by Webb, Peggy
“Yes, but it’s not blond.”
“Why on earth would you want to go blond?”
“Maybe I’m fixing to kick up my heels and have an affair.”
That’s when Jean called, and it’s a good thing, because Mama was acting so serious I believed her.
“Aren’t you going to answer the phone?” she asked.
“I don’t know whether to leave you or not. There’s no telling what you’ll do next.”
“Go on, Maggie. Get the phone. It might be somebody important.”
“Your mystery man?”
“I was just kidding. Since your daddy died there hasn’t been a man who could hold a candle to him.”
When I left, Mama was sitting in her recliner playing a game of gin rummy with Aunt Mary Quana - cheating, no doubt. I park the Jeep and follow Jean into Wal Mart.
When I told Mama this is where I’d be going she said, “You might as well get some handicapped rails for the bathtub.” Then she picked up her crossword puzzle book and started filling in blanks as if she’d suggested I pick up something insignificant, like potato chips.
If I think about what Mama’s latest request means, I’ll start crying. I can’t even bear to talk about it with Jean. Instead I say, “I’ll meet you up front. In…say, half an hour?”
“No. I want you with me.” She heads toward the pharmacy and I have to trot to keep up. “I can’t do this without you.”
“Do what?” I ask, and she reaches to the shelf and grabs an early pregnancy test kit.
“Good grief.”
“It’s probably nothing. Stress. It’s not unusual to miss a couple of periods at my age.”
Ten minutes later we’re huddled in the handicapped bathroom stall at Wal-Mart watching the little stick Jean peed on to see what color it turns.
Blue. She throws it into the air and goes into hysterics.
“Maggie, what are we going to do?”
We? I’m not the one pregnant here. I haven’t even been exposed, if she’ll care to remember. Not that I want to be. A busy woman like me. Running the Lucas show.
Still, desire has a way of sneaking up on you. For instance, when you’re in the kitchen at midnight raiding the pantry for peanut butter and crackers because you can’t sleep and there’s nobody in bed to help you. Or you’re standing in the moonlight inhaling the clean, soap-scrubbed scent of a broad-shouldered man wearing Irish Spring.
Jean’s histrionics send passion scuttling.
I reach in my purse and hand her a tissue. “We’ll have an ob-gyn check this out. What we’re not going to do is stand in a public bathroom stall screaming and crying.”
“Was I?”
“Yes. Stop it,” I say, and she does.
On the way to the car I notice children everywhere – sitting in strollers with drool on their chins, climbing their mothers’ legs with chocolate-smeared hands, poking holes in a bag of flour and dancing in the powdery white trail while their mothers wheel the grocery cart across the parking lot, unaware.
Jean and I both wanted children. She was going to have four – two boys and two girls - and I was going to have three – gender unimportant. We sat up nearly all night on the eve of her wedding discussing what our children would look like and what we’d name them. “Victoria, for my first girl,” she said, and I told her that if Stanley ever got up the nerve to propose and I got pregnant first, I was going to use that name. I pictured a little girl with my big hair and Mama’s big attitude.
But Baby Victoria remained a dream. Neither of us got pregnant. After six years, Stanley and I quit trying, partially because we got so busy we didn’t see how children would fit into our lifestyle but mostly because we lost interest in the baby-making process.
Jean quit trying seven years ago. “It’s self-centered of us to go on this way when there are so many children out there needing good homes,” is what she told me. And then a few months later she said they’d decided not to adopt because of Walter’s travel.
Obviously, though, she and Walter never lost interest in the process.
No wonder they call envy the green-eyed monster. Here I am driving my car while it’s clawing away at my insides. Or maybe that’s fear. Lord, lord... Jean’s past the normal child-bearing age. What if her eggs are not up to snuff?
And Walter’s forty-six. Good grief…I hate to think of the tired condition of his Y chromosomes.
“We won’t tell Walter and Mama until I know for sure,” Jean says.
“Certainly not.”
No use in everybody worrying. Or celebrating. Or falling apart.
