Joan Hess: Mischief In Maggody

"Where did this Madam Celeste come from?" I asked through a mouthful of delightfully gooey cheese.

"She and her brother moved here from Las Vegas, Nevada," Estelle said. "She used to work on the stage in one of those big casinos, reading what was in people's wallets and guessing their birthdays. She was a very big star out there, but she had to leave because it was too exhausting. Her brother's name is Mason Dickerson."

There was a sudden silence. The two exchanged looks that would have been pregnant had menopause not come and gone years ago. I chewed for a minute, then said, "Was he onstage, too?"

"No," Ruby Bee said in a studiously nonchalant voice, "he's Madam Celeste's agent and manager. He takes care of her finances so that she can focus her psychic energy on more important things."

"Such as Gladys Buchanon's glasses? Come on, ladies, why are you acting as if you'd been zapped with psychokinetic kicks to the fanny? Is this Mason Dickerson some sort of crook?"

Ruby Bee raised her eyebrows. "I couldn't say. Do you want to hear what else has been happening? There's a new guidance counselor at the high school."

"Really?" I murmured. "Is there any cherry pie?"

"No, there isn't. He's so handsome that he has all the girls in a dither," Estelle added. "Lottie Estes, the home ec teacher, says every blessed girl in her small-appliances class has gone to his office to pick up college brochures-and she knows darn well not one of them is the least bit interested in college. Most of them aren't even going to graduate."

I tried to peer around Ruby Bee's bulk at the glasscovered pie stands. "Perhaps he'll inspire them. Is that a piece of lemon meringue?"

"Is that all you've got to say about it?" Ruby Bee demanded, moving squarely in front of the pie stand and sticking out her lower lip at me. "He'll inspire them?"

I blinked at the woman who'd borne me. "What am I supposed to say? There are lots of teachers at the high school, and I'm sure some of them are worthy of girlish attentions and adolescent fantasies. Does that lemon meringue have someone else's name on it?"

Ruby Bee was glaring as she slapped down the piece of pie in front of me. "Your problem is that you don't try, Arly. You're perfectly content to sit in that little brick building all day and your dingy, depressing apartment all night. You don't make any effort to make yourself look attractive. You don't go anywhere or do anything. You're worse than that stagnant pond behind Raz Buchanon's barn." I refused to take offense, mostly because the pie was divine and I'd spotted another piece that might, with luck and tact, have my name on it. "You're right on the button," I said amiably. "But at this point in my life that's exactly what I prefer to be-a stagnant pond. I need time to think."

"And how much time do you reckon that'll be? You've been back long enough to stop moping around like a motherless calf." Ruby Bee spent several seconds drying her hands on her apron, while I polished off the pie. "That's why I made you an appointment," she said in a voice so low I almost missed it.

"With Estelle? No disrespect intended, but I really prefer my hair as it is. If I ever decide to try a different style, I'll make my own appointment." I said this very calmly.

"With Madam Celeste."

"What?" I said this very excitedly.

"That's right," Estelle said. "Madam Celeste can give you all sorts of advice about what you ought to do with your life. Heaven knows you haven't come up with any good ideas lately. If you want, she can also put you in touch with those who've already gone across."

"Gone across what?" I asked, wishing almost immediately that I hadn't. It was too late, of course, so I decided to blow the whole wad. "The street? The Continental Divide? The fine line between sanity and schizophrenia?"

Estelle put her hands on her hips. "To the unknown. Dead people. Ancestors and folks like that. Madam Celeste conducted a seance for Edwina Spitz and talked to Edwina's grandfather person-to-person. Edwina's grandfather said it was right pretty where he was, and then he forgave Edwina for putting him in a nursing home and never once coming to visit him. Edwina felt mighty relieved afterward."

"Person-to-person and collect?" I said, giving up on a second piece of pie.

Now Ruby Bee put her hands on her hips. "Madam Celeste has expenses just like everybody else, young lady, but you don't have to give her one thin dime. Your visit is a gift from me and Estelle."

"Forget it," I said as I stood up. "I'll visit a psychic about the time I agree to have Sunday dinner with Raz Buchanon. Shall I presume I'm now current on all the significant events of the last six weeks?"

"Not exactly," Ruby Bee said.

She lifted the top of the pie stand so I could get a view of the last slab of lemon meringue, knowing darn well I'd lose a goodly portion of my resolve. Eating is one of my major activities; I'm fortunate to escape without looking like a tub of lard (or Dahlia O'Neill, the local cause of anorexia among the high school girls, who have a reasonable and legitimate terror of ending up like her; although the story that her granny once entered her in the county fair is pure spite-she won that blue ribbon over the mantle for her tomato relish).

"Okay," I said, sitting back down. "Tell me the rest of it."

"You know the Emporium across the county road from the Assembly Hall?" Ruby Bee said as she handed over the payola. "Well, four long-haired crazy hippies bought it from old Merle Hardcock, who was a mite too senile to know what he was doing. In fact, he took the money and bought a big, noisy motorcycle, if you can imagine such a thing. Thinks he's some kind of daredevil and talks all the time about trying to jump Boone Creek."

I winced at the image that came to mind. "I'll see if I can dissuade him. But tell me more about these hippies and the Emporium."

Ruby Bee looked gratified by my attention. "They fixed it up and reopened it last week. They sell hardware, chicken feed, notions, and the regular stuff, but they also sell all sorts of strange-smelling herbs and crystals and little bottles of oil that are supposed to cure headaches and impotency. Right in the store they play weird music that doesn't have any words or melody." She took a deep breath. "What's more, they live together at the end of Finger Road, in that dilapidated old house just past Earl Buchanon's house. One of them told Earl it was a commune. He thought that meant they were communists and was all set to go over with his shotgun, but I told him to wait until you got back from your so-called vacation. Earl's president of the local chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and real touchy about communists."

(Allow me to digress from this fascinating narrative to explain the plethora of Buchanons. There are hundreds of them sprinkled across Stump County, worse than hogweed. Incest and inbreeding are their favorite hobbies, which has resulted in beetlish brows, yellow yellow eyes, and thick lips. They aren't strong on intelligence; the most they can aspire to is animal cunning. An anthropologist from Farber College once tried to sort out the genealogy, although nobody ever figured out why anybody'd want to do that. Rumor has it she tried to kill herself at the county line, and ranted in the ambulance about third cousins twice removed and fathers who were also uncles and half-brothers. Her family hushed it up with some story about a diesel truck, but everybody in Maggody knew better.)

"I'll see if I can dissuade Earl, too," I said, thinking I never should have left town. "But with the Emporium open again, we won't have to mortgage the homestead to buy nails at the Kwik-Screw, or drive all the way into Starley City for a monkey wrench."

Ruby Bee looked as if she might snatch back the pie. "What about them living in sin and doing all sorts of bizarre things? Why, they sit in the backyard morning and evening-stark naked, I might add-and hold hands and chant all sorts of things nobody can make any sense of. They burn funny-smelling little sticks while they do it, too!"