Alpaca Makes a Decision

Silver Spoons

ll heads turned as Alpaca entered the back room of Mother Mary’s with Ned and Tarsal trailing behind. Just as those two gentlemen had, everyone else on the board expected a female version of Reverend Finn, short and quite round. However, Alpaca was the exact opposite of her blond blue-eyed brother. She was almost six feet tall with her dark hair pulled back in a severe bun at the nape of her neck; her huge brown eyes were so dark they appeared to be black, her full lips served to soften the harshness of her hairstyle. With her penetrating obsidian stare she was quite a striking figure.

Every one to a man automatically stood up and nervously smoothed his hair, if he had any. All appeared to stand at attention. That was the kind of respect Alpaca demanded without ever uttering a word. And, of course, every board member was a man, because, after all, it was 1950 and most women had their place, which was not on a church board overtly making decisions and running things. Alpaca knew her place and that place was wherever she decided would be most advantageous to her needs. 

With a slight not to Tarsal, Alpaca indicated that she was ready to be seated. He pulled out her chair for her and after she was seated, Ned and Tarsal took their places at the table as everyone sat down on the edges of their seats, avidly awaiting the words Alpaca would speak to settle, at least part, of their current quagmire. 

“Gentlemen, thank you very much for convening so promptly after my arrival today. I don’t believe in wasting time. And I feel quite certain that Dear Brother would not want his untimely demise to add further conflict your dilemma. I was afforded ample time to think while on my train journey from Minnesota to your lovely state and I have made a decision that I believe will be satisfactory to both factions. I know from personal conversations with my late brother that he wished to be buried here and not back in our hometown, Saints of the Lakes, of which he had no particularly fond memories. (That was putting it mildly.) I paid a call on Mr. Hendricks at the funeral parlor this afternoon. He advised me that due to Dear Brother’s rather large, um, girth that a suitable casket might come at an extra expense even with the discount that Hal, Mr. Hendricks, would apply in light of his fondness for the reverend. I am a woman of limited means, but I do not want to accept charity. The reverend’s funeral is not the church’s expense and he could only afford an extremely modest burial policy,” she said as she watched each board member squirm in his seat. Alpaca was attempting to be as diplomatic as possible, but tactfulness was not a place where she comfortably lived. 

“I’ve come to the practical conclusion that he should be cremated, the ashes divided evenly and given to each faction to bury in your respective, but now separate graveyards.”

“But..”

“Keep quite, Tarsal,” said Ned. 

Alpaca cleared her throat and continued, “Hal, Mr. Hendricks, tells me he can have the, um, preparations completed in time for a memorial service here at Mother Mary’s on Saturday morning, if that’s agreeable with everyone. Mr. Cochran and Mr. Henley will each be given a container with half the remains of my brother and each group can conduct their own graveside rite. 

Ned could see that Tarsal was about to object so he said, “It’s a sensible solution. There’s been enough squabbling and it is this good lady’s decision to make. With that settled, let’s address the matter of Miss Finn’s accommodations. Miss Finn has mentioned to Tarsal and me that she would like to make Chanceville her home. I make a motion that will allow her to remain in the parsonage until the board can dispose of it and divide the proceeds. There is no mortgage and Miss Finn has agreed to pay the light and water bills. “Well, maybe you’d just like to buy it yourself, Miss Finn, at a reasonable price of course,” said Tarsal. All heard turned toward Alpaca.

“Thank you so much for your kind offer. But the house is in a rather sad state and I cannot afford the cost of repairs and a mortgage. This will give me time to find an inexpensive apartment or a room in a boarding house. My needs are specific, but quite simple.”

Nine hands shot straight toward heaven to approve the motion. Ned looked at Tarsal who was examining his cuticles. 

“We have a majority, so we don’t need Tarsal Henley’s vote. Motion approved. Let’s go home,” said Ned. Ned and Tarsal bumped into each other trying to approach Alpaca. 

“I guess we’ll both walk you home,” said Tarsal, as they escorted her out the door. The rest of the board members shuffled out wishing this hadn’t been a church board meeting because a cold beer at Mother Mary’s bar sounded real good about now. 

Saturday morning dawned clear on the town of Chanceville and by 10:00 am was bright, white-hot. Alpaca was hoping the services would be short and sweet. Oh, of course, her late brother, the basically unlamented Reverend Trout Finn, deserved a decent burial, but one also had to be practical. Simple graveside rites then on to the Mother Mary’s for cool lemonade and finger sandwiches made by the ladies of the church would do just fine. And this would also give her the opportunity to invite the ladies to tea next week. 

She was hoping the women of the church would think that fighting over dogs going to heaven was too ridiculous to even acknowledge so that she wouldn’t have to have two separate teas and thus doubling her work and expense. She just wanted to get established in Chanceville society, such as it may be, and then acquire a husband, if all went according to the plan she was working on. 

