by Glen Huser
“Well — this letter. It seems that old lady you were visiting with your school...”
“Miss Barclay?”
“Yes. That’s the one. She’s taken kind of a shine to you and would like you to go to her place and work as a — you know — paid companion. This letter’s from her nephew.”
Lizzie manages to spill a small lake of Kool-Aid as she pours out tumblers for herself and Lyle.
“You want some?” she asks me.
“Why don’t I just lick up what you spilled.”
“No, I will,” Lyle squeals and actually does start licking the table top before I manage to slap a dishrag over the mess.
Shirl has wandered into the kitchen with the letter.
“Have a look at this.”
I read the letter over. Very good margining, I think.
“Wow. Five hundred dollars a week. A thousand bucks,” I say.
“And you wouldn’t actually be working for a lot of the time,” Shirl points out. “You’d just have to be there.”
“It would be nice to have some extra money. I guess if you and Herb don’t mind.”
Shirl gives my arm a little squeeze. “You’ve just grown up so much in...well, just in this last few weeks. I think it’s ever since you did your action plan.”
Mr. Mussbacher phones that evening. I guess he got his letter, too. He and Shirl yack about the whole idea for a few minutes and then she turns the phone over to me.
“Is this something you want to do?” he asks me.
“Yeah,” I say. “I could really use the money for clothes.”
“Nothing for fun?”
“Well, maybe a few movies...and there’s a couple of CDs.”
Mr. Mussbacher laughs. “I think it would be fine. I’ll go over when you start, to make sure everything’s okay.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’ll be okay.”
“I’d like to see this lady you’ve made such a conquest of.”
He’s not going to be talked out of it so, the next day, I make a quick trip over to see the Wrinkle Queen between Fashion Forecast on Channel 84 at 1:30 and Style Time on Channel 68 at 4:00. I need to find out what we should do.
The nurse warns me that the old lady’s having a bad day. Hasn’t even gotten out of bed. When I go in her room, it looks like she’s either sleeping — or dead. But I guess she hears me come in. Her eyes flutter open. Her licorice-black hairdo is kind of squished to one side and it looks like the wrinkles have multiplied in the last few days.
She stares at me as if she’s never seen me before in her life.
“What do you want?” she croaks.
“Miss Barclay?” I try to take her hand.
“Go away.” She curls her fingers, making two fists that look like dead chicken feet.
“It’s me. Tamara.”
“Tamara?” But a light goes on somewhere, and she tries to sit up.
“It’s okay. Why don’t you just stay lying down — and rest.”
She’s mussed her covers, and I do what I can to straighten them.
“My social worker says he’s going to stop by and see how things are going my first day with you. When you go to your house.”
“My house?”
“You know. Like we planned.”
She’s managed to hoist herself up a bit, and one of the fists has opened up and become fingers again, and she’s waving them at the purse on her bureau.
Her brandy? A cigarillo? I hand it over to her and she opens it, her hands shaking and, after pawing through, pulls out a lipstick. In a couple of minutes, she’s smeared her lips with the shade of fire-engine red she always uses.
“He’s coming over?” Her voice still sounds like she’s about to croak. “Did he say when?”
“I guess once I get to your place.”
“We’ll have to put on a little show for him.” Her mouth has worked itself into a kind of lopsided smile. I can see quite a bit of the lipstick has gotten onto her dentures.
As usual it’s about a hundred degrees in her room. I can feel sweat along my forehead and neck, but the Wrinkle Queen looks as dry as dust.
“My driving’s coming along real good.”
“Coming along well.”
“Whatever.”
“I think I’ll do the driving,” she says, her eyes narrowing. “That Buick is worth a lot of money. It’s not just some rattletrap. You can spell me off if I get tired.”
The nurse wasn’t kidding. Definitely a bad day.
“Sure,” I say. “Or maybe we could just hire an ambulance and a tow truck to go along with us.”
She scowls at me.
“Might not be a bad idea,” she says.
