It was one o’clock before I felt like I had made enough progress to stop working in the yard for the day. I had accomplished the basic things. I threw some chlorine in the pool skimmers. I gave all the pots a good soaking and thought to myself that I would just wait to see what revived itself. Sometimes plants did that. Resurrected themselves, as I intended to do. I cleaned up all the garbage, put away the children’s bikes and so forth, deadheaded the roses and sprayed them, picked up all the twigs and turned up the mulch that had been flattened by all the rain. Then I did the big nasty—I cleaned out the fountain, happy at the end to see the clean water spouting from the mouths of the three big fish in its center. If the garden didn’t appear to be thriving, at least it was presentable. And best of all, I had figured out how to handle all the insanity of the media attention and its probable impact on the children.
I went inside to make a salad and flipped on CNN. A spokesperson from Johnson & Johnson was talking about anticipated sales of wet wipes and the reporter, all smiles and mirth, was suggesting that Abigail and I become the faces for the products. I turned the television off. It was too much. Didn’t we have a war in Iraq to talk about?
By the time I was showered and dressed and had fed myself a little leftover spaghetti—let’s face it, in times of nervous anxiety, some carbos can do you good—it was time to go for the children.
I went slowly through the car line and saw them. Their faces were angry and upset. They got in, slammed the doors and said nothing.
“Well? How was your day?”
“I hate Daddy! This has been the worst day of my life!” Sami said.
Evan said, “Jamie Olden is a dick.”
Dick? I pulled the car over to the curb and turned to Evan in the backseat. “You may be right, Evan—in fact, another one comes to mind—but we will not use that kind of language.” I sighed. “So Sami, want to wait until we get home to give me the download, or shall we just hear it all now?”
The expected backlash had slammed her so hard that she was almost speechless. But not quite. She didn’t say anything during the ride home and when she went through the back door, she stormed right up to her room and slammed the door. I knew enough about Sami, and about young girls in general, to know the thing to do was give her time to cool off but not enough time to build a fresh case against me.
“You want a brownie and some milk?” I said to Evan.
“Sure,” he said and threw his backpack on the floor. “But Jamie Olden is still a dick.”
I let it slide. “What did he say to you?”
“That my dad’s girlfriend is a freak of nature.”
“You should have corrected him—she’s a freak of surgery. I’m going to go get your sister and we’re gonna have a family meeting.”
I took a large portion of the pink lilies Tisdale brought last night, put them in a vase for her and climbed the steps to her room with it balanced on my hip. I knocked on her door.
“What?”
We were having some issues getting that talk to each other like people who love each other agreement to kick in.
“Want to cut school tomorrow?”
That got her attention. She opened the door; I went in and placed the vase on her dresser.
“Are you serious?”
“Yep, come downstairs and talk to me and Evan. I have a plan.”
Reluctantly and with a moderate amount of teeth sucking, she followed me to the kitchen. I poured her a glass of milk, refilled Evan’s glass and looked at them.
“Okay, I just want you to hear me out and then you can say anything you want. Deal?”
“Okay,” Evan said and stuffed a whole brownie in his precious pudgy little mouth.
Snnnck! Sami sucked her teeth and looked at the ceiling. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. My whole life is ruined anyway.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is,” Sami insisted. “Do you know there wasn’t one person in school today who didn’t make some crack about you taking Charlene Johnson’s fake boobs from her?”
“It doesn’t surprise me. Y’all ever hear the old worn-out cliché about making lemonade out of lemons?”
Sami groaned and Evan said, “Yeah, so?”
“Here are the lemons—Charlene Johnson and all her plastic surgery, this divorce, Daddy taking money out of Granddaddy’s business that he wasn’t supposed to take and all the lies that Daddy told. The very worst thing that Daddy did was to make you believe that I wasn’t a good mother and that you weren’t important to me. As a result of that, we had some terrible words with each other and didn’t feel good about each other at all.”
