How Lulu Lost Her Mind

by Rachel Gibson

  A few short pings draw my attention upward as the “fasten seatbelt” light flashes on. My bottle of water tips over and rolls off the tray. It lands by my foot and I leave it there. I know what those pings mean.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we are experiencing light turbulence and the captain has turned on the ‘fasten seatbelt’ sign and asks that you remain seated. For those passengers who are not seated, please return to your seat until the captain has determined that it is safe to move about the cabin. Thank you.”

  Shit. Turbulence. I hate turbulence. I hate it even more without the calming aid of alcohol. We’re going to be fine, I tell myself as the plane bumps through the rough air. The wings are not going to get ripped off and we’re not going to plummet to the earth and face certain death.

  “What’s that?”

  Shit. Mom’s awake—just what I need. “Nothing,” I manage. The cabin rattles and dips and I try to swallow my fear.

  “Are we falling from the sky?”

  I turn my head and look at her wide blue eyes. “No.”

  “I think we’re falling from the sky.”

  “No, we’re not.” I feel sick. I think I’m going to be sick.

  “Yep. We’re falling from the sky, all right.”

  “Please stop,” I say, but she’s wringing her hands and I know she’s just getting started.

  “Did we run out of gas?”

  “No.”

  “I think we ran out of gas.”

  “Please stop,” I beg once more, even though I know it’s useless.

  “Yep, we ran out of gas.”

  “We didn’t run out of gas, Mom.”

  “We’re going to die.”

  I put a hand to my throat and feel my pounding pulse. “Don’t say that.”

  “Yep, we’re going to die, all right.”

  I think I might actually faint again. I need water. I need a paper bag to breathe into.

  “Lou Ann.”

  “I think we’re going to crash.”

  I need one of those little bottles of vodka.

  “Yep, we’re going to crash.”

  “Lou Ann!”

  I turn my head and look at Lindsey. “Here,” she says, and I release my grip on the arm of my chair and lean across the aisle to take a prescription bottle from her hand.

  It’s Xanax. The plane shudders and dips to one side. God bless that girl. I need Xanax.

  “We’re going to crash, all right.”

  I’m so tempted to just say, “Forget it,” and numb the pain with booze or Xanax, but I can’t. I have to keep white-knuckling it, and I try to hand the bottle back to Lindsey. “No, thanks.”

  “That’s for Patricia. Put two under her tongue.”

  5

  Mom needs glasses. I need a drink.

  She swears she’s in heaven. I swear like a lunatic.

  I’M HOME.” Mom sighs. “Isn’t that just a sight for sore eyes?”

  I slap the insect feeding on my jugular instead of answering her. I’m afraid of what might happen if I open my mouth. The drive from the airport sobered Mom up somewhat, but she’s still a bit blissed out on Xanax, and I’m still wound so tight that I’m fighting to keep it all together. I don’t want to come apart. It could be ugly.

  The airport limo pulls away, leaving us in the yard and our luggage lined up on the porch.

  Mom’s sigh is drawn out this time. “It’s so beautiful and grand.”

  I’ve been to Louisiana many times. The Windsor Court Hotel in New Orleans is a real favorite of mine. Its architectural details are stunning, and it’s close enough to the French Quarter that I can grab a café au lait and a beignet in the morning, but far enough to allow me to escape the craziness of Bourbon Street at night. Another favorite is the Hilton in Baton Rouge with its magnificent views of the Mississippi River, but those beautiful views are a world away from the patchy lawn beneath my feet.

  While Mom sees grandeur, all I see is a massive money pit with missing green shutters and a row of dirty Grecian pillars surrounding the house and holding up a balcony and dormered roof. The wrought-iron railing looks okay from here, but I wouldn’t lean against it.

  “It’s just like I remember.”

  Yeah, and that’s the problem. One of the dormer windows is boarded up, there’s an old television antenna on top of the roof, and the stained glass in the transom above the double doors is cracked. Veils of Spanish moss fall to the uneven cobblestone walkway from the bent and twisted limbs of live oaks and towering cypress trees. While Mom hears Dixie, all I hear is the incessant buzz of cicadas and God knows what else. In Seattle bugs aren’t a big problem, but this is the South, where insects grow bigger, live longer, and breed more. Where creepy-crawlies invade at night and where my mother wants to live out the remainder of her life.

