“What’s going on, Rita?” Mattie said again.
“Busy,” said Rita, and hung up the phone.
“Don’t make me keep asking,” Mattie warned. Rita turned to Mattie then and grasped her shoulders with both hands. Instant tears turned Rita’s eyes all watery.
“Oh, Mama,” she said, “it’s just the most wonderful thing. God spoke to me. He talked to me, Mama.” At first, Mattie saw this as a good sign, that maybe God was offering some sound advice about Sonny. Why He chose Rita was another example of those “mysterious ways” in which He was forever operating. Mattie could only hope that this was genuine and not another of Rita’s dramatic outbursts.
“What did He say, child?” Mattie asked. Drive your mother to Bangor, that’s what Mattie was hoping for.
“He told me to sell the Buick!” Rita said. At first, Mattie simply stared at her daughter, at the tears of heavenly glory that were now spilling out of Rita’s eyes, at the profound smile on her face. Mattie supposed that this was what was meant by “a look of bliss.”
“He told you what?” she asked.
“He told me to sell the Buick!” Rita shouted. “I was doing the laundry, in the middle of sorting my coloreds from my whites, when what do I hear but this big booming voice. ‘Rita, honey,’ the voice said. ‘Obey thy husband and sell the Buick.’ Rachel Ann told me that God only talks to the real pious. Oh, my heart is still beating so fast, Mama, I can hardly talk!” She let go of Mattie then and was on her way back to the door.
“Could it have been Henry?” Mattie asked. “Could you have heard Henry Plunkett? After all, he’s the one wanting you to sell the Buick.” But Rita was already halfway out the door.
“I gotta put that sign back in the window!” Rita shouted. “Every second it ain’t there dishonors His name.” And then Rachel Ann’s little blue car pulled out of Mattie’s yard and pointed its nose at Watertown. Well, there went any chances of Mattie talking Robbie and Willard into driving her to Bangor in Rita’s Road Hog. And she had thought that she might be able to do just that. Robbie seemed almost wavering when Mattie had asked earlier. And Willard, well, who could tell if Willard was wavering or not, what with all that twitching he did. But now it seemed those chances were squelched, now that God had gone into the used-car business. Mattie was sorry to hear this. How could He keep an eye on Sonny if He was concentrating on Good condition, Tires like new, Will accept best offer?
Mattie had just gone back to her packing, thinking that maybe, if she asked again, if she promised something big, the house itself maybe, Marlene would crack and drive her down to Marigold Drive Trailer Park. Or maybe Elmer Fennelson would finally appear from his disappearing act. Elmer would take her for sure, and she would be ready, Lester’s old suitcase packed with a clean brassiere and two clean pairs of bloomers, two dresses, socks, her toothbrush, her big jar of cold cream. She wouldn’t need much. Or if Pauline ever did get off the road with her sacks and boxes of Avon so that she could answer her telephone, maybe Pauline would take her, tired as she was. Someone would take her. Mattie had even thought of calling a taxicab, but where would the nearest taxi service be? Caribou, maybe? It would take him almost two hours to get to Mattagash, and then they would have to turn around and drive another five hours south to get to Sonny. What would that cost? Would the four hundred dollars she had in the bank be enough for that? She thought not.
“Not with what things cost these days,” Mattie said. Then she would be broke, no money for a motel room, for food. And her social security check wasn’t due for another two weeks. She stood in the middle of the living room and waited, listened to the sounds of the little house, ticking like a bomb, the quiet of things when one stands alone in one’s own home and thinks. Water in the pipes. A creak in the walls. The grating of the electric furnace. An outside wind. And then silence. And when that silence comes, there’s nothing left to do, no distractions to keep you from facing up to the facts of your situation. There’s just the quiet of the truth, floating all around you like a bad perfume, like the smell of those swamp irises.
