Just Desserts

A short story about a pumpkin.

Just Desserts
©2008
"My lands," Edith Barren exclaimed.  "Those have to be the biggest pumpkins I've ever seen."
Her long finger, with the new car red nail polish, pointed at Kathyh Ample's small walled garden and a fresh patch of the plumpest pumpkins in Wythtin County, Virginia.  Leonard Barren took his eyes off of the one lane unmarked paved road to see the crisp orange vegetables gleaming in the morning sunlight with a radiance that could shame the brightest light bulb.  The four-door sedan came to a crawl feet away from the two foot-high stone wall surrounding the garden.  Edith took off her thick-framed wide sunglasses and placed them on the brim of her large straw sun hat, while Leonard leaned on the stirring wheel with his black tie dangling over the gearshift.
"Wouldn't one of those pumpkins make the best pumpkin pie?" Edith asked.
"They sure would."
Leonard was the foremost expert in all things pie related in the county.  He had been a judge for the state fair's food contests for the past four years and he was known for his particular taste buds that only selected the best. 
"I wonder if Mrs. Ample would be willing to sell us one of those pumpkins," Leonard said keeping an eye on the largest pumpkin in the center of the patch.
"Mrs. Ample is poor as dirt.  She'd probably sell you one faster than you could skin a rabbit."
"Then let's go find out," Leonard said shifting the long metal gearshift into reverse.  Edith reached over and sunk her long red nails into the exposed flesh of Leonard's arm.
"Are you crazy?"  Edith protested.  "It ain't proper to just go up and ask someone to buy something they ain't selling.  What if the word got around to the neighbors about us knocking on doors asking people for stuff out of their yards?  Why, we would be the laughingstock of all Marionville."
"You're right," Leonard said with a sigh.  "Let's just get back on the road before were late for church."
Edith snapped her gaze forward and straightened herself in the seat.
"I didn't say give up Leonard, Honey.  If you want something in this world you can't just give up cause it ain't gonna be easy to get."
"What are you drivn' at, Edith?"  The menacingly image of a grinning Edith reflected in his silver framed sunglasses.
"Why don't we take a couple of minutes to pay our dear friend Kathy a visit?  Ask her if she wants to go to church with us?"
"Ask her to go to church with us."  Leonard's tone rose with his eyebrow as the wrinkle lines on his forehead popped out like dunes in a desert.
"Leonard!  What if the preacher heard you talking like that?  That isn't a very Christian thing to say you know."
Leonard turned his head back to the road and his shoulder shrunk as his gaze followed the black pavement run off through a cavernous outcropping of deep woods. 
"Well I'm just saying… I… well…" Leonard groped for the right words.  "Do you really want to take her along with us?"
"No, of course not, but that's not the point."
"Then what is the point, because it sure sounds like you wanna take that tree-hugging hippie to church with us."
"Look, Leonard," Edith said while pulling out a compact to check her makeup.  "We just need an excuse to get in there and casually mention how much we admire her pumpkins.  See if she might be willing to give one or two away for free.  After all, she has more than she will ever be able to eat on her own."  Edith closed the compact with a snap like an alligator's jaw.  "Beside, you know as well as I do that Kathy never goes to church anyway."
Leonard's frown turned upside down as he took his foot off the gas and the car slowly backed up the car down the lane road to where Mrs. Ample's house set at the edge of the stone wall.  The yard was littered with a half-dozen odd rusty tools, an old lawn mower with the cover off the engine and two-foot high grass growing around the tires.  A tireless wheel barrow, an upside down fishing boat, and an overstuffed trashcan all scattered randomly around the overgrown yard.  An uncovered Jacuzzi, half-full of dirty rainwater, sat unused by all but the birds in the middle of the front yard.  Weeds had overgrown the flowerbeds and a faded garden gnome sat peeking out of a patch of dandelions.  An old storage, barn that had lost all of its red paint, now leaned over on its one side almost collapsing on the dilapidated 56' Ford F-100 that hide inside.  The house was a one story rancher that was built in the sixties with its signature mint green painted asbestos paneling.  Heavy brown draperies that just as much prevented onlookers from looking in as it kept insiders from looking out concealed the inside of the house.  A mangy black cat sat in one of the windows keeping a constant eye on the Barren's vehicle as it backed into the gravel driveway.