16
The letter to the lodge that Skinnybones mailed has arrived. Mrs. Gollydoodle is the one who comes to talk to me about it.
“I’m concerned,” she says. “You’ve been in bed for two days. I don’t think you’re in any shape to go home and be sorting through household stuff.”
“Nonsense,” I say. “I feel fine. I was just under the weather. Byron’s done so much for me that I owe him this. I feel fine today — and there’ll be a nurse. Would you like her to give the office a call?”
“Well...” The wall-to-wall eyebrow has a furrow in it. “Actually, I would like her to...”
When she’s gone, I close my eyes.
What’s happening to me? I can’t believe the last two days have run away on me like an escaped convict. Somewhere in the middle of it Skinnybones perched by my bed like some little fledgling buzzard. Probably wondering whether or not she’ll have to give back the money if I croak.
But I’m not about to croak. When Betty comes in, I have her give me a hand getting dressed. It’s important to be seen up and about.
When I try to stand, though, I come close to toppling over.
“You want me to put in a call for a nurse?” Betty asks.
“Don’t be silly.” My voice sounds like it’s coming from someone else — someone whose volume button is turned down. “I just need a minute.”
What I really need is ten minutes. And dust-buster Betty isn’t happy about how long it’s taking to get into stockings and undergarments.
“What dress would you like?” She has disappeared into the closet.
“Something red,” I say. When I look in a mirror I’m horrified at what’s happened to my hair. “Do you know if Rita’s in today?”
Betty promises to check. When she’s gone, I manage to get to the bathroom and pour myself a couple of fingers of brandy. Life begins to seep back into me.
Is this what I’m reduced to, sitting on the only seat this kind of room has to offer, shakily imbibing from a pathetic paper cup with a waxy taste to it?
My mother always said she didn’t want to grow old. Maybe she was the lucky one, shuffling off her mortal coil five days after we’d gone to see Madame Butterfly at the Jubilee Auditorium. Young enough that she’d hardly begun dyeing her hair. Still looking regal in her long black first-night gown with its low-cut back and bit of a train. And her diamond brooch.
Someone banging on the bathroom door.
“Miss Barclay, are you in there? It’s Rita. I could fit you in right now for a quick comb-out and spraying.”
With my hair back in place, I feel more like a human being and, after lunch, I run into Eddie, who invites me down to the boiler room for a smoke.
“I don’t know how you can stand those cigar things,” he says. “Nobody in the world smokes them far as I know. They smell foul. They ain’t got no cork tips.”
“But they make a statement.”
“Matter of opinion,” he chuckles and taps some ashes off his filtered du Maurier into a coffee can filled with sand.
They are a special breed, custodians. I have always liked them. Like the seers of mythology, they are sources of knowledge and profound speculation. Water pipes gurgling in place of sacred springs.
“So that’s your trip! You’re goin’ home for a couple of weeks,” E
ddie says. “Do some downsizing, sorting out. You sure had me going for a bit there, though. Mexico!”
He has an old maroon-colored easy chair by the sand can that he’s given over to me on my visits. Easy to get into but the devil to get out of.
“You tell that skinny little girl that’s been coming by for visits?” Eddie eyeballs me. “What if she stops by while you’re gone?”
“I’ll let her know, Eddie,” I reassure him.
Eddie’s there to help me when the taxi comes on Thursday morning, carrying the small bag I’ve packed, collapsing my walker and getting it into the trunk.
“There’s a little something extra I tucked into your handbag,” he whispers to me before closing the cab door. As the taxi heads across town, I check the bag and find a mickey of brandy. It’s not Courvoisier, but it’s not bad.
“Bless the custodians of the world.”
“Ma’am?” the taxi driver looks back at me for a second.
“Nothing. Keep your eyes on the road.”
The house in the Crescents hasn’t changed in the six months I’ve been gone. One thing about Byron, he’s kept the grass trimmed and bushes pruned. Hoping to see a For Sale sign sprouting on the lawn momentarily, of course. It had been white stucco until Papa died and then Mama had it painted a rich reddish-brown, what they’ve taken to calling terra cotta now.
