Furmidable Foes

24

June 8, 2019

Saturday

“I love all this sunlight.” Harry pushed the keeper on the back of her gold dome earrings.

“Won’t be long before the solstice.” Fair turned left on Turkey Sag Road as the long rays of late-afternoon sun slanted over deep green fields offset by shining white fences.

“God, look at the fences. A fortune in fencing, then painting them and repainting them. Well, we should all be grateful Castle Hill rises yet again.”

“Given its long history, yes. I often think that losing the War”—Harry meant the war of 1861 to 1865, always referred to in Virginia as “the War”—“saved our architecture from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. No one had the money to tear things down and start over.”

“What didn’t get burned got saved anyway,” Fair matter-of-factly replied.

“Do you ever get sick of it? Hearing about the War?”

He turned for a moment as he slowed the station wagon. “All the time. I’d much rather hear about new building materials, medical breakthroughs. Oh well, we get that on the big news channels. You know the old proverb, ‘Until lions learn to write, the hunter will always be the hero of the story.’ We don’t know the truth about any war, not just that one.”

Harry scanned the huge estate. “How beautiful. Honey, look at all the cars.”

“The auction sold out. There must be hundreds here. Good for AHIP.” He named the Albemarle Housing Improvement Program by its abbreviation.

The purpose of this organization, formed in 1976, was to repair and preserve homes, making sure families of limited means could live in safe, affordable homes. The success of dedicated people, most of them volunteers, proved once again that if people decide to do something and so-called authorities get out of the way, it gets done. And everyone learns to get along as they work together.

“What I like about AHIP is how they know what works and what doesn’t. You want to talk about building materials, they know it all. If regular folks only knew how much they were being ripped off by some builders and suppliers, they’d burn them down.”

“That’s true in any business, honey. We are pretty lucky here. Aren’t too many liars and cheats out there, at least in construction. We all know one another too well and even the new people eventually get told if they will listen.”

“You’re right. I guess I sometimes forget how deep we are in this county, our roots, I mean.”

He parked a few rows away from the doors to the tasting room. The grass, though mowed, was thick. “Honey, can you walk through this?”

“Of course I can.” Harry opened the door, swung her heeled feet out, and stood, immediately sinking into the earth.

Fair, now next to her, looked down, then roared with laughter.

“Shut up.” She laughed, too.

“I can carry you.”

“Don’t you dare. I can walk. Get me out to the path where most of the cars drove in. It will take a little longer but I may yet retain my dignity.”

So he put his hand under her elbow, keeping her upright as she pulled her heels out of the dirt, one step at a time. Took a minute or two but soon she was on firmer ground. She lifted up one foot, brushing off dirt and grass, then the other.

“Looks good,” Fair said.

“Okay, not good.”

“Well, honey, how many people are going to be looking at your shoes?”

“Fair, do you know nothing about women? Even my dearest friends will look at my shoes, at my earrings, at my off-the-shoulder peach-colored dress.”

“Seems like a lot of trouble.”

“It is. But if your girlfriend asks you the next day what did you really think of Janice Childs’s diamond shell earrings, you’d better have something to say. Do I care? Not a bit. But I have to live here”—she paused—“as do you.”

“Yes, honey, but all I have to say is how good a woman looks. I need not remember her shoes. All right, fire up your memory.”

They stepped through the open doors into the tasting room. The band played on a raised floor, like a small auditorium in high school. Round tables for six, set with china and silverware, low centerpieces and candles, exhibited enough aesthetic charm without being overwhelming. In other words, when you sat down you could see your tablemates, mostly.

Jeannie Cordle, clipboard and cellphone in hand, approached Fair and Harry as they waited to sign in at the table.

“Dr. Haristeen.”

“Jeannie, are you involved in every organization in the county?” He smiled at her.

“Fair, you’re as civic-minded as I am but your work is for those on four feet. Hello, Harry.”

“You clean up good, girl.” Harry used the old horseman’s expression for wearing “civilian” clothes.

“I didn’t know you were involved with AHIP,” Fair noted.

“Frank and I have worked on weekends for years. We love it. By the way, Harry, you look wonderful. When we see each other we’re usually covered in dust or dirt.”

