The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop Read online

  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

  BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA

  February 10, 2010

  SOMEONE ONCE SAID, “It ain’t over till the fat lady sings,” and in Evelyn Couch’s case, this was certainly true. She’d been well over forty, overweight, and depressed when her life had suddenly taken an unexpected turn. So unexpected, in fact, that not one person, particularly Evelyn, could have guessed how it would end.

  Evelyn had been an accidental late-in-life baby, the only offspring of a cold mother and somewhat indifferent father. Their obvious lack of parental enthusiasm had made Evelyn feel as though she was always in the way.

  From an early age she was shy and insecure. In high school, if there had been a category to vote for “Least Likely to Succeed,” Evelyn would have won. She was so uncomfortable at being noticed that through four years of high school she had tiptoed t
hrough the halls with her head down; so afraid of making a mistake that when a teacher called on her, she would turn beet red and was often unable to speak.

  And as the years went by, sadly nothing changed. When she and her husband had attended her fifteenth high school reunion, only a few of the girls remembered her, but not one of the boys did. Not surprising. She had never been the kind of girl boys asked out on a date. Having endured such a lack of male interest, Evelyn felt grateful to have a husband at all, even if he had been a hand-me-down. His first wife, a woman named Olive, had run away with her interior decorator.

  Ed Couch, several years her senior, was working for her father at the local Firestone tire store. Her father had invited him home for dinner, and that was that.

  Not that Ed wasn’t perfectly nice, he was. And she loved him. However, the longer she was married to him, the more she understood the first wife. The truth was, Ed was not a romantic person. On their last wedding anniversary, he had given her a set of new bread knives and a toenail clipper. It was clear that something was missing in their relationship. Maybe if they had not had two children right away, it might have helped. Ed had not wanted children. He already had one son named Norris with his first wife, and he didn’t like him very much.

  After both of their children left home, Evelyn began to do everything she knew how to help their marriage. She had even enrolled in a “Put a Spark Back into Your Marriage” seminar, but as she found out later, you can’t do that alone. The other party has to be willing. And after years of trying, she finally had to face facts. It wasn’t that Ed didn’t love her, he did. But he would rather watch football and eat. And soon, all they did together was eat. Sometimes she cooked, sometimes they went out to the cafeteria. It was some comfort.

  But as the years went by, and she gained more and more weight, she found herself getting more and more depressed. She began to wonder what the point was of dragging herself through another dull, hopeless day just to face another one just like it.

  Bored at home, she had gone with Ed to his weekly visit with his mother at the nursing home. She walked down to the visitors’ lounge to wait for him, and she just happened to sit down next to an eighty-six-year-old lady from Whistle Stop, Alabama, named Ninny Threadgoode. As Evelyn soon found out, Ninny just loved to talk. She told Evelyn the most wonderful stories about the two women who used to run the Whistle Stop Cafe and their little boy, Buddy.

  Every week after that, when Ed was with his mother, Evelyn would sit and visit with Ninny, and before Evelyn knew it, she had made a friend. For some unknown reason, she wasn’t shy with Ninny. And for the first time in Evelyn’s life, someone saw things in her she couldn’t see herself. Ninny didn’t think she was too heavy at all, she thought she looked healthy. Ninny also thought she was pretty, and had a great smile and personality.

  As the weeks went by and Evelyn confided in her friend about the depression she was going through and how hopeless she felt, Ninny encouraged her, and told her that she was far too young to give up on life. She advised Evelyn to start getting out in the world and meeting new people. Maybe get a job selling Mary Kay cosmetics.

  With a little more confidence in herself and thanks to Ninny’s encouragement, Evelyn took a chance and signed up for a Mary Kay starter kit. Six months later, against all odds, Evelyn Couch became one of Mary Kay’s top saleswomen, and within the year was driving a brand-new pink Cadillac. Nobody was more surprised at her success than Evelyn. When she attended a Mary Kay convention in Dallas, Mary Kay herself pulled her aside and told her why she was doing so well. “Honey, people like you. You’re not some high-powered intimidating salesperson, you’re one of them. More like a sister, or a friend. They trust you, and they trust the product.” Pretty soon after that, Ed started turning off the television set and paying more attention to her. As she was finding out, nothing succeeds like success!

  * * *

  —

  WITH THE MONEY she’d made selling Mary Kay products, Evelyn Couch purchased a big new house over the mountain, a vacation home at the beach, and a brand-new RV that she and Ed drove to Mary Kay seminars all over the country. Mrs. Evelyn Couch, age 51, from Birmingham, Alabama, had become one of the company’s most inspiring leaders. She and Ed traveled for years, and really had a lot of fun. Until they found out that Ed had diabetes. He would have to be put on dialysis, and could no longer travel. So she gave up her position with Mary Kay and stayed home with him. She missed the work and the traveling, but unbeknownst to her, another unexpected turn was just around the corner.

