The Crossroads Cafe

  “It’s just my new aftershave. Eau de Vodka. Don’t change the subject. I want this house.”

  She thumped the roof with her knuckles. “Thomas, you don’t need this empty house. You need a home.”

  “There isn’t another house like this in the state. In the region. In the country. In the world. I could restore this house the way it should be restored. I have the money. I’m not poor, despite how I look to other people. There isn’t much in the world I’m sure I can protect and preserve, but this house? I can save it.”

  “All this time,” she said gently, “I thought you stayed in the Crossroads because you couldn’t resist my cooking.”

  “I want this house,” I repeated. “I sold my soul to my sister-in-law for you. All I ask in return is that you make sure Cathryn Deen sells this house to me.”

  “She can’t sell it to you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because after I talk her into coming here to live, she’s going to need this house herself. Cheer up, though—I expect she’ll welcome your help renovatin’ it.”

  Delta patted my arm, knocked over the half-full bottle of vodka beside me and climbed down. I picked my jaw up off the roof’s cedar shingles. My booze trickled off a gable, and I didn’t even notice.

  In the gloaming, she left behind only her Cheshire-cat grin.

  Chapter 4

  Cathy Contact Is Made

  “Any phone calls for me?” I murmured to the nurse.

  “No, Ms. Deen, none today.”

  No calls. No people. No husband. No right ear lobe.

  Hurt. Sleep. Hurt. Sleep.

  Cry.

  And to top it off, the nightmares had started. Every time I shut my eyes, I caught on fire again.

  Two weeks after the accident I was still barely coherent, and could only describe my life in a few words. No drug stopped the pain completely, nothing clubbed my nightmares into submission, and nothing made me hungry enough to crave the chalky, high-protein milkshakes a burn victim has to eat constantly in order to fuel a body trying desperately to heal the leaking sieve of its own skin.

  “Either you sip the shakes or it’s back on a feeding tube, Ms. Deen,” the nutritionist said, holding a straw to my mouth.

  I sipped.

  I had seen Gerald once, just once, for five minutes. He was dressed in the latest burn-ward fashion over his tailored suit: sterile cap, mask, gown, gloves. All I could see were his eyes, and I told myself I only imagined the repulsed look in them.

  I just dreamed that, I thought. Disgust and flames. Just another nightmare.

  I was still bound to my bed by tubes and bandages, and could move only my left forefinger to click a call button and a morphine drip. There was a television in the room, but the staff kept it on movies approved by Gerald. Despite being drugged, I was fairly certain I’d seen Leo and Kate escape from the Titanic about fifteen times already.

  At night, when the TV was off, Gwen Stefani rapped endlessly about her shit. Now I know who sings the elevator music in hell. Alone in my bed in the dark, with just Gwen for company, I cried without using a single muscle in my roasted face, seeping tears.

  Fat. I’ll get fat from the high-cal shakes, I kept thinking. I won’t be a perfect five-foot-seven-size-four anymore.

  Since childhood, my entire life had centered on being beautiful, except when I visited Granny Nettie in North Carolina. Daddy did not like her and clearly wanted her memory forgotten. I returned from every Granny visit cheerfully sunburned, bruised from falling out of trees, several pounds heavier, and a good deal more opinionated about politics, women’s issues, and religion. My Atlanta aunts loathed Granny Nettie and always urged Daddy to ban further visits.

  See, I came from a mixed marriage. Daddy and his people were old-money flatlands Southern, from Atlanta and coastal South Carolina. Mother and her people were no-money mountain Southern, from the high Appalachians of western North Carolina. Mother died when I was only three, and Granny Nettie became determined to undermine Daddy’s influence. The Deens openly regarded her as a redneck witch or worse. Her thick wrists were draped in funky bracelets studded with rough rubies and sapphires she’d panned in her creek at the farm. She raised milk goats and Christmas trees, could sing every song from Cats, had a number of boyfriends, some younger than herself, and openly admitted my Grandpa Nettie had been shot to death in 1967, during a blood feud with one of his Cherokee cousins over on the Qualla Boundary.

  Can’t get fat, can’t get flabby, I thought in a daze, laying in bed. Fat girls are not successful. Must perform isometric exercises to stay in shape. Squeeze and release, squeeze and release. If only I could remember where my ass was.

