by Webb, Peggy
Mama opens her eyes. “Maggie, what are you doing here? Is it morning? Is it time for breakfast?”
Oh lord, oh lord….
I tell her what happened and she says, “I forgot, that’s all.” Her hair is matted and her blue eyes are glassy and I don’t know what to do.
“Help me into bed, and then go back to sleep, Maggie.”
“I’ll stay here, Mama. In this chair.”
“I don’t want you in here. You snore.”
After I’ve settled her back in bed, I lie between my own cool sheets with my eyes wide open and my mind filled with a dozen possibilities. I’m wrong, the doctor’s right, Mama’s feisty act has fooled us all, she’s really leaving us, leaving me…and oh, lord, selfish me, does this setback mean I won’t have to sit at Jean’s dining room table with Stanley cutting his roast beef into exact little cubes, and Charlie kicking his shoes off and running his sock feet up my leg?
There’s a fine line between being cooperative and gracious and being a doormat. Lately, I’ve been flinging myself on the floor and posting signs saying Step On Me. I’m fixing to change that. First thing in the morning, I’m calling Jean to cancel the party. Mama’s certainly not up to it…and neither am I.
*
Mama beat me to it. She called Jean at the crack of dawn to spin her own version of the night’s events and to threaten a hunger strike if the dinner party is cancelled.
The only bright spot in this scenario is that I don’t have to drive Jean to the grocery store and pick out Stanley’s roast. Aunt Mary Quana is arriving late this afternoon, and she’ll be Jean’s transportation while she’s here.
*
Aunt Mary Quana is a watered-down, primped-up version of Mama. Sitting on Jean’s sofa in a pink feathered straw hat and black patent leather pumps, a matching purse on her lap and her ankles crossed the way she was taught ladies do, she’s bound and determined to mind my business or burst her girdle trying.
“Victoria tells me Stanley is coming to dinner, and I can’t tell you how much that pleases me. Why, if I had another chance with my Larry I’d be so happy I’d turn cartwheels and shoot poots at the moon.”
Well…I didn’t say she wasn’t sassy.
“I divorced him, Aunt Mary Quana. I don’t want him back.”
“Neglect your rose petals and your bloom fades quickly,” she says.
Good grief! Aunt Mary Quana, too? I have to show them I don’t need any help with my neglected “rose petals.” If I wanted a man, I could get one all by myself. Couldn’t I?
Mentally I go through the list of men I know, men I can call and invite to the dinner party, men who will wear white shirts and pressed jeans and the clean, fresh-air aroma of Irish Spring soap. All I can come up with are Newton Cramer and Horton Grimes. Kind, harmless old gentlemen who would bring yellow-centered daisies and kiss my hand - which leaves out my more interesting body parts.
A new idea presents itself, one too crazy to contemplate, too wild and unexpected.
And perfect. Maybe.
Before I can change my mind, I say, “I have to go home to check my phone messages. To see if my editor has called.” Mama and Jean exchange looks that say, Why doesn’t she use her cell phone or Jean’s phone. “And I have a few letters I need to type. Business.” I grab my purse and fish out my keys. “I’ll be back after a while.”
*
Driving back to Mama’s in the early dusk I turn on the radio hoping for a fortifying talk with Rainman, but all I get is a whiskey-voiced DJ who welcomes me to an afternoon of Mississippi blues, starting with “Stop Arguing Over Me” by Eddie Cusic. Some people don’t know that Eddie laid his guitar down for twenty-five years while he worked in a rock quarry to support his family, and then picked it up again when he retired and continued making music as if he’d never stopped.
I know because of Stanley. During the lonely married years when he preferred the company of golfing buddies to the company of his wife, and I preferred anything to the judgmental presence of my husband, I spent my dancing-loving-laughing energies on reading stacks of magazines and books on everything that interested me. And blues topped the list.
In a last ditch effort at togetherness, I even planned a weekend in Cleveland at the Delta Blues Festival, but Stanley killed that idea because he said the Mississippi Delta had mosquitoes as big as Thanksgiving turkeys and heat that would make him break out in hives under the waistband of his Fruit of the Looms.
