Queen Bee Goes Home Again

by Haywood Smith

  “Poor baby.”

  I ducked as my mother passed me, gripping both rails for support.

  She bloomed in the heat; said it warmed her old bones. “Come on, honey,” she told me. “It’s only eighty-five on the second floor. And there’s plenty of cool in the kitchen, plus chicken salad and fresh sliced peaches in the fridge. Let’s have lunch and regroup.”

  Ninety years old, and she lasted longer than I did.

  I forced myself to my feet and followed after, clanking mops and cleaning supplies. Two more flights.

  I left the cleaning supplies in the hall on the second floor, then headed down for a dose of cool air and homemade food, quoting Nietzsche in my mind for the twentieth time that day. What does not kill me makes me stronger.

  Of course, Nietzsche died in an insane asylum, but left that quote for the rest of us peons in the world.

  I couldn’t stand the cinch of the bra band around my chest for one minute longer. I untucked my T-shirt so I could loose the hooks on my expensive shaped-foam bra with no underwires, but my silhouette didn’t change, because the cups were formed to a 36 C, so nobody could tell my “girls” had immediately dropped back down to my elbows behind it.

  I took my first deep breath in hours and thanked the Lord, then reached up under my shirt to rub the gouges the bandeau had left in my skin. Completely unself-conscious, I was still rubbing when I pushed into the kitchen.

  Where Connor Allen sat beside Tommy at our table.

  Seeing me, Connor smiled and jumped to his feet as I pulled my hands from my shirt in horror. Tommy took one look and barely managed to keep from laughing out loud.

  “Lin, look who dropped by,” Mama said brightly, her back turned to Connor so he couldn’t see the horror in her eyes as she glared at my dishabille. “He brought flowers. Isn’t that gallant? I insisted he join us for lunch.”

  Rats. Rats, rats, rats.

  My bra’s molded boobs had shifted when I’d rubbed the indentations and now pointed upward at an unnatural angle.

  “How lovely.” I spun around and fled to the dining room to put everything back where it belonged, which took longer than it used to, but adrenaline enabled me to fasten the hooks under the back of my tee on the third try. Then I leaned forward and pulled the girls back into place.

  Why had I unhooked before I knew the coast was clear?

  Phooey. Phooey, phooey, phooey!

  I mean, I know I’d said I wanted Connor to see me, but not like that.

  I tucked in my shirt, then turned to face the music, hearing my Granny Beth’s voice from across the pale. Never complain. Never explain.

  So I straightened my posture and glided back in like a duchess. “So glad you could have lunch with us,” I told Connor, who stood as I’d left him, like the gentleman he was. “Please, sit,” I instructed. “Mama, how may I help you?”

  My mother arched a brow at my unnatural formality. “You’ve worked like a slave all morning,” she dismissed. “Just sit down next to Connor and rest. I’ll have our plates in a jif.”

  Awkward, I took the seat beside him.

  Tommy was a study in repressed mirth.

  I glared at him, telegraphing, Don’t you dare laugh.

  Then I stared at the gardenias and zinnias in the centerpiece, but it didn’t help.

  Kiss. Kiss, kiss, kiss, my inner hedonist reminded me.

  It hummed in the air between Connor and me, but was almost drowned out by, He saw you with loose boobs! Loose, loose, loose, behind the fake, fake, fake.

  “So, how is your day going?” I managed to ask Connor with reasonable calmness.

  “I had a funeral at nine,” he said, clearly feeling as awkward as I did. “Then I made an appearance at the reception afterward.”

  A funeral? The flowers he’d brought stood in a tall vase on the other counter. White glads with lots of greenery. Of course.

  I couldn’t suppress a chortle.

  Connor went beet red, then stammered, “The family insisted I take these, but they wouldn’t keep till Sunday, so I thought…”

  “‘Waste not, want not,’” I quoted with a smile, the tension gone. “Very resourceful.”

  He let out a short sigh of relief.

  Mama arrived with our plates heaped with white-meat chicken salad covered in toasted almonds and mandarin orange sections, garnished to the nth degree with butter-crunch lettuce, sliced avocados, and her melt-in-your-mouth green tomato pickles. Quart glasses of iced tea completed the meal. “Yours is Splenda, Lin, like you like.”

