Milquetoast, pretty much describes Bertha when we first met. At the time, she did make some statement that sparked my interest. Funny how I love being the center of attention but never initiate friendships. You know people really have to throw themselves at me if they want to be my friend. That’s the puzzle. Bertha did. She found something in me that compelled her to step out in a way that was totally out of character for her.
I could tell over the years that Bertha thought she ought to be the library discussion leader, or that she at least ought to get equal billing. I did let her do one of the discussions when I got tired of it all, but to tell the truth the feedback was a little too good for my blood, if you know what I mean. She expected me to introduce her to the library staff. But just why would I do that? I liked leading the discussions. I met folks that helped me along the way, especially after it went co-ed. By then I’d gained quite the reputation for my thoughtful intelligence, my compassion, and for my unique vision. It probably helped that I’d made an effort to get together with Bertha for a run-through before I did the presentations.
Bertha’s an original thinker. Now she’ll tell you that I used to take credit for her ideas, but that’s not the way I saw it. Don’t ideas belong to all of us? I never expected Bertha to credit me with every idea I’d presented to her. Friends share. That’s the whole point of friendship. I think of my friends as family. Bertha’s been the sister I’ve never had. Okay, so I never cared for my real family. Maybe my brother Bruce isn’t too bad. But my grandmother who raised us, that woman never gave us squat. We had so little that the word poverty would have been a definite improvement. It didn’t take me long to decide that poverty wasn’t for me. The ones who tell you there are worse things, were either not poor, or they’re liars. Now didn’t I get going on a tangent? Money does it to me every time.
I could never get Bertha to relax, like the makeup thing. I hardly ever wore makeup. I never wanted the bother, but Bertha, you couldn’t pry her from the house without the full color spectrum. The old Bertha was a fuddy duddy. This new Bertha, the carefree, let-the-wind-toss my hair kind of woman, makes me, well—sick.
Now what I miss most is talking to Bertha. She had a real kindness about her sometimes. She really listened. Her kind of listening felt like a womb. Snug and safe inside, I’d tell her anything. I’ve told her shit that I’ve never told another soul. Everyone does. But usually after I did it, I had mourning-after-regrets, pun intended. Those regrets made me punish her later. I can be brutal without trying. Anyway, it’s like I have a compulsion to hurt her once I’ve told her something that I should’ve kept to myself. You know things like how I slept with other men after John and I married. Or the times that I thought I wanted someone else’s husband long enough to split up the family, but then lost interest but after I’d had him for awhile. Bertha was so the prude. She’d tell you it was because she loved Sam that she didn’t go “stepping out,” her words not mine. But I don’t think she thought anyone else would be interested so why try. Was it my fault that when we were together the men flocked to me and ignored her?
Well, there you have it, the pretty and the ugly of it. See, I told you I could be brutal. I like to raise eyebrows. Bertha changed after Sam died. She’s a different woman, a woman looking for a fight if you ask me. I tell you after Sam died, she thought she was God’s gift to beauty. I personally got sick of her telling me about all the compliments. I shut her down one day at Melissa’s dinner party. We women had gathered in the kitchen. Bertha had been out amongst the men collecting their glasses to wash. She came back with this dreamy look on her face, all lit up from the inside. In that soft girlie voice of hers, “You won’t believe what Darren Stewart just said to me.”
“Oh, let me guess Bertha, he told you that you were pretty! Don’t make such a big damn thing of it please.” That shut Bertha up for the rest of the night. Kind of mean, but damn the woman gets eaten up with a compliment. I did regret saying it in front of so many other women. Comments like that tend to tarnish the speaker. And shit, a comment like that might make people label me as jealous. But really, who could seriously accuse me of being jealous of Bertha Eloise Loft? Please!
