by James Villas
The waitress brought the food, and the second Little Earl saw the hot hush puppies, he popped one in his mouth without even buttering it. He asked his mother if she didn’t want to taste the Brunswick stew, placing the small bowl in front of her, so she took a spoonful and pronounced the thick concoction to be excellent—as good as her own. She then asked about the grandchildren and wondered why she didn’t see more of them. Earl, who had both a son and daughter, said that Carter was already showing great promise at the company, and that he and B. J. had every reason to think he and Lena Rose Hitchcock were much more serious about each other than they let on. As for daughter Bippie, well, Bippie had been spending more and more time helping some Italian guy from Monroe run the wine shop over in Sardis Mall, and all anybody could do was pray there wasn’t more to that shady relationship than met the eye. Cameron Lee, Olivia and Jesse’s only child, was still working hard to set up his podiatry clinic just off Park Road, Olivia informed, and while they couldn’t be more proud of him ever since he finally finished all his training down at Emory, they did wish—they prayed every night—that he’d hurry up and meet the right girl and think as much about starting a family as playing golf every weekend and becoming a rich foot doctor.
Earl wolfed down his entire platter before Ella had taken three bites of her sandwich, but Olivia, who was always battling her weight, left some barbecue on her plate and didn’t touch the french fries. Earl had never managed to take off the thirty pounds he put on after he stopped smoking some years ago, and, like most reformed smokers who tend to substitute food for nicotine, he was now fidgety with nothing more to satisfy his appetite than glass after glass of iced tea.
“As I was saying a little while ago, Mama,” he resumed almost impatiently, “I and B. J. and Liv here worry our heads off about you over there in that house alone at night without so much as a cell phone in case of emergencies.”
“Oh, please, Son, let’s not beat that dead horse again. You know how I loathe all those modern gadgets and will not have one in my home. So would you please hush about that once and for all?”
“Okay, but we’ve been doing a lotta thinking, Mama, and we think we all need to talk about your health and well-being.”
Ella put her sandwich down in her dainty way, took another slow sip of the whiskey in her glass, and glared at him as if the reality of the situation was beginning to dawn on her. “There’s not one thing wrong with me.”
“How would you know, Mama?” he blared. “You haven’t seen a doctor in at least three years.”
“So that’s what this little get-together is all about. You two want me to go to Dr. Singer and let him give me the once-over. Right?”
Appearing more agitated, Earl poured more tea into his glass. “Well, frankly, Mama, you just haven’t been acting like your old self lately—whether you’re aware of it or not. And all we’re asking, all we’re begging, is that you go to Dr. Singer and let him give you a complete checkup the way any normal person does from time to time.”
Ella began tapping her perfectly manicured red fingernails on the table. “There’s not one thing wrong with me—nothing—and if there’s anything I hate, it’s a doctor fooling around with me, and making me take one pill after the next, and lecturing me about smoking and drinking. I’ve just had lots on my mind lately—that’s all—and I will thank you both just to let me attend to my own affairs. I think you’ve forgotten who somehow raised you.”
“Mama, you’re not being very reasonable,” Olivia chimed in, picking at a french fry as if debating whether to eat it. “What if they found something wrong?”
“If they did, my dear, I probably wouldn’t do a thing about it—not at my age. I now believe simply in letting nature take its course.”
When Ella lit another cigarette, leaving the rest of her sandwich uneaten, Olivia fanned the air, prompting her mother to exclaim, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, child, stop being so silly.”
Earl drew back in his seat and swept a hand over his stomach, which protruded well over his belt. “What about your heart condition, Mama? You know you have a bad heart, just like Paw Paw had.”
“I have nothing of the sort. They told me it was just a slight murmur, and I don’t classify a murmur as a bad heart. And besides, my daddy died of pneumonia, not a heart attack.”
Earl reached over for Olivia’s fries and dragged them through a small mound of catsup on the plate before stuffing them into his mouth in a single bite as his mother watched and frowned.