  Only when we were all served did she serve herself and sit down. Mama looked at me. “Lin, would you please bless this for us?”

  I knew she wanted me to audition for Connor, but I prayed the same way I always did when we bowed our heads. “Heavenly Father, thank You for all the wonderful things You have given us.” Saying those words, I was instantly convicted of my complaints about having to move home. “Please bless this food and the hands that prepared it, and open our eyes and hearts to the needs of those around us. In Christ’s name, amen.”

  Connor nodded his approval. “Well said.” He waited to start till Miss Mamie spread her napkin and picked up her fork.

  As soon as she began eating, he went straight for the green tomato pickles on his plate, and when he started to chew, a look of glory spread across his features. After that first, celestial bite, he turned to my mother and said, “Miss Mamie, I’ve been eating for a long time, but yours are the most amazing green tomato pickles I’ve ever tasted. And that’s not just preacher talk. Heavenly. Just heavenly.”

  Mama preened. “I’ll send you home with a couple of pints.”

  Connor beamed. “Now, that’s a gift that money can’t buy. I will cherish them.”

  The secret was in the proportion of alum to spring water, and how long she soaked the tomatoes before candying them with a touch more alum in the syrup. But when Mama had forced me to memorize her recipe, then help her make them, she’d made me swear on the Bible that I would never reveal her cooking secrets till time came for me to pass them on to the next generation of Breedlove descendants.

  But David’s wife Barb hadn’t been interested. She didn’t do sugar.

  Maybe I could teach the grandkids when they were old enough not to tell on me.

  Miss Mamie brightened. “It’s nice to cook for a man again, now that the General can’t be with us.”

  I looked to Tommy. What was he? Chopped liver?

  He smiled back at me, shaking his head to indicate that it didn’t bother him.

  Miss Mamie leaned closer to Connor, her hand on his arm. “I’ve taught Lin how to make all my special recipes.”

  Could she be more shameless? Now it was my turn to color up. I felt the tide of heat spread up my chest to my neck and face.

  Connor looked at me with wry appreciation for what was happening, clearly enjoying it. “Lin is a woman of many talents, I’m sure.”

  I blinked. Was that a double entendre?

  I looked at Connor and saw that it was. Another brief pulse of desire went off inside me.

  Kiss. Kiss, kiss, kiss.

  No, my inner Puritan chided. Lunch. Lunch, lunch, lunch!

  Kiss, kiss, kiss, my inner hedonist taunted, but I ignored her and focused on my food.

  An awkward silence fell over our meal, one Miss Mamie seemed to be enjoying immensely.

  When we were done, Tommy leapt up, empty plate in hand. “Great meal, Miss Mamie.” He put his plate in the sink. “Sorry to eat and run, but I’ve got a meeting way down in Gwinnett.” He nodded to Connor. “Good having you.”

  Connor picked up his own empty plate, then scooped up Miss Mamie’s as he rose. “I won’t take no for an answer, Miss Mamie. Today, I’m doing the dishes.” When I started to rise, he shot me a commanding look. “That goes for you, too, Miss Lin. Both of you have been so welcoming to me”—a bald-faced lie in light of our agreement—“please allow me the privilege of serving you in return.”

  With
out waiting for a response, he started washing away as if he’d always been part of the family.

  For once, my mother sat back and let someone do for her.

  When she was sure Connor was looking the other way, Miss Mamie motioned for me to go help him.

  Unable to resist the prospect of being close to him, I joined him at the drainboard and started to dry with a bleached flour sack, my mother’s favorite towel.

  We worked in companionable silence till he said a quiet, “This feels nice. Very nice.”

  Darn him, it did. “Um-hm.”

  When the last dish and fork were clean and put away, he turned to look at me, well inside my typical American comfort space.

  The promise and the peace in his eyes melted my insides.

  Kiss. Kiss, kiss, kiss.

  He kissed me, all right.

  Hands on my shoulders, he gave me a peck on my forehead, then stepped back. “Thanks. I really appreciate it. Guess I’d better get back to my sermon.”