Jean turns her face to the window and cries without sound. I don’t offer tissue because something in the set of her shoulders tells me that this time she wants to be inside herself, alone.
After I take her home, I turn the Jeep around and head back into town. And then I stand in front of the display of handicapped rails, crying.
“Is anything wrong, ma’am?”
The clerk is wearing a nametag that says Tewanda. She looks so sweet-faced and sincere that I want to take her to lunch and pour out my story just so she can reach across the table and pat my hand.
Instead I say, “There’s a bug in my eye.”
She reaches into her pocket and hands me a travel pack of tissue, and after I thank her, I ask if the rails come with their own screws and installing instructions.
“It has everything you need,” she tells me. “You can do it.”
And I say “Yes,” because I know I can. I must.
When I leave the hubbub of the store, I hear my cell phone beep. It’s probably another frantic message from Jean or Mama. I don’t want to listen to it until I’m in the car sitting down. I’m all out of problem-solving gas.
“Maggie, this is Joe,” my voice mail says, and suddenly my tank is full. “I thought you might need a little break. If so, join me at the Malco at four for Monster-in-Law.
I sit in the car and argue with myself: You need to put up disabled rails. Yes, but everybody needs a break and you can put up rails tonight…Look, Rainman could be a serious distraction and you don’t have time to be side-tracked and sizzled. But this is not a real date, just two hours at a comedy, and doesn’t everybody need to laugh?
Before I can change my mind, I call Aunt Mary Quana to say that I have a few errands to do for myself and won’t be home till six-thirty. Well…this is only a small white lie, but it’s justified because I do need to do this one small thing for myself, and I want my stolen afternoon to be just for me, not a shared event that everybody in the family will discuss.
I glance in my rearview mirror, apply fresh lipstick, decide my hair is hopeless and then head northwest toward the mall. There’s a vacant spot by Joe’s car, and the Rainman himself is standing under the marquee watching for me.
When was the last time somebody made me important enough to wait for, to stand in the blistering July heat and hope that I might get his message and join him?
“There you are.” Pleasure and promise are tangled in his greeting, and I walk into the theater with the confident swing of a woman with revved-up hormones and Somebody Special who appreciates them.
“Popcorn?” he asks, and when I nod, we both say, “With lots of butter,” and then look at each other as if we’ve discovered the moon.
“I enjoy movies,” Joe says when we settle into mid-theater seats.
“So do I. This is one of my favorite pastimes.”
For me, books and movies are inextricably linked. I’m not merely sitting in the dark waiting to be entertained: I’ve entered a magical world and am waiting to be transported.
And I am, I am. Not only by what I’m seeing on the screen but by accidental touching of buttery fingers inside a popcorn box, by strong, jean-clad legs stretched out beside mine. There’s a lovely level of comfort between us, and yet awareness, too – not the stuff of fairy tails but a strong sense of yes, this is right.
When the monster-in-law finally gets her comeuppance, we roa
r with laughter, and then smile at each other, a bit self-conscious, a whole lot intrigued.
I’m sorry to see the lights come up. “Thanks, Joe. I needed that break.”
“I thought you might. Call me when you need another one.”
Then he kisses my palm and folds my fingers over, and I feel like crying, crying for what I’m missing, crying for what I want, crying for the simple beauty of that one small gesture.
*
Jean and I become sisters with a secret. Three days after the future Baby Lucas flew the blue warning flag in Wal-Mart’s toilet, and I escaped to the simplicity of shared popcorn and laughter, we’re standing in Mama’s kitchen tearing spinach for salads and making furtive plans.
“Do you think Aunt Mary Quana will still be here to stay with Mama for my doctor’s appointment?”
“I’ll call Hattie Grimes to come over, just in case.” I select rich red radishes my salad, but leave it out of the rest because I’m the only family member who will eat them. “When’s Walter coming home?”
“Not for another two weeks. After he leaves Ireland he has meetings all over the northeast. Lord, what if I’m really pregnant? He’s never home. You and Mama will have to move in with me.”