  I needed to talk to someone, anyone. I needed a voice in my good ear, telling me I would be all right. But Gerald controlled all contact with the outside world. Why? Was he ashamed of me? I’d make myself beautiful for him if he just gave me a chance. I’d call Luce, Randy and Judi and schedule a styling.

  Yes! In a few months, after all the surgeries and other tortures were finished, I’d be ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille. I had admired too many twenty-year-old faces on fifty-year-old actresses to lose faith in the power of plastic surgery now. Scarred for life, who, me? Nah. Delusion, thy blessing is an IV filled with reality-altering narcotics and hallucinations inspired by continuous showings of Titanic.

  I cried every time the music swelled and the ocean liner, that unsinkable, legendary, beautiful ocean liner, sank.

  Thomas

  I had a hangover of epic proportions. Every time I glanced overhead, a fabric Rorschach test hit me between the eyes. A half-finished queen-sized quilt hung from its quilting rack in the ceiling of the café’s porch dining room. On Saturday nights the Crossroads Quilters met there. Delta said the pattern was Pineapple. Abstract. Octagonal. Sunlight splashed off the jumble of colors. It made my eyes cross.

  Delta didn’t care. “Place the call,” she ordered, staring at the speaker phone between us on a checkered tablecloth. “It’s almost noon in California. I bet Cathryn’s awake and about to have lunch. Good. People listen to me the most when they’re hungry.”

  No surprise. Delta always smelled of flour and sugar, even on a weekday afternoon. An aphrodisiac for the spiritually hungry. Her skin was at that cusp of middle-aged softness, a friendly cushion around her bones. Her short, thick forearms were covered in freckles, and her hands were strong and quick. She was a human apple pie. I watched her distractedly smooth wrinkles off her chef’s apron. Her fingers twitched toward the phone.

  All I promised her was a phone connection. One call, a personal contact, and nothing else. That talk about Cathryn Deen moving here and living in her grandmother’s house? Delta’s naïve fantasy. The Nettie house is mine.

  I blew out a long breath, took a reviving swallow of iced tea so sweet my tongue curled, then punched in the number Ravel’s minions had faxed to the café. We’d be lucky if Delta didn’t get ignored, insulted, rebuffed. I didn’t want Delta hurt. People who believe in the goodness of mankind deserve protection from those of us who don’t.

  After two rings, we arrived on the other side of the continent. “Burn ward,” an officious female voice said. “Security.”

  “I’m calling to speak with Cathryn Deen,” I said officiously, in return. “I have my security code ready.”

  “Thank you, sir. Please punch it in now, then press the star sign.”

  I tapped a ten-digit number and the star sign. There was a click, then no ring at all, then another click. “Burn unit,” a woman said.

  “Gerald Merritt.”

  “Mr. Merritt! Sir, I’m so glad it’s you. Your wife could really use more phone calls from you. Her psychologist asked me to tell you she’s feeling very isolated. Like all victims of severe burns, she’s struggling with a lot of emotional issues. As the head of her nursing team, I really have to question your decision to forbid any of her friends from calling. She needs contact with the outside world. Maintaining her public image seem
s like a high price to pay under the circumstances. What can I say to make you reconsider?”

  This, I hadn’t counted on. Lying about my identity to get Delta through to Cathryn Deen was one thing. Being asked for a decision on Cathryn Deen’s phone privileges was another. On the other hand, her husband was obviously a major prick.

  Delta waved at me furiously. Gerald, she mouthed, is a mule pecker.

  Well, okay. We had a consensus.

  I leaned closer to the phone. “I completely agree with your concern about my wife’s need for more contact with her friends and family. My wife has a dear cousin in North Carolina. Her name is Delta Whittlespoon. From now on, whenever Delta calls, put her through.”

  “Wonderful! Delta Whittlespoon. I’m writing that down. I’ll give you a direct number for Ms. Whittlespoon to use. Straight to your wife’s room. Ms. Deen isn’t able to pick up a phone, but, as you know, she can receive calls via a speaker. So when I put you through, don’t wait for her to answer, just start talking.”

  Delta mouthed, Yes! and pumped one fist.

