Eighteen
Change begets change….
It was warmer in Dallas than it had been up in Valentine. Stuart felt the morning sun through the pale blue shirt he wore. Even sheltered by sunglasses, his eyes squinted slightly in the glare from all the sun-bright concrete of the hospital complex.
Having always traveled, he was adept at confidently finding his way to where he wanted to go in an unfamiliar setting. There was the sign: Cancer Center. All one had to do when going anywhere, he mused, was follow the signs. It would have been better if there were such direct signs on the journey through life. Turn here for the Walk of Fame…take this road for Relationship Success.
Although he could not say that he would have done things differently, he did so much wish things had turned out different. Wished that he had formed true friendships. But he had always found them binding in some way and had simply not been able to do so. That was the fact. No need to wish for what was not. No need to let it hurt.
Standing just outside the automatic doors was a frail-looking woman wearing a green turban, with oxygen tubes attached to her nose. Her husband—or a man Stuart took to be her husband—stood beside her, his hand on the handle of the wheeled oxygen bottle.
Stuart turned his eyes from the pair and focused on the darkly tinted doors as they slid open.
Just inside the doors, his gaze fell on a boy in a wheelchair. The boy’s pallor and shaved head bore witness to sickness. Stuart’s gaze slid sideways and fell on a woman, probably the boy’s mother, who stood nearby, conferring with a hospital person, identified by a pleasant blue smock and a name tag bearing the hospital insignia. Hospital personnel were like soldiers, he thought.
He skirted the information booth, went around a corner and then turned, taking the camera he more often than not carried slung over his shoulder, unsnapping the case and checking the light. Quickly, in one motion and all on instinct, not a designed purpose, he stepped out from the corner, focused on the boy in the wheelchair and clicked. Then he pressed his back against the wall and snapped the cover in place.
He remained pressed against the wall for several seconds, feeling a little dizzy and out of breath. When that settled, he went back to the information booth, where he was given directions to the lab by a woman far too perky to be appreciated in such a place.
He went down the hall and made the turns, passing hospital personnel chatting, an elderly man being wheeled by an equally elderly woman—he held the double doors open for them—and a big man with his head bandaged, who seemed disoriented and had to be led along by his wife and a male nurse.
At the window of the lab, he was directed to fill out some papers by a pleasant woman who appeared so young as to give him an urge to ask for her ID. He refrained from the joke, which she might find in poor taste. Besides, he wanted it all done, with as little chatting as possible.
He knew the routine, had provided everything beforehand by the miracle of fax and computer, but they needed the information again, the young woman told him in a patient manner. He was reminded of how everyone in Texas always seemed rather happy and never in a hurry, except when driving on the interstate—where vehicles flew rather than drove.
He filled out the form and returned it to the young woman, who told him to have a seat.
Several minutes later the double doors swung open, and through them came a man in a wheelchair. Stuart took him in—he could have been anywhere from fifty to eighty, pale complexion, shoulders slumped, eyes vacant, being pushed by a burly male nurse, who said, “Wait right here for a minute, Mr. W—”
Stuart did not catch the man’s name, and he quickly overted his attention and gaze to the wall, where a big print of three Navaho women hung. It was a semi-abstract. He thought of his father, dead now some forty-three years. Where had the years gone? He never liked to think about his father and felt a foolish anger at the old man in the wheelchair for reminding him.
Another turn of his head and he saw his faint reflection in a glass partition. He jerked his gaze away, looking at magazines on a nearby table but not having the inclination to browse. He’d seen most of them already anyway.
Ten minutes ticked by, and no one came for the man in the wheelchair. Stuart, who glanced surreptitiously at the man, began to worry, as it looked as if the man was listing to one side. Another five minutes, and still no one came.