“I ain’t ever gonna get to Bangor, am I?” Mattie asked aloud. Nothing in the house answered. Somewhere in the distance a car door slammed, probably at Pauline’s house, and the sound of it reached her through the screen of her back door. She could ask Jesus. It wasn’t as if the heavenly ice hadn’t already been broken. After all, his father was on speaking terms with Mattie’s oldest daughter, Rita. She could slide Easter Rising out from under the sofa and ask the kind face in the picture, the one with the sad blue eye and blondish hairs growing like peach fuzz on the boyish chin. “I ain’t ever going to Bangor, am I, Jesus?” she could ask. But she already knew the answer. No need to put one more burden upon the boy’s thin shoulders. She heard the grackles in the backyard and imagined their bluish heads, bobbing. She could almost see the towels she’d hung out on the line yesterday, after that light rain, so much did she want to leave her earthly body and go where the truth wouldn’t find her. But she couldn’t. And then the quiet broke, like a dam, and life rushed down onto her head, wave after wave of helplessness. She would never get to Bangor, Maine. She would never get to Sonny. And that’s when she heard another car in her yard, her peaceful little yard that had been such a nice place before all this trouble. She thought of her tiny square of lawn, where the St. Francis of Assisi birdbath served as a friendly swimming pool for the neighborhood birds. She thought of those sweet bygone days when she and Elmer Fennelson would sit upon her narrow front porch and discuss their lives as though they were books they had once read and then put away on the shelf.
She hoped that it might be Rita again, that God had changed His mind and demanded that Rita drive her mother down to Bangor. “Keep the Road Hog, honey,” Mattie could almost hear God advising in a booming voice that only God or Charlton Heston could have. “Put the pedal to the metal, sweetheart.” But it wasn’t Rita. It was Pauline. Mattie opened the door to let her in. She seemed more tired than ever, her big body having a hard time keeping up with her feet.
“I know that bubble bath ain’t here yet,” said Mattie. “I just ordered it Monday. And I found my bottle of Skin So Soft this morning. So does this mean you’re actually gonna sit down and have a normal visit with me?”
Pauline shook her head. “You got your TV on?” she asked.
“Why?” said Mattie. The truth was, she didn’t have the television on. She was tired of looking at it and not being able to do anything to help Sonny. She was now intent on seeing Sonny in person, and not on Channel 4. So she had turned the television off and set about packing her suitcase.
“I just stopped off at Lola’s to pick up Little Frank,” Pauline said. “Sonny’s ex-wife has turned up in Bangor. She even brought the dog.” Mattie said nothing. She just looked at Pauline’s face, a nice, round face, tired, filled with a lifetime of honest work, filled with kindness. Would God forgive Mattie for the many times over the years she had wished Pauline was her own daughter? Would God forgive her for coveting Pauline when she had three daughters of her own? Another car roared into the driveway and Mattie suddenly felt weak, her legs turning into rubbery things. Pauline reached out for her, pulled her toward the recliner.
“Sit down, darling,” said Pauline. “It’s gonna all be over soon and Sonny’ll be just fine.” She kneaded Mattie’s shoulders as she said this, and, because of that, because of that tender touch of one human being to another, Mattie believed her. And then Gracie and Marlene flew into the house, excited bats, their purses sailing like Frisbees toward the sofa. Couldn’t they just walk over and put them down? Did they have to hurl things?
In no time Marlene had Channel 4 cranked up, and Gracie was telling Pauline all about the newest of the new developments. Mattie looked up at the clock. One thirty. Martha Monihan would be very unhappy that Channel 4 had disrupted her soap opera for Sonny Gifford, Mattie’s only boy. Who would have ever dreamed? All those years that Mat
tie and Martha had watched folks on television get born and have affairs and sometimes die, who would have ever dreamed that one day their favorite soap would be interrupted because of something Sonny Gifford did?
“It’ll soon be over, Mama,” Marlene was saying. “He’ll come out now and let them two women go.” Mattie tried to reason with herself. They were all saying it would be okay, even Pauline, so why couldn’t she believe it? What made her motherly heart so sore? The television screen had now come to life, and it carried a picture of the same trailer, white, with the fine red pinstripe cutting through its middle. The lawn was awash with people. A sign held aloft, over the heads of just regular folks with nothing better to do in their own homes, listed an address for the Sonny Gifford Fan Club. Reporters and policemen were everywhere. Donna’s hair was flying in the wind. Mattie tried hard to concentrate.
“Pauline,” she said, and Pauline bent down to listen. “I’m afraid.”
