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Idgie breezed right past her and said, “Oh, just out. Right, Buddy?”

“Yes ma’am, just out,” said Buddy, trying not to laugh.

—

LATER THAT NIGHT, after Buddy was in bed, Ruth looked at Idgie. “Well, Buddy sure seems in a good mood tonight. Where did you take him today?”

Idgie smiled and said, “I’ll never tell. It’s a secret.”

Ruth laughed. “Oh, you and your secrets. I know you. I’ll bet you drove him over to Gate City to that pool hall, didn’t you?”

“My lips are sealed,” Idgie said.

The fact that she had taken Buddy to the bee tree today was a pretty innocent little secret to keep from Ruth. But Idgie had another, not-so-innocent secret that she was keeping from her. She had to. She couldn’t take a chance on losing Ruth and Buddy forever.

2009

AFTER SHE HAD received her father’s life history, Ruthie felt a bit disappointed at how short it was, but not surprised. It was just like him to downplay all of his many accomplishments. He hadn’t even mentioned the fact that he had once been a famous high school football star. She still had all the write-ups and headlines that had appeared in the Birmingham news. “ONE-ARMED QUARTERBACK LEADS WHISTLE STOP’S TEAM TO STATE CHAMPIONSHIP.”

There were so many things he’d left out. He had also neglected to mention that he had started his own veterinary clinic and now had eight doctors and over twenty-something in staff working under him. Ruthie was his only child, but until the VFW gave him that big lifetime award even she hadn’t known he’d volunteered so much time and money helping wounded veterans get back on their feet. Or that, in spite of his handicap, he had graduated second in his class at Auburn. And she wouldn’t have known that if her mother hadn’t told her. All her life, total strangers were always coming up to her, telling her about something nice her father had done for them. When she asked why he’d never told her any of these things, he would just smile and say, “Oh, honey, I guess I just forgot.”

Her dad also had a habit of giving money away to every Tom, Dick, or Harry with a sob story, and not one animal brought to his clinic was ever refused treatment because of money. Her mother said it was a Threadgoode family trait. During the Depression, his Aunt Idgie had fed every poor person for miles around.

And as Ruthie’s mother had pointed out, Bud was a terrible liar. One day her mother said to Ruthie, “Your father will tell a lie when the truth would have served him better. This morning I walked in the bathroom at the office and smelled cigarettes and I said, ‘Bud, are you still smoking after you promised me to quit?’ And he looked me right in the eye and said, ‘I’m not smoking. That’s catnip you’re smelling.’ And I said, ‘Bud. I’ve smelled catnip before, and it doesn’t smell like tobacco.’ ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘That’s because it’s a rare form of catnip that comes all the way from India.’ ”

Ruthie had to laugh. “Daddy sure can make up a tall tale, can’t he?”

“Oh yes. He got that little trait from his Aunt Idgie. Now, you talk about tall tales. She could tell them all day long and with a straight face. One time, one of her hunting friends gave her this old ratty-looking stuffed deer head, so she promptly hung it up in the cafe and told everybody that it was the head of an extremely rare two-hundred-year-old Siberian antelope.” Peggy laughed. “She used to pull all kinds of crazy stunts. My mother told me that one time Idgie snuck over to Reverend Scroggins’s house on laundry day and stole his long underwear right off the line. She stuffed it with straw, put a hat on it, and stuck it on the front row of his church the next Sunday. She loved to play tricks.

“Oh yeah, Aunt Idgie was a real character, all right, and now that I think about it, way ahead of her time. She was an independent woman long before the women’s movement came about. She ran her own business, and always did things her own way. I don’t think she ever let anybody tell her what to do, except your grandmother Ruth. Now, Idgie’d listen to Ruth. I remember one time when Idgie got to drinking too much and hanging out down at that River Club playing poker in the back room till all hours. Now, I don’t know what was said, but my mother told me that Ruth must have put her foot down pretty hard, because, after that, Idgie cleaned up her act in a hurry. I don’t think she ever went back to that River Club again, either.”

“What was Grandmother Ruth like?”

Peggy looked at her daughter and smiled.

“Oh…like you, really. You have her nice thick hair, only yours is a little lighter. She was more of a darker brunette. She was as tall as you are, slender and pretty. And so sweet. I went to the Bible class she taught at church and we all just adored her.” Peggy sighed. “She died so young. Only forty-two. It was so sad. Everybody in Whistle Stop was at her funeral. Idgie and your poor daddy were just heartbroken. He went away to college pretty soon after that, and that was a help to get his mind off it. But you know, I don’t think Aunt Idgie ever really got over it.”

“How so?”

“Oh, after Ruth died, she kept the cafe open. She had promised her to make sure your daddy got through school. But after he graduated, she just shut the cafe down for good and took off for Florida.”

“Did she ever go back?”

“No, I don’t think she ever did, except maybe for a few funerals. Of course, Idgie being Idgie, when she moved to Florida, she made plenty of new friends. But I don’t think she ever had another special friend…not like your grandmother was.”

WHISTLE STOP, ALABAMA

December 1986

DOT WEEMS CALLED Idgie and Julian first and said she had just received news that their sister-in-law Ninny Threadgoode had passed away. The next morning, Julian and Idgie left for Alabama to make arrangements. It was a sad trip for both. Ninny had been married to their oldest brother, Cleo. Not only had Ninny been sweet, she’d always seen things a little differently from people. She seemed to see only the best in life and made friends everywhere she went.

Ninny was laid to rest with a small graveside service in the Threadgoode family plot, at the cemetery just behind what had been the old Whistle Stop Baptist Church. Besides Julian and Idgie, a few of the other old-timers were there. Opal Butts and Big George’s wife, Onzell, and their daughter came over from Birmingham. Dot and Wilbur Weems drove up from Fairhope, and Grady Kilgore and his wife, Gladys, came from Tennessee. Reverend Scroggins’s son, Jessie Ray, who was now preaching over in Birmingham, had conducted the service. It was so sad to see the old town and the church all shut down and boarded up. But thankfully, after the service a lady who had once been a neighbor of Ninny’s had everybody over to her house in nearby Gate City for some food. After they had eaten, they all gathered on the front porch and talked about Ninny and the good old days, before the railroad yard closed down.

It was getting late in the day. Jessie Ray Scroggins and his wife left first, and as they drove away, Gladys Kilgore said to Idgie, “This is a hell of a way to spend Easter, isn’t it? Having to say goodbye to sweet old Ninny.”

Idgie didn’t know that in April 1988, she would be making another sad trip to Whistle Stop, this time to bury her brother Julian. On that day, before she left to drive back home to Florida, she made one last stop back at the old cemetery and put something on Ruth’s grave. It was an Easter card that she signed,

I’ll always remember .

Your friend,

The Bee Charmer