Deep Fried and Pickled (Book One - The Rachael O'Brien Chronicles) Read online

  Mrs. Brown rotated her head from her husband to me. She tilted her nose down and her eyes up. “Apparently they didn’t. Things just haven’t been right since Betsy ran off to follow the Maharishi.”

  “One thing’s for sure. Rachael won’t be drinking from the bathtub anytime soon.”

  Katie Lee assisted me up to her bedroom. In a comatose state, I moaned, “Damn bathtub dew.”

  ”I warned you,” she said.

  I could hear Dr. and Mrs. Brown talking in the hallway. Mrs. Brown worried that I’d contracted alcohol poisoning and insisted Dr. Brown take a blood sample. He assured her, “She’ll be fine.”

  Refocusing her concern she made a fuss about the distilled bathtub dew. “Hayden, you need to report the Rays.”

  “I’ll see Sheriff Henderson on the golf course this afternoon and mention it.”

  Katie Lee painted her toenails, and I told her to shut the door. “I was worried about you. Where did you disappear to?”

  In hushed tones, she said, “Sorry, Rachael. You must think I’m so rude for leaving you. I was with,” she stopped and listened, then mouthed, “Nash. We lost track of time.”

  “Come over here.”

  “Why?”

  “So I can kick your ass.”

  “Rachael, you’re too hung over to swing anything. It won’t happen again. I promise. How did you get back?”

  “Patsy’s older brother and his friend, Josh dropped me off.”

  “Mitch is Patsy’s younger brother,” she corrected.

  Pulling a cold washcloth off my forehead, I whispered,

  “Where’s the van?”

  “Nash helped me park it in the garage last night.”

  “Did he sleep over?”

  She shook her head. “We drove in separate cars.”

  Pessimism bubbled inside of me. “Don’t you think your dad is going to notice the scratches?”

  “Naw. They’re barely visible.”

  “Katie Lee,” Dr. Brown shouted up the stairs. “Where are the van keys? I want to get it washed before my golf game.”

  IT WASN’T UNTIL THE SUN descended behind the river late Saturday that humanlike qualities morphed back inside me. At dinnertime, we met Patsy in downtown New Bern at a café called The Red Cabbage. Ceramic pendant vegetable lights hung above purple and red striped vinyl-booths.

  I shuffled my way toward Patsy who’d saved us seats. It had taken a major effort to get out of bed and shower, but I knew a hot meal and a quiet evening would help diminish the cringe worthy events of last night. “Raz, you don’t look so good.”

  “Thanks. Neither do you.”

  Katie Lee crinkled her nose. “Raz? Where did that name come from?”

  Patsy and I looked at each other then at Katie Lee. “Billy Ray.”

  Katie Lee smacked her palm to her forehead. “Lord Almighty. Please don’t tell me you fooled around with Billy Ray.”

  Her suggestion offended me, but I didn’t have time to voice an objection. Patsy blurted, “She shagged with him.”

  “What? When did this happen?” Katie Lee asked.

  “After my second bathtub dew.”

  Katie Lee shook her head. “I’m sorry I missed that, y’all.”

  I sipped sweet tea out of a mason jar, and the two insisted I order a pulled-pork sandwich with slaw under the bun. Over dinner, Patsy and Katie Lee worked through an endless web of tall tales and hearsay. They filled their sentences with “hankering this” and “tarnation that.” The sandwich was a work of culinary art, and it gave me strength to revel in the previous night’s highlights. I prodded Katie Lee. “You left the party early.”

  “That’s a lot of together with Nash,” Patsy said, before both of us stared her down, waiting for her to fill in the blanks.

  Katie Lee pushed her plate to the side. “Alright y’all. First you have to promise that what I’m about to tell you stays at this table.”

  “Promise,” I said.

  Katie Lee waited.

  Stretching an arm across the back of the booth Patsy shrugged. “I’m good for it.”

  “Nash and I wanted some alone time.”

  Patsy rolled her eyes. “Jesus Katie Lee, I don’t want the play by play. Just tell us what happened.”

  “He and I drove the van from Billy Ray’s party to a piece of deserted land where the Neuse River meets the Trent. We were fooling around when headlights in the distance flashed.”

  “A patrol car?” I asked.

