Candles Burning by Tabitha King & Michael McDowell Ph.D

Author:Tabitha King & Michael McDowell Ph.D. [King, Tabitha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2007-05-01T00:00:00+00:00

Thirty-two

NO more than a couple of hours after the Edsel spat gravel at her, Mamadee drove her Cadillac the three and a half blocks to downtown Tallassee. She parked in front of Mrs. Weaver’s dress shop. There, she went inside and announced that she was going to buy every umbrella on the premises. When Mrs. Weaver reacted with understandable surprise, Mamadee only replied imperiously that she had her reasons for the purchase. Mrs. Weaver then apologized that she had only five umbrellas for sale, but added that she would be happy to relinquish her own umbrella at an appropriate discount.

“Why in the hell would I want your old umbrella?” Mamadee replied.

Mrs. Weaver sniffed discreetly, sure that Deirdre Carroll had been drinking and before the noon hour, but she was disappointed. Only momentarily however, for in a quarter of an hour, she had convinced herself that she had indeed smelled bourbon on Deirdre Carroll’s breath.

Mamadee deposited the five umbrellas in the trunk of her Cadillac and then went to Chapman’s Department Store, where she bought every umbrella for sale in the ladies’ department, every umbrella for sale in the men’s department, and the one undersized frilled parasol that was for sale in the children’s department. She gave her car keys to a salesman and told him to just put all her purchases—the umbrellas—in the trunk of her Cadillac, and that she would be back in a while to retrieve the keys. While the salesman was stowing the umbrellas in the trunk of the Cadillac, Mrs. Weaver came to the door of her shop and shared her belief with him that Deirdre Carroll had been drinking before noon. The salesman observed that he wouldn’t be the least surprised.

Half an hour later, Mamadee returned to the department store with a little colored boy in tow. The child was burdened with five brown paper parcels, each with one or more umbrella handles sticking out of it. Mamadee had gone to every store and every shop and demanded to purchase every umbrella in current inventory. At the Ben Franklin Five and Dime, she had procured seven, two at the Harvester’s Seed and Feed, three at Bartlett’s Hardware, two at Durlie’s Dollar Store, and one at the Piggly Wiggly—the tail end of a Morton Salt promotion. She had found none for sale at Dooling’s Barber Shop, the Tastee Freez, the Alabama Power Company, Ranston Insurance, Smart’s Jewelry, or at Quantrill’s Lighting, Plumbing and Gas Fixture Supply Company, but she certainly had inquired.

Retrieving her car keys, Mamadee led the little colored boy with the fifteen umbrellas to the Cadillac. When he had shut the trunk, Mamadee carefully counted out not the promised twenty-five cents, but thirty-three dollars and thirty-two cents. Handing it over, she told the boy to come round to the house later so that she could make up the penny shortfall.

When the little colored boy had wandered off in the stupor of his unanticipated wealth, Mamadee entered Boyer’s Drugstore, the only retail establishment in downtown Tallassee she had not yet visited.

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