“If we’re going to live in this godforsaken country of snow and cold, we can at least have a house that’s warm in color.” Mama lived in Georgia until she was sixteen. Every few years I’ve freshened the paint, but it’s always been Mama’s color.
I hadn’t thought about the steps. They’re not going to be easy to negotiate.
“Hey, you!” I holler at the taxi driver who’s trying to make a quick getaway after setting up my walker and carrying my bag to the door. “Come back here and give me a hand up this front stoop.”
He looks like a storm cloud but he does it.
“Some people say please and thank you,” he mutters as I search my purse for a house key.
Some people show respect for elders, I think. It’s unfortunate that there are no detention halls for rude and surly people. I wouldn’t mind having this one cool his heels while he copied out a couple of dictionary pages.
The house smells musty. Unlived in. When I pull the drapes, I can see it could use a visit from dust-buster Betty. Maybe Skinnybones can spend a bit of time with a dust cloth and a can of Lemon Pledge. It wouldn’t hurt her to be doing a bit more than practicing her smile and trying not to be unpleasant for all the money I’m giving her.
In the kitchen, the coffee maker is in its usual spot on the counter, flanked by empty tins of the soda pop Byron peddles. The coffee canister, of course, is in its place on the second shelf by the window. My legs protest as I reach for it and I nearly end up dropping it on the counter. Interesting how the simplest maneuvers become major adventures once your health begins to betray you.
The phone rings in the living room — about seven times before I manage to get to it.
Skinnybones.
“I nearly did myself in getting to this blasted device,” I inform her. “I would have thought you might have remembered that I keep my cellphone close at hand.” Actually, I’m not sure where the contraption is at the moment, but that’s not something she needs to know.
“Mr. Mussbacher is driving me over,” she says.
This is going to be a long day, I think. I can hear Tamara breathing into the pause.
“Tell him I have the coffee on,” I say.
17
We’re driving through a ritzy part of town close to the river where there are fancy old houses with shutters on the windows and porches with pillars. One of them must be the Wrinkle Queen’s, but which one?
“You’ve turned things around, haven’t you?” Mr. Mussbacher sounds pretty pleased with himself.
“All that smiling, I guess.” I wonder if my dad looked like Mr. Mussbacher. He has good cheekbones. Too bad about the mustache, though.
We pull up to a bungalow the color of dried blood, and I see her at the window watching for us. I bet she’s already killed a few cigarillos.
She has. She tries to wave away a cloud of smoke as Mr. Mussbacher carries my suitcase in. She’s all smiles for him and her voice drips honey. Should be on TV or in the movies.
“Now there’s coffee but I apologize for the fact that there’s no milk, if you take it with milk,” she’s saying. “I haven’t had time to have groceries delivered. And, besides, I wanted to check with Tamara about what she’d like to eat while she’s staying with me.”
“Just sugar,” Mr. Mussbacher says.
“We have plenty of that.” She laughs.
You’re not kidding, I think. It’s knee deep right now.
“I’m so looking forward to having Tamara stay with me.”
She pours coffee into a bone china cup with a Royal Albert design. The same design that was on Mrs. Rawding’s cups, the ones I dropped on the floor before I went to live with the Shadbolts. This fine china is not to be handled! Mrs. Rawding had written in a little note on one of the saucers.
“I think what I like best is that, above everything else, she’s an excellent reader. I like to read but my eyes tire and then Tamara reads out loud to me.”
“Great Expectations,” I add. It was one of the details we’d worked out last week. Social workers, guidance counselors and teachers go soft when you mention a love of reading.
“Well, I think it’ll be a good experience for her,” he says, holding his cup very carefully as he sips from it. He gives Miss Barclay his card in case she needs to call him, and makes sure we have her doctor’s numbers and other emergency numbers on a paper beside the phone.
“If it’s not working out or you’re uncomfortable with any of this, give me a call,” he says to me on the front porch as he’s leaving. “We’d need to get in touch with her nephew so he could set up alternate arrangements.”