  Katie Lee shook her head. “That’s what I thought. But Nash said he recognized the truck and left. I stayed behind and buttoned my blouse. I figured some of Nash’s friends were night fishing.”

  “Y’all,” Katie Lee went on to tell us, “I lost sight of him and watched the truck pull away. I would’ve followed, but Nash had the keys. I called for him, but the grass was high and the mosquito’s thick, so I stayed in the van.”

  Patsy blew bubbles in her sweet tea mid eye roll, and I wondered if she’d heard a similar story before.

  “I was beside myself. It was another twenty minutes before I spotted him in a side mirror. He hustled toward the van carrying two plastic suitcases.”

  I wished she’d been bullshitting, but that wasn’t Katie Lee’s style. I drained my sweet tea and sucked air from the straw. Scooting to the edge of my seat, I chewed jagged edges in the straw. She wasn’t finished.

  “What’d you do?” I asked.

  “Locked him out of the van and screamed through the window. ‘Where have you been? And what the hell are you carrying?’”

  My mind raced. “What was in the cases?”

  Patsy slammed her hand on the table. “He’s runnin’ snow.”

  Katie Lee shook her head. “I asked him if he was moving hooch or blow. He acted like dealing drugs was the dumbest idea in the world. Told me, ‘that’s small time shit.’”

  “Do you believe him?” I asked.

  “Y’all, I know it sounds crazy,” Katie Lee started to say.

  “Jesus Christ,” Patsy blurted, “whatever he told you is bullshit. Your boyfriend is about as honest as a snake oil salesman and as useful as a white crayon.”

  “I’d know if he lied. He’s up to something, but not drugs.”

  “I’m with Patsy. You need to lose him.”

  Katie Lee ripped her paper napkin into pieces until it was confetti.

  “What else happened?” Patsy asked.

  Could there actually be more?

  “We fought for hours. I slapped him once and broke up with him at least twice. I grabbed one of the cases, but Nash pulled it out my hands.”

  “Katie Lee. That’s out of control,” I said.

  She shrugged me off. “He ‘fessed up. Told me, business documents were inside the cases.”

  “Any you believe that?” Patsy asked.

  “The cases were slim like art portfolios. What else could be inside? When we left the field we made a stop and dropped them off.”

  “Where?” I asked.

  “At Billy Ray’s. By the time we got there, everyone was gone.”

  NOTE TO SELF

  My guess is the same as Patsy’s. Nash is a train wreck.

  New Bern injected some South into my Northern veins. I’m in love with a pulled pork and red slaw sandwich.

  9

  Divinity Needed

  Sunday morning, I felt like an heirloom rose bush on a hot afternoon, tangled, wilted and thirsty. My eyelids were Crazy Glued shut when the hum of a lawn mower rattled my brain. I pried one eye open to glance at Katie Lee and was startled by Mrs. Brown’s yellow damask skirt and matching sweater. Her clothing signaled a morning alert. “Y’all need to get dressed for the nine o’clock service at St. Anthony.”

  “Mama, why are you wake-n’ us so early? It’s supposed to be a do-nothing weekend at home.”

  Mrs. Brown anchored her low-wedge espadrilles, and she slipped her arms into a crossed pretzel. “Proper ladies are bound to duty.” She wasn’t moving until we did.
r />   Katie Lee peeled her cover off, “All right, Mama. We’ll be down in fifteen.”

  Not entirely awake, I wondered if I’d heard Katie Lee’s reference to the weekend as “relaxing” correctly. In my short experience, the Friday night yet-to-be discovered hit-and-run, as well as Katie Lee disappearing, twice, were recipes for high drama-inducing anxiety, mere mishaps compared to the secret she swore Patsy and me to keep.

  Disturbing thoughts about Nash orbited my head. “Katie Lee,” I said, “I’m having a hard time believing Nash ‘happened’ to pick up those suitcases last night.”

  “Hush,” she told me. “We’ll talk later.”

  Besides being hung over all day Saturday, I felt guilty about more things than I could remember. New Bern was not a place to relax, and the sooner we met Hugh to drive back home, the better.

  “Do you think your dad noticed the scratches when he had the van washed?” I whispered.

