Lousiana Hotshot

she knew. There was a great shot of the bride and groom saying their vows, the preacher’s solemn brown face peering out above their clasped hands. And he was someone she knew. He was a man she remembered from her childhood, when her mother had made her go to church every Sunday— the Reverend Clarence Scruggs, as nasty an old devil as she’d ever met in her life.
    Old.
The thought chilled her. Maybe he was dead. Still, though— she remembered the Easter finery— her parents had gone to church. She looked closely at the pictures, and there could be no doubt— it was the same church her mama went to to this day. Surely someone there would remember her father. Someone. Surely.
    There were no papers, no other clues in the shallow compartment. What on earth was in the chest proper? She tugged the container off its narrow shelf, no easy job, since the chest was probably two and a half by five feet.
    It was only about a third full, and what was in it was underwear. A satin robe and nightgown; some lacy slips and panties. She knew instantly what it was— her mother’s trousseau.
    Talba had been a fairly decent history student— she was perfectly aware of the turmoil of the sixties. She knew all about Black Power and Black Panthers and Black Is Beautiful. (And personally, she thought of herself as black—”African-American” was too cumbersome and sounded like a euphemism. She’d run across the old rallying cry, “I’m black and I’m proud” and wondered whatever had become of it.) When all that was going on, her parents were getting married. Her mama was shopping for a trousseau, dreaming a dream.
    It was enough to make you cry.
    She felt around in the bottom of the chest, just in case, and, in fact, felt something hard, something in a little plastic envelope. Fishing it out, she beheld her mother’s diaphragm, which she dropped like it was radioactive. Quickly, she pushed it to the bottom and fluffed some underwear around it, so maybe Miz Clara would never know her daughter had done this. Talba was numb with remorse.
    She had the whole thing back together, church bulletins, seashell Jesus, and all in ten minutes. She would die, would absolutely, no question, croak if Miz Clara ever knew she’d touched her diaphragm and eyeballed her undies.
    She went in her own room and flopped again on the bed, feeling the turtle response setting in.
    Uh-oh, she thought. Gotta fight it. She breathed some, counting the breaths, a technique she’d learned from a boyfriend who was into martial arts. In fact, she promptly went to sleep, which was full-tilt turtle, she knew from experience, but she slept only a few minutes, waking refreshed and hungry.
    She took a shower, fixed herself some lunch, and made up a story to tell when she called the church. She checked her voice mail, but if Darryl had called, he wasn’t owning up. Maybe it was Corey, she thought, and realized for the first time she was going to have to apologize to Michelle.
    Oh, God. Maybe I could find a fairy godmother to turn me into a real turtle. Permanently.
    A machine answered when she called the church. The days of full-time church secretaries were apparently over— but then it was Saturday. Still, things would be going on there. Maybe some ladies cooking for a needy family, something like that— maybe someone’s house had burned down, and they needed a casserole.
    Aha! She had an idea. The latest church bulletin was on the cedar chest, and she was in luck— it listed a White Elephant Sale for the Wednesday Night Prayer Group. That meant plenty of ladies, some of them old. Most of them, probably. She thought about taking the plastic bags from the attic, but the minute she did, Miz Clara would declare the missing garments her favorites— there was a law about that.
    So she packed up some stuff of her own and drove on over, surprised she could still find the place after her long absence.
    She made her manners and her donation and started asking around, getting all the wrong answers: “Why, no, I don’t b’lieve I do recall a Clarence Scruggs.”
    “Brother Scruggs? Why, he’s been gone a long time. Must be ten, twelve years.”
    “I haven’t thought about that old man in a month of Sundays— I wonder whatever did become of him?”
    “You might ask Lura Blanchard. She said she’d pass by later on.”
    Anybody might pass by later on— maybe even Clarence Scruggs himself. But Talba was a woman on a mission; if she lost her momentum, she’d