NaNoWriMo: Day 15

The last thing Rhodes needed in the midst of this gator crisis was a visit from his little sister Lenora, but that is exactly what he got when he found her having coffee with his mother at the old homestead. The two women were laughing and having a grand old time when he walked in and he couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that they had been laughing about him. When he saw his sister, he did as he was expected, walked over, and gave her a kiss on her cheek, but he wanted to snatch her up out of her chair and demand to know what the hell she was doing home now? Soon enough he had his answer though.

            “Lenora’s met a nice young man in New York and they’re getting married, Rhodes! Isn’t that nice?”

            “Great,” he thought. “Why did she have to make this announcement now in the middle of a major crisis? But that was just like Lenora, to try and make everything about her. “When do we get to meet the lucky guy, Nora?”

            “He’ll be here this weekend. I thought we could have a dinner party down at your place.”

            Rhodes’ eyes got as big as ball bearing. “Are you out of your mind? Haven’t your heard what’s been going on here lately?”

            Lenora looked taken aback. “There’s no need to be rude. It’s just a little gator.”

            “Just a little gator?” Rhodes laughed. “Two men are dead. Jerry is in the hospital. I am about to lose my damn mind. And you want to have a party. Thus far all we’ve been able to surmise is that the thing hates parties.”

            “So, maybe we keep things real quiet and do candle light?”

            “It’ll be real nice, Rhodes,” Emery added. “You’ll see.”

            “It doesn’t seem like I have a choice do I?”

            And he didn’t. Lenora already had it planned out. She was going to announce her engagement at Herlin Hall one way or another. She had grown tired of life in New York and she was anxious to show her husband to be just how fetching life in Putnam County could be if you were a wealthy farming family. Her fiancé Locke Rollins was a CPA working for high profile clients. As such, he could work from anywhere. He was open to the idea of getting out of New York, especially if they were thinking about starting a family, but there was a part of him that wasn’t entirely sold on moving to the South. There was too much Hyannis Port in his blood for him to wrap his head around a concept like Cypress Estates and Herlin Hall. Lenora hoped that a well-executed dinner party would show him that they were just as blue blooded as any well-established Yankee family. The only problem being that, of course, they weren’t. And with the rogue gator roaming the grounds Lenora’s plan was doomed to fail, but still she insisted on her fool’s errand.

            Where Lenora’s genius plan began to unravel was when she allowed Rhodes to coordinate the guest list. She assumed that he would invite appropriate people but she could not have been more mistaken. The kids from the University were still in town, so naturally they were invited, with their camera. Leland and his girlfriend were on the guest list as was Buckley and Miss Emery. Rounding out the guest list was Father Donovan and Selena, and not a blue blood among them. Lenora, of course woudn’t know any of this until the night of the party. One has to wonder who she thought Rhodes was going to invite. Having grown up in Putnam County, she knew full well exactly the kinds of people he would have invited. It’s not as though he would have met a better class of people since she moved. They say living in New York changes you – maybe in Lenora’s case it changed her perception of where she came from so much that she thought she really did come from stock comparable to that of Locke. Not that that sort of thing should matter, but the truth remains that her origins, however wealthy, were far more humble and down to earth and at least Rhodes knew this.

            Lenora’s second mistake may have been letting her mother be in charge of the meal itself. Most Southern women are very proud of their culinary prowess and Miss Emery was the same. It wasn’t often anymore that she was called upon to cook a large meal for anyone other than Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. Selena was in charge of catering all of Rhodes’ dinner parties and she cooked all sorts of vile Yankee foods like pierogis and steamed vegetables. She called it healthy, but Emery called it bland and tasteless. Miss Emery was beside herself with excitement to get to cook for the dinner party.

            She pulled out all of her old cookbooks to plan the meal. She would make cornbread, shrimp and grits, turnip greens, fried gator tail, fried green tomatoes, fried squash, and for dessert, strawberry shortcake. Simple, but delicious food and she was sure that Lenora’s fiancé would love it all. People used to rave about her shrimp and grits. She would show that Selena what real food was if it was the last thing she ever did. Maybe if she ate some real food, she’d quit it with all that steamed vegetables stuff. It didn’t look like Rhodes was going to be getting rid of her any time soon so the least Emery could do was make sure the woman fed him well. Meanwhile, the least she could do for her future son in law was feed him well the first time she met him.

            It might have been helpful though, if Lenora had mentioned to her mother that Locke was allergic to shellfish. As a result, the old woman had to think fast at the last minute. Thankfully she had some catfish on hand. Southerners are nothing if not always prepared, but this did get the dinner party off to a rather rocky start.

