Little Bitty Lies

by Mary Kay Andrews

  She left a note on the kitchen table. “Erin—I’ve got a job. Tell you all about it at dinner. Love you bunches. Mom.”

  20

  Mary Bliss spread newspapers on the kitchen table, got out the Wright’s silver cream and one of Parker’s raggedy old T-shirts, and set to work on his grandmother’s silver tea service.

  It was heavy Sheffield silver, Victorian, with a dizzying combination of chasing, engraving, raised whorls, and monograms. She hadn’t thought about the tea service when she’d pawned her flatware, maybe because she’d really never considered it to be hers. It was McGowan silver, and Eula had made it clear, when she’d handed it over on her and Parker’s first anniversary, that she expected it to be handed down to the McGowan children. But things had changed. She didn’t expect to be hosting tea parties anytime soon.

  She was working the edge of the teapot with an old toothbrush when Katharine kicked open the kitchen door with her sandal.

  “Hey, shug,” Katharine called out. Her arms were loaded with Publix grocery bags. “Give me a hand here, will you? I’ve got a bunch more out in the car.”

  “What’s all this?” Mary Bliss asked, setting the bags down on the counter.

  “Emergency assistance,” Katharine said.

  “I can’t…”

  “Never mind telling me you can’t accept charity. You’ve already pawned your wedding silver and you’re down to digging change out of the sofa cushions, I know for a fact. It’s just a little temporary help.”

  “Katharine,” Mary Bliss started. Her face was beet-red. She’d had a series of humiliations in the past week, but this was possibly the worst.

  Mary Bliss’s mouth had a sharp metal taste. She remembered another time, back in her mama’s house, when an anonymous neighbor had left a sack of groceries on the front porch of their ram-shackle wood-frame house. Her own daddy had been gone two weeks by then. Her mother had borne the shame in silence, thinking no one else knew. They’d eaten biscuits and cane syrup for breakfast and supper, and Mary Bliss’s mama saw to it that she got a free hot lunch at school. She’d been the only white child in her whole school to get the free hot lunch.

  Word of their plight had gotten out. After that, a brown paper sack showed up on their porch every two weeks, for nearly a year, until her mother, who was by then working two jobs, had left a little note on the porch, telling their anonymous friend, “Thank you, but we’re making out now.”

  “I know you mean well,” she said, trying to find the right words, the ones that would not offend her friend.

  “Stop it right now,” Katharine said, holding up her hand like a traffic cop. “Don’t say another word. Just get your butt out to the car and start bringing in groceries.”

  When they’d unloaded the Jeep, the counter was covered with food. Katharine had bought lavishly: steaks, roasts, chicken, wine, imported cheeses and olives, cleaning and paper supplies, even the current issue of People magazine.

  “This is too much,” Mary Bliss protested. “You must have spent a couple hundred dollars on all this food.”

  “Closer to three hundred,” Katharine said cheerfully. “You know I can never remember to clip coupons or check the specials. I just buy what I want. Always have.”

  Mary Bliss put the milk in the refrigerator and started stashing paper towels under the sink.

  “I’ll pay you back, I swear. I got a part-time job. And I’ll get my first paycheck Friday.”

  Katharine opened a carton of Diet Coke and took out two cans. “This is a gift. Not a loan. Anyway, you wouldn’t be paying me. You’d be paying Charlie. I charged it all on his American Express card. Don’t you just love modern times? Charging groceries on American Express? What a concept!”

  Mary Bliss sighed. She sliced up one of the limes Katharine had bought, squeezed them over two glasses of ice, and poured the drinks. “You’re making matters worse, charging up all those cards. His lawyer’s not gonna put up with it, Katharine.”

  “Shi-ii-it,” Katharine said, making it a three-syllable word. “It’s part of my budget. My lawyer told Charlie I need seven hundred dollars a week for groceries. He has no idea what groceries really cost. But hey, what’s this about a job?”

  “I started yesterday,” Mary Bliss said. “I’m a product demonstration hostess. This week they’ve got me down at a new Bargain Bonanza Club in Riverdale. I hand out samples and free coupons.”

  “Sounds awful,” Katharine said. “How much are they paying you?”

