dontravis.com blog post #545
Image courtesy of Fixthephoto.com
Jorge sounds intriguing, doesn’t he? Will he hurt or help in pursuing the solving of the secret behind Miss Emmalee’s slight frown? Perhaps we’ll find out in this installment of the story.
****
PORTRAIT
OF MISS EMMALEE
Man, I’m having trouble getting this story out. I keep getting side-tracked, but it’s things that you ought to know about me. Like, while I’m definitely gay—lots better than queer, isn’t it—I don’t advertise the fact. Right or wrong, I stay firmly in the closet. That said, there are some things I won’t do to protect my reputation. I have lots of women friends, but not one of them is a lover or a beard. They’re friends—some of them good friends—and acquaintances, but I don’t think any of them harbor the misconception I’m going to up and fall in love with her someday.
That is not the case with Jorge. I don’t believe
he’s gay. Bi, maybe, but his eyes go to dancing when a pretty girl comes
around. Given his appearance, they all want to mother him, and do so up until
the time they find him doing what he does so well. Someday, I’ll lose him to a
gal, and I’ll be sad when it happens. But I won’t try to stop it, nor will it
endanger his job at the shop. He’s a damned good auto body man. Of course, he’s
a damned good lover too, but every man has the right to determine his own
future.
****
With some unaccustomed spare time on my hands, I renewed
my interest in Miss Emmalee Vanderport. Like everyone in town, I knew about the
Vanderport family from the old Colonel James Wilson Vanderport having a hand at
founding our town, although he didn’t favor it with the Vanderport name,
something he did with every other thing he touched. We ended up being named
Sidney. Not a terribly distinguished name, but okay, I guess. Sidney, Oklahoma
had a certain ring to it… at least to me.
Anyway, the old Colonel opened a logging mill alongside a
railroad track, and then history took over. We’d grown from simply a sawmill to
a lumbering and farming town in our corner of the state. And along the way, the
Vanderports had become rich. Filthy rich, my dear old dad used to say with a
sneer. He seemed to have a bone to pick with our town’s foremost family but
would never say what it was.
When the Colonel died, the town almost came to a full
stop with grief. Maybe that’s not a good word. Trepidation may be more apt.
What would happen with the demise of Sidney’s rock… Colonel James Nelson
Vanderport. Nothing, turned out to be the answer. Elder son Wilson James Vanderport
took over the business and the town survived. He didn’t. James Nelson
Vanderport died a few years after his father, and Charles Sidney Vanderport,
the second son, picked up the yoke and handled things very well.
Charles Sidney? Maybe the old man did name the
town after the family. The long and the short of it is, the Vanderports had
been around as long as Sidney, Oklahoma had been around, and Miss Emmalee was
the torchbearer for the distaff side of the family. And she had done a fine job
of it, as well. Of course, plebians like me always wondered why she hadn’t
married and raised a houseful of children. My sainted mother had always equated
success for females as marrying well and turning out a brood of acceptable tots.
Why hadn’t she married? She’d been a beauty up until the day she died two
months ago.
****
My curiosity led me to the town’s newspaper. I’d have
said the newspaper’s morgue, except that pretty well described the entirety of
our Sidney Weekly Journal. Miz Myrtle Bailey, who’d been reporter, editor, printer,
and janitor of the Journal ever since I could recall, didn’t have copies of the
newspaper on modern things like computers or even microfiche, but she did have a
printed copy of every edition. With nothing to guide me to specific articles, I
started wading through them one by one. Some member of the Vanderport family
appeared in virtually every paper. Far from being bored, I found myself
fascinated at the unfolding saga of this proud family.
The old Colonel had a past. The title had been honestly
earned in Havana during the Spanish and American War. He was nearly cashiered
when he fought a duel with one of his fellow officers over some young woman,
but his foe survived his wound, and the Colonel survived his commission. Of
course, he’d married a very proper Boston debutante and settled down to logging
in his native Kentucky. What drew him to Oklahoma, I could never discern.
His two sons were drags, so far as being newsworthy was
concerned. The only attention they received was as captains of industry—or what
served as captains of industry in our little town. They grew up, married, and
in turn, ran the mill before dying unspectacular deaths. None of their progeny
was interested in carrying on the family business, so when the younger son, Charles
Sidney died about eight years ago, a national corporation acquired the large
mill and the remaining Vanderpark kin took the money and ran. All except Miss
Emmalee. She stayed on and carried the family name forward in little Sidney.
She was a staple in the Journal, especially after the
remainder of the family vamoosed. The articles about her sponsoring this
charity or opening this ball—balls in Sidney, Oklahoma? More likely dances—or
donating to that cause. That kind of thing. Nonetheless, I began to see her as
a woman in her own right. I found something admirable about the gentle way she gave
time and money to shaping and molding the young people in our town. Heck, I’d
been the beneficiary of some of that largess without realizing it until I saw
photos of Mom and myself with her at some camp for youth she’d sponsored. I
also learned I’d gained my interest and expertise at the shop she’d built for
the local school.
Then she disappeared from the paper’s pages. When
questioned, Miz Baily said she’d taken a world cruise. Roamed all over the
world for almost a year and a half. Skipping a bunch of issues, I located Miss
Emmalee’s triumphant return to the place of her birth. The faded photographs in
the paper’s yellowing copies seemed to show an older, more mature woman. But it
was undoubtedly Miss Emmalee waving to the photographer or in deep discussion
with a town dignitary or two.
****
My searches at the Journal did nothing but fan the flames
of my developing obsession with Miss Emmalee. Some of the facts I’d uncovered stirred
up memories. Connections, I guess you’d say. The Vanderports had played a
bigger role in our family history than I’d realized. Some of the old photos
kicked off vague memories of Miss Emmalee visiting our home. Chatting with Mom
or bringing little presents. Always with mom, not when Dad was home. I could
vaguely remember sitting on her lap a time or two when I was just a little kid.
A thought hit me in the head so hard, I about fell off my
chair. Visiting with Mom. Never with Dad. My thoughts slid to Jorge. It
couldn’t be. My mom and Miss Emmalee? Was it possible? But if so, and my dad
knew, it explained a lot about his reaction when I confessed to being gay. That
thought set me back on my haunches. Did they even have lesbians back in those days?
I laughed aloud at my stupidity. Of course, they did. Human beings were human
beings even back then with all their strengths and faults firmly in place. Jeez!
****
I don’t think this is going the way Richie
thought it would. Has he discovered a liaison between his mother and Miss
Emmalee? It would explain his father’s attitude, wouldn’t it? And maybe lend a
little credence to Richie’s own leanings.
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