by Pamela Ribon
The afternoon drink was a welcome change. I kicked off my shoes and stretched my toes into the soft grass. It was only once I leaned back onto my elbows that I noticed we were having our happy hour beside the tombstone of HARRIET WEINERS 1902–1975, Beloved Mother, Grandmother, Devoted Wife, “GOD NEVER MAKES MISTAKES.”
“Is this weird?” I asked.
Smidge grabbed the martini glass out of my hand and tipped it forward until a small stream dribbled over the edge. “Here you go, Harriet.” She handed it back. “Better now?”
“I do feel better, yes.”
I raised my martini toward the hill in a cemetery-wide toast before taking another sip.
Smidge scoffed. “‘God never makes mistakes.’ Ain’t that some bullshit? First of all, God gave some people the last name Weiners.”
I dropped onto my back, lowered my sunglasses, and closed my eyes. Doves politely cooed overhead. The nearby bushes hummed with insect activity, the cicadas busy making their unmistakable throbbing pulse of a rattle.
“Ooooooookay,” Smidge sang as she plopped beside me, close enough that one of her elbows dug into the flesh of my left arm. The crinkle of paper in my ear forced my eyes open.
“What are you doing?”
“I told you there was a list,” she said, unfolding a sheet of loose-leaf paper. She paused, staring at me curiously, and then slapped me across the neck.
“Urgh!” I choked out, clutching my throat. “Why?”
“Mosquito,” she said, lowering her reading glasses onto her nose. “Now.” Her accent made her sound like a cat: “Ne-ow.”
“That hurt!”
She kissed the palm of her hand and rubbed it across my neck. “There,” she said. “All better. Now remember these two words.” She interrupted herself with a short cough. “Bort with a zero, Jennifer with a one,” she continued. “The numbers are vowels.” She coughed again, shaking her head.
I rolled over to my side. “Are you giving me your passwords?”
“Yes. Bort is also my PIN number, but when in doubt I probably used Jenny’s name. Vowels are numbers.”
“I can’t believe you use bort.”
“I thought you’d like that. I’ve had a lot of the same passwords since college. They make me think of you and how much I love you. Since I love you the mostest.”
Bort stood for “bitch on red time,” which was short for I’m not nice this time of the month, and won’t be for another three to five days. Smidge and I started using it back when we were roommates this one morning when Smidge was angrily trying to call me both a bitch and a jerk, but it came out bort.
“I’m not done making all the funeral arrangements here, but when it happens I’ll have written everything down for you. It’s going to be a really nice ceremony, Danny. I’m sorry to be missing it. Take pictures.”
She told me to convince Henry to buy a storefront for his furniture business, using the money from the life insurance policies she’d already taken out.
“The rest of the money goes to Jenny’s college fund,” she said. “Make sure she goes to undergrad, and don’t let her waste time in grad school. It’s just stalling real life.”
Smidge’s list was front and back on that page, and while she rattled off items like we were grocery shopping, I noticed her hands were trembling. She paused for a moment to cough, but blamed the fit on allergies.
“My half-a-lung shouldn’t be rolling around in this grass,” she said.
“Should we get back in the car? It’s pretty hot out here.”
“Speaking of the car. It’s a piece of junk. Trash it. Don’t let Henry keep you driving it like he did me. Tell him it makes you think about me and cry, whatever guilts him into letting you get a new one.”
“I have a car, actually. Back in Los Angeles, remember?”
“Hunh,” she said, as if she really had forgotten that I used to have my own life. “I guess you could use that one,” she reasoned. “If you could get it out here.”
“Well, thanks.”
“I’m serious about you making sure this family gives to charity every month. And on that note: start going to church. I was bad about it, and now I’ve got cancer, so do what the Lord says.”
I’d never gone to church. It wouldn’t even occur to me to think about going to church, unless someone was getting married or buried.
I said, “This part is where you’re just testing me, right? This part’s the joke?”
