“Keep your eye on the road—on the parking lot!” says Clara. “Your eyes.”
“I’ve got to tinkle,” says Maudie.
“I could go myself,” says Beatrice.
“‘Tinkle’?” says Clara. “There’s a parking place.”
Lil pulls in and stops the car. She’s kind of glad to be safe. Maudie is already getting out from right behind her. With that three-pod cane, she’s pretty fast, and she’s already standing there as Lil opens her door.
“You’re over the center line.”
Lil looks, then looks back inside the car. Everybody is getting out. “They won’t mind. We’re not going to be gone that long. Unless they’ve got flags and we have to pick one out. That might take a while.”
Maudie hands Lil her walker from the backseat floor-board as Beatrice and Clara get theirs. They start in single file for the CVS. Lil pulls up the rear, looks ahead to see who is in the lead: little Maudie. She and that three-pod cane are always out front.
Inside, they gather together, and Lil says, “Let’s get some candy.”
Maudie raises her cane slightly, pointing to the back. “I just want to go to the bathroom.”
“I want me two big packs of midget Tootsie Rolls,” says Lil. “What about you, Clara?”
Clara looks around. “I could use some M&M’s.”
Maudie heads for the back of the store. Beatrice follows.
Lil realizes that there probably won’t be any flags in a drugstore. “Where in the world do you buy flags?” she asks Clara.
“Beats me. I never heard of a flag store, but where the hell do all the flags come from?”
AT ROSEHAVEN, MAUDIE’s cousin Cathy Log-gins has arrived for a visit. She looks in Maudie’s room, on the porch, in the sunroom, the TV room, the library, and the chapel. Where can she be? She knocks on the social worker’s door—Anna Guthrie, the nameplate says. The door is not quite closed.
“Yes?”
“Hi, I’m Cathy Loggins. My cousin is Maudie Lowe, the little short woman, and I can’t seem to find her anywhere.”
“Well, let’s go looking,” says the social worker as she stands. “I’m Anna Guthrie. How do you do?”
“Just fine.”
On the porch, Anna leans over to a woman who is staring at Cathy’s shoes, and asks loudly, “Mrs. Talbert, have you seen Maudie Lowe?”
Mrs. Talbert looks up. “She went shopping.”
“Shopping? Who with?”
“There was seven or eight of them.”
“I don’t think that’s possible.”
Another woman rushes up to Anna. “Somebody has stolen my car!” she says.
“Oh, my goodness,” says the social worker. “I’ll call the sheriff. Come on, so we can give a description of your car. I’m so sorry.”
MAUDIE DECIDES THAT since the others use walkers and she uses a cane, she should be more or less in charge. They are all standing in a group trying to decide what to do. There will be no flag business. The very idea.
She says she’ll take the candy orders and get the candy while the others sit in the pharmacy waiting area, where there is a blood pressure machine. Beatrice promptly sits at the machine and sticks her arm through the hole. Maudie takes candy orders from Lil and Clara, goes to the candy aisle, finally finds the M&M’s, and pulls a bag off the prong. Midget Tootsie Rolls next. They seem to be hidden. Plenty of regulars, but no midgets. She finally finds a bag hung behind a bag of regulars.
She makes her way back to the cash register, near the waiting area, looks all around, doesn’t see the others. She looks down the aisles. There—they’re all looking at something. She approaches. They are inspecting folding aluminum lawn chairs.
Clara sees her, turns, holds up a chair. “I’ve found a chair I want.” It’s green and gold. “Lil’s going to let me use her MasterCard.”
Maudie carries the chair—because she has a spare hand —back to the cash register, where they decide who owes what so they can pay Lil back. The salesperson writes it down for them. Nobody, not even the salesperson, can read the receipt.
As soon as they get outside, Clara turns to Maudie. “I want to carry my chair.”
“I can carry it.”
Clara stops and won’t go anywhere until Maudie hands her the chair.
“It’s so light,” says Clara. “You know, if we saw the right color, we could buy one and make a flag out of it. That would make a pretty flag.”