Parked in the deep shade of Mama’s magnolia tree with the telephone book I keep in the back pocket of the passenger’s seat, I send a prayer winging toward the silver goddess moon that Rainman’s listed…and that he’s not allergic to heat.
Of any kind.
I punch in the numbers, and when he answers I’m embarrassed and tongue-tied and three seconds away from hanging up the phone.
“Hello, hello…is anybody there?”
No, nobody I want to say, because Mama taught me it’s bad manners to hang up without saying anything. But then I remember that I am there, and that I’m Somebody and I’m fighting very hard to stay that way.
“This is Maggie…Maggie Dufrane.”
“The writer with the great smile.”
He makes it easy to invite him to dinner, easy to be happy when he says yes.
Afterward I pull down the rearview mirror so I can confirm or deny my great smile. It’s there, and it’s kind of nice. I tilt the mirror lower for a better view. Actually, it’s great. It really is.
I would never have known that about myself if I had hung up. The call becomes my three seconds to grace, and I roll down my window and look at the moon, smiling and smiling.
*
Eventually I’ll go back to Jean’s because we’re having a pajama party at her house in honor of Aunt Mary Quana. This is a tradition among the women in our family. A girls’ night out. Pajamas and popcorn and pink foam hair curlers (Aunt Mary Quana). Cards and Kalua and conversation that ranges from the Republicans (Mama) to Geritol and Viagra (both of them.)
But first I get Jefferson out of his kennel and then go inside to think up a letter to type because I said I would. He prances around the house, sniffing to make sure I’m safe, and then plops beside my feet as I turn on my computer.
I pick up my small stack of mail that now comes to Mama’s box and spread it across the dining room table - a flyer from Home Depot advertising a close-out sale on roses, an application from Citi Bank for a Diamond Preferred charge card and a bill for $13.98 from McRae’s for the pink lipstick Jean charged last month because she’d left her card in her other purse.
This is a depressing display. This is the kind of mail that says I’m vanishing bit by bit, a woman no longer qualified for electric bills, car payments, invitations for two – Mr. and Mrs. – and exorbitant credit card charges that say this woman decided to go on a spree so she flew to New York, stayed at the Algonquin, splurged on tickets to Broadway shows and took off her shoes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art because it’s better to view Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon barefoot.
I open a clean document and type,
Dear Sir:
Congratulations on your beautiful advertising flyer. The roses looked so enticing I could hardly resist racing to Home Depot and buying six. Alas, I don’t have time for gardening – even if I had one - because I’m always in my car.
Sincerely yours,
Maggie Dufrane.
I press save and try to lean back in Mama’s straight-backed dining room chair, but all I can manage is a neck-crimping slump. Maybe I’ll mail the letter. After all, everybody needs affirmation. Even Home Depot.
*
After I put Jefferson in his kennel I drive back to Jean’s. She and Mama are already in pajamas, and Aunt Mary Quana’s in a nightgown that says Keep America Beautiful, Put a Sack Over Your Head. It’s pink, an exact match to her fuzzy house shoes, her fingernail polish and the foam rubber rollers in her hair.
“It’s about time you got here,” Mam
a says. “We can’t play Rook without you.”
Aunt Mary Quana grabs the cards and starts shuffling, but Mama snatches them out of her hand. “I’m dealing, Mary Quana. You always cheat.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I taught you.”
I wish I could wrap pink tissue paper around this moment and put it in a box on my closet shelf. It would the kind of box that could transport you through time and space, a miraculous box you could climb into and fly backward to the beauty of a sister with tears of laughter streaming down her face, an aunt who would drive her car to China if somebody could figure a way to put a bridge across the ocean, and a mama with devilment in her eyes and age spots on her hands.
*
I wait until Jean and I are alone before I tell her about Rainman. We’re sitting in the middle of her cherry four-poster bed, listening to the twin freight-train snores of Mama and Aunt Mary Quana. It’s one in the morning, a good time for sisters to share secrets and confess crimes.