  “Don’t forget your green tomatoes.” The Mame got up and went to the pickle cabinet, then handed him two pints, as promised. “Don’t be a stranger. There’s plenty more where that came from,” she said in a perfect Mae West imitation.

  Connor laughed, bowed his thanks, then shot me a parting look that could have set a brick on fire.

  He wasn’t making this any easier.

  Twenty-three

  The next afternoon, Tommy and I pulled everything (half a truckload) out of the Mame’s closet for her to peruse, then started going through the contents one by one, for her to rule on. We had four piles marked with butcher paper: keep, toss, give to me or David, and donate.

  “A lot of these are really good clothes,” Tommy said. “Once we get all the closets and cabinets purged, we should have an estate sale.”

  Miss Mamie bristled. “I will not allow the general public to haggle for my belongings on the front lawn! Touching all my things.” She shuddered at the thought. “What I decide not to keep will be donated to a worthy charity, as is proper, and that is that.”

  “No need to get so riled up,” Tommy told her. “I just figured you might need the money, with the General in the Home.” Hint, hint.

  Definitely hit a nerve. Miss Mamie’s expression gelled into concrete. “I could make money as a cocaine dealer, too,” she snapped, “but I wouldn’t, because it’s not proper. So there will be no more discussion of so-called estate sales.” She glared at my brother. “And take off that hat.”

  He did, as an act of atonement.

  Chastised, we went back to bringing out our mother’s clothes in small batches.

  What started as a chore ended up as a trip down memory lane with Miss Mamie as narrator. Every wrinkled dress had a memory attached, every age-curled shoe and smashed-up hat. Listening, we learned so much about our parents, and their parents before them.

  Then we came upon a metal box of letters the General had sent Miss Mamie from the war (he was an aircraft mechanic in North Africa, then Italy).

  Tommy opened one of the frail, thin international envelopes and unfolded to read the cramped writing in our father’s usually expansive hand. “‘My sweet little chickadee, how I miss you and our home. What I wouldn’t give for some of your sweet kisses and good, long hugs. For a night of peace to hold you safe in my arms.’”

  I couldn’t imagine my father ever thinking so tenderly of Miss Mamie, much less writing it down, so I had to fight back tears.

  Tommy’s voice thickened as he read on. “‘And for your wonderful cooking. The food here is brimming with garlic, which makes for some noisy nights in the barracks. One night it was so bad, I woke myself up! Just kidding.’”

  Miss Mamie colored at the reference to passing gas. “Here, now. Give me that.” She made a swipe for the letter, but Tommy dodged her, then resumed reading.

  “‘We are doing what we need to do here, and I pray every night that God will keep us both safe so I can come home to you. I don’t know when, but I believe that day will come. I must. I hope you have enough to eat, with the rationing. Are my brothers putting too much of a burden on you? Bedford writes that he will join the navy as soon as he qualifies for officer’s training at Tech. I wish he’d wait till he has graduated.’” He had. “‘Waring doesn’t write, but he never was much good with that.’”

  “Too drunk for that,” Miss Mamie corrected, her tone caustic.

  “How old was Uncle Waring then?” I asked.

  My mother didn’t hesitate. “Nineteen, and already a sot. I swear, I don’t think that boy ever did an honest day’s work in his life. Wouldn’t even cut our grass when he was living here.”

  Wow. I couldn’t imagine being saddled with that, and Daddy away. At least Granny Beth had been there to help her with the load.

  Tommy let out a fatalistic sigh, then read on. “‘Precious pumpkin, you are the only woman in the world I want. Even though we fight, we always make up, and I can’t wait to make up with you when I get home. Your loving husband, Mr. Samba.’”

  “Mr. Samba?” Tommy and I both asked our mother at once.

  Miss Mamie’s eyes were still dreamy from the end of his letter. “Your daddy was the best dancer in three counties. Hot-tempered, but oh, did we dance.”

  Then she blew her nose and motioned to the box. “Why don’t you take that, Lin? I just cry when I read them, anyway. That’s why I put them way in back, behind my dresses.”

  Why did she cry? For the tenderness lost? For the fact that Daddy had only appreciated her when he was half a world away, staring death in the face?