“We’re not doing any flags today,” says Maudie.
“Well, Maudie, I wouldn’t count on it,” says Clara. “In fact, if we were to vote, you’d lose.”
Maudie stops, turns. The others are in a kind of gaggle behind her. Best not to respond, Maudie decides. That’s just crazy talk. She turns to lead them toward the car. Where is that car?
Just as they all reach the curb, Clara, from behind her, says, “Oh, there’s a Hardee’s. Let’s get a cheeseburger. I’m hungry.”
“That’s a good idea,” says Lil. “I could use a cheese-burger myself.”
“Where is Hardee’s?” says Beatrice.
“Right there in front of you,” says Clara. “Hell, I ain’t got but one good eye and I can see that.”
“Shouldn’t we put that chair in the car, then?” Maudie asks Clara.
“Oh no, I want to take it into Hardee’s and try it out, and if I don’t like it, I can carry it back.”
Maudie notices a big brown car, with a star on the side and red and blue lights up top, moving by slowly. The man inside—a sheriff?—is looking right at them as it passes. The brake lights brighten; the car stops, then pulls into a parking place.
DEPUTY HOLLIS, WHO has been up most of the night chasing drug dealers through the woods at the old Sapp place, stands in line at Hardee’s, about to order for four ladies. He wears a black nylon-mesh ball cap because it lets in air. Sometimes he worries that people can see his bald head through the tiny holes. His eyes feel bloodshot and swollen. His radio broadcast the bulletin about the ladies just before he stopped at the drugstore to get some Tylenol. Wait’ll the guys hear about this, he thinks.
He returns to their table. The one with a big eye is trying to unfold a lawn chair over her walker. “This way,” she says, “if I don’t like it, I can just carry it back.” Her name tag says Clara something. They are all wearing name tags.
He puts their food down on the table. “Here, let me help.” He unfolds Clara’s chair for her and sets it partly in the aisle. All four of them ordered cheeseburgers, and two of them ordered fries. A Coke, a 7UP, and two Diet Cokes are in the corners of the cardboard tray. It is quarter past eleven in the morning and he has just eaten pork chops, tomatoes, and hash browns at Waffle House.
The one named Lil says, “I’m sure that car is mine.” She is looking at him kind of hard.
“No ma’am, that car belongs to somebody else.”
“I think it’s mine. I think you’re mistaken.”
“No ma’am. Somebody left the keys in it at Rose-haven.”
“Lil, you told us that was your car,” says the big one.
“Well, I think it is. I wouldn’t take somebody else’s car, for heaven’s sake. How did somebody get my keys in there? Three keys.”
“The keys are . . . I don’t think they are your keys, ma’am.”
“What’s the third key for?” asks the big one.
Hollis checks her name tag: Beatrice Satterwhite.
“My apartment.”
“We can go see if it will open your apartment,” says Beatrice.
“No ma’am. I got to get on down to the station and write up a report.”
“They give you all homework?” asks Beatrice.
“No ma’am, just a report.”
“Do we get to ride back in your police car?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Lord, they’ll think we’ve been arrested,” says Lil.
“I want to ask you something,” says Beatrice to Hollis. “Can you maybe stop somewhere o
n the way back and let me shoot your gun?”
“No ma’am. I can’t do that.”
Beatrice remembers going grouse hunting with a group from her husband’s company during Christmas vacation one year. The ladies were allowed to shoot. Somebody had put the birds out in a field, and they could drive a jeep right up to a bird after the dog pointed. She had refused to shoot, and her husband never let her forget it. She’d sworn to him that she’d shoot a gun the next time she got a chance. Then he died. And here is her chance. “Isn’t there a shooting range or a field or something between here and Rosehaven?”
“No ma’am.”
“Where’d you get your gun training?”
“We have a range.”
“Why can’t we stop by there?”
“I’ve got some other things I’ve got to be doing.”
“Like what?” Beatrice takes a bite of her cheeseburger.
“I’ve got to write up my drug bust.”
“We don’t have any drugs!”
“No ma’am. That was before I got here.”
