The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat

Chapter 5





I did my best not to dwell on my sunrise conversation with Mama, but it was on my mind all through morning service and during the

drive to the All-You-Can-Eat. When we got to the restaurant, I tried not to be obvious about it as I studied Big Earl’s house,

searching for signs of unusual activity. But everything was quiet. There were no cars in the driveway except Big Earl’s Buick. No

somber-faced men stood smoking on the front porch. No one was visible through the parted living room drapes.

Inside the restaurant, I scanned the room for Big Earl. It was his habit to spend Sundays zigzagging his way between the tables,

chatting with the customers. I didn’t see him, so I turned toward the buffet to look for Little Earl or Erma Mae. I caught sight

of Erma Mae sliding off of her stool and walking into the kitchen. I decided to take her presence and the calm at the house across

the street as good signs about Big Earl’s well-being. Feeling optimistic and a little annoyed with Mama for getting me all riled

up with her ghostly insider information, I followed James to our table.

Richmond was waving goodbye to Carmel Handy and Clarice sat staring at the cutlery with a peculiar look on her face when we joined

them. James took a seat next to Richmond and the two of them jumped right into a conversation. I didn’t have to listen in to know

what they were saying. They had been discussing the same two topics since 1972. They either talked about football or boxing.

Specifically, they talked about famous athletes of the past and how they might fare against famous athletes of the present. When

Lester arrived, the conversation would get heated. Each week he loudly declared that Joe Louis, the Brown Bomber, could have taken

on Ali and Tyson together, and single-handedly whupped an entire football team. If Richmond or James disagreed with him, Lester

would grow frustrated and begin to bang his walking stick against the nearest table leg, insisting that his age and wisdom made

him the better judge.

Clarice perched on the edge of her chair, showing off her best charm school posture and wearing an expression that was supposed to

be a smile. Clarice has a long, handsome face with lovely, round eyes and a wide, nicely shaped mouth. But that day her lower jaw

was pushed forward, her eyes were squinted, and her lips were pressed together like she was trying hard to keep something in. I

hadn’t seen that face in a while, but I knew it well. And I had a good idea what its return meant. I had to fight to keep myself

from going down to the other end of the table and slapping the shit out of Richmond. But it was none of my business. And I knew

from experience that my interference would not be appreciated.

Before she married Richmond, I went to Clarice and told her some things that I thought she should know about her fiancé. No

rumors, no guesses. I sat with my oldest friend on the couch in her parents’ living room and described seeing Richmond late the

night before kissing a woman who lived around the block from me and seeing his car still parked in front of her house that

morning. It hurt me to say it, loving Clarice like I do. But Clarice used to claim that, when it came to matters of men, she

wanted her friends to give her the cold and honest truth, even if it was painful. I was young then, just twenty-one, and I didn’t

understand yet that nearly all of the women who make that claim are lying.

Clarice being Clarice, she took my news about Richmond with such sweet grace and calm that I didn’t realize I’d been relieved of

my matron of honor duties and thrown out of her house until I was standing on her front porch with the door bumping against my

ass. But the next day she was at my house holding an armful of bride magazines, acting like our conversation had never happened. I

was her matron of honor after all, and I never said another word to her about any of Richmond’s shenanigans from then on.

After we got through our kisses and hellos, I asked Clarice, “Seen Big Earl today?”

She said, “No, why do you ask?”

“No reason. He was just on my mind,” I said, which was the truth, if not the whole truth.

Clarice said, “I’m sure he’ll be in pretty soon. That’s a man who truly does not understand the idea of retirement. Besides, I

get the feeling he prefers being here on Sundays since she doesn’t work on the Sabbath.”

Clarice nodded toward the only vacant table in the room. It sat in a back corner and was covered with a shiny gold tablecloth that

was decorated with silver stars and moons and symbols of the zodiac. At the center of the table sat a stack of tarot cards and a

crystal ball the size of a large cantaloupe. A forty-year-old framed eight-by-ten photograph showing Minnie McIntyre decked out in

sequins and feathers acting as a magician’s assistant to her first husband, Charlemagne the Magnificent, was propped up behind

the tarot cards and crystal ball. From that table in the back of the All-You-Can-Eat, Minnie operated her fortune-telling

business. It was her claim that, since his death, Charlemagne had reversed their roles and was now working as her assistant and

guide to the spirit world.