Jean narrows her lips at the news of her extra dinner guest, a gesture she learned from Mama. “Maggie, is he a good man?”
“So far, so good.”
“I just want you to have the same things I do – a home, security and a wonderful man to love.”
“It’s way too early for that. Besides, I only know one wonderful man, and you’ve already got him.”
“Lucky me. Look, Maggie, I didn’t mean to goad you about your neglected sex drive. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I plan to make you pay for it.” I wallop her with the feather pillow and she grabs hers to fight back. We’re children again, full of giggles and spontaneity and the absolute certainty that the world will never break our hearts.
But it does.
“Jean, Maggie,” Mama calls.
My sister and I leap off the bed and collide in the narrow hallway trying to answer her late-night alarm.
Mama’s doubled on the side of the bed with her head on her knees. We race across the room and flank her, bookends of sympathy and fear. Between groans Mama finally requests Pepto-Bismol. We press for doctors and the emergency room, but she’s adamant that it’s nothing but indigestion.
“You might as well hush about the hospital. I’m not fixing to upset Mary Quana,” Mama says.
While Jean and I rummage through her medicine cabinet, we agree that judging by the decibel level coming from Aunt Mary Quana’s room it would take a level four hurricane to disturb her.
______________
Chapter Ten
______________
“Venus is putting on a show tonight, folks. All you young lovers should make some time to sit under the stars, and if you’ve been with each other a while, say thirty or forty years, and already do a lot of porch sitting, well, hold hands while you’re at it.”
Rainman
Mama and I are in headed to Jean’s for the dinner party. A gathering that will probably turn out to resemble something staged by the Three Stooges. Jean so nervous she’s cooked every casserole known to man. Aunt Mary Quana wearing feathers and high expectations. Stanley basking in the company of my family. Charlie casting baleful glances toward Rainman. And Mama, fortified on stubbornness and Pepto-Bismol, running the show.
I picture the way Rainman will see me tonight – a middle-aged woman in a hopeful pink blouse and black slacks because no woman past a certain age and in a certain weight category would dare put anything except black or navy on her hips. A woman with flying-every-which-way Orphan Annie hair that refuses to be tamed and lipstick that doesn’t match, trying too hard to strike the right balance between intelligence and wittiness.
A woman trying too hard. Period.
I wish I were in Mama’s dream red convertible. I would be on the way to someplace grand wearing pink chiffon and discreet pearls. I’d glide through the ballroom striking awe and admiration into the heart of every person there. Whispers would follow me as I waltzed onto the dance floor, Who is she?
“Maggie…you passed Jean’s driveway.”
Who I am is a woman losing her mind and her nerve at the same time. Lord, why didn’t I merely endure an evening with Stanley and leave Rainman at the radio station?
“What were you thinking?” Mama adds.
“I was thinking that we should have cancelled this dinner party two days ago when you got so sick at Jean’s house. You’re not up to this, and neither am I.”
I’m sleep-deprived, harried and worried. Darkness is a signal for every organ in Mama’s body to rise up in protest. Each night brings a new pain, a new problem, a new way to test my ingenuity at home remedies. I’m so exhausted from nighttime nursing duties that when I sit down to write, I fall asleep at my computer.
“Flitter, speak for yourself. And perk up. I don’t want to eat Jean’s roast beef across from a sourpuss.”
“Then you’d better put Charlie on your side of the table.”
“Be nice to him. One evening in his company is not going to kill you.”
“That which doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”
“Quit quoting. I can’t stand it when you do that. Especially when I don’t know who said it.”
“Camus first, I think, and then that guy who wrote Steel Magnolias. I can’t remember his name.”
“If I’d wanted to have dinner with an encyclopedia, I’d have brought one…. Wait. Slow down. You can turn around in Laura Kate’s driveway.”
If it were left up to me I’d keep on going. From years of being the only driver in this family, I know these back roads as well as I know the café au lait birthmark on my left knee. I could drive clear to Florida, never taking a major highway. Mama and I would lie on the beaches of Pensacola Bay and let the sun burn away every sick and fearful thing until nothing was left except clean, pure space.