“I keep having these dreams, these realizations. My perspective has changed. You’ll know what I mean once you’re dying. Which will happen.”
“You mean you have regrets?”
This was a potential breakthrough moment for Smidge. If she could admit she’d made mistakes, perhaps we could veer toward the mistakes she was actively making, the ones involving me, cancer treatment, or the future of her family.
“I should’ve made sure people saw me in church. Because now here I am trying to prove I’m good enough to get my bones stuffed into this hill.” She lowered her reading glasses and sighed into her chest. “Always make sure other people think you’re better than you are, Danny. Your real life doesn’t matter; only the one they imagine for you. You’ll never actually live the life jealous people can dream up, but you can try to live up to it.”
“Sounds like you’ve had a real spiritual awakening.”
“Actually, I have,” she said, staring into the distance. The fading sun set the wisps of her chestnut hair into a golden halo. “The world looks different to me now. I have answers to things I forgot I was pondering. I hear more, you know? Like I can really hear the insects in the trees. I can feel the air between us. Our connection, our pull to this planet.” She drained the last of her martini and said, “Now I’m just messing with you.”
“I assumed,” I said, unfazed.
“But you still need to go to church. And not just any church, not some ‘we’re more into the message than the man’ church or whatever fake, dippy, barely legal, Bible-bendy church that’s more of a glorified book club. You have to go to the one Daddy went to. You go to Second Baptist.”
I pushed myself up onto my knees in protest. “No, Smidge, that place gives me the creeps. It’s so big and there’s so many people.”
“Exactly. You aren’t really at roll call unless people who judge you can see you. And the judgiest of Ogden worship over at Second Baptist. You take my family there, and for good measure you wear one of those giant hats. Raise your hand up and testify every once in a while, like my aunt Elsie used to. Be superchurchy.”
“Please, Smidge. Don’t do this to me. I will get hives.”
“Don’t think I won’t be able to spy on you with my ghost eyes, so if you’re not there I will know.”
She continued through her list, moving into the “Do this or I’ll haunt you” section. I was to make sure Dr. Phil went to the vet at least twice a year, that I renewed Henry’s prescriptions, and purchased a real purse. “Not some kind of hobo bag like you’re the crazy lady on the bus. No more contrasting patterns, or I will haunchoo.”
Other things that would send Ghost Smidge into my life included letting her daughter try out for dance brigade. “She can be a cheerleader if she really wants to do something jumpy and popular, but there’s no way in hell you can let her join the Whore Corps.”
“It might be different from when we went to Neville.”
“I will haunchoo!”
“Fine.”
She may have been berating me, but she was also holding my hand. Her skin felt dry and thin. Her engagement ring, no longer perched atop her wedding band at the center of her finger, had loosened and dropped to the side. The diamond pressed against her pinkie like it was seeking shelter.
“If you let my veggie garden rot or get taken over by the squirrels, guess what will happen.”
“You’re saying you’ll haunt—”
“Haunchoo!”
I practically dove headfirst into the bathtub once we got back to the house.
I wanted to use my allotted extra “hair time” to decompress.
As the water splashed across my aching stomach, I thought about how this plan had already gone on longer than I could have ever thought possible. More unbelievable was how it was starting to feel real. I was actually thinking about how I’d handle carrying out Smidge’s wishes, picturing myself in her house, sitting with her family at church. Although I confess I probably wouldn’t be too overly concerned with the purse I carried.
Smidge hadn’t once asked for my own opinions on how to run her house smoothly, so if it had nothing to do with my skills as a domestic consultant, why should I even be involved? Couldn’t Henry handle these things on his own? Renew his own prescriptions. Take his own daughter to Second Baptist. Make sure the rosemary is trimmed back. Promise never to use soap on the cast-iron skillet.
A cold blast hit me as the bathroom door opened. Before I could say or do much more than splash and screech, as if I’d just summoned him myself, Henry was standing above me, eyes widened in terror. “Oh!” he shouted, his voice high and ladylike, his fingers covering his eyes in honest shock.