  I would have asked my mother, but her expression warned me not to.

  “Okay. I’ll keep them.” I turned to Tommy. “You can come over, and we’ll read them together.”

  He nodded.

  After that, we continued the trip from the nineteen-twenties to the twenty-first century reflected in Mama’s clothes. I set aside a lovely little wool suit with raglan sleeves and a tiny waist.

  Mama smiled when she saw it. “My mother made that for me in 1938. Did I tell you she was a tailor?”

  Tommy said no at the same moment I said yes.

  Miss Mamie went on. “I was so awful. I complained about my homemade clothes, but they were the smartest ones in our set. I wish I had thanked her.”

  I gave my mother’s arm a consoling pat. “She made them because she loved you, and she knew you loved her.” I noted the suit’s classic tailoring. Old photos of Miss Mamie showed her as a slender little woman with the look of Edward’s Mrs. Simpson. “May I keep this?”

  “Of course. I’d like that.”

  Miss Mamie peered at me, then announced, “I don’t want anything to go unsaid between us.”

  I expected her to make some sort of confession, but instead, she asked, “Is there anything you’d like to thank me for before I die?”

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but I was deeply moved. “Only for everything,” I said. “Thank you for raising me right, and letting me make my own mistakes, and taking me in without saying ‘I told you so’ when Phil dumped me, and for taking me in again now that I’m homeless, and for singing hymns with me, and wanting the best for me.”

  My mother got up and bent between Tommy and me to hug our shoulders. “You and Tommy have always been the best things in my life, next to your daddy,” she said, then arched a brow at my brother. “Even when you, sir, were out there actin’ like an idjit. I still loved you.”

  I picked up a vintage fifties outfit to change the subject. “What about this?”

  “I wore that to my first Service League tea,” she explained, then launched into the charity work she’d done before I was born.

  When we finally got through all her clothes in the closet and the gift of Miss Mamie’s reminiscences, she sorted through the piles and threw away anything that was stained beyond salvaging or moth-eaten, which included a lot of her size six sweater sets and wool coats. Then she chose what to keep and what to donate to the Interdeno
minational Thrift Shop. That chore completed, Mama excused herself, clearly traumatized by having to part with the physical evidence that she was once tiny and the belle of the ball.

  Tommy and I spread all the usable donations on the bed, photographed them, then inventoried them for the IRS. That accomplished, we carried them down to my minivan.

  “Mama,” I said as we came back inside, “you just gained three feet of closet rod and a clean floor for your shoes.” Not to mention the empty shelves. “And a nice write-off.”

  She responded with a wistful smile. “Now comes the hard part.”

  Daddy’s things. An emotional minefield.

  Twenty-four

  After a cold Coke Zero, the three of us went back upstairs and started hauling things out of Daddy’s closet. All his clothes were classic styles from the best men’s shops, because he loved to haggle with the owners, which he couldn’t do at the department stores.

  Tommy dusted off a snappy fedora, then put it on.

  “You look like a skinny Indiana Jones,” I complimented.

  Miss Mamie scolded, “Thomas, remove that hat at once. You are in the presence of ladies, and indoors, to boot.”

  Helping himself to a British driving cap, he just grinned. “I won’t tell if you won’t.” Then he went back to dragging out the closet’s contents.

  It didn’t surprise me when we came up with four well-oiled shotguns, three large-caliber scoped hunting rifles, an assortment of handguns, our great-great-granddaddy’s Confederate dress saber, and loads of ammo—from buckshot to hollow-points to copper shells. But the machine gun (oops: assault weapon) and long magazines of ammo came as a mild shock.

  Seeing my expression, Miss Mamie sighed and shook her head. “He bought that for the coming rebellion, when the have-nots revolted against the haves, along with those undetectable tubes to bury his gold Krugerrands. Lord knows where those are, but they’re undetectable, so there you are.” Mama glanced at the arsenal. “I told him and told him, God has nothing to do with hate and fear, but he never listened.”

  Tommy and I exchanged pregnant looks. If only we could find Daddy’s gold, he and Miss Mamie would be set for life.