Covered Dish

SHORT STORY Covered Dish Holly Farris ARTHRITIS ATE UP NEW JOINTS IN MY BODY since my first cousin Estelle mailed me a postcard announcing this Kitzer family reunion. I made sure to arrive at the park early, solely because I need Stell to zip my dress. Now that I'm eighty years old, my elbows and wrists won't get me decent, at least not between mid-back and that knob I dust with beige face powder at the base of my neck. As much bother as Stell is, a lady needs a cousin like her. Snagged on a splintery picnic table bench, my flowered Sunday dress hangs open, fabric and me suffering in noonday September heat. I smoke cigarettes, a habit Stell highly disapproves of and which I hide from her. So I suck a last Pall Mall. Good posture prepares me to be nice. What I hold against Stell is that she's a copycat. I keep a running list of things she's copied me in, beginning from 1934. That's when she and I both wanted Randolph, our fifth-cousin who was seventeen years old; Stell and I were fourteen. Even the postcard she sent about today's reunion picnic wasn't original. She overheard a reminiscence idea from another family at Kimberlin Baptist, where Stell solos, out in front of our choir more times than I can count, I Walked Today Where Jesus Walks. Her signature song always reminds me she's a goody two-shoes and show-off besides. That postcard she stamped in July, the one that's taking on humidity right now inside my heart-shaped dress pocket, says Shelter Three, Carter's Park, Wythe County, Virginia, Sunday after Labor Day. Noon. Show and Tell, written with particularly poor penmanship. And right in the middle, Covered Dish. In spite of planning everything out, Stell says it is pure accident that my late husband Mozelle Kitzer's family reunion falls on the tenth anniversary of his burial. As single organizer of the to-do, Stell has been busy. On Wednesday—four days ago—she sat on my porch with a notice she was on her way to hand to the Kimberlin editor at the newspaper. Our local paper prints a Saturday edition, and Stell worried if she'd forgotten any Kitzers who would care to gather in the park. Any, that is, besides me, herself, and Randolph, the ones she's making attend. 80 REUNON, Stell's newspaper announcement said in hand printed block letters. The spiral notebook paper's left margin was ragged as a chinquapin hull, reminding me of mountain chestnuts we kids hunted and sold for a penny apiece to schoolmates. I let the misspelled word go the way Miss Priss wrote it, knowing the editor would recollect Stell had never been much of a student when we were all together back in school. From July until this minute, I have dreaded the picnic. People from Kimberlin Baptist always say, "Luby, bring the green bean casserole," when we have outdoor meals following Sunday river-immersion baptism, so I'm at our shelter with the green bean casserole. Every lady from church compliments my use of pulverized cornflakes instead of curlicued onion, which the recipe calls for, but they don't appreciate it's a mighty exertion for me to pound cereal. Stell could probably hear, if she listened from her living room two houses from mine, the ruckus I raise with my rolling pin. I insist on crumbs as fine as ash and usually avoid dropping Pall Mall cinder into it. Two hours ago, dusting cornflakes over the green bean casserole studded with new potatoes, I called it complete. Used foil from a dented ball that rolls around my kitchen drawer barely covered the dish. Okay for who it's for. That's what I say. Not to brag on myself, but I have more imagination than Stell. Take the recipe. I used two entire wide-mouth Mason jars of churchcanned green beans that Stell gave me in case of potential disaster, whether I needed them this January of 2000 with its Y2K business or when Daylight Savings started in...