by Webb, Peggy
John Donne was right about no man being an island. I think I’ll assign his famous Renaissance Meditation XVII to my students. That’s an important lesson, and all of us should learn it. We’re not in this alone.
Jefferson whines at the front door. I tell him, “Coming boy,” and get up to let him out. He does his business and then settles beside my swing, sprawled on the porch, his big head resting on my feet. This feels right. I am finding my center, connecting to the stars, opening myself to something vast and amazing, some new understanding that makes my soul sit up straight and say, Now I see.
Sighing as if he’s also privy to new insights, Jefferson stirs and I feel his warmth on my feet, feel them putting down roots so deep they’ll hold no matter how high the wind and how fierce the storm.
*
Early Saturday morning Jean and I leave for Home Depot before the trucks arrive. It’s best not to think about Walter loading the rest of Mama’s stuff.
“The trick is to let go, move fast and move forward,” I tell Jean.
I reach for a Ralph Lauren color called buckskin, a rich golden yellow that looks like sunshine pouring across the walls.
“This for my office, don’t you think? I want a happy, look-alive color. And for my bedroom, rose, not prissy and feminine but something both soft and bright.”
“Romantic,” Jean says.
“Exactly.”
“When are you seeing Joe again?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know where he is or if he’s coming back.” I tell her about his phone call.
“Good grief. He’s probably just taking care of business. Men don’t tell everything the way women do. Don’t worry, Maggie. He’ll call.”
“You think?”
“He’d be a fool not to.”
One of the beauties of having a sister/friend like Jean is that when I’m blue she can always make me feel better. My sass is back as I prance to the Jeep and pull it in front of the store to be loaded. I’m a woman full of possibilities – all of them wonderful.
After we leave Home Depot, we go directly to Belle Gardens so I can show Mama the paint chips.
“You didn’t get an old turd brindle green for that dining room, did you?”
“No. Ming-red.”
“Good. Design consultants always try to talk you into green, tell you it’s restful and soothing. Who wants to fall asleep while they eat?” She clumps over to her window on her walker to hold the paint chip in the light, and stands there a while, nodding and smiling.
“I like it,” she says. “I’m going to get a hat that color so the next time the Baptists come here to sing I can give everybody something to think about instead of all that caterwauling.”
“Mama,” Jean says. “You don’t have to go to those programs if you don’t like them.”
“Flitter, I’m the bell of the ball down here. They wouldn’t know what to do without me.”
Would we?
*
As soon as I get home, I put on faded jeans, an old blue T-shirt and start painting. Bedroom first. With luck, I’ll finish before evening, and tonight I’ll fall asleep in a soft glow that feels like sunrise.
Alone. Why hasn’t Joe called?
I won’t let myself worry about it. I’ll keep moving forward, a woman who knows exactly what she wants and where she’s going.
The phone rings and I almost don’t answer it, figuring that by the time I climb off the ladder it will have stopped, anyway. But what if it’s Mama? What if it’s Joe?”
“Maggie?” It’s my Rainman, and I’m so relieved I have to sit down. “I just got back from Chicago. My brother wanted o sell some family property on Lake Michigan, and I drove up to talk him out of it.”
“You have a brother?”
“Yes. And a sister, too. I want them to meet you.”
The promise of his words steals my breath, and he says, “Maggie? Are you still there?”
“I’m here. Painting. My bedroom.”
“I’ll come over and help you. I like working with my hands.”
I have forty minutes to think about Joe’s hands and what I’d like him to do with them. By the time he arrives with a sack of Wendy’s burgers and a six foot ladder, I’m ready to snatch off his soft-looking, faded T-shirt.
He touches my face, which gives away my thoughts. “You’re hot, Maggie.”
If only he knew. Maybe I’ll tell him. Somewhere between dinner at Jean’s and ice cream in the hayloft, I’ve turned into a wanton vixen. Before the night is over maybe I’ll turn into a seductress, too, a woman who doesn’t wait for a man to make the first move, a woman who just reaches out and takes what she wants.
