Dixie Diva Blues by Virginia Brown

Author:Virginia Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781611940725
Publisher: Bell Bridge Books

CHAPTER 13

Sometimes it’s the little things that trip me up. I can be rolling along quite blissful in my ignorance of impending doom, and the tiniest hint will throw me into a panic. It’s probably helpful that by the time doom strikes I’m already exhausted from a panic attack, so that I just accept my fate without too much struggle.

When I got home from Bitty’s house, my parents were outside in the cat hotel that used to be a barn where we kept farm machinery like mowers, tractors, and other work implements. Now it’s a cattery complete with warm little nooks tucked under eaves, in corners, and wherever there’s a likely spot for a cat to hide. While I’m sure the cats believe two meals a day just miraculously appear in metal food pans, my parents spend a nice little chunk of money to provide them with good nutrition.

Little Brown Dog, mostly called Brownie, regards the cats as nuisances and only on occasion worthy of a game of chase. He prefers chasing squirrels, but they rarely come down from high tree branches when he’s outside, although they have been known to pelt him with acorns from time to time. It drives him crazy. As do the birds that flock to the feeders my parents keep filled with expensive millet, corn, black oil sunflower seeds, and thistle. Hummingbird feeders hang from cherry trees devoid of fruit, but since they’re usually made of red plastic or glass, one can imagine an entire orchard of ripe, red cherries. We rarely beat the birds to the real thing, although this past year I think Mama got enough cherries to make a cobbler.

At any rate, I went out to the barn to inform my parents of my great achievement in getting a part-time job selling ladies underwear. Daddy was up on a ladder climbing to the loft, and he looked a bit shaky.

“Hey,” I called up to him, “need some help?”

“That’d be good,” came his reply, sounding a bit stressed.

There are several ladders leading to what used to be a hayloft. These are built-ins, made of sturdy pine wood slats. I asked Mama, who was standing at the foot of Daddy’s ladder looking up at him, what was going on.

“There’s a kitten up there that’s afraid to come down. Your father’s rescuing it.”

That sounded about par for the course. My parents are always rescuing animals in need these days. When we were all younger, they focused their energies on rescuing kids or whoever was down on their luck. There was a time when we had almost a revolving door of needy relatives sleeping on pallets or cots somewhere in the house.

“Don’t look,” I said as I tucked my skirt up and grabbed hold of a ladder rung. “It would horrify you.”

My mother’s known to be afraid of heights. I was more afraid of showing my underwear. I can be modest at all the wrong times.

I climbed up the ladder until I reached the hayloft, and found my father kneeling on the board floor looking under blankets and piles of straw.

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