Chapter 3
“BERTHA AND SAM”
We met in college, Sam and me. A former Marine turned college student, Sam ordered me to marry him. Since we both agreed he out-ranked me, I followed orders. Sam was handsome in that kind of Marine/government way. Burr cut, no matter the current hairstyle for men. Stocky and solid, Sam’s increase in weight over the years just seemed to add another brick to his solidity. But I can say in the whole twenty-four years of our marriage, Sam never once, not even once, mentioned my weight. Of course, he never told me he loved me either, not until our last year together. Back to my weight, that’s not to say that he didn’t drag me along on mountain climbing excursions or rapid water rafting, or anything that could test and confirm his manly qualities. But he kept a watchful eye on me and when he’d won the contest, he always came back for me, the perennial end-of-the line girl.
Over time he began to look at me with what our daughter called shining eyes. The man rarely expressed any sort of verbal acknowledgement of his affection to either of us. But at Sam’s funeral I heard our daughter, Beth, tell Pandie, “Two women couldn’t have been loved better than Mom and me. Daddy was so crazy in love with Mom it used to make me jealous. But Dad taught me what to look for in a man.” Between Beth’s sobs I heard, “I won’t settle for anything less, I’d rather be alone.” Not bad for a man that came from an orphanage, huh?
People gravitated toward Sam when they were afraid, when they wanted leadership, or when they wanted to learn some piece of television trivia. Sam was the expert in trivia. That comment never failed to make him laugh, but he took my teasing in stride. Sam did love his television.
I never could bring myself to ask Sam why he picked me, me who sat in class without ever saying a word, always with my hand over my chin. But I remember the day he introduced himself. As I walked out of the classroom trying to leave in that hurried way I had, I dropped my armful of books. I bent down to pick them up and so did he. He took my hand and said, “Hey little lady, let me get those for you.” With that Sam-style, he gathered my books, tucked my arm in his, and told me he was going to buy me the best cinnamon roll in town. It just never occurred to Sam to ask me if I wanted to go. His confidence became my most soothing tonic. Seated at the diner, my first impulse of course was to raise my hand to cover what should have been a chin. I don’t have to tell you do I, that he just wouldn’t permit it. Instead, whenever I started to reach for my chin, he simply took my hand and held it. Later, after we were married, he’d take off his watch and ask me to hold it. Sam was as attached to that watch as he was the Marine Corps. The watch, a consolation gift to him from his commander for the medal he didn’t receive but should have, meant the world to him. So when I held that watch, it was with both hands. I wanted to keep it safe from any harm. Oh, Sam was a smart man.
Now, I can only do justice to us by also telling you that if Sam’s meals were late he simply refused to come to the table. Every piece of clothing that could be starched and ironed had better be starched and ironed. Socks had to be placed in his drawers in just the exact way he liked. Do you get the picture? He did take the time to teach me what he expected, but once he’d shown me what he believed was a sufficient number of times, he expected me to get it, then get it done.
Sam would not do anything he felt was feminine, so he was no help around the house. I would never have dreamed of asking Sam to vacuum, do the laundry, dust or any of that stuff. Sam insisted that I stay home, but that was more than fine with me. I never resented doing housework. Sam took care of mowing the lawn, car maintenance, anything that took muscle. Beth and I laughed behind his back because although Sam, frugal man that he was, always tried to fix everything, we generally had to call a professional after a Sam fix-it. Just like Sam did not appear to notice my weight and general lack of beauty, I never not
iced when he called a professional repairman. If something broke I told Sam I believed he could repair it. He’d say, “You’re damn right I’ll fix it. Those repair people (substitute plumber, electrician, mechanic) rob you blind and I’m not gonna have it.” When he said that, it made me want to reach out and touch his face with soft fingers, but I never did. I just couldn’t.
I never even participated much in our lovemaking. Sam never mentioned that either. I’m not saying it was all right with him. He just knew how easily someone could be hurt. He’d been hurt a lot himself. That may be why he exercised so obsessively. He kept so many things inside, fighting for control lest something dangerous escape. Honesty does require me to tell you that for some reason when Sam and I went on vacation, I could respond to him more passionately. The fact that Sam arranged for us to go on frequent vacations still makes me blush.