  She zipped her new Lilly Pulitzer pineapple-motif pants. “He hasn’t said anything.”

  “Maybe we should call Hugh and get an early start.”

  “Rachael, relax. Nothing bad is going to happen.”

  “I feel like crap, and I’m completely embarrassed that I threw up in your washing machine. Your parents must think I’m a complete doof.”

  “Mom feels bad that you got sick on your first visit here and was worried about you all day Saturday.”

  “And your dad?”

  Katie Lee smiled. “He says that life is a road trip, and we make a lot of wrong turns. At the end of the trip, we’ll forget the mundane highway drives, but remember the wrong turns.”

  “He thinks I’m a wrong turn?”

  “Anyone that spends the night with his hunting hounds rates high. After church, we’ll go out for breakfast. You’ll feel better once you eat something.”

  As the weekend wound down, my paranoia heightened. Dr. Brown had to have noticed the dings in the paint, and I wondered if he’d be philosophical about a literal wrong turn. The chances of getting back to campus without someone leaking the story of the van incident had to be nil. My guilt bells chimed with a long list of newly acquired social habits, unladylike thoughts, unlawful behavior, and a growing set of four letter expletives I frequently placed in my sentences. A transmission from my Pus said, “Rachael O’Brien, get to church.”

  A MAITRE’D DRESSED IN a white sport coat pulled out a chair, placed a napkin on my lap, and slid me under the table. Outside the county club, we had a view of twenty-two-foot Capri sailboats racing against a headwind on the Trent River. Having attended the service, and now ordering a stack of pancakes, I felt like my old self –- before I’d arrived in New Bern. Sitting quietly in a pew helped me to realize that the right thing to do was have Katie Lee fess up to her parents, once we were back at school. The blow on both parties would be easier from a distance. Morning service, I thought, had shed a divine light on my turmoil and after a stack of flapjacks my stomach would be equally gratified. Until Katie Lee opened her mouth, and ruined my peace.

  Determined not to ride back in Hugh’s makeshift metal on wheels, Katie Lee used Perry Mason persistence listing why she needed a car on campus. Silently I cursed her for choosing the topic of automobiles.

  “Mama, Daddy,” she said, very businesslike. “I’d like to drive the blue Olds back to Greensboro this afternoon and keep it there.”

  “Katie Lee, we’ve been over this before. Your mother and I think it’s best if you wait until next year to have a car at college.”

  “Daddy, what if Rachael or I get sick or hurt? I’d hate to rely on public transportation to get to the hospital.”

  The Browns were generous and treated me like family. I wasn’t happy that she referenced my name in reason number one. I didn’t want them to think I was unappreciative and feared that siding with Katie Lee would give that impression. I ordered another orange juice. “Do the sailboats race every Sunday?”

  With bloodhound persistence, Katie Lee talked over me. “Mama, when I want to come home, you won’t have to fetch me.”

  Having humiliated myself in the laundry room, I didn’t need any more red X’s on my scorecard. I sat in my chair and acted like Switzerland until Katie Lee kicked me under the table. “Rachael can attest. The food in the cafeteria is horrible. Isn’t it?”

  “Well yah. They don’t serve crab cakes with pink sauce.”

  “We need to make grocery runs, and the Piggly Wiggly isn’t within walking distance.”

  Katie Lee possessed nerve like none I’ve encountered. Without a thought regarding the undiscovered damage on the cruiser van, she gathered momentum, pleading her case for the blue Olds. Drop it, I mentally transmitted, but she’d blocked my signal.

  “Y’all, I can pack myself up at the end of the year.”

  Mrs. Brown blew on her coffee. Lifting a spoonful of grits, Dr. Brown cracked a grin.

  “Katie Lee,” Mrs. Brown said, “That’s silly. It took three of us four hours to unload you.”

  In a last ditch effort, Katie Lee dug deep and teetered on the bullshit fence line. “Mama, I was considerin’ volunteering at the local children’s hospital.”

  I busied myself by arranging pieces of my pancake into an intriguing Mona Lisa mosaic. The table fell silent as I ate Mona’s nose. Dr Brown looked at Katie Lee then at Mrs. Brown. Holy shit, he was caving. I knew Katie Lee’s number one reason for wanting the car. His name began with “N” and ended in “ash.” Sisterly protectiveness welled inside of me, and I didn’t want either of us to have contact with him.

