by Webb, Peggy
Her shop is on Main Street in Tupelo in a 1940’s building with stained glass windows along the front. Inside are original embossed tin ceiling tiles, ancient wooden floors that smell of lemon wax and ceiling fans with brass-edged wooden paddles that stir the scent of rose and lavender candles. I could live in this bookstore. I’d light different scented candles each day, and start my mornings with a cup of foamy cappuccino from Beth Ann’s coffee bar. Then I’d select an armful of books and disappear into an enchanted place of words and other worlds, not my own.
For now, though, I have to stay in this one, upright and steady, smiling as Beth Ann sweeps toward me wearing a purple and gold caftan Mama says makes her look too big and I think makes her look like the goddess of a small, ultra-elegant culture.
She hugs both of us, and Mama thanks her for the spectacular stargazer lilies she sent to the hospital.
“You’re worth it, Victoria,” Beth Ann says.
“I sure am,” Mama agrees. “Tell everybody you know.”
When she clumps off with her walker to check out Beth Ann’s latest selection of crossword puzzle books, I ask the question that’s turning my stomach to knots.
“How many registered?”
I’m hoping for twenty. Fifteen, at the very least. Enough to fill the small bistro tables in the café at the back of Beth Ann’s store. Enough to create a lively give-and-take between teacher and student. Enough to make me say to myself, See, I’m still a writer, people want to hear what I have to say, they want to know what I know - the secret to being somebody with your name on a book cover.
“Four,” she says, and I try to keep from showing my dismay.
Beth Ann sees it anyway. Good friends always do. When she squeezes my hand, I feel better because here is something else best friends do – communicate comfort with touch. No words, no platitudes, just one simple, compassionate touch.
“Well….” I fortify myself with a deep breath and a smile. “Let’s set up before the mad rush begins.”
I follow Beth Ann to the small back-corner café where she’s put a single pink rose in blue crystal vases on each table along with purple pens and small, spiral bound notebooks.
“And you can sit here,” she says, leading the way to a wooden rocking chair with a contoured bottom just right for sitting, curved arms perfect for resting my elbows, and delicate, carved roses I can nestle in the palm of my hand if I need to hold onto something beautiful. And I do.
I sink in the rocking chair and set it in motion, close my eyes and lean my head against its tall carved back, wrap my hands around the roses and hang on. Then I hear music – the haunting, bluesy notes of “Wonderful Tonight” as only Eric Clapton can play them, and it takes me a moment to realize the song is coming from Beth Ann’s speakers and not my dreams.
“Rainman Jones made that.”
“What?”
“The chair you’re sitting in. It was carved by WTUP’s famous DJ.”
“Oh...” Suddenly the chair is electrified, pulsing with some strange kind of energy that could drive you crazy if you’d let it.
Of course, I don’t plan to. A DJ who is good with his hands is the last thing I need. Or maybe the first, but lord, lord, who has time to think about that?
“This summer I added some of his smaller carved furniture in the Stuff section. It’s selling well.”
I don’t respond because all I can think of is the mellifluous voice on the radio that has been my safe haven since my Titanic-inspired birthday. Fortunately the staccato tapping of Mama’s metal walker breaks the spell.
“When’s the crowd coming?” She sinks into another rocking chair, blue padded seat and no roses, obviously not made by hand.
“Brace yourself, Mama. There are only four.”
“Well, flitter, don’t they know what they’re missing?”
*
Obviously not. By the time we break for lunch I’m ready to skewer myself on a brass letter opener. Here’s what I expected: the next Stephen King, an Emily Dickinson in the making, and a couple of Robert-and-Elizabeth-Barrett-Browning clones.
I got a horror story, all right – a know-it-all dressed in black who interrupted everything I said with a contradictory statement about what he’d read and what he’d heard. And instead of Emily I got a Sylvia Plath who has spent the last two hours crying and who shouldn’t be let near arsenic and speeding trains.