            Rhodes’ choice of guests did not help matters one bit. While all the guests showed up looking their best, their best varied dramatically. On one end of the spectrum there was Lenora and Locke looking like they had just stepped off the cover of Vogue magazine, then there was Rhodes and Selena looking very nice, but not nearly as polished and put together. Miss Emery was all Old Southern Charm, Elegance, and Style and Father Donovan wore his collar. Leland had on a Western Shirt with no tie tucked into a pair of belted Wrangler blue jeans with high heel cowboy boots and his girlfriend was wearing and floral sundress and sandals. The college girls were all wearing cocktail dresses they’d borrowed from Selena’s wardrobe, while Brad and Buckley were the least well dressed in white button front shirts from Wal-Mart tucked into their worn blue jeans.

Neither of them could fit into any of the other men’s dress clothes so they’d had to buy something to make do with at the last minute that afternoon. Buckley had driven them to the store in the truck he was still borrowing from Rhodes. On the way, he and Brad questioned him about Stella.

“So, you knew her back in high school, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Was she always such an ice queen?”
            “What do you mean?”

“Well, I feel like I’ve been giving her signals for months man, but it’s like she just can’t take the hint that I’m interested. She’s as cold as ice.”

“Have you told her you like her?”

“Well, no.”

“So, what have you done?”

“Well, I hang out with her a lot at her dorm room. I listen to her problems. I am there for her. I help her out if she needs it. Shouldn’t she get the hint.”

“That sounds like being a good friend to me.”

“I thought girls wanted nice guys.”

“They do. They also want straightforward guys who state their intentions. Maybe you should tell her how you feel.”

Buckley couldn’t help feeling a little jealous that this kid was interested in Stella, but he was also heartened by the fact that she apparently didn’t seem interested in him. Of course, that could be because she didn’t know how he felt.

“Good talk, Buck. I’ll try that telling her how I feel thing.”

“She might just be more interested in school, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Buckley and Brad dropped the subject when they walked into the Wal-Mart and that was the last it was mentioned. At dinner, as Buckley looked at Stella looking radiant in a red dress belonging to Selena, he wondered if Brad had made his feelings known to her that afternoon and if she had reciprocated. He knew that he didn’t have a chance with her anymore. It would never work. They couldn’t be together. But he wasn’t ready to see anyone else with her yet either.

Looking at Buckley in his white shirt before dinner, Stella wondered if Rhodes had a tied Buckley could borrow, but she realized that there would be no point. Any tie of Rhodes’ would be far too short on Buckley and therefore look ridiculous on him, which was a pity because Buckley always did look good in a tie. She wondered if he still had the one that she had bought him for Christmas when they were dating. It was a silly thing, with the Grinch on it or something – and she thought perhaps she should get him a new tie. A more adult one. Then she wondered why she was thinking about buying him ties. She wasn’t his girlfriend anymore. She needn’t buy him ties. But they were friends and friends did buy gifts for friends, so maybe it was alright.  The new status quo was strange and confusing and she wasn’t quite used to the rules yet.

While Stella and Buckley were trying not to stare at one another, Brad and Selena were doing anything but trying not to stare at them.

Locke wasn’t as blue blooded as Lenora thought he was. He was part of the Hyannis Port crew, it was true, but that life never really sat well with him and while he was allergic to the shellfish that Miss Emery had cooked, he found most of the evening with the Shield clan to be quite charming. The least charming thing about it was how mortified Lenora seemed to be over the people that her brother had invited and the food her mother had cooked. When he had a moment to pull her aside he asked her “Darling, are you ashamed of where you come from?”

Lenora was loathe to answer for she knew that in truth she was. Therein lay the difference between her and Rhodes – he wasn’t seeking to change anything about himself and she wanted to change everything about herself and everyone else as well.

She sucked in a deep breath and plastered on a smile “Why no, dear. It’s just that I wanted this evening to go perfectly and it’s kind of gone off the rails a bit is all. I’m fine, really.”

She was not fine.

After dinner it was Leland who suggested they have a bonfire.

“But what about the gator?” said Lottie.

“We’ll go out to the cabbage fields. The gator ain’t gonna go out that far.”

“I like the way you think, son” said Rhodes.

The entire party piled into two trucks, much to Lenora’s chagrin. Miss Emery and Father Donovan stayed at the house to clean up.

When they arrived at the cabbage field it was clear that this was not the first time they had gone out there and lit a fire. There was a clearly delineated fire pit right in the middle of one of the cabbage fields, with cinderblocks around and chopped wood piled up alongside. It didn’t take long for Leland and Rhodes to get a fire going in the fire pit and for everyone to find a place around the fire with a beer in their hand. Stella, Lottie, and Paige kept to themselves as there weren’t enough men about for them to each pair off, so Brad had to sit off to the side and sulk while sucking on beer after beer. Buckley didn’t drink, as usual. Instead, he kept sentry watch over the proceedings to make sure that Leland was right and that the gator wasn’t about to come crashing down on the party.

It wasn’t long before they tore through the beer they had brought with them. Leland and Rhodes were going to run to town to get more but Buckley volunteered instead because he was the only one of the party who was sober. He also wanted to swing by Cypress Estates and Herlin Hall to make sure Miss Emery and Father Donovan were alright. As he got into the truck to head out on the beer run who should slide into the seat next to him but Selena.