Pauline rubbed Mattie’s shoulders. “You want a cup of tea?” she asked. “A glass of soda pop?” Mattie shook her head. Gracie and Marlene were hovering in front of the television like excited hens. And then Donna was back, with her microphone welded to her hand, her eyes awash with the biggest story of her lifetime.
“Dan, it looks as though things will soon be resolved here at Marigold Drive Trailer Park,” she said. “As you know, Sheila Gifford, Sonny Gifford’s estranged wife, has contacted Chief Melon and is willing to come forward and speak to her ex-husband. Apparently, Dan, there was a dispute between the couple over the ownership of their dog, Humphrey. This is the dog Sonny Gifford mentioned to the press two days ago. It seems that both parties wanted the dog, so Sheila Gifford took the dog with her to Atlantic City to prevent Mr. Gifford from having him.”
“They’re fighting over a dog?” asked Pauline. But Mattie knew that Sonny’s dogs were his babies.
“There was a couple on Geraldo last month,” said Marlene, “who spent over a hundred thousand dollars each on lawyers because they both wanted custody of their miniature collie.”
Pauline sighed. “What I could do with money like that,” she said.
“Is Sheila Gifford there at the trailer park, Donna?” Dan’s voice asked. Mattie was growing tired of these two people, two strangers discussing her son, examining his life under a microscope.
“Yes, Dan, she is,” Donna answered.
“Look!” said Marlene, and pointed at the screen. The camera had fallen upon a woman standing next to Chief Melon, who seemed to be giving her instructions. Mattie saw his hands moving like batons as he spoke, his head bobbing at the trailer. “That must be her!”
“What’s so special about her?” Mattie heard Gracie say. The woman on the television screen had long, stringy hair, brownish-blond, tired hair that looked as though it could use a good washing. Of course, Sheila had probably driven all night from Atlantic City. The camera zoomed in tight on her face.
“Sheila Gifford,” Mattie could hear Donna’s voice announcing somewhere in the land of television. Sheila’s eyes were almost too big for her narrow face. A heavy, dark line ran beneath both of her bottom lashes, and Mattie knew from having daughters that Sheila’s mascara had outlived its usefulness and had fallen off, creating black rings beneath her eyes. She looked as though she could use a good shower. She turned her head and spoke to a woman standing behind her, a friend, relative maybe, and Mattie could see the narrow bridge of her nose, long and thin, as if it didn’t belong on her pale face, a face made for a shorter nose.
“Lord,” said Gracie again, “this is the face that launched a thousand ships? What does Sonny see in her?” Mattie had no idea what Gracie was talking about, what with college loading her head full of all kinds of nonsense these days. Things you couldn’t use in times of emergency. As a result, Gracie was a truckload of information with no brakes. Just a couple weeks earlier she had called Mattie up and said, “Mama, did you know that the Mayans were chewing gum over a thousand years ago?” Well, no, Mattie hadn’t known that. Another time, Gracie had been sitting at the kitchen table, having coffee, when she looked right at Mattie and said, “The ancient Egyptians kneaded their bread with their feet.” Mattie had tried not to think about this, about dough being squished up between brown Egyptian toes. It seemed almost as if Gracie needed to fill her head up with this stuff to keep thoughts of Charlie from seeping in. So what harm could it do? So much for launching ships, but as far as what did Sonny see in this woman? This was something Mattie understood but couldn’t answer. What did Charlie Craft see in Sally Fennelson, that he left Gracie behind to take up with her? What did good, soft-spoken Henry see in Rita? What did Lester Gifford see in Mattie that he came into her garden that day, still wearing his army uniform, still nursing his war wound by limping on that bad knee? What did anyone see in the people they either love or need?
“Maybe he does have to take women at gunpoint now,” said Marlene, “like Wesley said.” But Mattie knew the truth about it. She knew Sonny had found something uncommon in this common woman, something soft and caressing. Maybe it was how she ran her fingers through that stringy hair, how she walked, the way her mouth moved when she talked. Maybe it was the velvety way she held her children, as though they were fragile petals. Maybe it was how she held him. Whatever it was, there was some kind of magic working there for Sonny, and it had lifted this Sheila woman up and above all other earthly women he had known.