“Why don’t we take a break and eat while everything’s still hot?” He unwraps the burgers, hands one to me, and we sit cross-legged on the floor while he describes his family – a baby sister who is a nurse and a single mother to five-year-old twin boys, and an older brother who is an avionics engineer with a lawyer-wife and no children.
Afterward, we paint, and by the time he puts the last brush of rose across the top of the windowsill, the moon is shining through, impossibly bright.
The radio is tuned to WTUP, and he laughs when his recorded voice announces, “It’s fair and clear tonight, with sunshine coming your way tomorrow.”
He climbs down, switches to a station whose DJ promises a night of jazz and blues, then puts down his paintbrush.
“The bedroom’s finished,” he says.
“I know.”
He tucks a stray curl behind my ear. “May I have this dance, Maggie?”
“I’m not much of a dancer.”
“I don’t think that’s what matters here.”
At first I’m clumsy and self-conscious, afraid I’ll step on his feet. Then he pulls me close and I feel his body’s rhythm, relax into it. And suddenly I’m dancing, not at all the clumsiest girl in Miss Femura Wright’s dance class, but Miss Gracie Smallwood waltzing to the promise of “Moon River.”
I tell Joe about her, about her pink chiffon dress and her rhinestone tiara.
“Thank you,” he says, and I don’t have to ask for what? I know. It’s about hope that two people our age can still discover the joys of old-fashioned romance.
Split apart by amazement, I lead him to my bed and remove the drop cloth, never mind imperfect body parts and full-cut white cotton panties that would be more at home as a flag of truce than an instrument of seduction.
We sink deep into the feather pillows and my comforter folds tent-like over us as Joe touches me with hands that know how to carve a rose.
Suddenly I’m sixteen and giddy, racing through the meadow with the sun in my hair and goldenrod at my feet, happy to be alive, filled with hope and dreams and the absolute assurance that anything is possible.
Yes, I’m thinking. Just that one word. Yes.
*
Sunday morning I wake up with Joe in my bed, propped on one elbow looking at me. “Good morning, sleepyhead.”
“Oh, hey…” The sun pours through the window, and in its unforgiving light I’m self-conscious. Women my age depend on the enhancement of lipstick and blush, flattering blouses and soft lights. I’m plagued with the unsettling thought that not only am I out of practice, I’m past my prime and will never be the kind of woman who sets men’s hearts aflutter with dewy appeal at seven o’clock in the morning.
Joe kisses me, then pulls the covers over our heads. All of a sudden I’m Julia Roberts, with legs long enough to wrap around Texas. I’m Marilyn Monroe with enough sex appeal to bring powerful men to their knees. I’m Maggie Dufrane who wallows in wrinkled sheets without a single thought about flaws and the passing of time.
______________
Chapter Twenty-one
______________
“Good morning, folks. This is Rainman Jones, coming to you live from WTUP. There’s going to be plenty of sunshine today, the kind of day that makes you want to burst into song. ‘You were meant for me; I was meant for you….
’”
Rainman
Rainman’s back at the station, barely arriving in the nick of time, I’d think, considering our morning; Walter flew to Spain this morning; Jean and I are on the way to Belle Gardens for eleven o’clock devotionals.
“Maggie, if you’re out there listening, that was for you.”
Jean turns up the volume. “Maggie, that’s you.”
I’m beside myself to finally be the kind of woman who gets special songs dedicated to her on the radio.
Mama’s waiting for us in a new red hat Jean got for her at Parisian’s. Ostentatious is a mild word for it. Wide-brimmed and important-looking with both flowers and feathers floating across the top, it’s just the kind of thing Victoria Lucas would pick.
“Do you think everybody will notice?” she asks as we escort her into the dining room where the Baptist choir is warming up with “I Come to the Garden Alone.”
