Tending to Virginia

by Jill McCorkle

  The nurse follows Hannah outside, down the long hall where they are all just sitting in a room, a TV going, pipes, cigarettes, thumbs twiddling.

  “You have yourself a fun time, Miss Lena,” the nurse says and pats Lena’s shoulder.

  “Oh I will.” Lena smiles and nods, her hat more cocked than it was when Hannah left her. “Isn’t she a pretty girl, Hannah?”

  “Yes.” Hannah looks the nurse square in the eye and smiles. “And she’s pretty most of all because she takes good care of you.” The nurse smiles and looks away. Modesty or guilt? “We’ll be back before supper,” Hannah says and leads Lena to the car.

  “I’m going to bathe you when we get to Mama’s,” Hannah says when they are on the road.

  “I’ve had a bath. Bathe, bathe, bathe.” Lena pulls off her hat and picks at the fur, rubs her palm over it. Hannah would like to perm Lena’s hair; it’s so thin and gray, flat from wearing that hat all the time. “You can bathe this.” Lena shakes the hat and then places it back in her lap. “I do want you to wash my face, though. I don’t know when it’s been washed.”

  “Now that’s the sort of thing you need to ask them to do for you,” Hannah says.

  “Them? Them? You think I’d let that fat twat touch my face?” Lena settles back in the seat. “I’ve always had perfect skin.”

  “I thought you liked her.”

  “I hate ‘em all,” she sighs, her mouth puffing each word. “I wish to God I was dead.”

  “We’re going to have a fun day,” Hannah says as cheerfully as she can manage. “We’ll ride around later on.”

  “Ride. I’ve ridden around my whole life. Roy said, ‘let’s ride.’ Ride asshole. I’m sick of riding.”

  “Now, don’t talk that way,” Hannah says, realizing that she sounds just like her mother, years and years of looking at Lena and saying, ‘don’t talk that way.’ Now Mama laughs when Lena talks that way. Now, to see the people that come and go off the “Phil Donahue Show,” talking ugly these days is nothing compared to what they’re all doing behind closed doors. Sex changes and two women wanting a baby to bring into this world of plane crashes and rape and child abuse and people dragging one another through the mud to get some money when they weren’t married to begin with but living and sleeping with one another like they were. It makes Hannah glad that she is where she is and that her children are grown and married. She wishes people wouldn’t talk about Rock Hudson so much. She had seen Pillow Talk so many times, always thinking how wonderful it would be to be Doris Day and get to kiss him. She had even told Ben that. They told of people in the movies that they thought were beautiful or handsome but they didn’t tell of people in real life. “William Holden is a good-looking man,” she’d say, and Ben would say, “My favorites are Susan Hayward and Maureen O’Hara, like the redheads. I like Rita Hayworth, too.”

  Rita and Rock and Donna Reed and the way William Holden died all make her so sad. All of that makes her glad to be where she is and that’s unusual because Hannah has always felt a little out of beat. When Madge and everybody else was staying home and tending to their babies, she was working. Work all day and come home and work all night.

  “You could quit if you wanted to,” Ben would say but she knew better. She could have quit, yes, but then maybe she couldn’t have had a washer and dryer when she was going through stack after stack of diapers, or new cheerful-looking furniture instead of that old heavy dark stuff like her mama and Lena had, and there was college to think of, two children who needed everything from braces to the full scout outfits and shoes that if they weren’t too small come September had to be replaced with what everybody else at the schoolhouse was wearing.

  “I don’t know how you do it,” Madge would say, her freezer full of meat that she’d fix up into something like you’d see on the front of a book. “It’s all I can do to get everything around this house done in a day’s time.”

  “TV dinners,” Hannah would tell her and laugh. She’d have to laugh so she wouldn’t bite her tongue in two thinking of how she could whirl through Madge’s house in a couple of hours and have it all done.

  “Raymond says he has to have a meal,” Madge would say and shake her head back and forth like preparing a meal was like jumping the Grand Canyon.

  “Why aren’t you working?” Lena asks, mumbling, her eyes closed.

  “I retired, you know that,” Hannah says and Lena sits up straight and opens her eyes. “I sold the shop six months ago.”

  “Ginny Sue bought it I guess.” Lena pulls the hat back on her head. “I knew that.”

  “No, Ginny Sue did not. Ginny Sue is a school teacher and not a seamstress.”

  “I know you hate her for that.”

  “Now why would I hate her for that?” Hannah raises her voice. “I’m proud of Ginny Sue.”

  “And I’m proud of Ginny Sue,” Lena says. “She can sew up a storm can’t she?”

  “She can do a straight stitch and that’s it.”

  “Well, I’m glad,” Lena says and Hannah feels the impatience coming. Talking to a brick wall; sometimes she feels like her words aren’t worth the air that she gives to anybody.