Frank was her husband, a successful plumber.

“I’m so glad you could come.” Jeannie meant it. “Now, do you have a cellphone?”

Fair reached into his inside coat pocket, producing the requested device.

“Good,” Jeannie announced. “You see the long table there, our silent auction. We’re doing something new this year. It’s all high-tech. You bid on your phone. You can keep checking your phone to see if anyone has outbid you. Just punch in AHIPauction.com. Simple.”

“Okay, thanks.”

After shaking hands, moving on, Fair stopped looking at his phone. “Okay, baby doll, let’s hit the table and see if this works. I’m used to a clipboard where you write your bid and either a number or a name. You ready?”

“Sure. Oh, there’s Mags.” Harry waved and Mags waved back.

She, too, was at the long silent-auction table, and once there Harry saw many of her friends from St. Luke’s, her gardening buddies, too.

“Look at this bracelet.” Mags pointed to an item.

“Lovely.” Harry liked the turquoise.

“I’m making a sensible bid.”

“You’d better. Your husband is right over there.” Harry nudged her to look where Kevin was standing, drink in hand, talking to Olaf, Janice Childs’s husband.

“Well, what do you think is sensible?”

“Mags, I’m the wrong person to ask. Susan.” She called to her best friend, who had walked in the front door, waving her over.

Upon reaching her, Susan asked, “What? I left my husband at the door.”

“Good place for him,” Harry teased. “Ned can be too reasonable. Anyway, everyone will be at him.”

“True. Okay, what’s up?”

Mags pointed to the turquoise bracelet. “What do you think is a reasonable bid?”

Susan peered at the wide bracelet, unusual in that the turquoise was interspersed with same-size onyx squares that set off the turquoise. All was backed by heavy silver.

“Retail, I would guess over a thousand dollars. The design alone is so special. Given that this is for charity, it will go for more. Stunning. Your kind of piece, Mags.”

Chewing her lip, Mags consulted her phone. Already three bids had been placed, the last being one thousand. “He’ll have to get over it.” She punched in her bid.

Laughing, the ladies walked down the long table as Fair grabbed Ned, knowing his buddy would be besieged with harebrained ideas plus some good ones. Also, anyone who had a complaint about government always felt compelled to dump it on him.

Reaching the corner of the now-packed table, the ladies nearly ran over Carlton Sweeny.

“How good to see you,” Harry enthused.

“Who would miss this party?” He smiled back. “When I can, I like to visit the projects, bring a bush or two, something indestructible.”

“That’s good of you.” Mags wanted that bracelet and kept checking her phone.

“Mrs. Nielsen, we need organizations like this in every county. In some of our counties, the old tobacco counties and the coal counties, the need is overwhelming,” Carlton said.

“Governor Baliles sure pushed for those places.” Susan mentioned an outstanding governor serving from 1986 to 1990.

“No easy answers because of the overwhelming need and the money. The state is the only way to funnel money there. Here in Albemarle County, a rich county, people can and do come through.”

“Carlton.”

All looked over to see a petite woman, maybe late twenties, her hair in a French twist, little jewelry, but then when you look that good you need no adornment.

“Be right there.” He smiled at the ladies. “Good to see you.”

After he left, Susan remarked, “If he doesn’t marry that woman, someone else will grab her up in a hurry.”

Harry laughed. “Susan, not everyone is meant to be married.”

“Bull. Marriage is Nature’s way of keeping us from fighting with strangers.”

The party rolled along like that. Wisecracks, laughter. Clinking cubes in highball glasses, ladies usually sipping from taller glasses, some summer drink. The men, this being the South, stuck to the strong stuff. The din grew louder and louder. When they repaired to their tables, Susan, Harry, and Mags sat at one table with their spouses. Janice and Olaf sat at an adjoining table. Also at their table was Jane Andrews of AHIP and Amelia McCully, and Jeannie and Frank Cordle. Olaf, used to this, handled the stream of people coming to his table for financial advice. Like Ned, wherever he went he wound up working.

Dinner was served, followed by the requisite speeches, most of them mercifully short. People were told to check their phones, as the bidding was over.

