box. The sheriff's office must have returned the journal to Celia after they'd finished investigating Pansy's murder.
Mary-Alice wondered what she would tell Celia if she asked about the box. She always held that if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.
“Poor Pansy,” Mary-Alice could say. “You must miss her so.”
That wasn’t ideal, but it would have to do.
As it turned out, Celia was not at Bingo Night that evening. Dorothy was absent too, as was the rest of the God’s Wives crew. They must be having one of their frequent meetings.
Mary-Alice was relieved. A smaller crowd would make it easier to find Victorin’s mother Eulalie. And Mary-Alice wouldn't have to try to think of nice things to say about Celia’s dreadful daughter.
The social hall was filled with long picnic-style tables. In the front of the room, next to the kitchen window, two women sat at a low table with a microphone and a bingo ball cage. Mary-Alice was a little disappointed it wasn't one of the fancy machines that blew the balls around, like they had back in Mudbug. Of course, living in a small town like Sinful meant giving up some big-city comforts.
Mary-Alice purchased two bingo cards at the door.
“Is Miss Eulalie here tonight?” Mary-Alice asked.
The woman inclined her head toward the front of the room. .
“Right up there, sugar.”
The woman seemed to be indicating a pink blur near the front of the room. As Mary-Alice approached, the blur resolved into a woman wearing a rose-colored bed-jacket. The jacket's cotton-candy-colored marabou trim matched the woman's pink hair. A dozen bingo cards were spread out on the table in front of her. She was studying them, tapping each in turn with her frosted-flamingo fingernails.
Mary-Alice sat down next to Eulalie Cormier.
“My, twelve Bingo cards,” Mary-Alice exclaimed admiringly. “You must be very good at this. Permit me to introduce myself, won’t you? I'm Mary-Alice Arceneaux.”
Eulalie produced a pink handkerchief and dabbed the corners of her heavily-mascaraed eyes.
“You must be new in town, Mary-Alice.”
“I just moved over here from Mudbug. Is there something the matter?”
“I just lost my Vicky. My son. His given name is Victorin, but I always called him Vicky, ever since he was a child.”
Eulalie blew her nose energetically into the handkerchief.
“I'm terribly sorry to hear it,” Mary-Alice said.
“You ever lose a child?”
Mary-Alice nodded. “Yes. Yes, I did. Years ago. So very much harder than losing a husband, isn't it?”
Eulalie nodded vigorously, dabbed her eyes again, and tucked her handkerchief into her pink handbag. Feather fragments from her marabou trim floated around her like fairy spirits.
“Mind you, Mary-Alice, we had fallen out and didn't care for each other much when he was alive. But kin's kin, and I don't have any other children.”
“Do you have grandchildren?” Mary-Alice asked.
“Oh, most likely. That boy had the morals of an alley cat. But he left me well-enough provided for, what with the disability checks. At least I can say that for him.”
Eulalie kept chatting with Mary-Alice throughout the bingo calls, keeping her eyes on her dozen bingo cards.
“I thought he might improve once he moved back from New Orleans,” Eulalie said. “But then the lawsuits started. That old busybody Gaudet bears some of the blame for all this, believe you me.”
Eulalie treated Mary-Alice to a detailed history of her legal woes. The feud had started when Eulalie, exercising her rights as a homeowner, had painted her house shocking pink.
“So cheery,” she explained, “and just what that drab old neighborhood needed.”
The elderly bachelor who lived across the street promptly sued her for interfering with his pursuit of happiness. Eulalie countersued him, alleging infringement of her constitutional right to Freedom of Expression. Old Beauregard Gaudet fired back with Vexatious Litigation and Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress.
“It’s been such a trial for us,” Eulalie continued. “And my poor Vicky, he did feel the strain.”
“My goodness,” Mary-Alice said. “How awful for you.”
“Yes, ma’am, it was. The poor boy was troubled. And Mary-Alice, I am certainly not prejudiced or anything, you understand, I mean, you can ask anyone, but him getting mixed up with that colored girl didn't help him one little bit.”
“Colored girl? You can’t be referring to Leonie Blanchard?”
Eulalie scoffed. “Hollow-Leg Leonie? No. I'm talking about Marine. Marine Montreuil. Too smart for my Vicky, that was her problem. Made more money than him, too. The marriage didn’t stand a chance.”
“Victorin was married?” Mary-Alice said.
Eulalie nodded and frowned at her bingo cards.
“And you know what the worst part is? My Vicky'd just got out of rehab. I thought he was finally going to turn things around.”
“Bingo!” Someone yelled in the back, and they were on to the next game.