  “I’m so happy. I love you. You’re a good daughter.” And that’s why I’ve been killing myself for the past month to make it happen. I want to make Mom as happy as I can for the rest of her life, and I want to make new memories to last me the rest of my life, too. I can work here as well as in Seattle, and I can spend my free time with Mom, instead of paying her visits at memory care facilities that often get postponed because of my work.

  “Did you see The Skeleton Key?” Lindsey asks.

  “No.” Beyond potty language at the dinner table, I’ve learned several things about Lindsey. She rarely wears anything but nurse’s scrubs and she listens to loud country music in her room. She hates peas and loves horror movies almost as much as Mom loves ’70s game shows.

  “This looks like that house.” Then she whispers, so Mom doesn’t hear, “Super creepy.”

  Mother reaches for my hand and squeezes. Her touch helps calm my overworked nerves and takes my tension down from level ten to about level eight. “It’s a good day.” She lifts her face to the sky and breathes deeply as if she’s sucking in heaven.

  Beside me, Lindsey shrugs out of her cardigan and hangs the sweater over one arm. Her scrubs have clouds and rainbows on them today. Yesterday it was safari animals. “Are you sure it’s only sixty-three degrees? I’m sweating like a pig.”

  I’ve never really understood why anyone would compare themselves to a pig. I swat away a bug in front of my face and say, “Humidity always makes it seem hotter in the South.” Which is true. The few stray hairs that have escaped my braid are stuck to the back of my neck. “You’ll get used to it,” I lie, in case Lindsey is thinking about bailing on me. She’s taken care of all the paperwork that ensures Mom’s medical records were transferred to a local GP as well as to a neurologist. She set up appointments and spoke with the nearest pharmacy. She’s done all the big and little things involved with Mom’s care. We could not have made this move without her.

  “Yeah, probably by the time we go back home.”

  I shrug because I don’t know when we’ll return to Seattle. Could be one year or five years. It depends on the progression of Mom’s illness.

  “I’ll have to use extra deodorant to make sure I don’t stink.”

  And I’ll buy her any deodorant she wants. I’ll buy her a gross of deodorant sticks and throw in a pony, too. We need her. Mom likes her. And she loves to cook.

  When I’d realized that Mom hadn’t forgotten my promise to bring her to Sutton Hall and wasn’t giving up on the idea of living out the remainder of her years in Louisiana, I’d feared we’d lose Lindsey, but she’d jumped at the chance to get out of Washington. In fact, she’d jumped so fast that I wondered if she was wanted for robbing banks or spree killings.

  I am so relieved to have her, I don’t care.

  “There used to be a rain barrel over there.” Mother drops my hand and points a finger to the corner of a wraparound porch. “That’s where Grandmere got the water to wash her hair.” Funny she can remember her grandmother catching rainwater sixty or seventy years ago but not spooning Mr. Shone last month.

  “I know,” I say as we head up three wooden steps to the porch. The boards beneath our f
eet creak; some have been replaced here and there, but it’s just as I remember. Our luggage sits next to the double doors, painted the same green as the shutters, and just as faded.

  “I don’t know what Earl will do without me.” Mother doesn’t remember the incident that got her booted from Golden Springs, but she remembers her boyfriend.

  The front doors are locked, and I dig around in my purse in search of the key. When I’d given Mom the key a few months ago, she’d put it somewhere “safe”—so safe we couldn’t find it within her personal belongings, though we did find a secret money stash and a hoard of credit cards. Only one of them belonged to her. I don’t know how she got away with stealing so many, but I assume she never actually used them, or I would have been informed of her credit card fraud by now.

  It took several long hours filled with hand-wringing and worry. “Wynonna stole it. She hates me and loves to steal from me,” she’d said over and over, accusing the poor woman until we’d finally found it wrapped up inside a purple Crown Royal bag.