“How could they fail, Mama?” I wish the choir had picked a perkier number, maybe a jazz renditions of “Down by the Riverside,” but nothing can mar my morning. Shoot, nothing can mar my life.
After church, we help Mama into the car. This takes a while. Each day now takes its toll. But to see her, you’d never know – the way she holds her head, as if she’s royalty doling out favors to an adoring public, the way she still snaps out sassy retorts and is the first one to laugh at herself, even when she stumbles.
After I’ve folded her walker and finally settled her into the car, she says, “Before we eat, drive by the Ford place. I want to take a look at that car.”
If it wasn’t Sunday afternoon, I’d whip inside and ask a salesman if we could take the red Thunderbird for a test drive. Instead I park as close as I can get so Mama won’t have to leave the Jeep.
“Wouldn’t I be something in that car?” she says.
“Yes, you would. But you know what, Mama? You’re something anyway.”
“Maggie, now that you’re in your house and Jean’s pregnant, I want you to cook the family’s Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner, carry on the tradition in my style.”
Nobody can carry on in her style, but I don’t tell her this. Instead I ask if she will supervise the preparation of the dressing.
“Flitter, as long as I’m still kicking I’ll be the boss of everything.”
*
After lunch, we take Mama home and head to my storage unit. I unlock the door and start rummaging through stacked furniture and boxes. The first thing I find is the box of outgrown clothes.
“I can’t believe I paid to save these.” I slash my red pen across the box, marking it for the Salvation Army. “And these…lord.” Two boxes of craft magazines. I never did crafts when I had a huge house and plenty of time. Why did I ever think I’d use them in my cramped apartment?
I know why. I was still clinging to old ides of myself. When I was married to Stanley I imagined I would be the kind of woman who decoupaged flower pots and knitted pot holders and tie-dyed aprons. Now, I know I was never that kind of woman and never will be.
There’s my blue stool, my hand-blown glass perfume bottle with the tasseled bulb spritzer, and…oh…my satin high-heeled slippers with the feather trim. That’s who I am. The kind of woman who sits on a velvet stool in ostrich plumes while she sprays the inside of her knees with Jungle Gardenia.
I set these items aside to take back with me and Jean plops onto the velvet stool and says, “This is Walter’s last business trip abroad. He has a few more loose ends to tie up and then he’s starting his own consulting business here.”
“That’s great news.” Lines of fatigue are etched around her mouth, and if perkiness were motor oil, she’d be about a quart low. “Isn’t it?”
“Yes, I’m thrilled. It’s just that…well…he’ll need a lot of good business contracts and it makes sense for him to have business partners, people who know everybody in Tupelo…”
“For Pete’s sake, Jean…get to the point.”
“Walter needs an accountant in the firm…and a lawyer. So we’ve been having business meetings with Stanley and Sandra Martin…the lawyer…his girlfriend.”
I sit down on a dining room chair. Hard.
“Are you mad at me?” Jean says.
The effort of holding back is too much, and I open my mouth and howl with laughter.
“Good lord…” Jean gets up from the stool, her energy restored. “I told Walter you wouldn’t care, but he said we’d better keep it to ourselves a while.”
“Shoot, doesn’t he know there are no secrets in this family?”
“I’m glad you said that. I saw a car at your house when I drove Walter to the airport this morning. I want details. Tell all.”
“Except that,” I tell her, giving her a mischievous look. “As Mama says, it’s between me and Joe and the gatepost.”
“I know what I’m getting you for your next birthday.”
“What?”
“Condoms.”
“Jean, you’re awful.”
“So are you.” She links her arms through mine. “What do you say we stop by the Dairy Queen for a banana split? To celebrate?”
When I think of the long journey from April to August, and how far I’ve come, I want to stand on top of a tall building and shout, See? Some spirits can’t be broken.
“You know what I’m thinking?” I ask Jean
“What?”
“That I’ll invite Stanley and Sandra to Thanksgiving dinner. In some ways, he’s part of this family.”
“What about Joe?”
“Joe, too.”