  “Not enough,” Mary Bliss admitted.

  “How much is not enough?”

  “Probably around six dollars an hour,” Mary Bliss said. “If I can get people to try the product and buy it. Yesterday didn’t go so good. My product was nasty. Mrs. Korey’s frozen Kod Kakes.”

  “Gross,” Katharine shuddered. “You can’t really be serious about this, Mary Bliss. I mean, for God’s sakes. A sample lady?”

  “Why not?” Mary Bliss said sharply. “It’s honest work. I’ve never been afraid to work. Not ever.”

  “Aw, don’t go getting your little blue-collar feelings hurt now,” Katharine said. “This makes no sense. You’re a college-educated professional, Mary Bliss. You don’t belong in a store where they sell toilet paper by the mile. And you’re gonna be paying for gas, not to mention insurance and upkeep and wear and tear on the car. Plus you’re gonna be taxed for your income. And just how much income could it be?”

  “It’s better than nothing,” Mary Bliss said. She took a sip of the Diet Coke, trying to wash away the metallic taste of poverty.

  “I don’t know why you keep resisting the obvious solution to all this,” Katharine said. She was leafing rapidly through the People magazine, flipping pages with only a glance.

  “It’s the only solution,” she said, staring up at Mary Bliss. “Parker McGowan has to die. And honey, it needs to happen pretty damn soon.”

  “No,” Mary Bliss said. “It would be wrong.”

  “Talk about wrong,” Katharine said. “Here you sit, flat broke. And there he is, off on some goddamned island paradise. And you can bet he’s got a woman with him too. Think he went off by himself? Hah! You know what happens when a man says he’s leaving to find himself? He finds himself, all right—with another woman.”

  “We don’t know that,” Mary Bliss said. But it was what she’d been thinking.

  “Hey,” Katharine said, running a finger over the silver teapot. “What’s with the silver tea service? You giving yourself a party? Or are you fixing to hock that too? Honey, Parker left you. He lied to you and he stole from you, and he took everything, including your dignity.”

  “I’ve still got Erin,” Mary Bliss said. She took her time putting the rubber gloves on. Then she picked up the toothbrush again and started working the edge of the teapot with it. “Erin’s the most important thing.” Tears started to well up in her eyes. She rubbed at one and got silver polish in it, then started to cry for real.

  “Katharine,” she said, her voice cracking. “It’s so awful. All we do lately is fight. And I can’t stand that.”

  Katharine got up and tore a paper towel off the roll she’d just unloaded from one of the grocery sacks.

  “Hell, Mary Bliss, fighting with your kid is nothing. Chip and I nearly killed each other his senior year of high school. We still fight like crazy, although not as much since Charlie left. I think Chip’s afraid I’ll go all psycho mama on him, because of the divorce and all. But listen. Even when things were at the worst, I always knew he didn’t mean nothin’ by it. Sometimes, I just take that big old nineteen-year-old, and I wrap my arms around him and hang on for dear life. He’s two inches taller than Charlie now, did you know that? But he’ll never be too big for me to love on. And he knows it too. So don’t you worry about the fussin’, cause that’s all it is. Just fussin’.”

  “I don’t know,” Mary Bliss said. “It’s not just little squabbles. It’s different this time. Erin has changed. It’s like every day she’s building a
brick wall between us.”

  “Have you tried talking to her?” Katharine asked. “Does she know that’s how you feel?”

  “I can’t get her to stand still long enough to talk,” Mary Bliss said. “She works, then she stays out late with friends. Or she’s at soccer practice. That darned coach of hers has practically taken over her life.”

  Katharine reached across the table and grasped Mary Bliss’s hand.

  “You’ve got to face facts now, Mary Bliss,” she said. “Parker has taken off and left you. And sweetie, I know it’s hard, but Erin’s a big girl now. Next year she’s a senior, and then she’s gone too. And you’ll be here. Alone. That’s why you have got to quit ignoring this situation. You have got to do something drastic. Or you’re going to lose the house and everything else.”

  Mary Bliss eased her hand away from Katharine’s. “I can’t do it, Kate. I can’t lie to my child. I can’t tell her her daddy is dead. She’d never forgive me.”