Stuart, who was checking his watch every minute or so by then, began to hope his name was not called for the lab tests, because he wanted to make certain someone came for the sick man, who was definitely listing to one side. He began to worry all sorts of worries about the man’s needs that no one was seeing to. What if the man had been forgotten, overlooked? What if he sat there and died, and no one knew? Stuart kept glancing at the woman at the desk, to see if she paid any attention; he debated speaking to her about the sick man.
A glance around the waiting room, but he saw no one else who seemed concerned. They were all either talking or had their nose in a magazine, or simply stared at their shoes. Mostly definitely no one looked at each other, as if they could not bear to see more sickness.
In an automatic manner born of his lifetime’s work, Stuart unsnapped his camera cover and quickly focused, snapping the man’s picture without anyone in the waiting room knowing what he did. And then he took another of the room of people.
“Stuart James?” A young woman in the hospital uniform and holding an official-looking clipboard stood at the double doors.
He got up and followed her, leaving the sick old man still sitting in his wheelchair. He was about to ask the young woman about the man when she directed him through another door, leaving him standing alone, awaiting further instruction.
When his tests where done, he returned to the waiting room to find that the sick man in the wheel-chair was gone. He was greatly relieved.
Although the appliance store—his future wife’s stepfather’s store—agreed, for a handsome extra fee, to same-day delivery, they absolutely refused to haul away the old appliances. “Not our job. We deliver. That’s it.”
Tate thought this was pretty tacky, considering the small fortune he had just dropped in their store. Stuart James wasn’t the only one who could splurge on the latest in home technology.
Asking for help had always been difficult for him. He mentally went through the list of men who might be willing to lend a hand. Short list. Finally he sucked up his pride and put in a call to Parker Lindsey. “Hey, does a best man help move out old appliances?”
Lindsey said he didn’t know about best man rules, but he would help. He could come over around noon in his old pickup truck that he kept for those times he might have to haul around a hog or dogs or equipment. The man’s ready willingness made it easier for Tate to breathe.
They tackled the old curved-top Kelvinator first. They wrestled it out the door and onto the top step and then across onto the opened tailgate of Lindsey’s old pickup. Next they hauled out the stove, vintage seventies’ gold, and then the dishwasher from around the same time period. Part of the floor came up with the dishwasher.
“Watch it, don’t drop that corner on your toe.”
“Just yank it up.”
“If we scoot it around this way, it’ll go through the door.”
“In your dreams.”
“Be careful…don’t…You okay?”
It was work from which friendships grew.
“Thanks, buddy. I’ll do the same for you sometime,” he told Lindsey, puffing a little when they closed the pickup tailgate.
It was a new experience for him, having a friend to help him like this. He grabbed Lindsey’s hand and shook it with feeling.
Lindsey grinned. “You’ll be following up on that payback sooner than you realize. Amy is makin’ her plans to redo my whole house. You know, you might have wanted to let Marilee do this herself. Women are a little funny about gettin’ things in the house how they want them.”
“Oh, I intend to leave her plenty to work on, but I
didn’t want her to have to put up with too much old stuff right off. Don’t want to frighten her away.”
He waved Lindsey off and watched the truck head out into the street, carrying the old appliances away to join all the other decades of used up and discarded appliances at the landfill. One day the planet would likely be made of such things, he thought.
The delivery truck arrived. He raced outside and directed it through the portico and around the back. It would be more convenient to bring the things through the back door, plus he didn’t want to take any chances of Marilee spotting the truck. He thought it might be too much to hope that his neighbor across the street wasn’t keeping a watch out her window.
Two bulky young men did the job of bringing in the appliances and setting them in place. Tate stood back and watched. Young muscles and experience made bringing the new in seem a lot easier than it had been taking the old out.
“You don’t have a hookup for the ice maker,” the young man told him, looking a little perplexed at not finding a water hose connection.
“Is that a requirement for the refrigerator to work?” Tate asked, feeling definitely behind the times.
“Oh…no. But your ice delivery in the door won’t work…and neither will the cold water. It’s inconvenient,” he added, still holding the perplexed expression.
