Page 80 of Cookout Carnage
She spun around to see Tristan with his wallet out.
‘I do not want to see that!’ Lucille exclaimed in horror. ‘Put it back in your pants right now, young man,’ she scolded.
The corners of Tristan’s mouth twitched.
‘There’s no charge for our museum,’ she continued.
‘Well, can I pay for our tea? It’s delicious.’
Lucille looked aghast. ‘No, you certainly cannot. This is just old-fashioned Southern hospitality. Now come along, back in your pants where it belongs.’
Sherilyn knew for British people ‘pants’ meant ‘underpants’, and Tristan was a word away from losing it.
‘Mrs. Re-Lucille, tell us more about your museum.’
‘Oh, it’s my Truman’s really. In his half of the house.’
Sherilyn raised her eyebrows in question.
Lucille gestured to the front room on their left. ‘The parlour is mine and the dining room is Truman’s. This way.’ She pushed open the wooden door to their right and they followed her in. ‘Welcome to the Coal Museum.’
‘And other assorted rocks,’ said the man standing inside.
If Lucille, with her brightly coloured dress and open and sunny personality was the personification of her parlour, then her husband, Truman, was the personification of the Coal Museum. He was slim, with short grey hair and glasses, and wore a brown suit with matching vest and bow tie. Where Lucille had been gregarious and welcoming, Truman Reynolds had a slightly terrified expression, as if social interaction with strangers was top of a long list of things he didn’t want to do.
Tables filled the room and shelves lined the walls. Covering every available surface were lumps of coal and rock. In front of each one was a place card. Those on the nearest table to Truman had detailed descriptions written in stylised pen and ink. ‘Coal: sedimentary, organic. Floyd County’. ‘Kimberlite (peridotite): igneous, intrusive. Elliott County’. However, there must have been too many to label in less than twenty-four hours, so the ones further from the door had more basic names: ‘grey rock’, ‘greyer rock’, ‘brown-ish rock’, ‘bigger rock’, ‘smaller rock’, ‘another rock’, then simply ‘rock’, ‘rock’, ‘rock’, until every member of this ancient dinner party had been accounted for.
Truman gave her a small smile then turned his attention to Tristan. His eyes flicked over Tristan’s button-down, vest, glasses and recent haircut, and the muscles in his face relaxed slightly. He cleared his throat and handed Tristan a sheaf of printed papers held together with a paperclip.
‘My name is Truman Reynolds. And I’m going to tell you about the glorious history of coal.’
Sherilyn slowly inched away from Truman’s monologue with the pretence of inspecting the tables of rocks. Large windows looked onto the street and the afternoon sun shone through the trees, sending ripples of light dancing over the exhibits. She liked the hustle and bustle of Chicago, but she loved Kentucky. Her family home was rarely quiet, but when it was, this was how she remembered it. Golden sun and warmth.
Outside, a couple and their dog stopped in front of the house to look at the sign. Sherilyn stepped back.Where was Lucille? Truman’s history lesson had reached the nineteen hundreds and she wasn’t sure if Tristan was captivated or had been turned to stone. Either way, he wasn’t looking at her.Oh god. Now a neighbour had wandered from across the street to see what was going on. Suddenly a man in black velvet and a Wildcats hat entered the fray, gesticulating as if attempting to move them on.Thad. What should she do? Thad was now attempting to detach the sign from the fence. She wrenched the drapes across the windows, plunging the room into darkness. Truman stopped talking.
‘I want to protect the rocks from the sun,’ she said.
Lucille re-entered and flicked on the lights. ‘What a thoughtful idea, Sherilyn. I wonder, could you assist me a moment?’
Sherilyn scurried out, avoiding looking at Tristan, and followed Lucille into the kitchen.
‘Mrs. Re-Lucille, there are people outside. This isn’t—’
‘Don’t worry your pretty little head, Sherilyn honey. We’ve got it all under control,’ reassured Lucille. ‘Another iced tea?’
‘Have you seen what Thad is wearing?’
‘Oh, he didn’t go for Cyrano de Bergerac or The Phantom of the Opera, did he? Those boys just love to dress up.’
There had been other options that were worse?
‘No, Richard the Third.’
Lucille put her hands on her hips. ‘How many warts was he wearing?’
‘All of them.’
Lucille pursed her lips. ‘Those aremywarts. I swear, Sherilyn, Emmett needs to put a padlock on the make-up cupboard.’