In spite of my own encounter with a traveler from the afterlife just that morning, I didn’t believe for a second that Minnie had

any such connections. It wasn’t just that her predictions were famous for being way off; I knew just how inaccurate the dead

could be from years of hearing Mama complain about how her ghosts often fed her a line of crap. The thing with Minnie was that her

predictions almost always had a nasty edge to them that made it seem like she was more interested in delivering insults disguised

as prophecies and manipulating her naïve customers than she was in communing with the other side.

Inaccurate and ornery as she was, Minnie had been in business for years and still had a steady stream of customers, many of whom

were the sort of people you’d think would know better. Clarice doesn’t like to admit it, but she was once one of those

customers.

In a fit of bridal jitters, Clarice went to Minnie for a tarot reading the week before she married Richmond. Big Earl’s first

wife, Thelma, was still alive then, and Minnie hadn’t yet sunk her teeth into Big Earl. So Clarice dragged Barbara Jean and me to

the run-down house out near the highway bypass where Minnie used to tell fortunes. She swore us both to secrecy, since seeing a

fortune-teller was just a hair’s breadth away from consorting with Satan to the folks at Clarice’s church. Inside that nasty

shack, we inhaled jasmine incense and listened while Minnie told Clarice that her marriage to Richmond would be joyful, but,

having drawn an upright Hermit and a reverse Three of Cups, she would turn out to be barren and would look fat in her wedding

gown. Clarice worried herself sick throughout her first pregnancy. And for years she couldn’t bring herself to look at what

turned out to be lovely wedding photos. Four healthy children and three decades later, Clarice still wasn’t feeling inclined to

forgive Minnie.

Clarice pointed her index finger at Minnie’s table and said, “Stepmother or not, Little Earl shouldn’t have that old fake in

this place. There have got to be laws against that kind of thing. It’s fraud, pure and simple.” She took a swig of iced tea and

twisted her mouth. “Too sweet,” she said.

I prepared myself for one of Clarice’s lectures on the moral failings of Minnie McIntyre. When Clarice was in the kind of mood

she was in that day, she enjoyed identifying flaws, moral and otherwise, in everyone except the idiot in the blue shirt at the

other end of the table. My friend had a multitude of gifts. She played the piano like an angel. She could cook, sew, sing, and

speak French. And she was as kind and generous a friend as anyone could hope for. What she didn’t have much of a knack for was

placing blame where it should truly lie.

Clarice’s church didn’t help her disposition much. Calvary Baptist wasn’t full-blown Pentecostal, but it still managed to be

the Bible-thumpingest and angriest church in town. So Sundays were bad for Clarice even without Richmond misbehaving or Minnie’s

name coming up in the conversation. Calvary’s pastor, Reverend Peterson, yelled at his congregation every week that God was mad

at them for a long list of wrongs they had committed and that He was even madder about whatever they were thinking of doing. If

you weren’t in a foul temper by the time you left a Calvary Baptist service, it meant you weren’t listening.

At my church, Holy Family Baptist, the only hard-and-fast rule was that everyone should be kind to everybody. That view was way

too casual for the Calvary congregation, and it drove them straight up the wall that we didn’t take a harder line on sin and

sinners. The Calvary crowd were equally disgusted with Barbara Jean’s church, First Baptist, where the members proved their

devotion to God by doing charity work and by dressing up like they were on a fashion runway every Sunday. The old joke was that

Holy Family preached the good news gospel, Calvary Baptist preached the bad news gospel, and First Baptist preached the new

clothes gospel.

Clarice didn’t begin a recitation from her catalog of the ways Minnie’s behavior offended her, though. A glance through the

window provided her with something new to complain about. Pointing outside, she said, “There’s Barbara Jean and Lester. You

know, she really should call when she’s going to be this late. It’s not right to worry everybody like this.”

Clarice was mostly letting off steam, but she had a point. The summer heat tended to aggravate Lester’s various health problems.