“I’ll have a pipe put in.” Tate made a note on an index card to locate a plumber.
In came the stove. The trim at the end of the counter had to be broken off for the stove to fit. Tate had mismeasured. He made another notation for a carpenter. After getting the gas pipe hooked up, the young man told him very seriously that he needed to have a new gas pipe run. “I did the best I could, but this here hookup is old, and it’s leaking. Smell it?”
“I don’t smell anything.”
“Then you’re the one in a hundred who can’t smell it. I’d have a repairman come, if I was you. You might wake up dead one mornin’.”
“I can smell it,” said his mother, who came over sniffing. She added, “I’m one of the few who is able to smell carbon dioxide, too.” The young man gave her a respectful look.
The dishwasher fit exactly. “Can’t stop this water leak, though,” the young man told him. “You’ll have to get the repairman. You need a new connection. I think you might need a whole new pipe comin’ in here. And some floorin’. ”
Tate made more notes on the index card. He wondered if he was going to end up having the entire house replumbed and rewired. He might have to sell the house in order to raise the money for all the remodeling that was going to be required.
Then he remembered the look on Marilee’s face when she had received her washer and dryer. It was worth any amount of money to see her face when she beheld these new appliances. He had topped Stuart James, yes, sir.
It sure brought a man high to be able to please his woman, he thought, waving off the appliance deliverymen.
He went back inside and saw his mother caressing the new stove with great reverence. “I’ll make some fresh bread,” she said with enthusiasm. “We must make certain it works correctly.”
“Don’t tell Marilee,” he cautioned her, afraid she would get carried away and let the cat out of the bag.
He glanced around the room and thought that he’d better have painters in, too, at least for the kitchen. The gleaming brand-new appliances made the walls and cabinets look twice as shabby. Knock out the wall to the old laundry-storage room and do it up right with new linoleum and refinished woodwork. Maybe even new windows.
It was like Marilee had said, get one thing, and then another was required, and another and another. Change begat change, he thought, and found that revelation as disconcerting as it was exciting.
As fate would have it, Honey Moon, his decorator with the outlandish name, telephoned him that very afternoon to say that her emissaries were set to come the following day to begin work on the bedroom walls.
“We are doing a texture on the walls. Apricot sunset.”
“O-kay.” Tate tried to let go the urge to question and direct.
“You’ll love it,” the woman told him in her sultry voice. “Trust me.”
He almost asked her if she could handle repainting the kitchen, then decided that he needed some control somewhere. He would find his own painters and choose his own colors, too. White. Basic white appeared to be back in favor.
“By the way,” said Honey Moon, “you’ll have to move out of the bedroom.”
Even though it was cool and breezy, Aunt Marilee wasn’t there after school to pick them up, and they got to walk home. When they reached the corner of their block, Corrine saw Aunt Vella’s Land Rover parked out front. Ricky Dale, who had walked with them, pushing his bicycle, got on it and pedaled on home, calling to her, “I’ll be back pretty quick.”
While Willie Lee rolled around with Munro in the yard, Corrine raced up on the porch. She pulled over the little stool, stood on it, stuck her hand in the mailbox on the wall and fished around inside, bringing out three envelopes and an IGA flyer.
Her spirit drooped with disappointment. There was no package from her mother. It was awfully early for the present her mother had promised to come. Her mother would put off mailing things for days. She might even forget she had said she would send a surprise, Corrine reminded herself. There was no need to keep hoping, because she might be disappointed.
She went on inside, where Aunt Marilee, Aunt Vella and a woman she recognized as living in the house on the corner were sitting at the dining-room table.
“Come here, honey,” Aunt Marilee said, “We need you to choose a dress for the wedding. Mrs. Wyatt is going to make it.”
On her way across the room, Corrine dropped her backpack on the sofa and placed the mail on her aunt’s desk. Then her aunt introduced her to Mrs. Wyatt, who was a pleasant-looking woman. Corrine stayed plastered to Aunt Marilee’s side.