As the car came to a stop, Kathy noticed Ol' Blue, Kathy's medium sized blue tick hound, trotted around the house with his tail wagging.  He stopped beside the passenger door looking into the car with his snout up against the glass and his breath fogging up the glass.
"Leonard," Edith said backing away from the door.  "Do you mind?"
"Aww, he an't gonna hurt ya."
Edith watched with a frown as her husband slammed the driver door and walk ed toward the house leaving her stranded to face the "slobbering mongrel" on her own.  She slowly opened her door and proceeded to encourage the dog to leave.  Ol' Blue just stuck his head in the door as soon as he could fit it through the half-open crack.  Edith quickly climbed out the car and followed after her husband with Ol' Blue trailing behind.
Leonard reached the door first and Edith noticed him staring at an open socket with exposed wires where the doorbell should have been.  Leonard knocked on the door.
"Remember," Edith said.  "Don't talk about the pumpkins until I mention them."
"Yes dear."
After the third knock the interior wood door with its peeling white paint opened revealing a disheveled looking woman in a man's overly large Virginia Tech t-shirt and flannel pajama pants.  Her long brown hair was down and she was holding a white coffee cup that read, "Give me chocolate or give me death!"  She proceeded to push open the outer storm door with chuckle and a smile.
"Leonard, Edith, I never thought I'd see you two standing at my front door, and no less on a Sunday.  Don't you all have church on Sundays?  Did your car break down or something?  I saw you all sitting out there on the side of the road.  It's probably the engine coil.  Give me a minute to fetch my husband's tools."
Both Edith and Leonard were trying to contain their embarrassment.  Leonard simply cleared his throat and shift from side to side.  Edith quickly jumped into the conversation.
"No no, Kathy, our car is fine.  I was just telling Leonard not to miss your house and sure enough he drove right on past without stopping."
"Why'd you want to stop here?"  Kathy looked past Edith and Leonard as her yard as if she was trying to see if there were any other unsuspected guests. 
"Direct as usual Kathy, straight to the point," Edith said laughing aloud and waving her hand at Kathy as if to wave off some imaginary fly.  "But I was just talking to Leonard here and we thought it would be nice to drop by and visit with you for a little bit, after all we know how lonely it has been for you with Mike in the hospital."
"Aren't you going to be late for church?"
"Oh we still have an hour before church starts and we will just be missing the adult Sunday school, but Mrs. Sayer won't mind us missing this one time, especially if we are stopping by to show our neighbor some good Christian love." 
"Alright then," Kathy replied with a shrug, "come on in."
The inside of the house was like a dark dungeon with its brown wood paneling, concealed windows, and sparse lighting fixtures.  A single lamp with a pale tan lampshade lit the family room with stale yellow glow.  Newspapers were stacked up on a brown coffee table next to a tray of cat food that had been partially spilt on the dirty brown shag carpeting.  A slim trail of smoke emanated from a single bent cigarette in an ashtray with the painted seen of the Los Vegas strip.  The air was thick with cigarette smoke and the stinging smell of cat urine.  Kathy quickly pulled a stack of unfolded clothes off of a brown lazy boy recliner and invited Leonard to have a seat, then grabbed a large orange tabby cat off of a green flower patterned love seat that's alternative white color and long sense succumb to a murky tan.   Edith tried her best to sweep off the cat hair with her hand before sitting down.
"Do you mind?"  Kathy asked picking up a pack of Marlboro Lights and a yellow handle lighter from the coffee table.
"Whatever you like."
"You know it's funny," Kathy said while balancing the cigarette on her lip and licking the tip with the orange flame.  "You two are the first visitors I've had since Mike went into the hospital.  Except for family of course.  It's was just so sudden, the accident and all, and now it's been what, four years he has been like that?"