Did I wish for famous lovers? I got them, but I doubt they’ll ever go down in history unless her husband discovers the Romeo with leather jeans and Mohawk hair who has spent the entire workshop kissing his wife. I can see the headlines: Murder in Mystery Writer’s Workshop.
The only intelligent observation made this entire morning was by Mama when she told the self-appointed oracle, “If you’ll just shut up and listen, you might learn something.”
“Mama, that wasn’t polite,” I tell her after my students have scattered for lunch.
“Somebody had to teach him some manners. I can tolerate ugly, but I can’t abide rude.”
“He wasn’t ugly.”
“Yes, he was. Anybody with nose hairs and ripped up jeans is ugly in my book. Let’s eat. I’m hungry.”
Food is the last thing on my mind. I’ve just netted fifty dollars and six cents. Barely enough for a tank of gas.
If I think about that I won’t be able to get through the rest of my workshop, let alone the rest of the week, the rest of my life. What I do is pick up my fork and concentrate on putting one pecan, one grape and one tiny chunk of mayonnaise-and-sour-cream encrusted chicken into my mouth. I chew and don’t think of anything else except the burst of flavor on my tongue. I will enjoy this moment, this day having lunch with my dear friend and my irascible mama.
Mama seizes the stage and cracks everybody up with a story about losing her hairpiece in the middle of a fast fox trot at the Rainbow Room in Memphis.
There is a quiet place inside us where angels are whispering, and they’re saying, See! What I believe they mean is that we are to live boldly and fully, trusting the Universe to take care of the rest. I watch and listen with a heart full of thankfulness.
______________
Chapter Thirteen
______________
“Today has been one of the hottest on record. If you think July is hot as it gets, hang onto your hat, folks. August promises to be even worse.”
Rainman
Sometimes I wonder if Rainman is talking about the weather or my life. I’d probably ask him, but Mama’s asleep on her side of the Jeep, and I have bigger things on my mind than having a philosophical discussion with the radio.
With the workshop finally over, I’m headed back to the farm in the midst of one of the most spectacular sunsets I’ve seen in a long time. Or perhaps they’ve all been that gorgeous and I’m just now noticing.
I veer off highway 178 onto back country roads where the colors of the sky are bleeding onto the tops of massive oaks, painting lakes and white-fenced pastures and placid cows with red and purple and gold. The angels are applauding and saying, Live, Maggie, live.
Well….I thought that’s what I’d been doing all along, but I see now that I’ve simply been marking time. Waiting for Mama to bounce back and take over. Waiting for a contract. Waiting for pigs to grow wings and fly.
It’s time to seize control and take center stage of my own life. Be like Mama. Maybe not with red feathers and a desire for a blond wig, but charge ahead, nonetheless.
Mama stirs and looks out the window. “Where are we?”
“We’re taking the long way home.”
“Good. I wish we wouldn’t stop till we got to New York.”
“I don’t think we can even get there from Plantersville, Mama.”
“You can do anything you set your mind to, Maggie.”
Mama doesn’t make off-hand remarks, throw-away statements. There’s a whole lecture in those ten words, and I should pay attention.
She sits up straighter and adjusts her glasses. “Do y
ou see that, Maggie? It looks like a Canadian goose.”
“Some of them find a friendly pond and stay here year ‘round, I think.”
“If you and Jean don’t quit wrapping me in goose down, I’m going to smother to death. I want to fly.”
It’s too dark to see, but I can picture that sly look on Mama’s face, the one says Pay attention now, hear what I say. And as I listen I feel the slow, steady unfurling of wings.
*
The Wednesday after my workshop is a rare one – no doctors’ appointments for Mama or Jean and no crises, large or small. I call Jean to sit with Mama while I take my laptop to the hayloft, a beautiful setting to write, high above the farm with a panoramic view of lush grass, tall trees, and cool blue streams.
I wear a yellow sundress. It’s a happy, hopeful color that reminds me of the story Aunt Mary Quana told about her wedding. “Victoria tried to talk me out of wearing yellow, told me virgins always wear white, and I said, ‘I’m not planning on being one for long, so you might as well shut up.’”
