A Piedmont Porchlight Story

Oh, Hazel Bagwell hadn’t set out to eavesdrop.

That is to say, she hadn’t set out to eavesdrop that afternoon. Eavesdroppin’, for Hazel, was less a decision and more of a condition, like humidity. If there was a window open and a voice on the other side of it, Hazel’s ears did the rest without even consulting her conscience.

Vivian Gordon’s kitchen window was open because it was one of those Piedmont afternoons when the sun settles in like it’s got the mail forwarded and plans on staying awhile. Hazel just happened to be passing through Vivian’s side yard on perfectly innocent business, which in this case meant cutting through because it saved fourteen steps and avoided Arliss Ledbetter’s dog.

She paused under the window only long enough to catch her breath.

That was her first mistake.

Inside, Vivian and Myrtle Honea were seated at the table, lingerin’ over a cuppa coffee, their voices carrying easily, the way voices do when people believe they are alone and correct.

“I’m just sayin’,” Myrtle said, “if Hazel spent half as much time mindin’ her own business as she does pokin’ around in everyone else’s, she might finally notice she’s been wrong about most of them.”

Hazel froze.

Vivian made a small sound, the kind you make when you’re agreeing but trying to sound diplomatic about it. “Lord, Myrtle, don’t hold back.”

“Well, somebody’s got to say it,” Myrtle continued. “She tells folks my casserole recipe’s from a magazine. It ain’t! It’s from my Aunt Ola Mae. A woman with hands like cast iron and no patience for lyin’.”

Vivian laughed. Not cruelly, but thoroughly.

“And did you hear what Hazel told people about my nephew?” Vivian said. “That he moved to Birmingham for ‘reasons.’ Like she knows what them reasons was. He went for a job. A real one. With a tie.”

Hazel felt a heat rise that had nothing to do with the sun.

Myrtle leaned in. “And, jest between you and me, Hazel’s been the source of more trouble in this town than the weather and the menfolk combined. If silence was money, she’d be broke ‘fore lunchtime.”

Hazel Bagwell, pillar of information, distributor of truth as she saw it, felt the ground shift slightly under her sensible shoes.

What she did next surprised even herself.

She sneezed.

It was a loud sneeze, the kind that announces a person’s entire medical history. There was a pause inside the kitchen. Chairs scraped.

Vivian leaned out the window and looked down at Hazel, who was standin’ there with the guilty posture of someone who has just realized they are exactly where they shouldn’t be.

“Well,” Vivian said pleasantly, “afternoon, Hazel. You been there long?”

Hazel recovered quickly. Years of social maneuvering had prepared her for this moment.

“Just now got here,” Hazel said. “Caught a sneeze walking by. Ragweed’s fierce.”

Myrtle appeared beside Vivian, smilin’ in a way that suggested she had known all along. “Funny thing about that ragweed,” Myrtle said. “It only bothers folks when they linger.”

Hazel cleared her throat. “I didn’t hear anything private, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Vivian nodded. “No, of course not.”

Myrtle nodded too. “Wouldn’t a’thought no other way.”

They all stood there, the truth arranged neatly between them like a pie nobody wanted to cut.

Hazel went home and did something unprecedented.

She kept her mouth shut.

For three whole days.

The town noticed straight off. People got downright uneasy. Rumors circulated about illness, relocation, or maybe even divine intervention. On the fourth day, Hazel emerged with a smile and a pie for Myrtle, complimented Vivian’s nephew loudly and accurately, and corrected three pieces of misinformation she herself had started months earlier.

By the end of the week, folks said Hazel Bagwell had turned over a new leaf.

She hadn’t. And, don’t you think for a minute she had.

She’d just learned that windows work both ways, and that sometimes the most dangerous gossip is the kind spoken plainly, indoors, by people who know exactly who’s standing outside.

Oh yes, Vivian and Myrtle knew good and well that Hazel was out there the whole time.

They’d left the window open on purpose.

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New Yesterdays can be found at: Books-A-Million, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon, as well as your favorite bookshops. The Audiobook is available from Libro.fm, as well as Amazon.