“And since we’re here obviously not for just a nice Saturday lunch but to discuss health and doctors,” Ella continued in irritation, “I could say that at the rate you’re going, Son, I’ll end up burying you long before I go to meet my maker.”
“That’s ridiculous, Mama,” he said. “Sure, I’m a couple of pounds overweight, but I don’t smoke or drink or stay up till the wee hours the way you sometimes do, and Dr. Singer told me just last month at my physical that I’m basically fit as a fiddle.”
Ella slowly rubbed the gold cigarette case and sat very quietly for a moment. “Can we please just drop the subject and talk about something more pleasant?”
“But we’re concerned, Mama,” Olivia said. “And not just about your physical health.”
Again, Ella didn’t budge, debating whether to argue further or insist that they get up and leave.
“What are you implying, honey? That I’m going off my rocker? That I’m losing my mind?”
“Of course not, Mama. But you know as well as we do that when somebody gets to your age, there’re changes in the system that can affect everything we do, from making important decisions to…driving a car. And remember, Mama, that Goldie’s not always around to help.”
Ella’s expression suddenly became almost hostile. “So now you’re saying I shouldn’t be driving my car. Is that what you two are getting at?”
Fidgeting even more, Earl buttered another hush puppy, even though it was now cold.
“Mama, all we’re saying, all we’re trying to put across, is that we’re worried sick that something really bad could happen if you don’t start taking better care of yourself and maybe make a few changes. Is it so wrong for two children to worry about their mother?”
“Have you two forgotten that I also have another child, and you have an older brother, who most likely disagrees with everything you’re saying?” she stated sarcastically.
“Of course not, Mama,” Earl drawled in exasperation. “And I think Ty’s just as concerned as we are, as Daddy would be if he was still here.”
“Tyler minds his own business, like he should, which is one reason we rarely have a cross word.”
“Yeah, all Ty has to worry about up there is his next party, and gettin’ his name in the paper, and his next million, and…that Barry,” Earl cracked indiscreetly.
Ella slapped her hand on the table, then began reaching for her pocketbook and light sweater next to her. “You’ll not talk about your brother like that. I won’t stand for it. And as for my condition, you let me worry about that, okay? When I’m no longer able to function normally and think I’m becoming a burden to you all, I’ll be the first to make some changes, but till then, I’m still in charge of my life. Is that understood? This conversation has made me almost nauseous, so would you kindly pay the check? Goldie and I were planning to put out some marigolds in the side yard, so I’d like to go home.”
By the time Earl had put some bills on top of the small paper tab and pulled himself up from the booth to give his mother a hand, she was already headed for the shiny black Lexus SUV parked outside.
“Why anybody in his right mind would want to drive one of these vulgar tanks,” Ella grumbled as Earl almost hoisted her into the front seat of the enormous vehicle.
On the way back, Earl and Olivia didn’t have much more to say, and Ella’s mind was going a hundred miles an hour as she sat silently and gazed at a median in the road bursting with giant yellowbells. When the children dropped her off at the hou
se after the fretful lunch, Goldie was already on her knees in the side garden loosening the soil with a spade, flats of marigolds spread out on the yard. Normally, Ella’s role would have been to hand her the multicolored flowers and direct exactly where they should be placed, but this time she told Goldie that she had a sick headache and just to plant the marigolds as she liked. She then proceeded into the house without saying another word and collapsed in her favorite reading chair in the library next to a picture window overlooking a massive pin oak at the edge of the lawn. For a long while, she simply sat there, gently fondling her gold cigarette case and glancing wistfully from time to time at the huge tree. Finally, she got up, went to one of the mahogany bookshelves, and removed a flimsy photo album that she carefully opened on her knees, turning the brittle pages slowly till she came to a faded black-and-white picture of a young couple standing arm in arm on a beach in front of what looked like an immense, opulent, white hotel. Still rubbing the case, she stared at the photo as if mesmerized, tears soon forming in her delicate blue eyes. Closing the album and dabbing her eyes with a soft cotton hanky from her pocketbook, she next fixed her gaze on the framed picture of Tyler on a tea table taken when he graduated from Myers Park High School. Then she looked out again at the oak, which was full of tiny, silver-green leaves that shaded a large area of the lawn, and it was at that moment that Ella decided what she had to do, before it was too late, to come to terms with certain ghosts of the past that had haunted her for an entire lifetime.