  I raise the key to the lock, but it doesn’t fit. I wiggle it this way and that, cajole and plead and curse under my breath. God, I miss the Millennium Tower concierge already. I shove the weight of my body into the door, but it doesn’t even rattle. From the moment we set foot in Sea-Tac this morning, the day has gone from bad to worse. My head hurts and I’m sweaty. My nerves are shot, and my sanity is barely hanging on. I stomp one foot in frustration, and the four-inch heel of my Manolo sinks into the old wooden porch. It sinks so far that it won’t come out when I scrunch my toes and lift my foot. I look over my shoulder at my mother, who is so close that she’s almost on top of me. “It’s not the right key.”

  “That’s the key, all right.”

  The humidity. The key. My shoe stuck in the porch. The flight from hell. I don’t know how much more I can take. “You try.” I shove the key at Mom, who hands it off to Lindsey.

  I step out of my black pump and allow the strongest woman I know to take my place. She pushes and pulls on the door as she shakes the handle and tries to fit the key into the lock all at the same time. She slams a shoulder into it, and, for several hopeful moments, I think the hinges might give out, but the solid old door doesn’t budge. “Wrong key.”

  “Wynonna must have stolen the good key. She stole my pink nightie and framed picture of Rowdy Yates.”

  I feel a tiny twitch in the corner of my eye—never a good sign.

  “Maybe it’s to the back door,” Lindsey suggests, and she and Mother turn and walk around the right side of the porch. They just leave me, but I’m okay with that and bend down to retrieve my shoe from the hole I’ve created. I pull at it four times before it comes free, and I stumble back a few steps. The heel is a little loose, and the leather is stripped like an inside-out umbrella. This is the second pair of ruined pumps in two months. I only packed three others. At this rate, I’ll be out of shoes by May. Well, except for four pairs of boots, six pairs of sandals, and a pair of Nikes I threw in at the last minute.

  It’s getting hotter and more humid by the second, and my silk blouse is stuck to my skin. The heel of my shoe feels a bit wonky, and I put as little weight on it as possible as I follow Mom and Lindsey. I could take my shoes off and go barefoot, but I’m wearing pantyhose, and the fear of splinters is real enough to keep them on my feet.

  By the time I limp my way to Mom and Lindsey, they’re standing at a door that looks very much like the one in front. In fact, the back of the house is almost as grand as the front. Or was grand at one time.

  “How’s it going?” I ask as I limp toward them.

  Mother is smiling, but Lindsey isn’t. Not a good sign.

  “I swear, it’s just so beautiful back here,” Mom gushes.

  Clearly my mother and I are not on the same planet, let alone in the same clumpy yard in Louisiana. It appears that someone has recently attempted to mow the lawn and weeds, but beyond that, the shrubs are a nightmare. Cypress trees tower over a roofless garçonnière and what is left of the original kitchen. Kudzu has nearly swallowed most of the older structures and crumbling chimneys at the far end of the yard where the bayou meanders along, filled with creepy critters. I know that somewhere behind the converted garage to my right is a cobblestone lane that leads to the old family cemetery where my mother expects to be buried.

  “Why are you walking funny?” my mother wants to know.

  “I broke a heel.” If I am careful and keep my weight off my shoe, I think it can be easily repaired. I might spend a lot of money on clothes and shoes, but I take good care of them so they will last.

  “The key fits but the door won’t open,” Lindsey tells me.

  The sun beats down on us, and I feel myself sweating like a dog, which I much prefer to pig. I shrug out of my blazer and pull the front of my blouse from my damp skin. “Let me try.” Lindsey hands me the key, and I confirm she’s right. It fits, the handle turns, but nothing. I’d put a shoulder into it, but I’ve learned my lesson. To my right, I hear a clicking sound from the overgrown shrubs that shoves my heart up into my throat. Like someone with a camera is hiding in the shrubbery, or a giant insect is preparing to launch an attack on my clammy neck. The first possibility isn’t likely, and the second makes my sweaty skin crawl and raises my shoulders to my ears.

  “The doors won’t open.” Mother states the obvious. “Call someone for help.”