Reveling in my freedom, I lie in the sweet clover hay, close my eyes and spread my arms like angel wings. Then, kissed by sunshine and my muse, I open the laptop and fall into my unicorn story, writing straight through lunch and into the early afternoon.
My cell phone startles me back to the real world.
“Maggie, I’m at Baskin-Robbins.” This thrills me, just the way Joe says my name, the way ice cream makes him think of me. “Where are you?”
When I tell him, he says, “How about a banana split? Delivered.”
It’s just ice cream, I tell myself while I wait for him. But twenty minutes later when he climbs the ladder and digs into a mound of vanilla topped by whipped cream and a cherry, I’m vividly aware of his mouth…and the glorious things a sensitive, caring man like Rainman can do with it.
He makes me feel sixteen. Correct that. Sixteen with the mature sensibilities of a woman ready to explore the many ways you can fly to the moon.
For now, though, eating ice cream will do.
“I love lazy afternoons like this,” he says.
“Ice cream and good company always make them better.”
“One of these days, Maggie, I’m going to ask you for a real date.”
“One of these days, I might say yes.”
He leans over to pluck a strand of hay from my hair, and then kisses the springy curl that wraps around his finger.
“I have to get back to the station. Take care of yourself, pretty lady.
Amazing, the power of one small gesture, the beauty of tender caring. Joe makes me believe that all things are possible, even this – a man and a woman, transcending obstacles to reach for something magical.
*
I’m still dreaming of possibilities as I drive to Dr. Holman’s office on Thursday for Mama’s checkup. Jean opted to stay behind and make sure Jefferson hangs onto what little hair he’s grown back since Mama got home.
The doctor listens to Mama’s heart and her lungs, checks her eyes, her ears and her swollen feet, while I sit on a hard plastic chair and try to map out a different life for myself.
Maybe I could date Joe, after all. Maybe everything doesn’t have to be perfect to reach for magic.
While the nurses help Mama dress, Dr. Holman calls me into his office. Not a good sign.
“The increased swelling in her feet and the dry cough are indicators that her heart continues to fail. Maggie, it’s time to consider a personal-care home.”
I feel as if clouds have gathered over my head and turned loose a monsoon and I’m caught without an umbrella. Mama will never stand for such a move, and I don’t know if Jean and I can survive it.
“How long before I have to make this decision?”
“A few weeks, Maggie. A couple of months at most.”
Change has a way of throwing you off balance, flipping you upside-down so you don’t know which way to turn, and I’m reeling from this turn of events.
When I get home, maybe I’ll take a bubble bath, see if I can soak out the misery and think up a solution. That is, if I can carve out some time for myself.
I turn into Mama’s driveway, and there’s a vintage Chevrolet Impala I don’t know parked in my spot. Plus, Jean’s on the front porch wringing her hands. She rushes down the steps and starts crying before I can get out of the car.
“What’s wrong, Jean? What?” Miscarriage, I’m thinking. Premature bleeding. A fall from the kitchen stool.
“Oh lord, I was never so glad to see anybody in my life. You’ve got to get in there. They’re driving me crazy.”
“Who?”
“Laura Kate Lindsey and Annie Maycomb. They came to visit in Laura Kate’s car, and now they’re in there planning Mama’s funeral.” Jean blows her nose on the handkerchief I’ve fished out of my purse. “Maggie, you’ve got to put a stop to that conversation. It’s morbid.”
“If anybody’s planning my funeral, it’s going to be me.” Mama prances into the house.
Oh lord, now is not the time to bring up her condition with my sister.
“Do you want me to drive you home, Jean?”
“I’ll walk. I need the fresh air.”
By the time I step inside I’m totally immersed in the funeral plans of three feisty septuagenarians.
I try to tune them out, especially in light of Dr. Holman’s latest prognosis, but Mama drags me right in.
“Maggie, if you let Lula Bell Franks caterwaul “Whispering Hope” at my funeral I’m going to kill you.”