  “Very good,” I said crisply, hoping I still sounded like Gerald. “In fact, I have Delta on my other line right now. Let’s transfer this call to my wife’s room and—”

  “You couldn’t have called at a more crucial time. Your wife is having her dressings changed, and I’m sure she needs to hear your voice. A word of advice: Be prepared for her screams. Every patient screams during the debridement process. I’ll tell your wife you’re on the phone.”

  “Wait. Don’t—” Click. I met Delta’s horrified eyes. “I can’t keep pretending—”

  Delta grabbed my hand. “You have to. Cathryn needs you. She’s being de . . . somethinged. It sounds terrible. ”

  “She needs her husband.”

  “Thomas, weren’t you paying attention? He’s not visiting her. He’s not even calling her. He’s abandoned her. She doesn’t need a man like him; she needs a man like you.”

  “This is beyond insane—”

  Click.

  “Gerald,” a soft, strained voice begged. “Help.”

  Inside, I stopped. Everything focused on the pain in that voice. Suddenly it didn’t matter that I wasn’t Gerald. I was here, and he wasn’t. The mule pecker.

  “Help,” she repeated. “Help.”

  “Cathryn.” I tried to speak softly, gently. I tried to blanket her with intimate sympathy. Common sense vanished. “Cathy, I’m here.”

  On her end, silence. Stark silence. Did my voice sound nothing like Gerald’s? Maybe I’d used a nickname Gerald never used. Cathy. I kicked myself. Across from me, Delta hunched down to the phone and tilted her head, listening. We heard metal rattling on metal. Surgical instruments hitting pans. Rustling noises. A faint, low sound of distress. Cathryn. Moaning.

  “Sorry, I’m not ignoring you,” she whispered eventually. “I just had a moment of weakness while the nurse was. . . I couldn’t think straight.” Then came a sound I never expected. Her laugh. Low, torn. A war cry. “And I thought a bikini wax was painful.” Another clattering sound. In the background, a nurse said, “Cathryn, take a deep breath. I’m going to scrub this raw area, now. It’s going to bleed. That’s normal.”

  “Oh, God,” she whispered. “Nothing’s normal.”

  My own breath knifed my throat. “Breathe, Cathy. Breathe. Slowly. You can do it.”

  She moaned again, then laughed again, but the laugh ended in a gasp. “Sorry. Being a . . . sissy.”

  “No, honey,” I said. Honey. Delta smiled at me proudly. I frowned. I was in way too deep, but I couldn’t bear to stop. “You’re a strong woman, Cathy. You’re a survivor. You’re no sissy. Talk to me . . . honey. Tell me what’s happening.”

  “They call this process . . .debridement. They ought to call it . . .torture.” Another soft, wrenching sound. Another miserable chuckle. “Always de bride-maid. Never . . . de bride. Ah! Stop, stop a second. Stop. Please. I’m freezing.” Her teeth chattered.

  “Okay, let’s take a short break,” the nurse said. “I’m going to tilt these lamps a little. I can’t cover you with a sheet until we’re done. There. Warmer? I know these lamps are awfully bright.”

  “Like sunning . . . at a really bad . . . nude beach.”

  Sweat eased down my forehead as I realized what Cathryn was saying. She was laying there naked, bloody, sections of her skin like raw meat. And she thought she was only sharing the intimate, humiliating misery with her devoted husband.

  She should be. Where was the bastard?

  “Gerald?” she groaned. “Please try . . . to visit . . . this week. I know I look a little charbroiled, but—”

  “You’re still the most beautiful woman in the world.” I blurted it in a low, hoarse voice. As if I meant it.

  I did.

  She made a mewling sound. “Never thought ... you’d say that again. I love you.”

  “I love—” Don’t do it. This is going too far. “—you, too.”

  More broken sounds. I’d made her cry. She was crying because her husband said he loved her. Because she thought her husband had stopped loving her. I wanted to find Gerald and have a discussion. Mountain-style. I’d go hillbilly on his ass.

  Delta reached over and pounded my arm for attention. Me, she mouthed. Introduce me.