“Hush!” said Pauline, and Mattie was relieved to have her there, to feel those big hands upon her shoulders. Donna’s face was back.
“It seems that what Mr. Gifford wants at this time, Dan, is his dog. A few minutes ago, in a telephone conversation with Chief Melon, he indicated that if he gets the dog, he will let the hostages go.” Before Mattie could hear more, the door burst open and Rita blew back in. Mattie hadn’t even heard the sound of a car, so caught up was she in Channel 4. Rachel Ann’s face was peering like a pale balloon from behind Rita’s shoulder. Rita obviously hadn’t found the Buick. God had told her to sell it, but He apparently couldn’t tell her where it was.
“Has he come out yet?” Rita asked. “We heard the news while we were gassing up at Blanche’s Grocery.” Her hair seemed electrified. She’d had quite a day. Her purse sailed across the room and landed next to Gracie’s on the sofa. Pauline held up a hand that said be quiet.
“Is the dog there, Donna?” Dan asked. The camera swept the crowd and then stopped again at Sheila Bumphrey Gifford. Police were working hard to keep the onlookers back. Signs were everywhere. University students, with big U of Ms on their T-shirts and sweatshirts and sweatpants, were waving vigorously at the camera.
“Yes, it is, Dan,” said Donna, “but we haven’t seen it yet. From what we’re told, Chief Melon is talking with Sonny Gifford at this time. It looks as though this unfortunate matter will be resolved soon.” And then, with a promise to interrupt the regularly scheduled program when negotiations were completed, Channel 4 went back to Martha Monihan’s favorite soap opera.
“Do you want me to stay?” Pauline asked Mattie. The three girls were in the background, discussing whether they should go to Lola’s in case CNN was still covering the hostage incident, or stay with their mother, who was still, as Marlene once said, vulnerable.
“No,” said Mattie. She stood up and turned the sound of the soap opera down. The girls would be sure to crank the volume back up when things started happening again at Marigold Drive Trailer Park. Mattie had no doubt about this. She had unwittingly raised three good watchdogs. Nothing would be missed, and a good time would be had by all. “You go on home and see about your kids,” she told Pauline.
“I’ll call you later,” Pauline said, and Mattie held the front door for her.
“Is Elmer home?” Mattie whispered as Pauline edged past. “Is his pickup back?” There might still be time. What if it took a few hours before Sonny agreed to send the hostages out? Pauline turned and looke
d closely at Mattie’s face.
“He ain’t back,” Pauline said. She paused, as if uncertain about what she could or should say. “I know where your mind is right now,” she finally told Mattie. “And I’d drive you myself if I could. But my car probably wouldn’t make it past Caribou. I’m lucky it ain’t gone out on me already. And then, I can’t leave Frank with the kids, sick as he is.”
Mattie shushed her. “I know all about it,” she said. “You just go on home.”
Before Pauline drove off, she threw Mattie an invisible kiss, and then a thumbs-up. Mattie waved her out of the driveway before she closed the door. Marlene and Rita were in the kitchen making sandwiches. Rachel Ann Parsons asked directions to the tiny bathroom, so that she could relieve herself and then go on home, go back about her usual business of saving lost souls. Gracie had started her exercises now, her legs bicycling around and around in the air, going nowhere.
“Marlene?” Gracie shouted out to the kitchen. “Bring me a glass of water.”
“What’s the matter with you?” Marlene wanted to know from the kitchen. “Your feet gone to lunch or something?”
Rachel Ann came out of the little bathroom, the sound of flushing water rising up behind her. She paused at the kitchen door and listened for a bit to Rita and Marlene, who were arguing over the intricate makings of a sandwich.
“You put the bacon on the top,” Marlene was instructing Rita. “The lettuce goes on the bottom, and the tomato goes in between.”
“Well, you can put the bacon where you want to,” Rita said. “But I personally believe in the tomato going on top.” Rachel Ann moved away from the kitchen door, saying nothing. She found her own purse from among the collection of purses on the sofa, and threw the strap over her shoulder. She stopped before Mattie and stood for a minute, waiting, searching, it seemed, for the right words.
Beaming Sonny Home Page 18