Her aunt showed her two patterns. “Do you like either of these?”
Corrine studied the drawings, tilting her head this way and that, trying to imagine. “This one, I think.” She watched her aunt carefully.
She knew she had chosen correctly when Aunt Marilee smiled. “That’s the one Vella and I like best, too.” Corrine felt relieved.
It took Mrs. Wyatt only about three minutes to measure Corrine, who did her best to be still. Then, finally, it seemed okay for her to leave. She slipped away to change her clothes and was just tying her play sneakers when she heard the front door open and close, and Willie Lee call out, “I’ll get her.”
“Well, hello, Ricky Dale,” said Aunt Marilee.
Corrine, coming out of the bedroom, almost ran into Willie Lee. “Ricky Dale is here. He wants us to come with him to see his grand-mother.”
Corrine went into the living room and heard Ricky Dale saying, “It won’t take long, Miz James. After I see my grama, then we can go to take care of the horses. I’ll take real good care of Willie Lee.”
“I know you will, Ricky Dale,” Aunt Marilee said. She had a thorough liking for Ricky Dale. “At five o’clock you come on home,” she said to Corrine. “I’ll be expectin’ you by five-fifteen.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And you all mind that horses kick.”
“Yes, we will.” Corrine saw that her aunt was getting that worried expression and feared she might change her mind about allowing them to go, so she edged toward the door, tugging Willie Lee along.
Then Aunt Vella asked, “How is Minnie doin’, Ricky Dale? Is her eye still giving her trouble?”
“Yeah. She still has to wear a patch.”
Corrine had the door open and implored him with eyes.
“You tell Minnie I said hello, and I’ll stop by tomorrow,” Aunt Vella called as they slipped out the door.
Corrine closed the door and whispered to Ricky Dale: “What’s this about your grandmother?” She wanted to get over to see the horses and didn’t appreciate being dragged around the neighborhood.
Ricky
Dale motioned for them to come off the porch. His stupid dog, Beau, was on the walkway acting goofy, and Munro growled at him. Beau sat and panted.
“My grama found out today that her old cat has liver disease. It’s been sick for months, and Doc Lindsey told her he has done all he can.” Ricky Dale looked from Corrine to Willie Lee. “My grama really loves this cat, and Mama is afraid she is goin’ to give up livin’ when the cat dies.”
Corrine looked at Willie Lee, who looked back at them.
“Grama has to rest her eye at this time of day, so she’s layin’ down listenin’ to Lake Woebegone on the radio. We can go in the back door, Willie Lee can touch the cat, and no one will know.”
Ricky Dale’s grandmother, Minnie, lived over on First Street, two houses before the pastor’s house.
“How are you gonna get the cat?” Corrine wanted to know as they went down the side yard to the back. “You’re gonna have to find it. What if your grama hears you?”
They came to the back door, and Corrine stopped, waiting for an answer to this question before she would move another inch. She took hold of Willie Lee’s hand and held him, too. She liked to have a plan.
Ricky Dale had to come back to them. “She isn’t gonna hear me, but if she does, I’ll just tell her that I’m showin’ Willie Lee the cat.”
“Why would you show Willie Lee a sick cat?”
“Who cares? You guys wait here, and I’ll bring it out.”
He went up the brick steps, opened the screen door and then the big door without hardly a sound, and disappeared inside. Willie Lee sat himself on the bottom brick step, and Munro sat beside him. Corrine stood with her arms crossed, and Ricky Dale’s black dog lay beside her feet, thankfully quiet for once. Perhaps Munro was training him.
A few minutes later Ricky Dale came out, quickly and quietly, with a big old grey fluffy cat. A Persian. He handed the cat to Willie Lee. Fur went everywhere.
“It’s losin’ its hair,” Ricky Dale whispered. Indeed, it did seem like it was getting patchy, Corrine thought. Other than that, it was just an old cat.
At the Corner of Love and Heartache Page 20