At this point, Sami was staring at the table and Evan was uneasy, shifting in his seat.
“So then Daddy sues me for custody, the house and child support. He doesn’t even want to give me enough money to live. I call my friend Claudia in Atlanta, she gives me her condo, I get a job in a gallery in Pawleys Island, start selling my watercolors…”
I went down the order of events as they happened, the courtroom story of what Judge Shelby had said about taking back Charlene’s bosoms and other body parts and how Claudia had offered to do the reversal surgery for free. We finally arrived at the press conference.
“The press conference was very uncomfortable for me. I made this big statement about how plastic surgery was for train-wreck victims and that I would rather be alone for the rest of my life than live with a man who wanted me to have an operation to change my face and make him happy. The room was so quiet that I got unnerved and started to cry. I reached in my bag for a tissue but all I had was a wet wipe. I used it to wipe mascara from under my eyes and then worried that my whole face had mascara on it and I just kept wiping. Then I made this statement that it was inner makeup that mattered, not cosmetic makeup. Abigail Thurmond, my lawyer did the same thing.
“Last night, Paula Zahn from CNN took off her makeup on TV and saluted Abigail and me. Today, every single broadcast reporter across the country did the same thing and talked about how image-crazy women had become and how devalued we were when we got older and how values and integrity matter more than appearances…Oh, did I mention that Katie Couric called and I’m being interviewed on the Today Show tomorrow?”
“WHAT?”
Now I had their full attention.
“That’s why I thought you might like to cut school. You know, hang out and meet a bunch of people from NBC? It doesn’t happen every day of the week…”
“Cool,” said Evan. “I’m in!”
“Oh! My! God!” Sami was completely stunned. “Mom! This is awesome!”
“Yeah, it’s a good thing I cleaned the house yesterday, right? More milk?”
“Mom! This is unbelievable! Does Dad know?”
“No, I don’t imagine that he does.”
“Is he gonna get mad when he finds out?” Sami said.
I looked at her square in her face and said, “Sami? After all your father has put me through and put my children through, all in the name of giving himself the legal right to run off with another woman, do you think I care what he thinks?” I started to laugh and as I laughed I saw her face change. The bitterness fell away and she began to enjoy my victory. After all, my victory could be hers too, if she wanted it to be.
“We are all in this together, Sami, Evan. We may as well make the best of it.”
For the rest of the afternoon, the phone rang and rang. It was the local NBC producer. Could he come to the house and scope out the best spot to do the interview? Sure, I said, come on over. Tisdale called, asking if I had seen Nat, who had not come to clean out his desk as he had promised to do. I said I would probably be the last person he would call unless he had to and I thanked him again for the flowers and cell phones for the children. Huey called to wish me luck. Claudia called and we rehashed everything.
Chinese takeout was spread all over the kitchen counter by the time Abigail arrived. Abigail was charmed by Evan and Sami, who asked her so many questions about m
y life in Pawleys Island, our friends there and my painting that I thought she would ask them to give her a moment to breathe, but she didn’t. Abigail, with her endless supply of poise and wisdom, made them see another truth: mine. And hers. She was so great with my kids. She must’ve been a great mother.
I knew the children were on the fence about what Nat had done. No child really wanted to hate their parents. And I didn’t want them to hate him; I finally honestly didn’t want that. I just wanted them to understand that when you make bad choices, there are going to be consequences. While they thought their dad had made some very selfish decisions, they weren’t old enough to understand that he had used them in the process to get what he wanted.
They weren’t old enough to comprehend a lot of what had gone on between their father and me, but I wanted them to see that families have obligations to each other that sometimes supercede personal ambitions. It was a lot for them to grasp, but I figured that while they were at the ages they were, trying to figure out who they were, they may as well try and figure out who they want to become. I wanted them to understand that marriage vows, parental obligations and mutual respect in families were just a few of the things left in this cockeyed world that were truly sacred and worth fighting for. Abigail and I walked them through a lot of those ideas. They took it all in for the duration of that evening and I hoped that it would stay with them. But for children, and even adults, the kind of learning that stays with you comes by example, not a conversation around plastic containers of lo mein, sweet-and-sour pork and fried rice.