  “What other choice do you have?” she demanded. “Bringing home six bucks an hour? Get real. It’s all falling down around your ears, Mary Bliss. How will Erin feel when you tell her you can’t afford for her to finish her senior year at Fair Oaks Academy? What’s she gonna say when you have to sell the house? Or when you have to sell one of the cars to pay the rent? Face facts. That child has never wanted for anything in her life. But unless you do something quick, you’re both headed for the poorhouse.”

  Mary Bliss shook her head violently.

  “No. We’re not moving and Erin’s staying at Fair Oaks. There’s another way. I’ve been avoiding it. I’d rather take a beating, but you’re right about one thing. My back is against the wall. So I’ll just have to go on and go.”

  “To Mexico?”

  “No,” Mary Bliss said. “Closer than that. Fair Oaks Assisted Living Facility.”

  “Eula?” Katharine gasped.

  “It’s the only way.”

  21

  Eula thought women who wore blue jeans out in public were harlots, or worse. Mary Bliss slipped on a cotton dress and a pair of sandals, and she packed her blue jeans and polo shirt and sneakers in a tote bag, because she still had to go be a product demonstration hostess later in the day at Bargain Bonanza.

  She was heading down the hallway at the Fair Oaks Assisted Living Facility when a voice stopped her.

  “Mrs. McGowan?”

  Mary Bliss turned. A tall thin woman in pink nurse’s scrubs hurried toward her. “Could I have a word with you?”

  It was Anissa, who had been helping to take care of her mother-in-law since Eula had moved into the nursing home.

  “Hey, Anissa,” Mary Bliss said. “Is everything all right?”

  “Well, probably,” Anissa said. “I was wondering. Is something upsetting your mother-in-law?”

  Mary Bliss thought about that. How much should she say?

  “Not that I know of,” she said finally. “Why? Is something wrong with Eula?”

  Anissa frowned. “She’s been difficult the last few days. Won’t eat meals with her friends like she usually does. Refuses to go to Bible study or crafts time. And there’s something else.”

  Anissa lowered her voice. “I hate to be telling you this, but your mother-in-law used some very unpleasant language last night to Hidalgo, the nurse’s aide on the late shift.”

  Mary Bliss tightened her grasp on the handle of her food basket.

  “I don’t know what to say,” she said. “I do apologize. It’s so embarrassing. Eula was raised in a fairly closed society. We’ve tried to talk to her about her language, but…”

  Anissa rolled her eyes. “Honey, they were all raised in a different time. We try to just ignore their ways, but when our folks drop the n-word all the time, it’s hard on us, you know?”

  “I am so sorry,” Mary Bliss said.

  Anissa patted her arm. “I know y’all don’t talk like that or think like that. And I’m sure Eula doesn’t mean anything by it. But Hidalgo, she’s not used to having people cuss her and accuse her of stealing from them.”

  “She did that? Oh God. I’ll talk to her. I promise.”

  Anissa nodded. “She’s slipping some, you know?”

  Mary Bliss was taken aback. “Physically? Has her doctor said anything?”

  “Her blood pressure’s been up,” Anissa said. “She hasn’t been sleeping too good, says her chest is giving her pains.”

  “But she’s all right? Physically?” Mary Bliss asked. What would she do if Eula got really sick? How would she reach Parker?

  “The doctor changed her meds, and he’s giving her something to sleep better. Ambien. I don’t think it’s anything drastic. But I wanted you to know she was cuttin’ up.”

  “I appreciate it,” Mary Bliss said. “And I’ll talk to her about her language.”

  She knocked lightly at the door to Eula’s room, but when there was no answer, she pushed the door open. Eula was asleep, her face pressed flat against a pillow, her mouth open, and a thin line of spittle glistened on her chin.

  “Eula?” Mary Bliss whispered.

  She tiptoed closer to the bed. Eula didn’t look much different. Her iron-gray curls were flattened on one side, and the hollows of her eyes were deep with shadows.

  Mary Bliss put the basket of food on the bedside table and looked around. The room was a mess. Clothes had been flung over a high-backed chair, and a trash basket was overflowing. It smelled funky too. Like dirty socks. It wasn’t like Eula to put up with a messy room. Maybe she really was slipping.