"It must be hard for you Kathy," Edith said as she straightened the shoulder pads in her pastel floral dress.
"It's not like the insurance helped any.  And Mike's work couldn't wait to drop him once they found out it was a coma."
"Why didn't you take them to court?"  Leonard asked.  "The law would be on your side."
"What's the use?  Only the high price lawyers get anything done and we don't have the money to afford them.  Justice is expensive."
"Good thing we can all rest assured that God will give us justice in the end," Edith said folding her hands together on top of her brown leather pocketbook.
"I guess if you believe in that kind of thing.  I ain't never seen no miracles down here; that's for certain."
"Why you shouldn't say that, I mean, just look at that garden out there.  I was just saying to Leonard, 'that has to be the prettiest patch of pumpkins I've ever seen."
"Them's my pride and joy.  Except of course for Frankenstein here," Kathy said while reaching down to pat the mangy black cat rubbing its back against her leg.
"You've really taken good care of your garden."
"I had to," Kathy said as her eyes began to water, "Mike loved to garden and the last thing he planted before the accident was pumpkins.  So I've kept planting them ever since and I promise Mike every week when I go and visit him that I won't eat one until he can eat it with me."
Kathy wiped a tear from her eyes as she said these last words then excused herself to go grab a tissue from the bathroom.  Edith looked over to Leonard and motioned silently with her mouth the words, "offer to buy."  Leonard just shook his head no and Edith repeated her motion only this time with more force.  This silent gesturing back and forth continued until Kathy returned with a box of tissues in her hand.  As Kathy reentered the room she saw both Edith and Leonard pleasantly looking in her direction.
"Kathy," Leonard said, "you know I was the judge for the Marionville state fair for several years running now.  They say I'm the best judge of food around.  And well, pumpkin pie just happens to be my favorite thing in the world to eat and…"
"And I was just asking Leonard," Edith interrupted, "Where can we find a good pumpkin this time of the year?  I mean, those Wal-Mart Pumpkins are just terrible." 
"Why don't you just get it from a can?  Or buy an already made one?  They're pretty good."  Kathy said.
"See now that's where you show your 'northern-ness,' Kathy.  Down here in the South we only make pies from the best of ingredients.  You have not had a good pumpkin pie until you have had a made from scratch southern pumpkin pie."  Edith said as the words slipped off her tongue like buttery goodness.
"Why don't you try the farmers market?  They usually have the freshest produce."
"But the farmer's market is a good thirty minute drive from here up in Charletstown and with gas prices being how they are, well, you know, if only there were some good quality pumpkins nearby."
"Look, I don't understand," Kathy said jamming her cigarette down in the ashtray.  "What does this have to do with anything?"
"Well," Edith said fluffing her dress, "We were just thinking that since you aren't using them and they are just going to waste out there, well, why don't you give one to us."
"Oh, this is too good to be true."  Kathy slapped her knee, darted her head back like a peacock, and then stood up and turned from the couple with her hand to her forehead. 
"Look," Leonard added, "we will pay you whatever you want!"
"I can't believe this," Kathy shouted.  "I don't think you've listened to a single thing I've said."
"Of course we did Kathy."
"Just get out of my house.  Ok?"
"Well I do declare." Edith said as she stood up flicking cat hair from her dress.  "And we came in here to invite you to church, show you good Christian love and this is how we get treated."
"Just get out of here."
Without another word Edith and Lenard were outside heading for the car.  As they drove away Edith sat with her arms crossed staring blindly out the front windshield.  Leonard slumped his shoulders and sighed.
"It was a good try, dear."
"She is just being unreasonable.  It's stupid to grow vegetables and not eat them.  But that's the kind of person she is.  I wouldn't expect any better from her kind.  The nerve of it all.  And what's wrong with our money?  Isn't it good enough?  Ingrate low-class trash."
Edith went on ranting about Kathy for the entire fifteen minute trip to the church.  Leonard just shrugged his shoulders and replied with a constant stream of, "Yes, Dear," and "I know, Dear."