  “And what do you do?” people ask nowadays. For the first time in her entire life Hannah can say, “I’m a housewife,” and now that’s no good.

  “I learn something new every day,” Madge says over and over. “I never knew so much went into a root canal.”

  “I watch the ‘Phil Donahue Show.’”

  “I used to watch ‘As The World Turns,’” Madge said. “Way back, you know before I went over to Tech and decided I’d try my hand at doing something.” Doing something! For years all Hannah has done is do something and people felt sorry for her and now finally she is sitting at home and finding out how the other half has lived her whole life only to be told about how they are doing something. She has always been out of step, and by the time it all whirls back around to where it’s the thing to be a housewife, she’ll either be dead or in a home.

  “Where are we?” Lena asks.

  “We’re right here in town, going to Mama’s.”

  “Whose car is this?”

  “It’s my car. It’s the same car I’ve driven for five years.”

  “A Chevrolet,” Lena says and Hannah nods, “Yes, a Chevrolet.” Hannah turns on the radio to the station Ginny Sue had recommended to her. She hadn’t even known what to listen to because all she had at The Busy Bee was an AM and all it picked up was country which she liked fine, still does.

  “Roy always said Chevrolets were cheap cars and that Raymond Sinclair or St. Peter couldn’t talk him into buying one,” Lena says and scratches her hat. “Where are we?”

  “In the car.”

  “Now, don’t act like I’m crazy like Messy Pearson. In a car and where’s the car?”

  “Aunt Tessy was not crazy,” Hannah says, “and we’re in Saxapaw.” She turns down her mama’s street. It’s a pretty street and thank God her mama is off Carver Street. Her mama’s old house was about the last residence left in that part of town; when her mama moved, they tore the house away piece by piece and built a Piggly Wiggly.

  “Messy was crazy and she was filthy,” Lena says. “I wonder if Madge knows what a filthy mama she had.”

  “I want you to stop talking about Aunt Tessy, okay?” Hannah parks and waits for Lena to nod, her mouth primping like a punished child.

  Felicia Morton is out mowing her half of the duplex yard wearing near about nothing. It’s probably too dry to be mowing, but Hannah is not going to offer advice to a grown woman; she wishes Felicia would just mow on over on her mama’s side while she’s out there. Felicia is about forty-five or so and has never married. People say it’s because she favors women. When Hannah owned her shop, she was forever overhearing stories about people in town which she’d just as soon not have heard. That kind of gossip is like inviting yourself to sit down in somebody’s bedroom and watch. Felicia has a good job at Southern National Loans and it’s nobod
y’s business why she never married.

  “Felicia is like that,” Madge had said. “About women.”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” Hannah said. “She’s good to Mama.”

  “Her friend is a nurse,” Cindy said. “I work at the Medical Clinic and so I know.”

  “I don’t want to hear Felicia discussed,” Hannah’s mama said. “She’s good as gold and if she’s that way, she can’t help it. Jesus knows she can’t.”

  “Hi there!” Felicia says now and cuts off the mower.

  Hannah waves and opens her door. “Don’t let her touch me there” Lena whispers. “I mean it, so help me God, I’ll have a stroke.” Hannah just shakes her head and goes to open Lena’s door.

  “Hot as blazes isn’t it?” Felicia calls and Hannah nods, Lena whispering “she’s that way” in Hannah’s ear the whole time. “I’ll mow your mama’s half if that’s okay with you.”

  “It would be a blessing,” Hannah says. “I hate for you to, though.”

  “Won’t take but a jiffy.” Felicia brushes the sweat from her forehead, her short frosted hair standing in a cowlick. “Your mama is such a dear.”

  “Um hmm,” Lena breathes into Hannah’s neck. “I told you.”

  “I’ve been waiting till after it rained,” Felicia says. “But I don’t think it’s coming.”

  “Well, you’ll have to let me know what we can do for you some time,” Hannah says.

  “God, now you’ve done it,” Lena says when Felicia has gone back to the mower. “She’ll be wanting me.”