“I’m in here!” I shouted, which was the most obvious statement I could have made at that particular time.
“I’m sorry!” Trying to leave, he accidentally slammed the door into his own forehead, which made him have to open the door once again, only to see me sitting up in confusion. If he hadn’t seen me naked the first time, he certainly got to see quite a bit on the second showing, before successfully closing the bathroom door with him on the other side of it.
I slapped the bathwater with my hand. “Henry!”
After a few seconds I heard his mumble. “You should lock that,” he said.
“I did!”
“The lock is broken, it would seem.”
“Yes, I suppose it would seem that!”
As I pulled the stopper from the drain I could hear Smidge’s delighted peals of laughter through the walls.
The next time that door opened, Smidge leaned in wearing a green spaghetti-strap dress under a black cardigan. Her hair pulled high atop her head and secured with a white flowered barrette, she was beautiful—exactly as tragically beautiful as she would’ve wanted it to be if only everybody knew how sick she was. I am sure it bothered her that she wasn’t able to milk her frailty for maximum sympathy.
“Smidge!” I said, not equipped with enough hands or limbs to cover everything I needed to hide from her view. I finished wrapping myself in a towel, wondering why I even bothered with modesty.
“That is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard!” she said, stopping only to make an actual hooting sound. “Henry!” Smidge shouted down the hall. “Come back, she’s out! Now you can see the rest of her! Not just a titty preview!”
“Why can’t you be a normal sick lady who wanders around in a blanket asking for soup?” I hissed before I slammed the door in her face.
Her response came muffled but cocksure.
“You love me.”
Forty-five minutes later I was sliding a pair of oxblood heels onto my feet, waiting alone in the kitchen. From the other room I could hear the murmur of Smidge fidgeting with Henry’s clothes.
“Don’t tuck that in, why would you tuck that in? It’s dinner, not your mama’s house after a funeral.”
Henry entered the kitchen a few minutes later, head down as he finished buttoning his cuffs. His hair was still damp, swirled, and pushed into dark blond tufts that would relax once they dried into his composed, thick tousle. A heavy cloud of woodsy cologne followed him as he passed, and I found myself hit with an unexpected and sudden ache for a male counterpart.
From the living room, I could hear your mother saying good-bye to you, forcing you to do Odd Hugs and promise to be home before curfew. I heard the heavy slam of the front door as you left.
Henry limped around the kitchen on one shoe, searching for the other. I saw it peeking around the corner in the other room. He busied himself, rustling through the kitchen drawers, pulling one open before closing the last. Utensils rattled and clanked as the junk drawers sprang open like impatient jack-in-the-boxes.
“I need a shoehorn,” he muttered.
I spotted one in the drawer he’d left open closest to me.
“Here,” I said.
As I went to hand him the tortoiseshell tool, he simultaneously reached back to grab it, misjudging the distance between us. The next thing I knew his hand was jammed in the crook between my upper arm and my right breast.
“Jesus Christ.” He spun on his one shoed heel and marched out of the room.
“It’s okay!” I weakly shouted after him. I’m still surprised he didn’t faint with all that blood rushing to his head.
Smidge danced in, humming. “This is all good,” she said, pointing with two fingers at my black dress, my hair pulled back into a high ponytail, my heels. She flipped up my hem, flirtatiously. “Dig them stems, missy.”
“Thanks. Your husband just accidentally touched my boob.”
She smirked, squinting. “Maybe no accident. That man can’t resist an off-the-shoulder dress. He was probably aiming for the other side where you’re more naked.”
“It is weird, what you are doing. You know that, right?”
“What, teasing you?”
“No, acting like you’re setting me up with—” I stopped myself, lowering my voice to a furious whisper. “Like he’s not your husband.”
Smidge hopped herself onto the counter so that she was sitting eye level with me. Her legs in the space between us, her bare knees grazed my stomach. We were close enough so that I could see where her eyeliner was smudged. She had one false eyelash coming loose from its adhesive, curling upward.