Lil believes somebody has played a trick on her. Surely Carl somehow is behind this—to teach her some kind of lesson by bringing the sheriff in on everything.
Hollis notices that the one with the glass eye is eating very slowly. He thinks, How long does it take a ninety-year-old lady trying out a lawn chair to eat a cheeseburger?
“Did you know, Mr. Hollis,” says the big one, “that the cannibals had a cannibal for their God?”
“No ma’am, I don’t think I did.”
“Mr. Flowers, a preacher at Rosehaven, told us that the other day while we were sitting out on the porch, and he says communists and capitalists are the same way. Isn’t that an interesting thing? He’s going to put it in a sermon.”
“I don’t think the communists are allowed to have a God.”
“That’s right. That’s because their God is a communist. See how it all works out?”
“I think Mr. Flowers is dangerous,” says the tiny one.
“I think he makes people happy with his music,” says the car thief. “That’s one thing. He’s teaching my nephew,” she says to Mr. Hollis, “how to play a guitar with just four strings.”
The one with the eye looks over her drink cup, eyebrows furrowed. “I thought he already played.”
“Oh no, he’s always been a big music listener.”
“So you all belong to the same nursing home, more or less?”
“That’s right,” says Maudie. “And I think this preacher man out there is a lunatic.”
“Mr. Hollis,” says the big one, “did you know that Walter Cronkite gave me four thousand dollars, and that whore-hopping son of mine spent every cent of it in Reno, Nevada?”
“No ma’am,” says Hollis. She is looking right at him—into his eyes, like he ought to be saying something. He is tired. He lifts his ball cap, wipes his head with his arm, replaces the cap. “No ma’am. I didn’t.”
“Well, he did, and now he’s up and traveling all the way acrost the United States.”
Hollis nods his head. He’s not in much of a talking mood. “Let’s hit the road, ladies. As soon as you finish that cheeseburger, ma’am.”
A-I Hair
CARL IS THINKING ABOUT ANNA. He’ll stop by her office, say hello. He’s at Rosehaven to take Aunt Lil to the Piccadilly—and also at some point to have a little heart-to-heart about her driving, find out exactly what happened. Anna called yesterday after the incident. And then they’ll be off to buy a wig at A-I Hair, still run by Aunt Lil’s old business-school classmate, Emma Brown.
As Carl approaches Anna’s office door, he thinks she’s having a coughing fit, her head bent down and her hands over her mouth. Then he realizes she’s crying. Behind the door but not out of sight is a gray pant leg with a black stripe down the side and a spit-polished shoe on a big foot. The policeman? Her . . . her boyfriend? He steps back. Maybe they are breaking up. Maybe the guy has just told her they have to break up, or maybe . . . maybe she’s just told him they have to break up and is pretending to cry. He heads toward Aunt Lil’s room. He thinks about those two little girls. He’d only seen the one, Ruth. Could he raise them? He probably shouldn’t think about that, but he can’t help it. Can he be a father? What would he do when he was alone with them? Take them places? On hikes? To movies? To a park somewhere? He could push them in swings. He knows how to do that. How big is this policeman? He pictures him losing his temper, pulling back his fist. Maybe he should just back off, wait for some signal from her. He thinks about the way she tilts her head, the shape of her face, her eyes, her big lips . . . but he doesn’t need complications now. Except for Aunt Lil’s condition, things are going pretty well. He’s saving some money, for one thing.
In Aunt Lil’s room, Carl finds her sitting on the side of her bed, and before he can say anything, she asks him about the doctor’s bill and the envelope she holds in her hand. She’s thrown away the outside envelope, and the return envelope is missing, she says.
“You’re holding the return envelope.”
Aunt Lil looks down, then up. “Well, why won’t this paper fit in it?”
“It will. See, it’s fitting in there, and there’s the doctor’s address in the little window.”
“No, I mean why won’t the flap close? Here, try it.”
“Okay. I’ll do it. And then we need to talk about your driving.”
“My driving?”
“That’s right.” Carl tries to close the flap, and sure enough, it won’t close.