  I close my eyes and take a deep, cleansing breath to keep my head from exploding. “There’s no one I can call.” I don’t want to explode. I don’t want to yell and scream and act crazy, but I can feel it bubbling up.

  “Call Tony.”

  I press my fingertips to the seam of my lips. I know Mom isn’t purposely trying to make my head explode, but she’s standing next to a powder keg with a box of matches in her hand.

  “I don’t think he’s coming,” Lindsey helps me out. Over the past month, she’s heard Mom drop his name, forcing me to explain my reaction to the jerk.

  “Sure he is. He’ll get the real key from Wynonna. Then she’ll be sorry.”

  My foot wobbles, my ankles twists, and I slowly list to one side. “Fuck!”

  My mother gasps, and I drop my hand from my mouth. She hates the f-word as much as I do. Maybe a little more. “Lou Ann! Don’t be trashy.”

  She’s right. Swearing is trashy, and a bad habit best never picked up. “Sorry.” I’m sinking starboard—then snap, the heel of my Manolo shoots off into the clicking shrub. One leg is suddenly shorter than the other and sweat is running down the side of my neck. “Great! My shoe just broke.”

  “Wynonna stole my shoes.” Mom shakes her head, and the ends of her side pony brush across her shoulder. “Tony will make her give them back. The key too.”

  “Stop talking about him.” Stop flicking lighted matches in my direction. “Don’t even mention his name to me.”

  Her red lips purse as she stares straight ahead at the locked door. She’s mad, but hopefully she’ll stop talking about Tony.

  “Maybe we can find a screwdriver or something in the garage,” Lindsey suggests.

  “Or a hacksaw,” I add.

  Lindsey one-ups me. “Chain saw. This door would definitely require a chain saw.”

  “He’s like a son.”

  Boom—red flashes behind my eyes and I explode. “I hate that fucker!” I put a hand on top of my head to keep it from flying off into the shrub after my four-inch heel. Pain stabs my temples, and my inner trashy nature takes over like a demon possession. A torrent of filth gushes from my mouth, and I couldn’t stop it even if I tried.

  Mom gasps and clutches the front of her jogging suit, but I don’t seem to care that I’m giving her heart failure. Words I’ve never used spew forth like a fount of profanity and my crescendo is so glorious, so spectacular, teenage boys from around the world must be writhing with envy. “Tony’s a rat bastard, son of a bitch, fuck-fucking-fucker, squirrel-dick shit taco!” I take a deep breath and slowly blow it out. The demon has
been exorcised.

  Mother’s lips are pursed even tighter. Lindsey’s eyes are wide.

  Did I really say “squirrel-dick shit taco”?

  One side of the back doors swings open and a man, looking every bit like he’s straight off the cover of Men’s Fitness magazine, drawls in a smooth, Southern voice, “How can I help you, ladies?”

  6

  Rattlesnake Patty and Lay’s potato chips.

  MY HEART skips a beat and I can feel heat flush my sweaty face. Gross. Did he hear my tirade? Probably. This is payback for yelling trashy words in public. “The door was locked,” seems to be all I am capable of saying.

  “It sticks.” He’s tall and broad, and his T-shirt is stark white against the shadows in the house behind him. His dark brows are knitted in a disapproving scowl, and his green eyes look down at me as if he doesn’t like what he sees. That’s okay. I’m not looking for a date. “You have to pull while you turn the knob.”

  Gee, why didn’t I think of that?

  His attention turns to my mother and he smiles. His teeth are as white as his T-shirt, defying the old Southern stereotype. “You must be Ms. Patricia,” he drawls.

  “Yes.” Mother pushes past me and takes his arm. Some things never change. “And you are?”

  “Simon Broussard.”

  “Arcadian.”

  “My father’s people are Broussards.”

  Beside me, Lindsey whispers like she’s found religion, “Praise the Lord and the beauty of the earth.”

  Has Mom’s health care worker suddenly found God here on this porch in Louisiana? I look at her out of the corners of my eyes. “What?”

  “That’s a handsome man.” Lindsey’s smile is huge and makes her brown eyes light up. “Handsome man with big muscles.”