  Over the years, Evelyn had been responsible for the sales of so many pink Cadillacs for her Mary Kay team that the owner of the big Cadillac dealership in Birmingham called and offered her a job.

  Evelyn had worked on the showroom floor selling cars for only six months when the dealership’s sales almost doubled. Her secret was having worked for Mary Kay for so many years. She knew how to sell to women. At the time, what most car salesmen didn’t understand was that while it may have been the men who paid for the cars, it was usually the women who picked them out. They chose the model, the make, and the color. And thanks to the women’s movement, more women were entering the workforce, and more women were buying their own cars. A year later, Evelyn had been made branch manager, and eventually she wound up buying the entire dealership.

  “Couch Cadillac” had a nice ring to it, she thought.

  In fact, she did her own television commercials. “Hi, this is Evelyn Couch, of Couch Cadillac, inviting you to come on in to one of my dealerships. Tell them Evelyn sent you, and I’ll give you the deal of a lifetime on a brand-new Cadillac.” Everyone said the ads were very effective. They must have been, because at her next high school class reunion, everybody there claimed to remember her, especially the men.

  All this because twenty-five years earlier, she’d happened to sit down next to a kind lady named Ninny Threadgoode. Evelyn often wondered why she’d just happened to sit by her that day. Had it been fate? A chance meeting? A happy accident? Evelyn chose to believe it was fate. And it made her happy to think so.

  And even now, so many years after her friend Ninny Threadgoode had passed away, Evelyn still kept a picture of her on her desk, and sometimes she even talked to it. And today was one of those days. After she hung up the phone, she looked at the photo of the sweet-looking old lady wearing a polka-dotted dress and said, “Ninny, you won’t believe this, but some fool just called and offered me over a million dollars to buy Couch Cadillac, and I just might take it.”

  BRIARWOOD MANOR

  2013

  WHEN HIS WIFE, Peggy, had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, Bud decided to sell his veterinary practice so he could look after her. He took care of her at home for as long as he could until the doctor said that she needed to be placed in memory care with twenty-four-hour professional supervision. But as Bud and Ruthie quickly discovered, trying to find a good facility on such short notice was almost impossible.

  But luckily for them, Martha Lee had very close ties with Briarwood Manor, a top-rated “continuing care” senior community right there in Atlanta with an excellent memory care unit onsite, and close to Ruthie. There was a three-year waiting list to get into Briarwood Manor, but it took Martha Lee only one phone call to get them admitted that day.

  Getting them into Briarwood so quickly had not been an act of kindness on Martha Lee’s part. She didn’t want the Threadgoodes moving in next door with their daughter. Caldwell Circle was for immediate family only. Also, the thought that the mother might bring her ceramic frog collection terrified her.

  After Bud and Peggy moved from Maryland to Briarwood Manor, Bud spent every day with her in the memory care unit, staying by her bedside, until she fell asleep at night. Even at the end, when she didn’t know who he was anymore, he still came. She was still his Peggy and he could still hold her hand.

  For those four years, Bud d
idn’t give much thought to the future. After Peggy died, he found he was having a hard time adjusting to life without her. From the age of eighteen, he had been one-half of a couple, Bud and Peggy or Peggy and Bud. They had rarely been apart. She ran his office at the clinic, so they’d been together almost twenty-four hours a day. They had been so close it was almost as if they were the same person.

  * * *

  —

  WHEN HER MOTHER died, Ruthie begged her daddy to leave Briarwood Manor and move in with her. However, he didn’t think it was a very good idea.

  “But, Daddy, I really want you here,” she said.

  “I know, honey, but I don’t want to put anybody out or cause trouble. Martha Lee was so kind to get your mother and me in here. And if I just picked up and left, it might seem ungrateful. I’m fine right where I am.”

  But he really wasn’t fine. He was a country boy at heart, and used to the outdoors and open spaces. Now he mostly stayed inside his room, trying to figure out what to do with himself.

  * * *

  —

  A FEW WEEKS later, Bud fell asleep in front of the television set again, and woke up just in time to get ready for bed. He went into the bedroom and put on his blue striped pajamas and then walked to the bathroom to brush his teeth. He had just put his toothbrush back in the glass, when he happened to look in the mirror and was startled to see some strange old man looking back at him. Who the hell was that guy? Surely not him. Bud looked again and made a face. Oh yes, it was him, all right. Good Lord, when did all that happen?

  Peggy had looked at herself in the mirror every day, mostly complaining about something she saw. But like most men, he had never paid much attention to what he looked like…until now. What a rude awakening.