God, how it hurt when he died. That last year Sam told me he loved me. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying. It just wouldn’t do to burden Sam with my sadness; he had so much sadness himself saying goodbye to Beth and me. I’m shocked looking back now at how much we laughed. Sam loved potty humor, and Beth and I became experts at finding gross and disgusting jokes. Cancer got him. By the time he died we were all more than ready for him to find relief from his pain. Enough about that. Some things should remain private.
Just as we never discussed my weight, or Sam’s repair failures, we also never discussed money. Sam opened his own accounting business just three years after he graduated. He gave me a generous house allowance, which I managed carefully. I rarely bought anything for me, but both of us spoiled Beth. Clothes were never much temptation for the obvious reasons. I tried to limit mirror time to that required for making up my face. Sam understood this about me. Even on his most roughing-it camping trips, he’d make sure that I had a place and the time to fix my face.
Not surprisingly, Sam made sound investments. I wasn’t rich but I could live comfortably. Sam’s love astounded me when he was alive—but his love reached out to me after death with such generosity and care, that I can hardly speak of it. The lawyer who read the will gave me a letter that Sam asked me to open a year after his death. It was that letter that was the coup d’é tat of a man known for them.
Chapter 4
“PANDIE AND JOHN”
I shocked Bertha when I told her I’d signed up to volunteer as a tutor in the literacy program. Bertha had suggested volunteer work for years. Actually, she’d done more than suggest, she’d resorted to guilt and Bertha could do guilt with the best of them. I bet she thought that showing me the letter from her student thanking Bertha for changing her life was subtle. It wasn’t. I say with a certain pride, that I’m almost impervious to guilt.
But what Bertha could not accomplish directly, she accomplished indirectly. I had no need to share that juicy morsel with her. It could’ve caused me complications. Instead, I just put it in what I call the bottom drawer of my mind—the one that’s much too low to bother with ever opening. Bertha has volunteered at my library for years. She’s known among other volunteers as inspired. They’ve told me how enthusiastic, cheerful, and successful she’s been with her students. As long as those praiseworthy descriptions stayed unnoticed by anyone I’d call “important” I felt proud for her. But when one of those admiring volunteers decided to share what “good ideas” Bertha had with my boss, I perked right up to the potential danger. When Bart Boone, the library director came running to my office chatting about the new idea a volunteer had come up with to increase community involvement I listened with a careful ear. Bertha resented my good looks, but her talent for creative ideas terrified me. If she and I had been playing poker I’d call that a draw.
By the time Bart came to me he’d already met with Bertha. I could have averted some anxious moments if I’d been in my office to accept Bertha’s panicked plea for advice on how she should conduct herself at the meeting with Bart. Unfortunately, I’d taken quite a long lunch so I missed the call. Without my help, Bertha had unduly impressed Bart. Bart, however, had found it easy to let me make his important decisions. So he came to my office soon after the meeting to get my thoughts on Bertha’s proposal. Did I tell you that Bertha had mentioned me as her best friend?
According to Bart, Bertha’s idea to boost community support was both original and full of promise. He felt that Bertha would have to head the campaign because she had a “vision” that no one else had. Bart wondered out loud if my friendship with Bertha would impede my judgment about whether he could rely on her to direct the community campaign. You see don’t you that Bertha lacked a certain savvy she needed to accomplish her dreams. While I loved Bertha, I’d spent too many years cultivating Bart to let her original idea spoil it all. I just didn’t need the pressure of that kind of competition. I told Bart in no uncertain terms that while Bertha certainly had a good heart, and even an occasional good idea, she had trouble setting appropriate boundaries. I point blank told him that Bertha might let just “anyone” get involved. I told him that although I loved Bertha, I only felt it fair to warn him about her naivete.
“Bertha’s a friend of mine, Bart. To tell the truth I love her like a sister. But you asked for my honest opinion, so here it is. Bertha’s got too much of that social worker mentality without the management skills to see that kind of project through from beginning to end. I think she’d involve too many people in the decision making so that nothing could ever get done. I’m afraid you’d have a situation where no one was accountable.”
