Calamity Jayne And The Trouble With Tandems Part 41

I'm not sure whose eyes got bigger first. Mine, Keelie's, or her mother's.

"Please, excuse us, Mrs. Keller. We'll just be off so you can sit and catch your breath. The Iowa heat can be unbearable this time of year. Thank you for the lemonade, Keelie, dear. Tressa? Are you coming?"

I found myself trailing my mother.

"What was that?" I asked. "What just happened?"

"That was your mother employing restraint," my mom said.

"Restraint? You might as well have come right out and called her a-." I stopped.

"What I wanted to do was grab hold of that big ol' hair of hers and give it a good yank."

"You wanted to pull her hair?" Seriously, what was happening to my cool, calm, CPA mother?

"Don't be ridiculous, Tressa. She's wearing a wig."

"Mom. About you and Dad-"

She picked up her pace and, given my...er, condition, it was all I could do to keep up.

"Come along, dear. I've got a big dishpan in the RV. We'll fill that with a little hot water and Epsom salts, put it in the shower and make a nice little sitz bath."

I looked at her.

"How did you know?"

She shook her head.

"Mothers know. Besides n.o.body walks like that-unless they're Duke Wayne or suffering from painful inflammation."

Crikey! That smarts!

CHAPTER THIRTY.

Ottumwa, The City of Bridges, had decided to go with a Mardi Gras theme. Set along the sparkling waters of the Des Moines River, strings of purple, green, and gold lights provided an air of royal splendor to the street party. Jazz music filled the river walk, and vendors hawked their wares. Cajun favorites such as gumbo, jambalaya, red beans and rice, m.u.f.fulettas, po-boys, and crawfish got top billing alongside traditional Midwestern favorites like corn on the cob, pork chops, burgers, and turkey legs.

In other words, a food lover's paradise.

Dixie and Frankie had volunteered to work the Mobile Freeze, giving my mother time to spend with her two daughters. My mom and I had shared many hours on horseback. She taught me to ride. Taylor, while not exactly a horsewoman, had preferred to admire the beautiful animals from the safety of a zoom lens. She took amazing pictures of the Queen, Joker, and Jack, as well as Butch and Sundance, garnering ribbons from county and state fairs.

But the three of us? Out on the town? It just hadn't happened. I supposed it was because Taylor and I never really had that much in common. Or maybe it was the fact that whenever we were in the same vicinity, we'd end up in a spat.

Rrearr.

But lately, it seemed we'd been able to peacefully coexist. So. Progress!

"It's so nice to have both of my girls here with me," my mother said. "When's the last time we spent time together?"

"The oral surgeon when we got our wisdom teeth pulled. Tressa was fifteen, and I was twelve," Taylor responded.

I stared at her. "Gee, that's awfully specific. It's like you had the information right there ready to call it up. That's either really impressive or really pathetic."

"Anyone still hungry?"

I looked at my mother.

"Do you know me at all? When am I not hungry?"

"Taylor?"

She looked at our mother.

"Do you know me at all? When am I ever hungry?"

My mother shook her head.

Ours was a lucky, lucky mother.

I'd already partaken of some (okay, more than some) traditional Cajun cuisine. Hey, how often can you get N'Orleans food in Ioway? Now I was hip to try some authentic Cajun desserts. My highly trained sense of smell led me to a colorful booth. I sucked in the aroma. Heaven!

"What is that?"

I pointed at a jumbo-sized braided pastry, frosted in purple, green, and gold.

"It's king cake," Taylor said. "It dates back to the Middle Ages and Twelfth Night."

"The twelfth night of what?"

"The Twelfth Night after the birth of Christ. You should recall the song, Tressa. You starred in Gram's Twelve Days of Christmas pageant."

How could I forget? I still had flashbacks.

"Back to the cake," I prodded.

"Twelfth Night was a time for celebration and gift-giving. The cake was part of the tradition."

"The young lady is right," the baker said. "King cake is a Mardi Gras tradition now.

"What exactly is in it?" I asked.

"The pastry is laced with cinnamon and filled with things like apple, strawberry, cream cheese, or other fruit fillings."

I felt my mouth watering.

"And, of course, there's the baby."

"Baby?"