“I got the bracelet!” Mags, thrilled, shouted. This was followed by a lowered-head discussion with her husband. He forced a tight smile.

Then the table cleared and out came the band. As usual, the ladies repaired to the ladies’ room, the makeup mirror lined with women adjusting hair, bodices, making sure an earring wasn’t loose. As the crowd moved along, the ladies eager to get to the dance floor, Harry, Susan, Mags, Janice, and Jeannie lined up at the well-lit mirror.

“I hate my hair,” Susan complained.

“You’ve hated your hair since you were in first grade. Actually, you didn’t get hair until then.” Harry tormented her.

“God will get you for that,” Susan intoned, her deepest voice.

Janice raised one eyebrow. “Sounded better when Bea Arthur said it.”

“I don’t think young people know who Bea Arthur was,” Mags chimed in.

Jeannie, mother of three grown children, replied, “Reruns.”

“Ah,” the others chimed in.

Harry reached for her lipstick in a black case from her small silk bag, which she wore over the shoulder. She unscrewed the top, held the lipstick up to the light. “Magenta.”

“Mine is better.” Mags fetched her lipstick, also in a black case.

“Are you two still going on about those peonies?” Janice reached into her own small purse, pulling out a lipstick, unscrewing it. Janice’s was black with a rose, in fake gold, on top of the cap.

“That’s not magenta,” Susan opined. “More of a dark ruby.”

“I say it will pass as magenta with sparkles.” Janice was defiant.

“Let me look,” Jeannie offered, frowned, then pulled out her own lipstick, another black case. “Close.”

“Well, what are you doing with magenta lipstick?” Harry asked.

“It’s a great color. Jumps right out at you.” Jeannie triumphantly held up her tube.

“Give me that.” Mags playfully reached for it.

Within seconds five grown women, all college-educated, too, reverted to childhood, grabbing one another’s lipstick.

Jeannie held Janice’s. “It is magenta, Harry. But dark.”

“It is not. Mine is,” Harry argued.

“You’re all full of it. Mine is the purest,” Janice pronounced.

“Hold hard, girls. I’ve saved the best for last.” With a flourish, Susan reached down into her larger bag, hauling out a brand-new tube of lipstick.

It was damned close to the peonies. A silence followed this display. Then they started grabbing lipsticks again.

Mags wound up with Janice’s as Janice snatched hers. Now everyone was reapplying lipstick while exchanging tubes. Some ladies managed two coatings of slightly different colors, some only one. Then the lipsticks were tossed back into bags, although not necessarily their own lipsticks. They marched out, still fussing and laughing.

Fair, leaving the men’s room, asked, “What were you all doing in there? We could hear you.”

“Obeying my mother’s wisdom. There’s no problem that a new lipstick can’t cure,” Harry told him.

He shook his head, which made the women laugh anew.

A good band fills up any dance floor. Big Ray and the Kool Kats had everyone shaking and baking. The floor became so jammed that mostly people stood together wiggling.

Harry never worried about being overrun thanks to a six-foot, five-inch husband.

Jeannie Cordle, face bright red, hollered to Frank, “I’m burning up. Let’s go outside for a minute.”

He nodded yes, stepped in front of her, and reached back for her hand as they threaded through the crowd.

Once outside, the stars against the black sky took their breath away, but Jeannie was having trouble breathing.

“Frank.” She grabbed her throat.

“What, honey?”

“I hardly drank anything, but I feel so strange.”

He touched her forehead. “You’re burning up.”

She grabbed his wrist. “Turn around.” Her eyes were large.

He did. “What, sweetie?”

“It’s Daddy. Daddy’s come for me.” She let out a piercing scream and then crumpled.

Frank knelt down, terrified and shocked, for Jeannie was not given to visions.

Cupping his hands to his lips, he bellowed for all he was worth. “Help! Help me, please!”

A young couple who had stepped outside for some cool air ran over.

The young man turned to his date. “Get Jordy. Fast.”

Jordy was pulled off the dance floor and hurried to the fallen woman.

“I’m an ER doctor.”

“Help her! Oh, please help her!”

Jordy took all the vital signs, looked up into Frank’s face. “She’s gone. I’m terribly sorry.”