As the car disappears around the curve of the crescent, a delivery van pulls up. The Holt Renfrew packages. Talk about timing.
The Wrinkle Queen is exhausted. Being polite has probably been quite a strain on her. I help her to her bedroom so she can lie down for a while.
“Why don’t you make a bit of lunch,” she says. “You’ll find all kinds of tinned goods in the kitchen pantry.”
Sure enough, there’s a whole little room just off one corner of the kitchen, its walls lined with tins and jars and cartons of just about everything imaginable. A little different from the cans of Chef Boyardee the Tierneys stockpiled on Discount Tuesday or the two-for-one Safeway Select pasta Shirl’s scrunched into the cupboard by the stove. Stuff I’ve never heard of. Caviar. Melba toast. Capers. Beef Bourguignon.
Hey, mushroom soup. Well...wild mushroom soup. That seems safe, and a package of crackers. Not regular crackers that you crumple up in your hand and drop into a bowl of Campbell’s cream of mushroom. Cocktail crackers, it says on the box. Sounds like something Miss Barclay would like.
There’s a regular set of normal dishes in the cupboard. When I’ve set the table and heated the soup, I check on the Wrinkle Queen. Snoring away in her bedroom.
I decide to let her sleep. In a room off the living room, there’s a TV, and I’ve only missed ten minutes of Fashion Forecast. They’re broadcasting from Milan, Italy. Some designer who’s into feathers and leather. A good model can wear almost anything in the world and act like she’s strutting around in jeans and a T-shirt. Like a leather bra with pigeon feathers sticking out of its sides. Or suede hot pants fringed with rawhide laces dripping bangles and beads.
“Tamara.”
Hold onto your dentures, Queen Elizabeth. My show’s almost over. She scowls at me when I come into the bedroom a couple of minutes later.
“Lunch is all ready,” I tell her. I’ve never figured out why it’s always tougher for her to get off a bed than get into one. You’d think the force of gravity would be with her.
&n
bsp; “Oh, good,” she croaks when I get her to the table. “Wild mushroom soup and...cocktail crackers.”
“Would you like Melba toast?”
“No. But I wouldn’t mind a proper spoon. You should never serve soup with only a teaspoon. And the soup bowls should have plates underneath them...”
She’s not happy until I’ve got the big spoons and plates and rounded up cloth napkins that look like big hankies. But she slurps a spoonful of soup and sighs. “Why can’t the Triple S figure out how to make something this good?” Cracker crumbs make a trail down her fuchsia-colored dress.
“Now try on those new dresses,” she says after I’ve cleared away the lunch dishes. “I’d like to see what you’ve got for my money.”
Her money. Is she ever going to let up? I model the green dress with the full skirt first.
“I’m trying to imagine what it’ll look like on you when your hair doesn’t look as though you’ve stuck your finger in a light socket,” she mumbles through a cloud of smoke.
“Well, work on it,” I suggest, “but don’t give yourself a stroke while you’re doing it.”
“Now don’t get touchy,” she glares at me. “There’s no point in you wearing a two-hundred-dollar dress if your hair looks like a magpie’s nest.”
She puffs away for a few minutes on her cigarillo as I go and look at myself in the hall mirror and do a twirl. The dress does look awesome. Especially with the dress pumps. Forget about the old bat carping.
When I change and come back out in the black sheath, she says, “You’re a little young to wear black. But it’s a good fit. Now go into my bedroom and look in the top right hand drawer. There’s a jewelry box I’d like you to bring to me.”
So the dragon has some treasure in her cave.
The box is antique-looking — fancy gold trim and shiny bone stuff on the outside.
“My mother’s.” The Wrinkle Queen’s voice has gone suddenly soft. When she opens the lid, it plays a tiny, tinkly bit of music. “The waltz from Coppelia.”
“Pretty.”
“Nothing terribly valuable in here.” She rummages through it. “But, yes, this will do quite nicely with the green dress — and the black, too, for that matter.”