When we pull up in Jean’s driveway Mama says, “Smile, Charlie’s here.”
In a way this is a good thing because now, when Rainman comes, I won’t give the appearance of a woman alone and looking, one of those female predators you can spot the minute you enter a crowded room, the one laughing too loud, and staying too long. And I hope I remember to call Rainman by his real name. What if I don’t? What if I spill gravy on my blouse or get lettuce caught between my teeth? What if I say the same silly things to him in person that I’ve said to him for the last three months when he was nothing more than a voice on the radio?
I fade into my family and wait. This is easy to do: wherever Mama is, she’s the center of the show. And Aunt Mary Quana runs a close second. While Jean keeps Horton and Hattie and Laura Kate talking, they surround Stanley, and I can tell by the supercilious grin on his face that he thinks they’ve rolled out the welcome mat especially for him. He seems to have forgotten that Mama and Aunt Mary Quana pour on the charm for everybody, even people they don’t like. It’s their generation’s Southern way. Win them over with honey and wait for your chance to cut out their hearts.
Mama sees me and nods toward Charlie standing in the corner and tugging at his ugly brown tie. If I didn’t know why she was doing this, I’d be mad at her. Instead my heart is filled gratitude and a wavery sort of courage because I know that whatever happens to me, Mama’s still there trying to make things better. She’s too smart not to know how her own body is betraying her, and she probably views this as a last chance to help.
Mama can’t stand to see her daughters lack for anything, and that includes a husband. In my case she’s seeing a once-secure, once-successful daughter reduced to living with her mother.
Charlie works up his courage and joins me. “Maggie, how are you?”
“Fine.” I give him the standard reply Southern women give when they don’t want to talk to you. A polite go away. Charlie doesn’t take the hint, so I say, “Thank you for coming to Aunt Mary Quana’s welcome party. I know you’ll to spend lots of time with her.”
“I came for you, Maggie. Let’s go out on the patio where we can talk.”
The reason I don’t simply
tell him no is that I’m not good at public refusals. I’m too soft, too aware of other people’s viewpoint, too anxious about hurting feelings. There are words for people like me, none of them nice – pushover, wishy-washy, doormat.
Suddenly the doorbell rings and I am saved.
“Excuse me, please,” I tell Charlie. “That will be my special guest.”
Sometimes, when you least expect it, there’s grace.
And he’s standing on Jean’s doorstep wearing a white shirt, sleeves rolled, and the soap-fresh scent of Irish Spring. I don’t know why I find that combination so appealing. Certainly Stanley never rolled his sleeves, even in the days when he was my hero. Plus, he’s a Dial soap man and always follows that with too much aftershave, a strong scent that walks into the room before he does.
Rainman reaches for my hand. “Hello again, Maggie.”
Suddenly I’m aware of every bit of fluff on my hips. I’m going to sue Hershey’s. If it weren’t for five extra chocolate pounds I’d feel charming and self-confident and skinny. Well, maybe ten, but I’m not admitting an ounce more.
Or maybe I’ll thank them because men like Rainman who can walk into a room and fit right into a crazy family like mine have no business in my life. I don’t need the distraction; I’m too busy trying to steer my derailed train.
Steer is putting it mildly. I can’t even find the track.
Jeans marches by with a steaming platter of cornbread. “Joe, you sit here between Mama and Aunt Mary Quana, and Maggie, you sit over there by your husband.”
“Ex,” I say, and Rainman takes notice. I can tell by the way his mouth curves. Not quite a smile, certainly not a grin, just a pleasant expression that would be easy to live with. Too easy.
He’s buttering his cornbread and taking a generous portion of black-eyed peas with the natural gusto of a man who’s not afraid to be himself, no matter what.
While Stanley drones on about the number of tax returns he prepared this season, and Charlie adjusts his tie over his Adam’s apple and tries to catch my eye, Rainman is telling Mama about carving Victorian roses on a cherry wood chair.
