A Fawcett Book
lished by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 1987 by Fannie Flagg
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Fawcett Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Fawcett is a registered trademark and the Fawcett colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published materiaclass="underline"
Lewis Music Publishing Co., Inc.: Excerpts from the lyrics to “Tuxedo Junction” by Erskine Hawkins, William Johnson and Julian Dash. Lyrics by Buddy Feyne. Copyright 1939 by Lewis Music Publishing Co., Inc. Copyright renewed. All rights reserved.
Music Sales Corporation: Excerpt from the lyrics to “Smoke Rings,” lyrics by Ned Washington, music by H. E. Gifford. Copyright © 1932 (Renewed) by Dorsey Bros. Music, a division of Music Sales Corporation (ASCAP) and American Academy of Music. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
The Salvation Army: Excerpt from The Salvation Army Songbook. Copyright by the Salvation Army, New York, USA. Used by permission.
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Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 96-97066
eISBN: 978-0-307-77665-5
This edition published by arrangement with Random House, Inc.
v3.1
FOR TOMMY THOMPSON
Acknowledgments
I would like to acknowledge the following people, whose encouragement and support have been invaluable to me in the writing of this book: First and foremost, my agent, Wendy Weil, who never lost faith; my editor, Sam Vaughan, for the care and attention he has given me, and who kept me laughing, even through rewrites; and Martha Levin, my first friend at Random House. Thanks to Gloria Safier, Liz Hock, Margaret Cafarelli, Anne Howard Baily, Julie Florence, James “Daddy” Hatcher, Dr. John Nixon, Gerry Hannah, Jay Sawyer, and Frank Self. Thanks to DeThomas/Bobo & Associates, for sticking with me during the lean times. Thanks to Barnaby and Mary Conrad and the Santa Barbara Writers’ Conference, Jo Roy and the Birmingham Public Library, Jeff Norell, Birmingham Southern College, Ann Harvey and John Loque, Oxmoor House Publishing. A grateful thank you to my typist and right hand, Lisa McDonald, and to her daughter, Jessaiah, for being quiet and watching Sesame Street while her mother and I were working. And my special thanks go to all the sweet people of Alabama, past and present. My Heart. My Home.
I may be sitting here at the Rose Terrace Nursing Home, but in my mind I’m over at the Whistle Stop Cafe having a plate of fried green tomatoes.
—MRS. CLEO THREADGOODE
JUNE 1986
JUNE 12, 1929
Cafe Opens
The Whistle Stop Cafe opened up last week, right next door to me at the post office, and owners Idgie Threadgoode and Ruth Jamison said business has been good ever since. Idgie says that for people who know her not to worry about getting poisoned, she is not cooking. All the cooking is being done by two colored women, Sipsey and Onzell, and the barbecue is being cooked by Big George, who is Onzell’s husband.
If there is anybody that has not been there yet, Idgie says that the breakfast hours are from 5:30–7:30, and you can get eggs, grits, biscuits, bacon, sausage, ham and red-eye gravy, and coffee for 25¢.
For lunch and supper you can have: fried chicken; pork chops and gravy; catfish; chicken and dumplings; or a barbecue plate; and your choice of three vegetables, biscuits or cornbread, and your drink and dessert—for 35¢.
She said the vegetables are: creamed corn; fried green tomatoes; fried okra; collard or turnip greens; black-eyed peas; candied yams; butter beans or lima beans.
And pie for dessert.
My other half, Wilbur, and I ate there the other night, and it was so good he says he might not ever eat at home again. Ha. Ha. I wish this were true. I spend all my time cooking for the big lug, and still can’t keep him filled up.
By the way, Idgie says that one of her hens laid an egg with a ten-dollar bill in it.
… Dot Weems …
DECEMBER 15, 1985
Evelyn Couch had come to Rose Terrace with her husband, Ed, who was visiting his mother, Big Momma, a recent but reluctant arrival. Evelyn had just escaped them both and had gone into the visitors’ lounge in the back, where she could enjoy her candy bar in peace and quiet. But the moment she sat down, the old woman beside her began to talk …
“Now, you ask me the year somebody got married … who they married … or what the bride’s mother wore, and nine times out of ten I can tell you, but for the life of me, I cain’t tell you when it was I got to be so old. It just sorta slipped up on me. The first time I noticed it was June of this year, when I was in the hospital for my gallbladder, which they still have, or maybe they threw it out by now … who knows. That heavyset nurse had just given me another one of those Fleet enemas they’re so fond of over there when I noticed what they had on my arm. It was a white band that said: Mrs. Cleo Threadgoode … an eighty-six-year-old woman. Imagine that!
“When I got back home, I told my friend Mrs. Otis, I guess the only thing left for us to do is to sit around and get ready to croak.… She said she preferred the term pass over to the other side. Poor thing, I didn’t have the heart to tell her that no matter what you call it, we’re all gonna croak, just the same …
“It’s funny, when you’re a child you think time will never go by, but when you hit about twenty, time passes like you’re on the fast train to Memphis. I guess life just slips up on everybody. It sure did on me. One day I was a little girl and the next I was a grown woman, with bosoms and hair on my private parts. I missed the whole thing. But then, I never was too smart in school or otherwise …
“Mrs. Otis and I are from Whistle Stop, a little town about ten miles from here, out by the railroad yards.… She’s lived down the street from me for the past thirty years or so, and after her husband died, her son and daughter-in-law had a fit for her to come and live at the nursing home, and they asked me to come with her. I told them I’d stay with her for a while—she doesn’t know it yet, but I’m going back home just as soon as she gets settled in good.
“It’s not too bad out here. The other day, we all got Christmas corsages to wear on our coats. Mine had little shiny red Christmas balls on it, and Mrs. Otis had a Santy Claus face on hers. But I was sad to give up my kitty, though.
“They won’t let you have one here, and I miss her. I’ve always had a kitty or two, my whole life. I gave her to that little girl next door, the one who’s been watering my geraniums. I’ve got me four cement pots on the front porch, just full of geraniums.
“My friend Mrs. Otis is only seventy-eight and real sweet, but she’s a nervous kind of person. I had my gallstones in a Mason jar by my bed, and she made me hide them. Said they made her depressed. Mrs. Otis is just a little bit of somethin’, but as you can see, I’m a big woman. Big bones and all.
“But I never drove a car … I’ve been stranded most all my life. Always stayed close to home. Always had to wait for somebody to come and carry me to the store or to the doctor or down to the church. Years ago, you used to be able to take a trolley to Birmingham, but they stopped running a long time ago. The only thing I’d do different if I could go back would be to get myself a driver’s license.