The dishwasher was humming, everyone was in their rooms and I was getting ready for bed. I heard a little knock on my door and opened it. It was Sami.
“Can I sleep in your bed?”
“You bet! Hop in!”
There were no sweeter words to my ears, and all through the short night I slept with my little girl at my side. I wanted to cry, I had so many feelings of relief and sorrow combined. But I didn’t want to wake her, and besides, I wasn’t sure I had any tears left. At one point during the night, I got up and checked Evan. His covers were kicked off, his pajama bottoms were twisted and his round little tummy was exposed, rising and falling with his breath.
“Turn over, baby,” I whispered. I straightened out his pajamas, covered him up, smoothed his shaggy hair away from his eyes and kissed him on the top of his head. I left his door ajar, just in case. But I knew he would sleep—the bed may have looked like downtown Baghdad, but Evan’s mind was off somewhere, blissfully dreaming about pizza and soccer.
That night my mind shifted from the surprising joy of having my children with me again, and the worry that I had ever let myself believe I would not want to be with them anymore. That must have been some self-defense mechanism I used because I was sure at the time they didn’t want me. My mother’s abandonment had made me question my worth all my life. Whether or not it would be pleasant to live together and be their mother didn’t matter then. I didn’t expect that anyway. If nothing else, I would use every power I had to make them psychologically stronger than I had been. That was something I could give them that had real value.
When the alarm went off at six, I felt like I had only been asleep for an hour or less. I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror. Did I really have the nerve to go on national television with that face? Yep, after I soaked my eyes with cucumber slices for a bit, I sure would.
As soon as I opened my front door, the bustle began. Tech crew swarmed my living room and dining room while the rest of us huddled in the kitchen, pouring coffee and flipping eggs. Abigail looked fine, like she had been to a spa. I felt like an old rag.
“I can’t believe what I look like this morning!”
“You look like Miss America.” She threw a handful of ice cubes in a baggie and handed them to me. “Get in the shower, wash your hair and, while it’s in a towel, ice your eyes. Ice is a miracle drug.” I looked at the clock. We were supposed to go on the air in an hour. I had time to make an attempt to look presentable.
I stepped out of the shower, wrapped myself in that sexy terrycloth robe Nat gave me and made a mental note to burn it, and as I stepped into the dressing room, there were Abigail and Sami, pushing the hangers in my closet. Possible outfits were laid on my bed.
“Mom, have you thought about what you’re gonna wear?”
“Nope—probably a nice cotton sweater and a pair of slacks. I have a lime green sweater set somewhere around here.”
“Lime green? Mom! You wanna look like Kermit? No, no! Something in navy? What about that navy linen tunic?”
“Too messy on camera,” Abigail said. “Where are your sweaters?”
They finally settled on a royal blue cotton boatneck sweater and capri pants with tiny red and white checks.
“Don’t you think it’s a little patriotic? And summer’s almost over.”
“Rebecca. It is Labor Day weekend. Patriotic is exactly the message we want to send.”
“Okay! Whatever you think…”
They filed out with the clothes, saying they would press them, and I was to put the ice bag on my swollen eyes.
This whole rigmarole of the day before me was beyond absurd. What the hell was I doing going on the Today Show? I hadn’t cured cancer. I didn’t fly to Mars. I wasn’t a big-deal anything. It seemed more ridiculous at that moment than ever. But I figured, let Katie Couric sweat it. She made the big bucks. Not me. Then I started thinking about all the truly stupid topics that made their way to network programming and felt a little better.