He takes the insert out, looks at it, realizes that if he tears off the return portion, that part will fit into the envelope, so he explains to Aunt Lil, hands the insert to her, and she tears off the return portion. As she puts it in the envelope, he thinks maybe he should somehow mention how much he likes Anna, but he’s never talked to Aunt Lil about anything like that. And besides, he needs to talk about this driving issue.
“That whole business of driving off by yourself was a little dangerous, don’t you think?”
“I have a driver’s license. Why would they give me a driver’s license if they don’t think I can drive a car?” She is looking up at him from her seat on the side of the bed, a kind of angry glare in her eyes.
“You just don’t have the reflexes and eyesight you used to have, Aunt Lil. You’ve been sick.”
“Sick?”
“Your osteoporosis. All that pain. Falling in the bathtub. You know. You don’t have the—”
“I can drive as good as you any day of the week. You know that, and listen, please tell me why there are so many charges on that bill, when all I had done is get my eyes checked.”
“But that wasn’t your car.” The word dementia passes through Carl’s mind.
“Well, it’s an exact . . . what do you call it?”
“Replica.”
“Yes. Now, why are there so many charges on that bill?”
Carl explains that all the writing is not for charges but for the times they billed Medicare and Blue Cross and it just looks like a lot of charges.
She complains about the bills that come in their own return envelope, so that you have to study the directions about how to rip off the edges on three sides in the right order and then get it folded up and back into itself and resealed somehow. And the writing is always light blue and very small. And she long ago gave up reading tiny directions on any pill or medicine bottle, she explains—even with a large magnifying glass.
“We need to put a check in there,” says Carl, “for fifteen dollars and four cents before we mail it back.”
“Will you write it out?”
“Sure.” He fills in the check and hands it to her to sign. This is probably a good time to simply tell her she needs to give up driving.
Her hand wobbles, and Carl looks away while she slowly signs her name.
As he takes the check, he sits down in the Kennedy rocker. “Aunt Lil, we need to talk about—”
“Wait a minute.
I need to ask you something. Hillary Durham keeps writing me, and she’s just a friend, and not even all that good a friend—you don’t even know her—and she keeps sending me these little cards, and I used to write her every once in a while, but not as often as she writes me, and at the end of every one, she writes, ‘I love you and the Lord loves you,’ and I’m getting tired of it.”
He can’t tell if she’s serious or trying to be funny.
She looks at him, straight-faced. “I just finished writing her a card,” she says. “It took me all morning—I had to start over three times. I started to write, ‘Love, Lil,’ at the end of it, but I knew if I did that, then . . . that’s not exactly true. I don’t love her. Well, I love her well enough not to wish her any harm, but then again, I said to myself, Well, don’t be so selfish, you old coot. Now, what do you think? Somehow I don’t want to be getting gooeygooey. I’m too old for that.”
“Well, I don’t know. I don’t have any idea. I can think either way on that. There seem to be reasons to and reasons not to.”
“Well, you’re not much help. You need to be a little more decisive about things.”
This is a first. “Okay. You wouldn’t want this woman to start coming to see you all the time, would you?”
“Goodness, no.”
“Well, that settles it. When in doubt, don’t do it.”
“Thank you.” She starts to stand, doesn’t make it, tries again, then again. She stands slowly. “Now, let’s go eat. I can’t wait to get some of that fried chicken. Yum, yum.”
Why not tell her over lunch? That will be more comfortable. And she is ready to go.
ON THE WAY to the Piccadilly, Aunt Lil fishes out from her pocketbook the photograph of Mia Farrow she’s been saving from People magazine. She says she wants a wig just like Mia Farrow’s hair except it needs to be mostly silver with a brown tint. She says her old friend Emma Brown was upset she didn’t get to sell Lil her first wig, so the plan is to go to Emma for a new one, after lunch.
At the Piccadilly, Aunt Lil gets fried chicken, string beans, and iced tea.
Carl gets slaw, meat loaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, broccoli and cheese, a slice of garlic toast, and a Diet Coke.
Lunch at the Piccadilly Page 10
