The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett - 37

W hile everybody else in the county was thanking God it’d finally rained, we, at the north end of Lamar, were thanking God it’d stopped.

At quarter till nine Thursday morning, I put in a long-distance call to the Robert E. Lee Hotel in Jackson. Silva said there were a lot of calls ahead of mine but she’d ring me back. Of course Frances had to pick a time when rates were at their highest. A half hour later, it rang, and through a loud crackle I asked for Mrs. Frances Tartt. It clicked and rang again.

“ Birdie? ” Frances hollered. She sounded like she was down a well. “Are you there?”

“Frances—can you hear me?” The static was crunchy and thick.

“—walked everywhere, my feet are killing me, and all Lulu’s got is a cold-water tap—”

“I can’t—I can’t really hear you. What’s the big news, Franny? Did you find Rory?”

“—humiliating having to tell people I can’t find my husband, they look at me like an abandoned housewi—”

The roar grew so loud I was afraid the connection would be lost, but a second later it cleared completely and Frances sounded like she was calling from City Grocery on the square.

“That’s better! Listen, Birdie, I went back to the shoe store you told us about? And I asked that shoe seller Jimmy Watts again had he seen Rory—I was pushy this time, and he finally remembered he had seen Rory two weeks ago.” Jimmy Watts was the man Rory had telephoned over and over the week he’d left, a boyfriend maybe, and I braced myself for what Frances now knew. “He said Rory had come in the store to try on some new shoes , can you believe that? Rory’s out buying new shoes while we’re taking city buses and cold-water baths? Well, I said, ‘Show me which line it was, Mr. Watts, because I want to know were they dress shoes or just walking-around shoes—’”

“ Get to the point, Franny. ”

“He said Rory’d mentioned he was catching a train south .”

“South where?”

In the background, I heard Mrs. Tartt say something that sounded like “room service.” “I think he meant Gulfport, Birdie, down on the coast. I bet anything that’s it. We went there for our honeymoon last year and stayed at the Great Southern, and Rory always said we’d go back since we had the most awful time because he got a stomach bug and we had to move to a room with two separate beds so he didn’t get me sick.”

“Oh Franny.” My poor sister. Even on her honeymoon her husband was turning her down.

“I wonder if he didn’t take Esther Royal there this time,” Frances said. “I went by her house and knocked on the door, and do you know what her maid said? She said she’s out of town. I asked where but she wouldn’t tell me. I didn’t leave a name or anything.”

“Did you check with the hotel in Gulfport?”

“I tried and they said they hadn’t seen him, but there are gobs of hotels down on the coast, so I think it’d make more sense for me to just go down there and look for him in person.” She paused. “Only thing is, like I told you …” She paused. “We’re out of money.”

“How can that be? Where’d it all go?” I wasn’t trying to make her feel guilty; it just didn’t make sense. “After you paid for the train tickets, you should’ve had twenty-seven dollars left, and you’re staying at Lulu’s house for free …”

“We couldn’t stay at Lulu’s another night, alright? It was so uncomfortable and—we moved to the Robert E. Lee.”

I nearly choked on my own tongue.

“You there, Birdie?” Frances asked.

“How much. Do you need, Franny.”

“I—well, I don’t know exactly, we have about a dollar fifty left, and it’d just be me going. Viktoria wants to stay here, she’s not feeling well, but she said she’ll move back to her sister’s.” There was a muffled sound as she said something, I assumed to Mrs. Tartt. I didn’t love the idea of Frances wandering around a strange town alone. “Viktoria says she has some acquaintances down in Gulfport that might could show me around, but there’d be the cost of a hotel. And the train down and back.”

“Fine. I’ll wire you ten now and maybe more later.” There went nearly all the rent money I hadn’t even collected yet today.

“You will?” There were more muffled sounds. “She said she’s fixing to send ten now and maybe more later!” and back to me: “Birdie, is that money from the dance club?”

“Yep.”

“Is it awful? Is it tacky?” Frances was panting a little now. “Does the committee know about it yet?”

“I hope not.”

“Where are you calling me from? Birdie, did you get the telephone hooked back up?” It’d been my intention not to tell them for fear they’d call the house and hear, like in my nightmares, Twat Incorporated, Ruby Slipper speaking.

“Yes,” I said. “But it’s very expensive. And it’s a party line, so be careful in case anyone’s listening.”

In the background, I heard Mrs. Tartt say, “I declare, I want to hear this.” There was some moving around and then Mrs. Tartt’s voice was in my hand. “Birdie, we been so busy I’ve hardly had the chance to think. Tell me about these young ladies that are staying at the house.”

“They’re very hardworking … professionals.”

“And you checked them out thoroughly?”

“ All checked. No signs of anything.”