Before I can make a premature deathbed promise, Annie Maycomb says, “My grandkids are going to sing at mine.”
She’s bragging, and I watch Mama snatch the limelight.
“Well, my daughters are going to hire a brass band. Take notes, Maggie.” She makes sure to catch my eye, letting me know she means business. “I’m planning to go out in style while they play ‘When the Saints Go Marching In.’”
“You’re no saint, Victoria,” Laura Kate says.
“Anybody who’s going to have her ashes scattered at Wal-Mart to make sure her daughter will visit has no business talking about my religion.”
“When Sylvia Liscomb died,” Annie says, “her sorry daughter left her ashes in the back seat of her Buick for a year…in a McRae’s shopping bag.”
“Lord, lord,” Laura Kate says, “What if somebody had stolen the car and carried it off to Mexico? Poor old Sylvia couldn’t even speak Spanish.”
“What difference does it make? She was dead,” Mama says, irritated. “You two just hush up and listen. I’m not through planning my funeral.”
Does she know what her doctor said? I wouldn’t put it past her to have sneaked down the hall and listened at the door.
When Mama walks Laura Kate and Annie out, I notice that her feet have swollen over the tops of her shoes. At dinner I make sure Mama takes her fluid pill, as she calls it, and then I watch every bird bite she takes, measuring each spoonful in terms of calories and nutrition.
Finally I help her into bed and she grabs my hand. “I wasn’t kidding about the music.”
“Hush, Mama. You’re not dying.”
“I’m not going to live forever, Maggie. I want them to play ‘How Great Thou Art,’ too.”
I can’t stand this. Not without Jean. Not without…somebody. And so I do what all the Lucases do in times of crisis.
“”That’s appropriate, Mama. Everybody will know the song is talking about you.”
“They’d better.” She flounces over and turns her back to me, but not before I see what I’m looking for. Mama’s eyes may be fading, as blue one are prone to do, but there’s still a light inside, a bit of devilment that says, I’m not done here, yet, and don’t you forget it.
After I hear Mama’s snores, I call to tell Jean the latest news.
“Maggie, what are we going to do?”
“Pray,” I reply, and then I light a white candle and go outside to sit on the front porch swing. I wish I were Cathol
ic so I could hang onto a rosary while I say Hail Marys. Instead I look up at the silver moon and say, Please.
______________
Chapter Fourteen
______________
“It’s great weather for watching tonight’s full eclipse of the moon. These eclipses usually shake things up, so expect some seismic shifts, folks.”
Rainman
“Let’s stay up late and watch the eclipse, Maggie.”
We’re on the way to Woody’s Restaurant to meet Jean and Walter, who just got home yesterday. Mama’s in the passenger’s seat with a pillow behind her back, a lap robe over her knees because she says the car’s air conditioner freezes her to death, and her walker folded in the back seat. Trappings of her future.
And mine. Unless Rainman’s moon brings a few seismic shifts my way.
“We will, Mama,” I say. But my mind’s not on watching the heavens or the big announcement Walter and Jean plan to make. It’s on Mama’s long-term health care.
“We want tonight to be a huge occasion for Mama,” my sister told me on the phone this afternoon. “Make sure she’s dressed up.”
As if I have to. Mama’s partial to pearls and sequins, and rarely gets into the car without them. Tonight she’s in a red pants suit with jewel-encrusted lapels. If it weren’t for her new, extra-wide, rubber soled, flat-heeled shoes, you’d think she was going dancing.
Walter has reserved a private room and then filled it with pink roses and pink candles. When we walk in Mama says, “Whose birthday is it? Mine?”
They all laugh, Mama loudest of all, but I’m remembering her this morning sitting in bed with her nightcap askew saying, “Maggie, quick, get the paper so I can see the date. I don’t remember if this is July or August.”
“Friday, July twenty-eight,” I told her, and then because she looked so distressed I said, “It’s all right. Everybody forgets sometimes.”