  She went to the janitor’s closet at the end of the hall, got a broom and a sponge mop and a bucket of lemon-scented cleaner, and came back and went to work.

  Mary Bliss worked quietly. She swept and mopped and hung up clothes in Eula’s closet. She was going through the laundry, sorting things into a plastic bag to take home.

  “You stealing from me?” Eula’s voice crackled with anger.

  Mary Bliss dropped the plastic bag, startled. “Meemaw, you’re awake. How are you feeling?”

  Eula was struggling to sit up. Her cotton nightgown hung from one bony shoulder, exposing the top of her pale, shriveled breast. The thought occurred to Mary Bliss. Someday I’ll look like that too.

  “Good thing I did wake up,” Eula said. “I reckon you already ransacked my purse.”

  “Meemaw,” Mary Bliss said, shocked. “You were asleep. The room needed tidying, and I want to take your laundry home to wash it. You know I would never…”

  “Steal? Why not? Everybody else in this place is a thief. They’re robbing me blind. Think I don’t know that? Especially that little spic girl. I ran her off last night.”

  “Meemaw! You shouldn’t say words like that. Nigger. Spic. The words are demeaning. And ugly.”

  “That girl doesn’t understand a word of English,” Meemaw said, waving away Mary Bliss’s protests. “Anyway, why can’t they get some nice white folks in here to take care of me?”

  “The people who work here are very nice,” Mary Bliss said. “Nice white folks and black folks and brown folks. And you need to stop talking so ugly to them. It hurts their feelings.”

  “Who cares?” Eula said. “Put the television on, will you? I want to see what Guy Sharpe says about the weather. If we don’t get some rain soon, I swear I’m gonna dry up and blow away.”

  Mary Bliss decided not to point out to Eula that her favorite weatherman had been retired from channel 2 for at least ten years.

  Instead, she lifted the pie out of the basket and set it on the bed tray. She cut a slice and put it on the flower-sprigged china plate she’d brought from home. She poured the iced tea into a glass and placed it beside the pie plate, then she slid the rolling table over next to Eula’s bed.

  “Look, Meemaw,” she said. “I brought you a treat. Coconut custard pie from the women’s circle cookbook. And home-brewed sweet tea. Your favorites.”

  Eula had her eyes closed, her head tilted back on the pillow. She opened one eye and
grunted. Then she opened the other.

  “Treat. Huh. More like a bribe.”

  But her hand found the electric controls for the hospital bed, and she raised herself to a sitting position.

  “Bribe? What’s that supposed to mean?” Mary Bliss asked.

  “Think I don’t know what you’re up to? You come sidling in here today, all nicey-nice, mopping and bowing and sweeping. Where were you yesterday? Wednesday? I waited all day, and you never came. Say what you mean to say, girl. Get on with it. I don’t want to miss the weather report.”

  Mary Bliss had been steeling herself for this moment.

  “I’m sorry about yesterday. I have a new job and I had to work. All right. Yes. I do need to talk to you. About Parker. Have you heard from him?”

  Eula’s lips pressed into a tight line. “No.”

  Mary Bliss looked at her warily. She never could read Eula McGowan. Was she lying? There was just no telling.

  “I’ll get right to the point. Parker left us in a bad way, Meemaw. He hasn’t paid the bills. Emptied out all our accounts. Our accounts,” she emphasized. “Joint checking and savings. Investments. Erin’s college money. It’s all gone.”

  Eula didn’t blink. She slowly took a bite of pie, then followed that with a gulp of tea.

  “I’m going to lose the house if I can’t pay what we owe,” Mary Bliss continued. “I’ve taken a part-time job, but it’s not nearly enough. It’ll just barely buy groceries. And Erin’s tuition for Twin Oaks Academy is due next month. It’s eleven thousand dollars, Meemaw. And I don’t have it.”

  Eula ate another bite of pie.

  “You’ll manage,” she said finally. “That’s one thing I always did give you credit for, Mary Bliss. You might not be much in the brains or the looks department, but I always did say you were a good manager.”

  Mary Bliss felt something stirring in her chest. Around the esophagus area. She was shocked when it came out as a laugh. She laughed. She did! She laughed so hard she got stomach cramps.