My future unfolds, a series of appointments with every major doctor’s group in town - surgeons, heart specialists, gynecologists and pediatricians. And in between trips, I’m caretaker, nanny and resident shoulder-to-cry-on. The indispensable woman. Loved, respected, needed and desired. But certainly not by Somebody Wonderful in fly-front jeans.
How would I ever fit him in? Pun absolutely intended.
I could be overwhelmed if I weren’t so busy chopping cucumbers and green onions.
“I think I’ll just cancel my writers’ workshop.”
“You will not. You need the income, Maggie. And besides, you need to get away.”
Yes. To a nice beach house in Tahiti where I’ll spend my days wading in the surf, collecting sea shells, napping in a tree-swung hammock and drinking from a coconut shell filled with cool beverages, preferably alcoholic.
What Jean doesn’t understand is that teaching a workshop is not “getting away.” It’s what the name implies. Work.
And yet it is energizing and satisfying in its own way. Talking about something I love. Imparting ten years of accumulated expertise. Interacting with artistic types.
I don’t explain any of that to Jean, though. She has enough to worry about. What I say is, “Okay, I won’t cancel.” What I do is keep slicing fresh vegetables. Life goes on, one cucumber at a time.
“Maggie, come quick.” Aunt Mary Quana’s in the doorway with one shoe on and one shoe off. “Victoria’s having a heart attack.”
Jean and I bolt, almost knocking Aunt Mary Quana off her black patent pump. Mama’s bent over in a blue velvet wing chair, coughing.
Jean grabs the phone while I put my arms around Mama’s shoulders.
“Are you all right,” I say, and Mama bolts upright.
“What on earth are you doing?”
“Calling 911,” Jean says. “Aunt Mary Quana said you’re dying.”
“Put that phone down. I’ve just got a frog in my throat, that’s all.” Mama clears her throat, glaring at her sister. ”Mary Quana, what are you trying to do? Scare everybody half to death?”
“Well, I guess I know when I’ve worn out my welcome. I’ll be leaving tomorrow.”
“Flitter, you were leaving tomorrow anyway. Wild horses couldn’t keep you away from the birthday bash that retirement home’s throwing for you.”
*
After Mama and Aunt Mary Quana go to bed, I hole up in my bedroom and start capturing my unicorn in a new file while he’s still fresh. Words pour through my fingertips, and when the flow finally stops, I go to stand beside the window. The moon is full, and bright patches of light are caught in the tops of trees. In a scene this peaceful, there’s no room for a cough that signals a failing heart, no room for a joking, ranting voice to become a frail, breakable thing.
I press my cheek to the night-cooled windowpane and whisper, Please, God. That’s all. Just two words, spoken with a fervent hope.
“Maggie…” Mama calls, and I run.
She’s standing beside her bed, hanging onto the bedpost. “Can you help me get to the bathroom?”
This is new, this weakness that won’t let her take care of her own nighttime needs.
“Don’t tell Jean,” she says. “She worries.”
Proud. Fierce. That’s what I’m thinking as I hold her upright on the toilet.
“I won’t, Mama. I promise.”
*
On Tuesday after Aunt Mary Quana leaves, Jean and I are sitting side by side on a red Chinese print sofa waiting for Dr. Milton Crawford to come in and tell us the truth about her pregnancy. She looks almost nonchalant thumbing through a sleek July edition of Architectural Digest. Only a sister could see the tension in her jaw, the way she holds her mouth tight over clenched teeth.
I think about mouths, and how they can tell exactly what a person is feeling. You don’t have to say a word, really, just let the shape and contours of your mouth do the talking.
I’m aware of the way my own lips are pressed together, and suddenly it strikes me as sad that news of a brand new little being coming into this world would cause such turmoil and anxiety. It occurs to me that we make too many judgments, that we label everything in our lives either Good or Bad.
Forget all the reasons why having a baby at the age of forty-three is not a good idea. Forget all the fretting and agonizing and advance planning. Why can’t we just let a thing be? Why can’t we be like Mama?