Both halves of Reverend Finn Trout were laid to rest in the newly divided cemeteries with what could be diplomatically termed quiet respect. An outside observer might have interpreted it as a “let’s get it over with” attitude. Nevertheless, the duty was completed. The hot, sweaty and about to turn cranky bifurcated congregation trooped into the back room of Mother Mary’s Pool Hall for some of Oblivia Young’s watered down version of lemonade. Well, at least the drink was cold The ladies of the church had spared quite a bit of expense and made finger sandwiches with cucumbers and tomatoes from their very own gardens. After all, it wasn’t Godly to be ostentatious. If the Reverend Finn had been watching from his perch in heaven, he would have thought it was slim pickings, indeed. 

A Taste of Home

Now that everyone was cooled down and their appetites were somewhat sated, Alpaca decided it was time to put her plan into action. She couldn’t just move into town and go after the men folk. No. She had to sidle up to it; make it look like it was one of the church lady’s ideas. After going into the ladies powder room and making sure her face was adjusted into proper Grieving Sister demeanor, she approached Oblivia whom she had heard from her brother was the self-appointed leader of polite society in Chanceville. 

Oblivia did her best to keep a pleasant aura about herself, but with her long face and pinched nose, she was losing that battle. She always looked as if she had detected a bad odor in the air. 

“Hello, my dear,” she said to Alpaca as she pressed her thin lips into a smile, sadly, it always came out as a grimace. 

“I’m Oblivia Young. I’d like to officially welcome you to our town even though the circumstances are so very sad. Were you close to your brother?”

The first thought that entered Alpaca’s mind was that it would be hard to get close to someone who had such a large circumference as my brother did. But from what Alpaca had observed of Oblivia, she detected not one ounce of humor in her matronly body, so she decided to go for a diplomatically balanced answer.

“We were very close as children (bald-faced lie), but when Dear Brother received the call to the ministry and went off to seminary school we naturally drifted apart (bald-faced truth). Don’t misunderstand, his death was a horrible shock (mostly to himself, she thought), but one must go on, mustn’t one?” said Alpaca.

“Oh my goodness yes, the Good Lord knows I’ve certainly had my trials and tribulations with Henry and my son, Chester. But one does learn to cope,” said Oblivia, as she fanned herself with a fan on a stick, that looked like it had been rescued form the church long before the fire.

Alpaca then put on what she hoped would be her brave face, touch Oblivia’s arm lightly and said, “Since I’m going to be a member of this community I would like to hold the occasional afternoon tea. Do you think you could help me with the guest list? I’d like to be able to invite both congregations and have just one tea. Do you think that would be possible?”

“What a marvelous idea,” said Oblivia, nearly chirping. “Yes, I think it would be quite possible for both groups to meet peaceably.” Oblivia leaned closer to Alpaca, her heavily applied Avon perfume To a Wild Rose causing Alpaca’s eyes to burn and tear up.

“Confidentially, it’s mostly loud-mouthed Tarsal Henley who created all of this kerfuffle. I would certainly be more than happy to help you. I’ll get to work on it this afternoon. You just let me know the date and we’ll send out the invitations together, hand written, of course. Now, don’t you cry, my dear. You’re brother is in better place,” she whispered, totally missing the cause of Alpaca’s tears.

True to her word, Oblivia met with Alpaca the very next day and they worked out a guest list for an afternoon tea to be held at 3:30 a week from Thursday. The ladies who received their sedate invitations were nearly hysterical with anticipation. On the invitation list in addition to Oblivia Young, were Trachea Carmichael, Old Doc Trueblood’s nurse, Sara “Sugar Pants” Peterson, disgruntled housewife, Miss Mayrose Mayhern, retired school teacher (who would never attend), Sadie Stenner, piano teacher and wife of county engineer Frank Stenner, whose late sister, Doris, had been married to Johnny Perkins, Fern Oldhat, owner of the Lovely Lock Beauty Salon and cousin to Harold Freeman, whom Alpaca had already met and quite liked the looks of, Geraldine Nurse, head librarian at the Loone County Public Library, and Celia Matthews, married to James Matthews the brother of Milton Matthews. Alpaca had met Milton when she was in Steele’s Hardware to buy bug spray to get rid of the spiders that had made themselves at home on the front porch of the parsonage. With this guest list, Alpaca was optimistic that this tea would mark an auspicious beginning for her grand scheme. 

None of these ladies had any notion of what society life was like in Saints of the Lake, Minnesota. Or for that matter, if there even was any sort of society life there, bur for some reason they all wanted to impress Miss Alpaca Finn and if there were strings attached to this invitation, the ladies were prepared to be yanked. After what seemed like and interminable amount of time, the much awaited for day was upon them.