“What a shame. You know she even had me a little excited about the prospects of this new campaign, just because she seemed to genuinely care about the programs we offer.” Bart stood up, “Would it be all right with you if I send her a letter instead of giving her a call? Since you’re friends with her, what do you think?” He walked to the door, then turned for my answer, I assured him a letter would let her down gently. A letter would allow her some time to compose herself. I thought this last comment was consistent with the idea of Bertha as a woman who couldn’t be depended upon to control her emotions. Bart’s parting words to me were “I was afraid she was just too sweet.”
Bertha was devastated that her idea got shelved. She’d thought Mr. Boone very interested. She even asked me what I thought had gone wrong. Crying actually. I told her that sometimes she came across as too soft when a more business-like approach was needed. After that she didn’t seem to talk about her ideas for the library as much. Come to think of it, I don’t remember her talking about it at all. Do I feel guilty? Well, in a word, no. If Bertha had really wanted to pursue her idea she wouldn’t have given up so easily. That’s something that she never learned. Me, I just don’t take no for an answer. Push, push, push. Some call that being a bully but I call it positive thinking. I’d say it’s worked damn well for me.
Bart’s visit with me about Bertha, that’s what inspired a rash desire in me to volunteer. I thought it expedient to renew my enthusiasm for the library, sort of a “rah rah” rally for Bart Boone to see. But alert to danger, I made sure to obtain his promise that he wouldn’t go around looking for new programs without coming to me first.
Of course, Bart couldn’t keep his damn mouth shut about our meeting and the advice I’d given him about Bertha. It had to have been Bart. It was only the two of us, and I for sure didn’t tell anyone. I’d emphasized to Bart how critical it was for him to keep quiet. I’d reminded him that if he revealed what I’d told him, he could destroy a long and valued friendship. But you guessed it, didn’t you? That’s right. He couldn’t wait to tell someone, and that someone couldn’t wait to tell Bertha.
When Bertha confronted me, her voice shook with anger and hurt. She accused me of the worst kind of betrayal. Told me that she’d never trust me again. Caught off guard, I had a little trouble in recovering, but instinctively I knew to hit her where it hurt. I droned on and on about how emotional she was in her approach to things because of her big heart. I reminded her that she was no
t tough enough to manage other people, something she would have been required to do for the community volunteer project. I knew that Bertha still didn’t believe she had what it took to manage other people. I questioned her ability to step in as a manager when she had absolutely no experience.
“Of course, Bertha, if you handled some smaller projects first you’d gain the skill you need to direct the larger, more important ones.” I could see her begin to relent. “You know I believe in you don’t you?” Bertha smiled even as she cried. “Yeah, I know you do. I just have trouble sometimes believing in myself.” Bertha’s face at first red with crying now had no color at all. She’d turned albino white. But, I knew I had her when she apologized for thinking that I’d betrayed her, embarrassed for carrying on so. Told me she understood, but even understanding, it might take her some time for things to be okay between us. I assured her that I empathized with her feelings. We parted with mutual “sorry for hurting your feelings.” And I was sorry. Really. My life was work. Bertha had Sam back then. I decided that in the equation of Bertha and Pandie, she’d gotten quite enough all ready. She didn’t need to take what I had too.
So perhaps I began my tutoring on a less than high note. As far as I was concerned, the note got even lower when I met the student I’d be tutoring. His name was the Mexican name for James. I learned that it was pronounced perilously close to the word “hymen.” He spoke English with a heavy accent. Honestly, I couldn’t believe he’d ever need to read anything beyond the “What can I get you, Senorita, tacos or burritos?” stuff. I assure you that I kept this opinion to myself. Under any language, he stank of onions and chili. His clothes, his hair, his breath paralyzed me. Bertha reminded me that he came straight from work at a Mexican restaurant and maybe I could get over it. But his smell gagged me. He smelled “low class.”
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