  Dr. Brown scraped the last of his grits off his bowl. “Where are you going to park the car on campus?”

  AN ORANGE SPAGHETTI-STRAP sundress accentuated Patsy’s tanned arms that she waved at us from the dock. She leaned against the Brown’s covered Bayliner ski boat and waited for Katie Lee and me to walk down the path. “Hey y’all. I wanted to say goodbye before ya head back.”

  The river slurped against the rocks, playing hide and seek with the shoreline. The three of us dangled our feet over the edge of the dock. Staring into the cyclical ripples she created with her toes, Patsy asked, “Have they noticed anything?”

  “Noticed what?” Katie Lee asked.

  “Stop messin’ with me. Have your parents seen the van?”

  Katie Lee stood up, and leaned her back on a piling that was as tall as she was. “Y’all there’s nothing to notice.”

  Y’all? I didn’t bring up the subject and was miffed at the insinuation. Unable to clear my head of what Katie Lee confided the night before, worrying about the van took lower priority. Katie Lee needed to ditch her boyfriend, and I needed to convince her.

  Baitfish darted under the shadows of my legs. I didn’t like being responsible for their short-term safety and pulled my feet out of the water. “What are you going to do about Nash?”

  Staring across the river, she didn’t answer.

  The tide was low, and Patsy stripped empty barnacle shells from the underside of a dock plank. “I’m telling you this as a friend. The kind who looks out for ya. Word is Ray’s are purchasing old man Wright’s place. Billy just pulled a permit to break ground on a huge home. We’re coming out of a summer drought, and the economy is moving into a recession, but it’s raining cash at the Rays. If Nash is dealing with the Ray’s, sooner or later, someone’s gonna end up with a turd in their punchbowl.”

  “Y’all, are making a fuss over nothing. Nash just moved some business papers around is all.”

  “Come on, Katie Lee,” Patsy said.

  I tipped my head back and let sunshine warm my neck. “Nash isn’t being honest with you.”

  Katie Lee turned on her heel. “Y’all can just fuck off.”

  NOTE TO SELF

  Persistence is critical to a successful wear-em-down. Katie Lee secured the keys to the blue Olds.

  I like Katie Lee, Patsy, and New Bern with a “What’s next?” kind of infatuation.

  Five weeks in and my roommate and I aren’t
speaking –- going to be difficult to convince her to fess up to her PUs about the van.

  OCTOBER 1986

  10

  Don’t Mess With Mama

  If I were asked to dress as my favorite season, I’d roll in red candy apple coating then jump into a pile of autumn leaves. Humidity indexes had dropped, the days grew shorter, and the murmur of cicadas now hummed later in the afternoon. Fall had arrived.

  Katie Lee had secured the blue Oldsmobile and a gas card from her parents. Riding back from The Bern, our sentences were short and without substance. I knew she held a grudge, and I was doing my best to ignore the knots it put in my stomach. If she was looking for an apology, she’d have a long wait. When I’d told her to lose Nash, I’d meant it. The little I knew about the black cases was more than enough to make me nervous. Being arrested as a co-conspirator wasn’t high on my to-do list. I didn’t want to be linked, in any way, to her boyfriend.

  I’d finished stringing paper bats and Jack O’Lanterns above our dorm beds. I began decorating the flat surfaces with speckled gourds and cheese-wheel pumpkins. Leaving our door open, Katie Lee had strayed down the hall to nuke a bag of popcorn. Nibbling candy corn can make you thirsty, and I had a craving for fresh apple cider. Improvising, I crumbled a cinnamon stick in the coffee machine filter and brewed apple juice that I’d smuggled from the cafeteria self-serve station. It needed something more, so I added a shot of mandarin-flavored wine cooler I borrowed from Macy. Sipping the warm apple bite, I concentrated on Chapter Eight in my Psych book. I’d just read, “The winner of a mind game is the person that returns to the adult-ego stage first,” when I heard shouting from across the hall.

  Seated at my desk, I had a panoramic view of two other open doors. Francine’s shadow loomed in Macy’s room. Normally the two stayed away from each other, separated by a block wall.