Barbara Jean was ready for us when we arrived at the mansion on the corner of Plainview and Main. In addition to serving as the site for all sorts of fancy functions, the house also operated as a storage facility for thousands of items of Barbara Jean’s extensive wardrobe. She welcomed Terry, James, and me into her home. In spite of the somber purpose of his visit, she couldn’t help but smile at Terry with all the excitement of a six-year-old girl looking forward to forcing a game of dress-up onto her baby brother.
To Terry, who didn’t need a bit of forcing, she said, “I took the liberty of choosing a couple of items I thought would look good on you.”
The doorbell rang then and Ray greeted Clarice, who was carrying four boxes of shoes. I’d called Clarice during our drive home from Chicago as I’d thought about how to quickly outfit Terry for the graveside ceremony.
I had expected my conversation with Clarice to be more difficult than the one I’d had with Barbara Jean. Tell a woman that you believe a thin, twenty-one-year-old man would look good in one of her dresses, and she’ll likely take it as a compliment about her slim hips. Tell her you think the same man shares her shoe size and she’ll give you the stink eye.
My talk with Clarice and the shoe arrangement both turned out fine. There had been some discussion of Clarice riding home with Barbara Jean or me after what had happened between her and Richmond. But she had opted to return to Plainview with her husband early that morning. She’d been happy for the distraction of talking about shoes when I’d called her phone during that awkward journey with her unhappy spouse. She was also pleased to contribute heels to the cause. Clarice said that she had dozens of pairs she could part with now that she had chosen to prioritize comfort over fashion and had finally made peace with having big feet.
Before the fun could start, though, Barbara Jean said, “James, I have something for you.” She hurried over to a round table in the center of the foyer and picked up a large, sealed manila envelope that appeared to be stuffed nearly to the point of bursting. James’s name was written on the envelope in big, loopy letters. She handed it to him and said, “El asked me to give this to you.”
James tilted his head sideways, and his eyebrows shot higher on his wrinkled forehead.
“He came by the hotel with Lily last night,” Barbara Jean said. “What’s the matter?”
James said, “We went by the Blues Pot this morning to pick him up and saw that the place was burned down. The fire investigator said El and Lily were missing. We thought they were dead.”
Barbara Jean put a hand on James’s arm. She said, “I’m so sorry. El never said a word about you picking him up. He must have thought I would see you before you left to get him. El and Lily are fine. They climbed out the window and down the fire escape.”
“Where are they now?” James asked.
“I have no idea,” Barbara Jean said. “He said they were going off together to find somewhere to sing. Then he gave me the envelope and left.”
James brought his hand to his forehead and massaged his temples. “That damn old man is nothing but trouble.”
Waving the envelope in the air, he added, “Thanks. We can talk about this later. You go ahead and take care of our friend here.”
Barbara Jean patted James’s arm again and turned her attention back to Terry. She said, “If you don’t like the things I picked out for you, there are plenty more.” With that, we left James and Ray and made our way toward one of Barbara Jean’s massive closets.
I wasn’t in the Plainview Avenue mansion very often now that Barbara Jean had moved into Ray’s place, but I’d been there so many times in the past that its grandeur no longer shocked me. Terry, however, had never seen the inside of Ballard House. He stared with open-mouthed wonder as we walked through the massive home, passing rooms filled with perfectly preserved antiques and beautiful works of art. “Wow,” he said every few steps.
He was even more impressed by the enormous dressing room Barbara Jean led us into. He walked around, touching the sleeves of garments and counting the pairs of shoes on display. Between gasps, Terry said, “This closet is bigger than my apartment.” With a catch in his throat, he added, “Mrs. Carlson, this is a drag-queen paradise.”
I’ve spent a substantial portion of my life hearing men stumble over themselves flattering Barbara Jean. But that compliment from Terry Robinson seemed to please her more than any praise she’d ever heard. She giggled like a little girl and insisted that he must call her Barbara Jean.
Clarice muttered out of the side of her mouth to me, “Whatever you do, don’t tell him this is only the second-biggest closet in the house. If he heard that, his head might explode.”
Paradise or no, we didn’t have much time. I caught Barbara Jean’s eye and tapped my watch.
She said, “Oh, yes, we should get to work.” Then she walked to a rack in the corner and pulled down a dress. Passing the beautiful garment to Terry, she said, “Here, you can try this on behind that screen.”
He read the label inside the collar aloud. Clarice and I moved in to hold him up as his knees buckled.
* * *
IT WAS MY weekend for encountering crowds. Between the packed house at the blues club for El and Lily’s show, the thousands who had come to hear Clarice perform Beethoven in the park, and the hundreds of people pouring out of the automobiles that choked the winding roads of Plainview Memorial Cemetery, it seemed that no matter where I went, I couldn’t avoid throngs of spectators. Wayne Robinson may not have been a popular man, but everyone I knew had heard some version or another of the threat Terry had made five years back. Curiosity and an excuse to put on your best Sunday clothes are powerful motivators in a small town. Whether they thought Terry was in the right or in the wrong, the citizens of Plainview wanted to see how the tale would end.