She licked her lips, top then bottom, like she was choosing her words carefully. “I don’t know why I can’t get this through to you, Danielle,” she said, her voice trembling around the edges of her words. “So let me try one more time. I know what I’m doing. I know why I’m doing it. And I know this is best. So if you want things to go more easily, get on it.”
“I just think—”
“Stop. Thinking.” Her lips had gone thin with frustration. “You want me to cry every day and woe-is-me in my bed until the tumor gets big enough to fill my throat? You want to wait until I can’t jump or move or lift my arms? You want to wait until it’s too late? Or do you want to do me a favor, act like someone who is supposed to love me, and just get on it. Suck it up and deal.”
My tongue felt like it had turned into a lump of damp paper shreds. A useless, aimless pulp. I meekly nodded as my stomach shot a fierce bullet of pain into my sternum.
“Sorry,” I managed to stammer.
“I’ve been giving you a little while to grieve and whatnot, but it’s go-time now, okay? No more whining like you wet your pants.”
“You sound like your dad.”
“Good. That man knew how to make me do what he wanted.” She rocked back and forth on the counter with hands on her hips like a cowboy. She pretended to have a wad of tobacco tucked in her cheek, transforming herself into the perfect image of Mr. Carlton from the waist up. “Now yew be a good gurl and git on it.”
“I miss your dad.”
“I’ll tell him you said hi.”
FIFTEEN
We were overdressed for the wet mess of crawfish dumped onto our table, but nobody minded. Sometimes it was nice to look fancy while being busy with your hands. The four of us sat in silence as we focused on ripping the boiled red crustaceans in half, pausing to suck their briny heads before shredding their crunchy legs to the table. A final pinch to the tail revealed sweet, white meat. The process was time-consuming and labor-intensive to the newcomer, but we were like an experienced knitting circle, heads down, fingers working, pausing only for the occasional sips of beer or an appreciative grunt before taking a bite of spice-rubbed corn on the cob.
No one was quieter than Henry, who had refused to meet my eyes since our bathtub encounter. His discomfort seem
ed worsened by what became the topic of conversation. Me. Tucker asked questions ranging in scope from something as broad as my neighborhood back in Los Angeles, to something as minute as my plans for Monday. Often before I could respond, Smidge would interrupt to answer for me, but direct it toward Henry.
“Isn’t that interesting, Henry? Danielle’s neighborhood in Los Angeles just got a new bakery.” Like I was their foreign exchange student, or more accurately, was on an extremely awkward and terribly inappropriate first date.
I kicked at her under the wooden table, hoping she’d get the message that she needed to lay off, but she chose to ignore me.
“Maybe you could show her how good you make biscuits, Henry. Since Danielle doesn’t have Monday plans.”
I kicked again, this time finding her shin.
“That’s a bruise,” she said quite loudly.
I stopped, but my brain continued the violence.
Once Henry excused himself to the bathroom, Tucker took the opportunity to snatch his seat, sliding up next to me, his elbow resting against mine. Even though his white shirtsleeves were rolled to his elbow, he had damp spots in the fabric from where he was careless. A smear of copper-colored sauce in the shape of a thumbprint marked his collar.
“I just wanted to make sure you knew how pretty you look tonight,” Tucker said.
“You are hitting on me,” I informed him.
“Barely. And that’s only because I’m a little bored. Why don’t you do something interesting?”
“How’s this?” I asked, and then tossed the remains of a crawfish exoskeleton at his face. It hit his cheek with a satisfying pop before he batted it aside.
Tucker laughed. “Feisty. What else do you want to throw at me tonight?” He slurred slightly as he leaned into me, bumping my shoulder with his own. “Can I make a few suggestions? A request?”
“You get forward when you’re drunk,” I said. “I don’t remember that. Is that new?”
“About as new as your divorce, darlin’.” He leaned in for a wedge of potato. “I’m just playing,” he said. “You can stop looking like I served cat shit to the queen.”