The ladies arrived promptly at 3:30 perfumed, powdered, and dressed in their Sunday finery. Those who could afford it bought new frocks and those who could not, tried to breathe new life into their old dresses with new matching sets of costume jewelry purchased at the Woolworth’s Five and Dime, or a giant fabric flower pinned to their chests.

Most of these ladies had been to the parsonage while Reverend Finn lived there and they had seen first hand that housekeeping was not a priority of his. So they were quite curious to see what Alpaca had done to make the place habitable. If she had not done anything (which they doubted), they would be drinking greasy tea and sitting on dusty chairs, but as they entered they saw that all was sparkling. Alpaca had worked miracles with the place, they could even see out of the windows that had been so dirty they kept prying eyes from seeing inside as they casually strolled past the parsonage when the late reverend lived there.

Alpaca ushered them into the dining room where the tea table was set up with candelabra and fresh flowers, all on a newly starched and ironed ecru linen cutwork tablecloth. Alpaca was more of a nibbler than an eater but she tried to be mindful that her guests probably had heartier appetites, so the table was beautifully laid with see-through slices of shaved roast beef made into sandwiches, the requisite watercress and cucumber sandwiches, all cut into geometrically perfect triangles, celery sticks stuffed with creamy peanut butter, and various and sundry pickles and olives. For dessert there was homemade white layer cake with lemon icing and Alpaca made her soon to be famous lavender cookies. The tea was a smooth orange Pekoe. The stunning silver service that she had inherited from Grandmother Finn sat in its rightful place at the head of table reflecting the snapping candle flames. Her china was pure bone-white porcelain with no frivolous flowers cluttering up the swirled pattern at the base of the delicate cups and the edges of the sandwich plates; those were inherited from her Grandmother Chagrin on her mother’s side. She was glad she had refused Brother’s request when he asked to take those things to the parsonage when he moved to Chanceville. She knew he would never entertain and he would be so lazy that when all of his everyday dishes were dirty, he would use the good china for his own meals. She shuddered to think what state they would have ended up in. Broken mostly, she guessed.

When the women were ushered into the dining room they oohed and aahed out loud, ostensibly at the fine table but also at Alpaca who was dressed in a champagne colored dress that provided a pale palette for her obsidian eyes and shining black hair. She wore a matching set of jet earrings and necklace, which caught the candlelight and sparked off her eyes. Her makeup was so expertly applied that they weren’t even sure if she was wearing any; there was just a hint of color on her cheeks and lips. Every lady in that room silently decided that they were long overdue for a makeover; maybe they could even get Alpaca to advise them.

Alpaca asked Oblivia is she would help with the tea service and each guest secretly despised her for receiving that glorious honor. Oh yes, this would be a great topic for gossip at the Lovely Locks tomorrow. The ladies retired to the front parlor where they precariously balanced plates on their knees and nervously made small talk, while trying not to slurp their tea. Alpaca was the epitome of discretion, asking only the right questions to bring them out of their shyness without seeming to pry. She found out many of the things she was interested in knowing, mainly the status of several men she thought The Tea Ladies (that’s how she thought of them now) might have connections to. She did her best to show equal interest in the female relatives of The Tea Ladies so as not to raise suspicion or jealousy among them at this stage of the game.

Before they knew what hit them, Frank and Sadie Stenner had arranged for their brother-in-law, Johnny Perkins, and Alpaca Finn to have dinner at their house. Johnny had gallantly offered to pick Alpaca up and drive her to the Stenner’s. When they arrived, Frank and Sadie had the impression that things weren’t getting off to a good start. Alpaca was tight-lipped all the way through the meal, starting with the salad, moving on to the Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes, green beans, and finishing off with fruit cocktail. Johnny was a different story, he chatted all the way through the meal. Unfortunately, every sentence started with, “Doris always said, or Doris liked”, in spite of the dagger looks that Frank and Sadie were shooting his way. Finally, after what seemed like an excruciatingly long two hours, Alpaca thanked the Stenners and said that after that lovely meal, it was such a nice night, she felt like walking home. Scratch Johnny Perkins off her list.

A few days later Alpaca was at the Lovely Locks Beauty Salon having her bi-weekly shampoo/set. The shop was abuzz shortly after Alpaca arrived, Fern Oldhat popped in with the exciting news that her cousin, Harold Freeman, whom everyone thought was a confirmed bachelor, had just become engaged to a lady he had met over in Liberty at his square dancing class. Harold became the second man to be scratched off Alpaca’s list. Oh, well. He was shorter than she was anyway. Maybe she’d stop by Steele’s Hardware and see if Milton Matthews was still qualified for her list. Better yet, he was definitely taller than she was.