“And what about in town? Are people talking?” Behind her, Frances said, “Well, of course they’re talking,” and then deep into the telephone, Mrs. Tartt said, “Birdie, tell me the truth now, are their shoulders showing? ”

“The girls are … dressing the part. Mrs. Tartt, I need to ask you—” Not only was I trying to change the subject, but I earnestly wanted to know. “Do you by chance know a family named Heidelberg? They live north of here, up in Byhalia.”

“Well, of course I know of them. They own the Heidelberg Shipping Company. Somebody in the Heidelberg family was the King and Queen of the Cotton Carnival—”

“But do you know a Tom Heidelberg, the third, married, maybe in his twenties?”

“As I recall there’re two sons. Mary Pepper’s a distant cousin of the family, and she keeps up with the news. I believe she said one of them was living up in New York City? But I don’t recall which one.” She paused. “Now that I think about it, one of the brothers had a problem with the drinking. It wasn’t good, whatever it was.” I didn’t like that, so I tucked it away for later.

“Ask her,” Frances hollered, “if anybody’s sleeping in my room.”

I needed to get off the telephone. “Mrs. Tartt, this call’s getting mighty expensive, but I want y’all to promise to give me plenty of notice before you come home— Frances? ” I yelled into the receiver. “You send me a telegram well in advance before you come home so I can … tidy the house up, alright?”

“ We will, I promise! ” Frances hollered back.

After I hung up, I wondered if I shouldn’t try and telephone Mrs. Heidelberg again. She’d never called me back after my last message a week ago—she’d called Welty instead. It was too much to decide right now. I went upstairs to face the dreaded task of collecting rent.

Ruby spat on three dollar bills and smacked them in my hand. When I asked the twins, I saw the old brown grocery bag they’d brought sitting open on Rory’s floor.

“You going somewhere?” I asked.

“Just straightening up,” Dixie said. She managed to pay half their rent in dimes and pennies, then gave her sister a look and shut the door on me.

Flossy was only able to pay two dollars and fifty cents. “Sorry, Bird, it’s all I can spare.”

Esmeralda, always the most considerate of our houseguests, paid hers in full but said, “I don’t know how much longer I can stay here, Birdie. I have to make some money.”

“Please don’t go yet, Es. Just give it a little more time.”

“It’s not just me,” she said. “Everybody’s talking about it. Charlie better figure out how to pick up business quick.”

“Get, Charlie! Outta my way,” I said.

“I’m almost done.” Her head was inside the oven just when I was about to turn it on and cook a chicken potpie for supper, mostly chicken-less, unfortunately.

“It doesn’t need cleaning again,” I said. I’d gotten like Picador. I was the cooker, they were the eaters, and we needed to establish some property lines around here.

Suddenly, Virginia blew in the back door wearing civilian clothes, a blue drop-waist dress with a sailor collar. She even had raspberry-red lipstick on. When she looked at me, I shook my head: Still no customers. I was afraid that if I said it out loud, Charlie might tell me to turn the gas on while her head was in there. She stood up and wiped her hands on her apron.

“So I have news, but I’m not sure if it’s good or bad,” Virginia said, breathless. “Yesterday afternoon, I was at the sandwich shop where I told you the Last Resorts hang around? Well, there’s this one boy who’s sort of the ringleader—he was my lab partner, and the only reason he even passed biology was because of me. Anyway, he’s absolutely bananas about girls, but he’s on the heavy side so he never gets dates. When he came over to say hello, I acted all rattled and told him that I’d just come from the clinic and some ladies of the evening had come in and he should’ve seen them, they were—” She made a woman’s curvy shape with her hands. “I told him that I’d heard a rumor they were running a you-know-what up on North Lamar but I never did believe it until, sure enough, I saw them with my own two eyes. Imagine, a business like that operating not three miles from the school? How ghastly!” She touched her forehead and rolled her eyes. “I put on a pretty good act. Well, next thing I know, he goes back to his table and is whispering to all his friends. When I left, I could see them inside, talking and slapping each other on the back and telling another table of boys. Which is all to say, I think the word is definitely out.” She looked at Charlie, then me, eyes wide, and said, “But that’s just half the news.”

She set a newspaper on the counter, tall and thick as The Oxford Eagle , called The Mississippian . “This was in today’s university paper, so you probably haven’t seen it.”

I grabbed my glasses from the kitchen table and read it out loud. “Last night, a motorcar of Ole Miss students was involved in what could have been a deadly crash when an intoxicated driver collided with a tree”—I skipped over some—“coming back from a trip to Sweetwater”—that was Priscilla’s—“in inclement weather and a dense fog, as part of an annual fraternal pledge initiation.”

“They went up there in that weather last night. Keep on reading.”

“The university’s Morals Committee has issued a grave warning to students: ‘With the help of the sheriff’s office, we will be keeping a sharp eye out for anyone drinking and driving in the direction of Sweetwater, and anyone caught will be expelled immediately from the University of Mississippi.’”