And there was quite a list of problems. Heart, lungs, liver, kidneys. If it was still in Lester’s body, it was going bad. They

often appeared for supper an hour late after having to pull their car over for Barbara Jean to kick-start one of Lester’s vital

organs with a remedy from the portable clinic she kept in her pocketbook.

So, when I turned to watch Barbara Jean and Lester Maxberry making their way toward the restaurant, I was surprised to see Lester

moving much more energetically than usual. Dressed in a white suit and matching white fedora, Lester’s usually round back was

straight, and he hardly leaned on his ivory walking stick at all. He lifted his knees high in that almost military way he did when

he was feeling spry. It was Barbara Jean who slowly shuffled along, frowning with each step.

Barbara Jean wore a snug-fitting bright yellow dress and a yellow hat with a brim at least three feet wide. Her calves were

encased in white go-go boots that had three-inch heels. Even from half a block away I could see that the boots were paining her.

With every step she took, the corners of Barbara Jean’s mouth turned down a little more, and she occasionally stopped walking

altogether to take a deep breath before soldiering on.

Clarice said, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, would you look at that.” She pointed toward our approaching friend. “No wonder they’re

so late. She’s wearing that yellow dress again. That thing is so tight she can barely breathe, much less take a full step. And

would you look at the shoes she’s trying to walk in. Those heels are six inches, if they’re an inch. I tell you, Odette, Barbara

Jean has got to accept the fact that she is a middle-aged woman and she can’t wear the things she wore when she was twenty-two.

It’s unseemly. We really should have a talk with her about that. She needs an intervention real bad.” She sat back in her chair

and crossed her arms over her chest.

Clarice would never say a word to Barbara Jean about the way she dressed, and we both knew it. Just like she and Barbara Jean

wouldn’t tell me to my face that I was fat, and Barbara Jean and I wouldn’t remind Clarice that her husband was a dog. These

were the tender considerations that came with being a member of the Supremes. We overlooked each other’s flaws and treated each

other well, even when we didn’t deserve it.

When Clarice got to carrying on the way she was, it always came back to one thing: Richmond. When he was up to no good, Clarice

grew fangs that filled her mouth with bitterness. Mostly she swallowed the poison, but sometimes it came seeping out.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” Clarice said, “I wouldn’t be caught dead in that dress.” Clarice was nowhere near as big as me,

but she was solidly built, no matter how she starved herself. If either of us was ever foolish enough to try and force ourselves

into Barbara Jean’s sexy little dress, death would most likely be the outcome.

The only thing I didn’t like about Barbara Jean’s and Lester’s outfits was that they made my stomach growl. I was ravenous and,

with her in that yellow dress and him in his cream-colored suit, they got me thinking about a slice of lemon meringue pie.

Truth was, Barbara Jean looked lovely in whatever she wore. She’d been the prettiest girl in our high school and she became the

most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. In middle age, it’s still difficult to look away from her. Every single feature of her face

is striking and exotic. Looking at Barbara Jean makes you think that maybe God is a wonderful, ancient artist who decided one day

to piece together all his loveliest creations and craft something that put his other works to shame. Unfortunately, God neglected

to prepare men for his good work. Men had behaved very badly because of my friend’s beauty, and, the world being unfair, Barbara

Jean had often paid the price.

Barbara Jean and Lester came into the All-You-Can-Eat and brought along a gust of hot air that quickly overwhelmed the feeble air

conditioner that hummed and sputtered above the doorway. People sitting near the door looked at Lester like they wanted to take a

good whack at him with the walking stick he was using to hold the door open for his wife, who was several steps behind him on

account of her impractical choices in wardrobe and footwear.

Barbara Jean came limping to the table issuing apologies. “I am so sorry we’re late. Morning service went long today,” she said

as she sat down, unzipped her boots under the table, and sighed with relief.

Clarice interrupted her, saying, “Let’s eat.” Then she stood from her chair and marched toward the steam tables.

The men followed Clarice to the food while I waited for Barbara Jean to squeeze herself back into her boots. When she was done, we

walked to the buffet line. Along the way, Barbara Jean leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Richmond back at it again?”

“That’s my guess,” I said.

