Chapter 28 – That Bowers Woman

Tuesday, July 8, 1969 – 2:30pm.

As Mark enters the cafe's spacious kitchen close on Lacy's heels, a girl enters via the back door, a girl with shaggy red hair, skimpy black shorts and an even-skimpier white bikini top, and lime-green polish on her bare toes.

He almost doesn't recognize her.

"Quit droolin'," Lacy says, giving him a mock glare. "An' remember, it wasn't Josie who just spent the last half-hour cozied up to you in a booth with her naked feet in your lap."

"No ma'am, it sure wasn't," Mark replies, more than a little amused by the jealousy in her tone.

Then he sees who Evvie Wilson is facing off with, a woman he has met on several occasions and liked less each time.

Adelaide Bowers.

AKA 'That Bowers Woman.'

AKA 'Addled Addy.'

He'd bristled at Uncle Lou's casual use of that alliterative moniker to describe her, until the day she marched into the newspaper office and demanded they print a story about her long-dead husband having been abducted by aliens.

A week later she was back, this time claiming her neighbor's cats were hatching a plot to take over the world.

Addled, hell. The woman is five beers short of a six-pack.

Looking at her now, with her slept-in clothes and ratty gray hair, Mark remembers the song he'd heard while driving to work that morning.

"Flowers on the Wall," he mutters, and next to him Lacy tries to stifle her giggle, but it's too late.

Adelaide has heard them, and turns her wrath on Lacy.

"You lack-witted little tramp! It's all your goddamn fault my boy has a bump on his head the size of Mt. Rushmore, an' it ain't no wonder he ended shit with you."

"He didn't end it, Adelaide. I did."

"Why would you do a fool thing like that?"

"'Cause I'd never been a lack-wit or a tramp before, not all at once anyways, but bein' with Dewey made me feel like both." She shrugs. "Then he called my brother a pussy, an' I told him he couldn't play with mine no more."

I gotta remember that line, Mark thinks, even as Adelaide crosses her arms over her chest and sneers at Lacy.

"That ain't the way he tells it."

"Course it ain't," Lacy retorts, her temper inching up a notch. "Your son'd rather talk trash than talk sense."

"Sorta like his mama," a new voice chimes in, and from the resemblance Mark decides the girl now standing next to Evelyn must be Lacy's sister Peggy.

"That's Peg," Lacy says, confirming his guess as she takes his hand in hers. "C'mon, I'll introduce you."

As they pass Adelaide the woman hooks her talon-like fingers around Lacy's arm to stop her.

"Well, girlie, it sure didn't take you long to find some other gent to spread them legs for."

Dead silence greets this, and the look that darkens Lacy's green eyes in that moment would, if it was ever aimed at him, send Mark in search of a hole to hide in.

Then she smiles, and something in that smile makes Adelaide let go of her arm and take an involuntary step back.

"Addy Bowers, I should slap you silly for sayin' that, an' callin' me a lack-wit besides, but Ma always taught us to be kind to animals and old people."

"I ain't that old," Adelaide says indignantly, and now it is Josie who offers her an icy smile.

"Guess that leaves only one other option for you, huh, Adelaide?"

She positions herself on Lacy's other side and grins at Mark.

"Out slummin', Tammerly? Or is my best friend seducin' you with cherry cobbler and her super-friendly waitressing skills?"

"You have no idea," Mark says, matching her grin with one of his own.

"He's doin' a story on the cafe," Lacy adds as she gives his hand an affectionate squeeze.

She looks around for Ma and Peg, still wanting to introduce her sister to Mark, but they've deserted the fray in favor of cooking for and serving a mid-afternoon rush of new customers. And Adelaide is annoyed at suddenly finding herself ignored.

"Lacy Ann Wilson, I ain't done with you! You're lucky Dewey didn't have your butt thrown in jail. And you," - she pokes a finger into Mark's chest - "how can you write about this goddamn dive instead of followin' up on the stories I brung you?"

"Because, Adelaide, the shit you brung us belongs in the Enquirer, not in the Gazette."

Next to him, Lacy starts whistling the Statler Brothers tune he'd mentioned earlier.

"Lacy, be nice," Evelyn calls out from over by the griddle, trying to hide a smile. And now, with Adelaide so close that Mark can smell the gin on her breath, he sees what she'd almost hidden under a heavy layer of mascara.

"Nice shiner, Adelaide. Who gave it to you?"

Adelaide looks ready to cry. "It ain't what you think! Dewey's the only man in my life now, an' sometimes he-"

She cuts herself off, too late, as Evelyn joins them.

"Sometimes what, Addy?" she asks gently, all her animosity gone. "What does he do?"

Adelaide looks down at her pink Converse All-Stars, her voice barely a whisper. "He don't wake up so peaceful, some days." She lifts her gaze to Lacy. "You know, Lacy. You know how my boy gets in the mornings."

Lacy shrugs. "Never stayed the whole night, so actually I don't know. But yeah, the one time I tried to wake him, he started cussin' me in his sleep an' swingin' his arms, an' then his hand smacked me right on my left tit."

She pauses for effect, and to Mark's surprise it is Adelaide herself who takes the bait.

"So what happened then? Did he wake up?"

"Not hardly, but both my tits got all excited, hopin' he'd do it again."

"Did he?" Mark asks, unable to help himself, and Lacy rewards him with a small smile.

"I wasn't that lucky, so after a while of amusing myself I got dressed and left."

Mark chuckles to himself, wondering if either Evelyn or Addy suspect what Lacy meant by 'amusing' herself.

He doesn't think so, but from the smoky look in Josie's eyes, she knows.

Their gazes lock, then Josie blushes and looks down at her neon toenails.

Well, hell. What's up with her?

Josie looks up right then, those green eyes – so much like Lacy's – narrowed and glittering.

Then she sticks her tongue out at him.