"Hidden in each king cake is a plastic baby. Tradition says whoever finds the baby in their slice of cake must host the next party or buy the next king cake."

How quaint!

"One king cake," my mother said.

"I love my mommy!" I said. "Ooh. How about those?" I'd spotted squares covered in a mountain of powdered sugar.

"Beignets. Like a doughnut, but without the hole. They come in threes. Served warm with a gla.s.s of chocolate milk or cafe au lait, they are-" he put his fingers to his mouth and made a kissing sound, "perfection."

I put my head on my mother's shoulder and looked up at her with pound-puppy eyes.

"Please, Mommy!"

She sighed. "Three please."

"When she says three, that really means nine, you know, since they come in threes," I reminded the baker. He shook his head and went to fill our order.

"Look, there's Keelie!" My mom said, and I turned. Cameras trailing in her wake, she looked a far cry from the vivacious redhead I'd first seen five days earlier. Manny trailed a discreet distance behind.

"Is that her mother?" Taylor asked.

I nodded.

"She looks like Jessica Rabbit," Taylor observed.

I stared. "Oh, my G.o.d! She does! She really does!"

"Now stop it, girls. Don't you dare make a scene!" our mother warned us.

"Hi, Jean! Hey, Tressa. Uh, Taylor, right? This is my mom, Candice."

"h.e.l.lo. Nice to meet you," Taylor extended her hand. Candice was too busy fanning herself with a purple, green, and gold Mardi Gras fan to notice Taylor's outstretched hand.

"Are you having a good time with your mother?" my mom asked Keelie.

"I had a tarot card reading," she said, side-stepping the question. "You know. The usual stuff. Be leery of dark, handsome strangers. Unparalleled fame and fortune are within my reach. Beware the masks of Mardi Gras. Danger lurks where you least expect it. Typical mumbo jumbo."

"This whole Creole charade is embarra.s.sing. We can afford to experience the real thing in New Orleans. Why squander time on this cultural wasteland?" Candice said, and brought her arm up to fan herself again. "And the heat is beastly."

"Well, after all, it is the 'Big Easy,' Taylor said.

"You mean the big sleazie," Candice said. "Talk about your poor excuse for a party. Can we get this lame stroll down by the riverside over with? It smells like fish down here."

"You'd know."

For a second I wasn't sure that I'd heard correctly-or that the softly-worded, but clearly enunciated, remark came from my mother, board member of the state CPA a.s.sociation, food bank volunteer, and deaconess of the Open Bible Church.

"What did you say?"

"Why do people do that?" my mother said.

"Do what?" At least three people responded.

"Ask 'what did you say' when they know perfectly well what the other person said. It seems superfluous to me."

"Superfluous?"

"Unnecessary. Not needed. Redundant."

Okay. That's where Taylor got it.

"What is your problem, lady?" Candice Keeler asked.

"I don't have a problem. I'm here with my two daughters enjoying a Midwestern Mardi Gras celebration that a lot of very good people went to a lot of hard work to put together. Which leads me to wonder if your performance is for the camera or if you really are so incredibly miserable and unhappy that you can't keep from spreading it around. Oh, and by the way, Jessica. Where's Roger?"

Candice blinked. "Roger?"

"Mr. Rabbit."

I couldn't believe it. My mother had gone from Debbie Reynolds to Joan Rivers in the blink of an eye.

It took a while before Candice got the gist of the reference. I wondered if, under that wig, there was a blonde itching to break free.

The dumbfounded vendor stared at the show going on, our lovely king cake in his hands, ready to box.

"Oh! Look! A king cake!" Candice exclaimed, stepping up to the booth. "Is it sold?"

The baker's head went up and down. "To the nice lady."

"It's not carrot cake, but it'll do," she said, showing she was no pushover in the snark department."

Before I knew what was happening, Candice Keller's mauve nails ripped into the cake like a one-year-old on his first birthday. She pulled out a handful of gooey, crummy cake. She turned.

"Roger sends his regrets he couldn't be here," she said and threw the handful of cake in my mother's face.

I stared, stunned by Jessica's surprise attack. When my mother stepped over to the vendor and sunk both hands, into the cake, digging out not one, but two handfuls of king cake, I was mesmerized.

She turned. I held my breath.

"You really must take some cake home for the poor dear," Mom said.