Chapter 4
THE SQUAW
Unable to nap at the inn but determined to block out further memories of what her children had implied (if not threatened) over lunch, Ella decided that nothing would be more soothing and likely to take her mind off family problems than a warm shower. Afterward, she called downstairs for a bucket of ice, and, as she and Earl had always done when traveling, mixed a dressing drink to be sipped while deciding on which outfit to wear for dinner. She then knocked on Goldie’s door to see if she was ready to go down for a cocktail on the front porch and to remind her that the dining room was rather formal. Predictably, Goldie’s idea of formality was a brightly colored, belted tunic, a turquoise necklace, and ringlets of silver bracelets that made a stark contrast with Ella’s classic pale blue linen dress, single strand of pearls, and light navy sweater she wore over her shoulders. Once, however, they were seated in old-fashioned rocking chairs and Ella noticed two young boys sitting on the banister decked out in the same jeans, open-neck polo shirts, and sneakers she’d become accustomed to seeing back home even at the club, she didn’t give a second thought to Goldie’s bizarre ensemble.
What she did think twice about, and what actually startled her momentarily, was not only how much one of the boys had an uncanny resemblance to someone she had cared about deeply in her youth, but also the way the old but very dignified gentleman with them would occasionally glance over in Ella’s direction as he and an attractive woman next to him rocked away and chatted while sipping drinks. The man, who was slender and had a full head of hair as silver as Ella’s, was nicely dressed in a dark green jacket and dapper bow tie, and while it was always possible these days that the lady in a stunning yellow and white dress could have been his wife, Ella chose to believe that she was his daughter and the boys his grandsons. The question was soon mostly solved when another, younger man in a blazer showed up, squeezed the woman’s shoulders and pecked her on the cheek, then began cavorting with one of the boys the way fathers and sons often do. Not long after, the same waiter in a white uniform who had served Ella her whiskey and soda and Goldie a Coke brought the gentleman a clear iced drink with a wedge of lime stuck on the edge of the tall glass.
“It’ll be so good seeing Tyler again,” Ella said almost wistfully to Goldie, making the move to prop one foot against the banister the way she once did, then deciding against it.
“Oh, yes, ma’am. I know how you always miss him.”
“And Lord, I still worry my head off about him—even after all these years. Isn’t that silly?”
“No, ma’am, I don’t think it’s silly at all for any mother to worry about her son, no matter how old he is. That just seems natural to me.” She twirled the ice in her Coke with a finger the way she’d seen Ella do. “I remember how I used to worry myself sick when John would be late from school.”
“If only Tyler didn’t live so far away,” Ella continued to ramble as if lost in her thoughts. “But, as you know, his work keeps him up there.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sure you sometimes wish Mr. Tyler had a family to look out after him.”
Ella snapped her head around at the Indian, her eyes wide open, and said curtly, “And what in this world ever gave you that idea?”
Goldie, who usually had a fixed smile on her auburn, smooth, almost sculpted face, grimaced, fingering her necklace. “Oh, you know what I mean, Miss Ella. If only he had a regular family, maybe you wouldn’t worry so much.”
“My dear, Barry is enough family for Tyler, and you should know that by now. Tyler’s different from most folks, and not everybody needs a houseful of kids to be happy.”
“Now, Miss Ella, you know I wasn’t saying exactly that,” she stumbled, “and I did like Mr. Barry that one time I met him at the house—I liked him a lot. A real gentleman.”
“He certainly is,” Ella proclaimed more calmly. “And he’s very devoted to Tyler. That I don’t doubt for one minute.”
Goldie would have liked to explain further what she meant by the comment, but she not only knew never to pry too deeply into Ella’s emotions, but she’d also learned that to argue with this stubborn lady was usually pretty futile.