Always, if I have anything to do with it.
*
On Monday, I stop by JCPenney on the way home from MSU to get new lace curtains. I’m hanging them when the phone rings.
“It never fails,” I tell Jefferson. “The next time I want somebody to call I’ll just climb onto the stepladder.”
The caller is Janice Whitten. “Maggie, this fantasy is the best thing you’ve written in a long time. It’s riveting, honest and full of life.”
“You like it, then?”
“Like it? I love it! I’m offering a contract.”
Relief and gratitude flood through me, and all I can think is, I’m a writer. I really am a writer.
“How soon can you finish it?”
The way I feel right now – reborn, my creative well brimming over, the road ahead of me as clear as the lake in back of my house on a sunny summer day – I could write three hundred pages in the next three days and still have time left over for dancing.
We work out the details and, after I send Jefferson scuttling under the bed with my whoops and war dance around the house, I call everybody I know to share the good news – ending with Rainman.
He brings stargazer lilies and a patchwork quilt, and lying under the stars we celebrate in a way that’s infinitely better than cream-filled doughnuts and far less fattening. Afterward, with the night breeze drying our damp skin, we find the constellations and then plan a trip to Chicago to meet his family and Thanksgiving dinner with Mama, Jean and Walter, Aunt Mary Quana, Stanley and Sandra.
“And anybody else you want to invite,” I tell him.
“Let’s start with that guest list and go from there.”
On the seventy-mile drive to MSU the next morning, I imagine where Joe and I might go from here. And the possibilities are limitless.
Gabe and Stephanie see me striding across campus, wave and fall into step beside me.
Maybe I’ll invite them to Thanksgiving dinner, too. Maybe I’ll invite all my students, everybody in Lee County, the whole world. That’s how wonderful I feel.
*
Driving back to Tupelo, my first paycheck in my pocket and a contract in the works, I stop by the Ford dealership and go inside. The Jeep is old and paid for and costs very little to insure. I have medical insurance through the university, no house payment, a small utility bill, and miniscule grocery and household maintenance bills.
“May I help you?” the sa
lesman asks, and I just smile.
*
Two days later the Lucas family heads to the hospital for a momentous occasion - to find out the sex of Jean’s baby. At least, we hope we will.
“Ultrasounds are never one hundred percent reliable, especially this early in the pregnancy,” her obstetrician tells us as we move through the long hallway toward the room where Jean’s every-expanding womb will be explored for the family – Walter, nervous in navy blue suit and discreet tie; Jean, Madonna-like in a pink hospital gown; Mama, festive in her red hat, and me… well, sassy is the only word to describe me, especially since I’m waiting to spring my own surprise.
Jean grabs my hand. “You’re going to take Mama back, aren’t you?” In spite of the fact that I say, yes, of course, she goes on, “Walter and I are flying to Sedona afterward, and she’ll want to go somewhere and celebrate.”
“I know,” I say, but Jean doesn’t seem to hear me.
“Somewhere nice. I was thinking Ivy’s. That’s where we’d take both of you, except our plane leaves at five and…”
“Hush, Jean,” Mama says. “You’re going to make the baby nervous and she’ll turn her back and we won’t know a thing about her till she’s born.”
“It might not be a girl, Mama Lucas,” Walter says.
“Flitter, I know what I’m talking about.”
This is a slow-moving parade, this family celebrating the advent of a brand new little being coming into our midst. Between the orderly pushing Jean in a wheel chair and Mama on her walker, it takes us twice as long to get to the room where we’ll witness a miracle.
Everybody except Walter waits outside. When Mama and I are finally ushered into the too-cool room where Jean is laid out on the table like an offering to the gods of the technology surrounding her, we see the first wavery outlines of the fetus on the monitor.
“Can you believe that? Ten little toes and ten little fingers,” Walter says, as if his is the only baby ever conceived with the proper number of digits.
“Oh…look.” Jean lifts her head for a better view. “It’s a boy.”