Because of the large number of cars, we had a long walk to the burial site. That worked to Terry’s advantage. He’d wanted to be seen, and everyone there that day certainly caught his entrance. From where we parked, we had to descend a hill to reach the white tent under which the mourning party was gathered.
Thanks to Barbara Jean, Terry was a vision of glamour. She’d used the skills she’d acquired as a wash-and-set girl in the 1960s to arrange Terry’s hair into a French braid. Then Barbara Jean had packed him into a form-fitting black Dior couture dress with a mesh bodice. The breeze caught the matching black silk scarf that was draped around Terry’s neck, making it billow above his head like a parachute. As he carefully walked downhill in the black stiletto-heeled slingback pumps Clarice had lent him, he looked like a 1950s movie star descending from the heavens. Hundreds of eyes were fixed on Terry, and the murmurs of the crowd sounded like leaves rustling in a windstorm.
When we were nearly at the bottom of the hill, we heard someone rushing up from behind. I turned and saw Richmond Baker coming toward us. He’d gone home and climbed into his best black suit. Aside from Terry and Barbara Jean, who always looked like she was dolled up for a church service or a funeral, Richmond was the only one of us truly dressed for the occasion. He fell in next to James and said, “I want to see how this turns out, too.”
A few steps farther along, Mama and Eleanor Roosevelt materialized beside me. I whispered to Mama, “What are you doing here?” Mama rolled her eyes and extended a hand at the scene in front of us. Richmond, James, and Ray, who under nearly any other circumstance could reasonably be called old-school country boys, flanked a young man in a sexy dress and stiletto pumps. They escorted him to his daddy’s grave, where he might, or might not, drop his drawers and relieve himself in front of a huge crowd in the name of revenge and in honor of pretty boys in dresses everywhere. I had to agree with Mama when she said, “It’s not like you see this every day.”
Just as we got to the tent, two heavily tattooed men stepped away from the assembling mourners and moved in Terry’s direction, as if to intercept him. One of the men looked enough like Terry that I assumed he must be his brother, Seville. Both of them approached Terry with puffed-out chests and scowls fixed on their faces. James, Ray, and Richmond stepped forward to meet them. The scarred man with the cop stare, the athletic, handsome gentleman with cold blue eyes, and the former football hero with the mile-wide chest gave the hard-eyed younger men tough-guy glares of their own, and the two sentries backed off.
I fetched a folding chair from the back of the tent and placed it at the end of the front row. Terry sat down, drawing glares from his brother, Cherokee, and Cherokee’s husband, Andre. James, Ray, and Richmond stood guard at Terry’s side.
After the flustered pastor said his final words and Terry’s sister and brother had tossed roses onto the coffin, Wayne Robinson was lowered into the ground. Terry rose from his chair then, and the crowd grew still. He walked forward until he stood next to the open grave.
Cherokee whimpered quietly, and there was a mass inhalation of air from the spectators. Then silence fell as Terry crouched down.
He stayed there for several seconds, squatting at the edge of the hole. He scrunched his face and murmured something I couldn’t hear. Then Terry reached down and picked up a handful of soil. He stood and, extending his hand out over the open grave, released the dirt in a slow stream onto the coffin.
Loud enough for everyone to hear, Terry said, “You really should have done better by me.” As the people in attendance grumbled with disappointment, Terry brushed the grit off his hands with two quick swipes and walked back to his seat.
Clarice whispered, “I truly love that nail polish.”
“Fire-engine red,” Barbara Jean replied. “Nothing beats the classics.”
Mama and Mrs. Roosevelt climbed up the hill with us after the interment. “I’ve got to say,” Mama remarked, “I’d hoped for more. I’ll have to make up something better for Marjorie when we tell her about it. Maybe I’ll add some fightin’.” Mrs. Roosevelt said, “Gunplay might be nice, too.” Then they both vanished.
As we approached the cars, Clarice walked over to Richmond. She squeezed his hand and said, “I’m proud of you for standing by Terry like that. I don’t think you could’ve done that a few years ago.”
Richmond whispered something in her ear that made her smile. He gave Clarice a quick hug and a kiss on the forehead before waving good-bye to the rest of us and heading back to his Chrysler alone. Clarice stared after him, watching him walk away with his smooth, athletic glide, and I thought, No, that story isn’t done yet.
Before we got into our car, Terry whispered to me, “Odette, I couldn’t do it.”
I patted Terry’s cheek. Contrary to my nature, I found myself getting choked up. I told my young friend, “You did just fine.”