If she were here, I know what she’d say. “That’s the way it is. Make the best of it.”
This is a lesson I should apply to my own life. And I will. I will. As soon as I get through applying it to Jean’s.
Dr. Crawford comes in to deliver the news that my sister’s due date is February fifteenth, which sounds about right to me. Jean was cooking up more than hot casseroles that warm May evening when I carried creamed corn to Mama and Walter carried Jean to bed.
I grab my sister’s hand as she walks in numbed silence toward my Jeep. “We’ll make the best of it,” I tell her, and what I’m thinking is love. That’s what the best is, and that’s all this baby will need. Food and shelter, of course. But most of all love.
When we get to the car, Jean says, “We’re not telling till Walter gets back. I want to see his face.” And then…”What if I’m so old my milk’s sour?”
“I don’t think age has anything to do with it.”
“I don’t have a clue about toilet training. You can scar a kid for life with toilet training.”
“For Pete’s sake, Jean. Let’s not borrow trouble.”
I’m trying very hard to take my own advice. Janice Whitten hasn’t called. (Does she hate my revised proposal? Has she read it? Is it lost?) As soon as I drop off my sister, I’m calling her.
*
Janice doesn’t answer. I leave a message, then take my cell phone into the laundry room and start folding clothes, a pile for Mama, a pile for me. This task requires little brain power and leaves me free to conjure the worst outright rejection and the necessity of finding a job, any old job.
But where? Piggly Wiggly? I can barely operate a hand-held can opener, let alone a cash register. The City Park? I know CPR and rescue breathing, but I’m a terrible swimmer and I’m downright frightening in a swim suit.
Buck up, I tell myself, and I do. Because, here’s the thing… If life is going to keep raining on my picnic and I never learn how to use an umbrella, then I don’t deserve grilled hot dogs, much less four-layer chocolate cake.
I jump out of my skin when my phone rings. It’s Janice, and I sit down, limp with nerves, elated and scared at the same time.
“Maggie, I love what you’ve done so far, but it’s still not quite there.”
I think I’m going to die. Instead, I open my metaphysical umbrella
and listen to this little rain shower with an open mind, really listen.
When she asks, “Do you want to give this project another try?” I tell her yes, because here’s the thing: I trust her and I’m learning to trust me again.
I’m just punching the off button when Mama comes into the laundry room.
“Where’s your walker, Mama?”
“For Pete’s sake, Maggie, I don’t need it to walk four feet. Stop being such a worry wart.”
Leave it to Mama to tell the blistering truth. “I’ll be finished in here shortly. Can I get you anything?”
“Your workshop ad is the paper today. I think I’ll go with you tomorrow. I’m tired of being cooped up in this house.”
“Jean’s coming over to stay with you.”
“Call her and tell her not to. She’s been acting moody lately. I want to get out and kick up my heels, have a big time.”
“The workshop’s all day. Are you sure you’re up to it?”
Mama coughs, not hard and hoarse in the way of a person who has a cold, but light, shallow, almost delicate in the way of a person with a fading-away heart. I’m torn between hovering over her, watching her breathe, saying Conserve your strength and dragging out her red shoes, watching her dance, saying Live it up, life is short.
“Flitter, I’ll be fine. I’ll take my pillow and my crossword puzzle and you won’t even know I’m there.”
*
My writing seminar is at Beth Ann’s Books and Stuff, and Beth Ann Hanley is the major reason I don’t argue with Mama about going with me. Her shop has cozy chairs in every nook and cranny, and she’s added hand-crocheted afghans to make sure her customers don’t get a chill while they sit and read a first chapter to see if they want to buy. If you decide to read two or three, she’ll bring you tea, hot orange spice in winter and iced mint in summer.
She’ll treat Mama like an honored guest, and if she gets tired, Beth Ann will take her into the office and plump up the pillows so she can lie down on a yellow and blue flowered chintz sofa.
She and I were roommates at the “W,” and ours is the kind of friendship that allows the freedom of absence. Sometimes weeks or even months will go by without us talking, but we always pick up exactly where we left off.