After ten minutes, I got up to dry my hair and inspected my eyes. They did look better—a lot, in fact. Well, if hair is half your looks, I knew I had a fifty percent chance of presenting myself as reasonably attractive. It came out great for once in its stringy life. I brushed my eyebrows and plucked the strays and iced my eye area again. Then I moisturized the daylights out of my face and neck. I put some Vaseline on my lips and stood back giving myself a critical review.
“Not horrible,” I said, to no one.
Sami came rushing in with my clothes. “Hurry! They want you downstairs!”
“Okay. Hey, thanks for your help, sweetheart.”
“No big deal. Hey, Mom?”
“What, baby?”
“Do you think I could sit on the couch next to you?”
I looked over to see that Sami had also washed her hair and put on her favorite royal blue sweater and jeans. On camera, we would look like bookends. I thought about it for a moment.
“Sami? It’s not up to me, you know. But why would you want to do that anyway? We don’t exactly share the same politics in this department.”
“So, you did know, didn’t you?”
“Well, in general, mothers do eventually hear it all.”
“I changed my mind. I thought about all the stuff you and Abigail said last night and I realize it’s pretty sick to get fake boobs just to be a cheerleader. In fact, cheerleading might be pretty stupid too.”
“I don’t know—it’s athletic and would keep you in good shape. Not all cheerleaders are dimwits.”
“Look, Mom. If my stupid classmates see me on the Today Show sticking up for families and whatever you talk about, it might help me be able to walk in there tomorrow and not be…you know what I mean, right?”
“Not be humiliated by the fifty thousand dollars of surgery your daddy paid for his whore to have when he wouldn’t spend a dime on a marriage counselor for us? Hmm, let’s see?”
“He wouldn’t pay for a marriage counselor? He never told me that! Jesus, what an ass!”
“We’re not going to call your daddy an ass, okay? We know he’s an ass, but we’re not going to say it.” Sami giggled and I gave her a hug. “Okay! Let’s see if there’s a spot on the couch!”
There was. We watched the monitor showing the outdoor plaza at Rockefeller Center and there were dozens of women waving up wet wipes and signs that said things like Go Rebecca! Go Abigail! Southern Women Rock! The World Needs a Mental Ext
reme Makeover!
The support was stunning.
Katie Couric was surprised to have an additional guest, and after asking Abigail and me a lot of questions, she got around to saying something about Sami. “And who’s this, Rebecca?”
“This is my daughter, Sami, and I think she has something to say as well.”
“Sami? What do you think about all this attention your mom’s getting?”
“Well, I think it’s très cool, Katie,” Sami said like she’d been giving interviews for years. Even Katie giggled at her confidence. But Sami’s face was a sober as Judge Shelby’s. “Look at my mom. She’s beautiful! She’s beautiful inside too, and she’s right, that’s what really matters. Inside makeup.”
“Inside makeup. I love it. Boy, I hope my daughters grow up to think like you do, honey. Okay, Ms. Simms? Ms. Thurmond? And you too, Sami! Thanks for being with us and we wish you lots of good luck!”
It was over.
“You were great, Sami!” I gave her a big hug.
“Yes, you were fabulous!” Abigail said and hugged her too.
“I didn’t get to do anything!” Evan whined.
“Oh, shut up, Evan,” Sami said. “It was a woman thing.”
A woman thing! Priceless.
Inside of an hour, all I needed was to run the vacuum cleaner to erase every trace of NBC. All the cables, the generators, the trucks and the army of people were all gone.
“Boy, am I glad that’s over,” I said.
“I wish they’d come back,” Sami said. “It ended too quick.”
“Yeah, it was quick but now it’s time to go back to normal life, don’t you think?” Abigail said.
“Normal life sucks,” Sami said.
“Well, you could go live with Charlene and Daddy in her trailer in O-burg…just a thought,” I said.
Sami’s jaw locked and her face darkened. She made a hellish noise that rose from somewhere deep inside the cage of her adolescent frustration.
Pawleys Island Page 30