Goldie Russell had been Ella’s housekeeper and basic cook for over twenty years, but ever since Big Earl’s sudden death from a massive stroke, she had also become something of a formal companion for Ella, who depended on her increasingly to help with various socials, to shop and tend the garden, and even to drive the white Cadillac when the weather was particularly nasty. Goldie was a robust, full-blooded Cherokee Indian, born and raised on the reservation up in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park not far from Asheville, and the story was that her first name had been derived from that of a grandmother called Golden Bird. When still a young woman with glistening, long, straight, black hair down to her waist, prominent facial features, and large hazel eyes, Goldie had first been noticed by Bud Russell one weekend at a bowling alley in Charlotte while she and a couple of friends were visiting the big city to participate in an arts and crafts fair. One thing led to another, and before the evening was over, the two had spent hours together eating hamburgers and drinking beer.
Bud worked for Big Earl as a pressman at Creative Graphics, a skillful, reliable, self-confident employee who liked his job, got along well with everyone at the company, and had no further ambition than to meet the right woman and one day start a family. Infatuated with Goldie and impervious to the ribbing by pals who couldn’t begin to understand how a normal, good ole boy could be attracted to a “redskin,” Bud made a couple of weekend trips up to Cherokee just to see her again, and take her out bowling in Asheville, and even go deer hunting with her in the mountains. Of course, Goldie’s family and others in the tribe no more approved of her cavorting with a white man than Bud’s parents and friends condoned his fooling around with some Indian. Neither, however, allowed these prejudices to affect their feelings for each other, and soon Goldie, who’d been working part-time in a gift shop on the reservation ever since finishing high school, was taking the bus down to Charlotte to spend weekends with Bud at his cabin on the Catawba River. The two bowled and fished together, and shopped at Kmart, and went to barbecues thrown by a few of Bud’s friends who came to accept and like Goldie once they got to know her. Strangers in public who were cruel enough to voice derogatory remarks at the Indian either received a merciless tongue-lashing from Bud or picked themselves up off the ground.
To partially placate Goldie’s family, the two were eventually ma
rried at a very ritualistic, colorful, and festive ceremony on the reservation with Goldie dressed in full tribal regalia, then again at a much more modest wedding in Bud’s Baptist church out in Pineville. Big Earl was seriously reluctant to attend when both he and Ella were invited, but Ella insisted that it was the least he could do for such a hardworking, loyal employee, and nothing made Bud prouder than seeing the Duboses among the handful of well-wishers—especially when his own parents refused to show up. Ella even brought one of her caramel pound cakes to the wedding as a gift.
Bud and Goldie moved into a small house in a working-class neighborhood off Freedom Drive a few months after they were married, and Goldie assimilated happily into her new culture, cutting her raven black hair up to the neck, gradually forsaking some of her long, multicolored, belted smocks and beaded necklaces for tight jeans, cotton blouses, and gold chains like those worn by other young women around her, and learning to cook beef short ribs, fried chicken, stuffed bell peppers, buttermilk biscuits, and other Southern dishes that Bud and his friends loved to eat. At one point, she took a job doing custodian work at Mercy Hospital to help Bud save some money for their future, but when they learned she was pregnant, which thrilled them both beyond words, Bud put his foot down and demanded that she stay home and take good care of herself till the baby came.
Goldie gave birth to a healthy boy, but the delivery was difficult, and for reasons Goldie and Bud discussed only with a doctor, it was determined that the couple should never try to have another baby. The child had Goldie’s bronze complexion and high cheekbones and Bud’s deep-set brown eyes, and they named him John after her father, John Blacksmith. For the next number of years, the three led a very simple but happy life. Little John did reasonably well in school and learned to ignore careless remarks made by other kids about him being a half-breed, and even relatives up on the reservation, where the family visited regularly, gradually developed a certain pride in the boy. At home, Goldie even made sure that he learned to speak Cherokee and acquaint himself with tribal traditions.