  “Cathy, I’ve got someone special on the line. This may sound a little odd, because it’s been a long time since you saw anyone from your mother’s family and friends, but a distant cousin of yours contacted me, from North Carolina, and—”

  “Hello, Cathryn Mary Deen,” Delta shouted. “Cathy Deen, I’m your cousin, Delta, and I was one of your mama’s best friends, and the last time you came to visit your Granny Nettie, back when you were just a little girl, I dropped by with my little boy, Jeb, and we had a wonderful lunch with you and your granny. She was a great cook, and to this day I make biscuits by her recipe. And I just want you to know, Cathy—”

  “Biscuits!” Cathryn said.

  “Biscuits,” Delta repeated. “I make and sell your granny’s biscuits.”

  “Biscuits.” Wistful, urgent, connected. The magic word.

  “I’m sorry, Cathryn,” the nurse interjected. “I have to start cleaning you, again. Try to relax. Take a deep breath.”

  “Quick, Delta, talk to me,” Cathryn begged. “Talk to me about Granny Nettie’s biscuits. About North Carolina. About her house. Is it still standing? Help me think about something besides being ‘de bride maid.’ Biscuits. Biscuits. You don’t know what they mean to me. I want to know everything about Granny Nettie and her biscuits and you and there and—”

  “Oh, lord, yes.” Delta’s eyes gleamed with victory. She launched into a fervent spiel about the café, its menu, the secret of good baking, the art of a flaky crust. A solar system in which there was no pain, no surgical tweezers plucking dead tissue off live nerves, no naked humiliation, no loneliness, no stranger like me pretending to be a loving husband. Delta handed her cousin’s husband’s cousin’s daughter a soothing world that revolved faithfully around a large, golden orb, the eternal biscuit.

  Cathryn didn’t speak a single word after that, but her low sounds of distress and her pained chuckles punctuated Delta’s stories along with the metallic clatter of the nurse’s instruments and the low, sopping sound of bloody gauze dropping in a pan.

  I sat there with my head bowed and eyes shut.

  It makes no sense to say it, but I fell in love with Cathryn Deen that day. On a weekday afternoon at the cafe, in the fresh sunshine of springtime, while pretending to be her husband, beneath the psychedelic octagonals of a Pineapple quilt, and over the phone. I had been wrong about her. She was strong, she was smart, she cared about legacies and family. And I cared about her.

  Every patient screams during debridement, the nurse had said.

  Not Cathryn Deen.

  Not Cathy.

  Cathy

  Funny the conversations you have with yourself while you nap in a drugged stupor after lying on a me
tal table, naked, under heat lamps, while a nurse scrapes the places where your skin used to be.

  I’m a woman, now. Gerald called me a woman. He’s never called me a ‘woman,’ before. Always a girl. A beautiful girl. A gorgeous girl. Maybe ‘woman’ is the only term that’s true, now. The default endearment.

  No, it sounded like a compliment. He sounded sincere.

  That’s not like him.

  He called you ‘Cathy.’ So intimate. So sweet.

  He hates nicknames. His classmates at boarding school called him ‘Gerbil.’

  His voice was so tender. A warm lotion. Deep, soothing, compassionate.

  See? That’s not Gerald.

  He loves you. He said so.

  Then why doesn’t he visit? Why doesn’t he call?

  He did call. And he gave you a gift. Delta Whittlespoon.

  Yes, you’re right. He loves me.

  “Ms. Deen, we’ve got a package for you,” a nurse said. “Overnight delivery, UPS, from a Delta Whittlespoon, in North Carolina. Would you like me to open it?”

  “Delta!” I punched my morphine drip, waited for the pain to drift a little further out to sea, then lifted my head slightly. My right side, still thickly bandaged, felt like a raw steak covered in sponges. Physical therapists came in every day and made me lift various bandaged body parts. Heads? My specialty.

  Swaddled in the usual antiseptic fashions, the nurse set a large cardboard box on my bedside table, snipped the tape, and opened the lid. My heart fought off an IV of anti-anxiety drugs and fluttered with anticipation. Delta. My cousin’s husband’s cousin. Even when not sedated and traumatized I had only a vague memory of a small, cheerful, dark-haired woman who’d visited Granny while I was there. Under the current mind-altering conditions, my brain recalled Delta only as an essence. She was a biscuit.