We took plates from the carousel at the near end of the four steam tables—one for main courses, two for side dishes, and the

fourth for desserts. Then each of us did what we did every week. Skinny James piled his plate with some of everything. Richmond

hid food that was off-limits to him because of his diabetes beneath layers of green beans and roasted carrots. Lester ate the old

folks’ selections, easy-to-chew dishes enhanced with added fiber. Clarice hadn’t allowed herself a piece of anything fried since

she was twenty-eight, and that day was no exception. She ate minuscule portions of low-fat items. Out of consideration for

Clarice, Barbara Jean, who could eat anything and never gain a pound, ate only low-fat foods so it wouldn’t seem like she was

rubbing the difference in their metabolisms in Clarice’s face. I, as always, divided my plate equally between main courses and

desserts. Vegetables take up too much space on a small plate.

When we got to the end of the line, the men headed back to our table. The three of us women stopped to say hello to Little Earl

and Erma Mae, who had come in from the kitchen and were sitting side by side on stools at the far end of the last steam table.

I said, “Hey, Little Earl. Hey, Erma Mae.”

They answered together, “Hey, Supremes.”

I inquired about their health, their children, and Erma Mae’s elderly mother. I asked Little Earl for the latest on his sister

Lydia and her husband, who ran a diner in Chicago that was almost identical to the All-You-Can-Eat. After being assured that all

of those people were fine, I got around to the question I really wanted an answer to.

I asked, “How’s your daddy doing, Little Earl?” trying to sound casual about it.

“Oh, he’s great. Eighty-eight next month and gonna outlive us all, I ’spect. He should be comin’ by sometime soon. Here lately

he’ll sometimes sleep in, but he won’t miss an entire day’s work, that’s for certain.”

“ ’Specially not on a Sunday,” Erma Mae added, nodding her head toward Minnie’s empty fortune-telling table. She said that for

Clarice’s benefit since the two of them were kindred spirits on the subject of Minnie.

At that moment the front door opened with a loud scrape. Little Earl looked toward the door with an expression of boyish

expectation, like he really believed that just speaking of his father would conjure him up. But Big Earl didn’t step into the

restaurant. Instead, Minnie McIntyre stood in the threshold, holding the door open and letting a hot, moist draft into the room

that made the nearby patrons groan in discomfort and give her the evil eye.

Minnie’s costume of the day was a deep purple robe decorated with the same astrological signs that adorned her corner table. She

wore gold Arabian-style slippers with curled-up toes, a necklace made of twelve large chunks of colored glass, each representing a

birthstone, and a white turban with a silver bell jutting out from its top. The bell, she claimed, was for Charlemagne the

Magnificent to ring whenever he had a message for her. He was very consistent. Charlemagne rang every time Minnie lowered her head

to count a client’s money.

Minnie walked into the restaurant, taking long, slow strides and holding her arms outstretched, palms toward the ceiling.

Little Earl left his stool and met her at the cash register. He sighed and said, “Miss Minnie, please, we talked about this. I

just can’t have you doing your readings on Sundays. The Pentecostals’ll have my ass.”

Minnie said, “You and your precious Pentecostals will be happy to know that you won’t have to worry about me or my gift much

longer.” She wiggled her head from side to side as she spoke, making her bell ring repeatedly. She lowered the range of her

normally high-pitched voice to a deep rumble and said, loud enough for nearly everyone in the place to hear, “Charlemagne says I

’ll be dead within a year.”

Most people in the restaurant, having heard Minnie announce grave prophecies that failed to come to pass many times, paid her no

mind. Clarice, Barbara Jean, and I stuck around and waited to hear what else she had to say.

Little Earl said, “Why don’t I make you some tea, get you calmed down?”

“There’s no calmin’ me down; I’m facin’ the end. And don’t pretend you’re sad to see it. You’ve wanted me out of the way

ever since I married Earl.” She pointed at Erma Mae and added, “You, too. I dare you to deny it.”

Erma Mae was never one for lying. Instead of responding to Minnie, she yelled toward the kitchen, “Belinda, bring some hot tea

for Grandma Minnie!”

Little Earl led Minnie behind the register and guided her onto his stool. In a soft, soothing tone of voice he said, “Yeah, that

’s right. Have a cup of tea, and then I’ll walk you back across the street. You, me, and Daddy can talk this whole thing out.”

