Gussie held on to the side of the car with one hand and waved at Sissy with the other. “We’re going to the clubhouse. Come join us.”
Sissy nodded and followed them around the end of the house and back to the old summer kitchen. “Are you sure about this?” she asked. “Aunt Bee told me the rules of the clubhouse, and the first one is that no one other than you three can enter the place. I don’t have to be here for the last part of Aunt Bee’s wishes. I can wait in the house or go on home. I’ve got lots of stuff to go through, so . . .”
“You should be here.” Gussie used a key to open the door and motioned Sissy inside. “We always said we were like a three-cord rope. One of our cords is gone”—her chin quivered again, but it had nothing to do with the cold weather—“and we’re not ready to replace Blanche’s third of that rope just yet, but since you’re a part of Blanche, we think it’s all right to let you in today.”
“I’m honored and thank you.” Sissy stepped inside the small building. “This heat feels so good.”
“Take off your coat and warm your hands by the old heater over there in the corner.” Ina Mae hung her coat on one of the three hooks beside the door.
Gussie wasn’t sure whether Ina Mae would agree or not, but she took a deep breath and said, “You can hang yours on the end hook. That one belonged to your aunt Bee.”
“Let’s just leave that one empty,” Sissy said. “It’s too sad to fill it right now. I’ll just put my coat on the back of a kitchen chair.”
“Maybe that’s best.” Gussie nodded as she put her heavy coat next to Ina Mae’s. “Blanche left orders that we were not to grieve, but to get on with life, and that we were to do a few things after her funeral. To start with, we are to have a shot of whiskey in her honor.”
Ina Mae pulled back a gingham checked curtain from a cabinet above an old wall-hung sink and took down a bottle of Jim Beam, one of Jack Daniel’s, and three shot glasses. She set all of it in the middle of a wooden table that had lots of nicks and scratches. “I’m partial to Jim.” She poured a shot and threw it back down her throat. “That’s just to warm me up and get started. It’s not part of the ritual for Blanche.”
“Jack for me.” Gussie crossed the room to where Ina Mae was pouring the liquor. “What are you drinking?”
“Jack, just like Aunt Bee liked,” she answered. “Do we sit down or stand? Y’all have to tell me the rules. I don’t want to do something that would upset Aunt Bee’s plans.”
“We’ll stand for this first shot and then go sit on the sofa and the recliner,” Gussie answered. “And, chère, I don’t think you could upset your aunt Bee. She would be proud you are here with us.”
Ina Mae poured three shot glasses full and held hers up. “To Blanche, who was supposed to live another thirty years and then go to a nursing home with us so we could all raise hell together.”
Sissy and Gussie picked up their glasses and they all three clinked them together and took a small sip.
“To Blanche”—Gussie held up her shot glass a second time—“a friend who took lots of our secrets to her grave and loved Jack as much as I do.”
Ina Mae and Sissy touched their glasses to hers and they all took another sip.
Sissy raised her glass. “To Aunt Bee, who taught me to sip whiskey and enjoy every drop.”
Another clink, and they all three drained the small shot glasses. Ina Mae set her empty glass on the table and said, “Now, we are supposed to leave these on the table and go sit on the sofa, where we are to share good memories we’ve had with Blanche.”
“Get out our theme song and get it ready, Ina Mae, and reach me the tissues, because I’m going to cry. Blanche didn’t say we couldn’t bawl like babies when the jazz funeral was over,” Gussie said.
Sissy wished that she could have another shot, but she determined that she would follow Ina Mae and Gussie’s lead. Evidently, Aunt Bee’s orders were to have one drink and then talk about the good times. “These glasses look old. Where did they come from?”
“We brought them back from our senior trip to Galveston. The class went down there for three days.” Gussie picked up a box of tissues and carried them over to a well-worn old sofa. “That’s a memory for sure, and, chère, we only use those little shot glasses for special times, like after an alumni reunion at the school when we always remember our senior trip, or on one of our birthdays, or to celebrate the day that Blanche got a divorce. One shot from them, and then we get out something bigger.”
Sissy had thought she knew Aunt Bee, but evidently these three ladies had secrets no one else in the whole world was privy to.
“What’s the story behind this bar?” She held up the little shot glass to get a better look at the logo on the side. “Did y’all barhop when you were younger? I bet Grandpa would turn over in his grave if he knew his daughter had ever been near a honky-tonk. My dad always said that his older sister had a wild side just like he did, but she was sly enough not to get caught.”
Ina Mae laughed out loud as she brought out a CD and put it into a player on the top of the green refrigerator beside the stove. Then she took down three glasses that had once held jelly or preserves.
Sissy had a dozen or more just like them in her own cabinet that she’d saved when she used all the grape jam out of them. “Garden Club crystal. That’s what Aunt Bee called glasses like these.”
“Yep, and they’ve held plenty of whiskey in their day. If we had a really bad week, we’d say we had to get out the Garden Club,” Gussie said. “Don’t get me wrong, chère, or think we’re a bunch of alcoholics. We don’t do this very often because we really don’t like the aftereffects.”
“But today we are honoring Aunt Bee, right?” Sissy asked.
“Absolutely and be damned to the consequences.” Ina Mae poured four fingers of whiskey into two of the glasses. “Tonight we’re going to talk about Blanche and tell stories and share happy times. And we’re probably all going to get very drunk. I call shotgun on Gussie’s sofa in her house. There is no way in hell I’m going to trust her to take me home, or myself to walk on slick roads, either. On Wednesday, the Newton Weekly News would have in big headlines across the top of the front page: Former Physician’s Assistant Found Crawling Across Courthouse Lawn.”
“And the subtitle would be Former county judge found passed out on her porch.” Gussie giggled.
Sissy laughed with her. “If that happens, I’ll frame a copy of it and hang it on the wall at Aunt Bee’s house.”
“Rest assured, there’s no way any of us are going farther than my house. There’s four bedrooms upstairs. Y’all can choose a guest room. All we have to do is be able to climb the stairs, and I figure we can help each other. Besides, Blanche wants this Cajun wake, as she called it, to last until after church tomorrow.”
Sissy jerked her head around and stammered, “I . . . can . . . drive . . .”
Gussie poured Jack Daniel’s in the last empty glass and handed it off to her. “Rule number two was that we could cuss in the clubhouse, but we had to be dignified ladies anywhere else. Number three was that the person who tattled would join those boys.” She pointed to the right of the fireplace, where an old door had been hung with “Boys Will Be Shot And Fed To The Coyotes” written below “The Sunshine Club.” The letters had been purple at one time, but now they were faded.