She made a kind of a squawking noise and dismissed him with a wave of her hand. “There’s nothin’ to talk out. A year from now,

I’ll be dead.”

Clarice was tired of listening to Minnie’s ramblings. She whispered in my ear, “My food is getting cold. Are we about done

listening to this old fake?”

Minnie screamed, “I heard that!” She was old; but you had to hand it to her, the woman still had excellent hearing. She leapt

from the stool and lunged at Clarice, ready to dig her purple polished nails into Clarice’s face.

Little Earl held her back and got her onto the stool again. She immediately burst into tears, sending black trails of mascara down

her copper cheeks. Maybe she’d been faking it for so long that she’d started to believe herself. Or maybe she really had talked

to Charlemagne. Fake or not, we all could clearly see that this was a woman who believed what she was saying. Even Clarice felt

bad watching Minnie break down like that. She said, “Minnie, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

But Minnie wasn’t ready to hear apologies or be consoled.

“I knew this was gonna happen. Nobody cares what happens to me. As soon as Charlemagne told me that I’d be dead within a year of

Earl, I knew I’d get no sympathy.”

Little Earl, who had been patting his stepmother on the back while she wailed, took a step away from her and said, “What?”

“Charlemagne came to me early this morning and said that I would follow Earl to the grave within a year. Those were his exact

words.”

Now the restaurant grew quiet as people began to catch the drift of what she was saying.

“Are you saying that Daddy is dead?”

“Yeah, he died last night while he was sayin’ his prayers. Between that and my bad news from Charlemagne this morning, I’ve had

a terrible, terrible Sunday, let me tell you.”

Little Earl grabbed Minnie’s shoulders and spun her on the stool so she faced him directly. “Daddy died last night … and you

didn’t call me?”

“I was gonna call you, but then I thought, If I call ’em, they’ll feel like they’ve got to come over. Then there’ll be the

preacher and the undertaker and maybe the grandkids. With everybody makin’ such a fuss, I’ll never get a lick of sleep. So I

thought it out and figured your daddy would be just as dead if I got a good night’s rest as he’d be if I called you and didn’t

get my sleep. So I just let it be.”

James, Richmond, and Lester came over from the window table then and joined us. No one said anything, and Minnie sensed that it

wasn’t an approving silence. She looked at Little Earl and Erma Mae and said, “I was just tryin’ to be considerate. Y’all need

your sleep, too.”

When the crowd around her remained quiet, she let loose with another wail and a new round of tears. She said, “This is no way to

treat a dyin’ woman.”

Little Earl began to untie his apron. He said, “Is he at Stewart’s?” Stewart’s is the largest black mortuary in town and it’s

where most of us are taken when our time comes.

“No,” Minnie said, “I told you I let it be. He’s upstairs beside the bed. And that wasn’t easy on me, neither. I hardly got

seven hours of sleep, him kneelin’ there and starin’ at me all night.”

Little Earl threw his apron to the floor and ran out of the door toward his father’s house across the road. James was right on

his heels.

Erma Mae began to sob. She came around the buffet line and launched herself straight into Barbara Jean’s arms, passing by Clarice

and me even though we were both closer friends of hers than Barbara Jean. I wasn’t surprised or offended, though. And I was sure

Clarice wasn’t either. Everyone knew Barbara Jean was the expert on grief.

As Barbara Jean held Erma Mae and patted her trembling back, I looked through the window and across the street. James and Little

Earl were just arriving at Big Earl’s home. They rushed up the front stairs and right past Mama, who stood near the porch swing.

Big Earl and Thelma McIntyre sat on the swing holding hands, Miss Thelma’s head on her husband’s shoulder. I could tell from

Mama’s familiar gestures that she was telling one of her jokes. I had seen those particular movements a hundred times. I knew

which joke she was telling and that she was now at the punch line. Right on cue, Big Earl and Miss Thelma doubled over laughing,

stomping their feet on the painted boards of the porch floor and falling against each other on the swing. Even from dozens of

yards away, I could see the sun reflecting off the tears that ran down the cheeks of Big Earl’s grinning face.