  The sound of the mower fills the yard and it is peaceful to Hannah, a gigantic sewing machine is what it sounds like, bolt after bolt of cloth tumbling to the floor. She could sew up the world, drapes and party dresses and it doesn’t bother her if all that is true about Felicia. Phil Donahue would defend Felicia in a flash and so would she. She’d stand right up whether Phil was on an old show in Chicago or in New York and she’d take that microphone and she’d say, “what Felicia does behind closed doors is all right by me. Felicia is a human being and she has human feelings and blood and bone,” and people would applaud and they’d close the show playing the song “Behind Closed Doors” all because of what she had said and way back here in Saxapaw everyone would be watching the show. Ben would say, “I never knew your mama was so smart. I mean I’ve always known she had it in her but I guess I never stopped to think about how smart she really is.” And Ginny Sue and Mark and Robert and his wife, Susie, would all nod and say how proud they were. Lena and her mama would say, “Look at Hannah on TV all dressed up like she’s going to a party way up there in Chicago.” Cindy would say, “Taking up for that kind. I’m so embarrassed,” and that would be good for Cindy; she should be embarrassed for all her marrying and divorcing. Madge would say, “I don’t know how Hannah found the time to get up there in Chicago”; and Madge would be all tired-looking like she had swum some channel instead of changing the channel on that black and white set of hers. Madge mentions her TV every chance she gets as if watching that tiny set can make up for all those Chevrolets and dishwashers she’s had all these years.

  “This ain’t Emily’s house,” Lena says and stands there at the door, huffing and puffing from the short walk.

  “Sure it is,” Hannah says and opens the door. “Yoohoo!” she yells and pulls Lena inside where it is eighty-odd degrees. Her mama won’t use the air-conditioning. “I’m going to turn on the air and then I’m going to put you in a nice hot bubble bath, Lena.”

  “Shit,” Lena says. “You can try.”

  “Well, I thought you’d never ever come,” Hannah’s mama says and Esther comes out of the kitchen carrying an old dishrag.

  “She couldn’t wait for company,” Esther says. “And since you’re here I’m going to run home and see if my trash has been collected.”

  “You look bad, Lena,” Emily says and puts a little snuff in her mouth. “Have you been sick?”

  “Poisoned,” Lena says. “That nigger that stole Roy’s car pulled some gum all chewed up out of his mouth and he said to me, he said, ‘here, chew on this gum’ and I said, ‘I don’t chew after nobody not white or nigger’ and he said, ‘chew it or I’ll kill you you beautiful bitch, you.’”

  “Well, I wouldn’t have done as he said,” Hannah’s mama says and shakes her head. “You were taught better as a child, taught to say ‘colored,’ too.”

  “He would have killed me dead. He had already snuffed Roy.”

  “Ain’t they a pair?” Esther laughs and shakes her head.

  “They don’t know what they’re saying,” Hannah says but she knows Esther doesn’t know what she’s saying either.

  “You go on, Esther, and do what you need to do while I’m here.” Hannah goes in the bathroom and starts running the water. She’d like to get in that tub herself, lather her legs, shave and lotion. “Okay Lena, come on in here.”

  “I shouldn’t have chewed that gum,” Lena says, her teeth gritted, the vein in her forehead buckling.

  “Well I told you not to chew it,” Hannah’s mama calls out, her voice like a breathless whisper compared to Lena. “But you have never listened to anything. Your whole life you have not listened.”

  “Give me that goddamn washrag.” Lena snatches the cloth from Hannah’s hand. “I can wash myself.”

  “Fine,” Hannah says and helps Lena into the tub, that sagging old body like a pillow without enough stuffing. “All I want to do is help you and you talk to me like a dog, so ugly.” Hannah sits on the commode and watches Lena sling that cloth up and over those old vein-marked breasts. “If it upsets you so to see me and for me to help you get a bath, well, I don’t have to do it.”

  “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” Lena says and starts to cry. “I’d die if you didn’t get me.”

  “I’d die, too, Hannah,” her mama calls out, that voice drowned out by the mower right near the bathroom window. Patience. Patience is a virtue. They don’t know what they’re saying; they don’t know how useless they make her feel sometimes. She gets the Comet out from under the lavatory and starts cleaning.

  “I chewed it, though, Hannah, I did. I said, ‘um boy, this is some good gum’ I said, ‘I believe it used to be a stick of Juicy Fruit before you was so kind as to give it to me and so kind to buy this car that I can’t drive ‘cause they took my license and that Roy can’t drive since he’s dead and all’ and I said, ‘people probably call you nigger and I’m sorry for you that they don’t have better sense. Some people just don’t know to say niggra or colored.’”

  “Or black,” Hannah says the same way that Ginny Sue had corrected her a few years ago.

  “I said, ‘you and your blacks ride in style now and I like this Juicy Fruit so much that I think I’ll chew it tomorrow and right on till I die because I saw that little bit of something you stuck to this gum before you got me to chew it. I saw it but I can’t blame you after what you’ve told me of Jesus telling you to poison me and put me out of my misery the way Roy did that cat that I loved so way back.’”

  Hannah laughs now, tears coming to her eyes while she scrubs that toilet clean as a whistle. “I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free,” she sings loud, putting on a voice that quivers on the high notes while Lena sits with bubbles all over her and stares. “His eye is on the sparrow and I know he’s watching me.”

  “Yes he is,” Lena nods, laughs and leans back in the tub, her knees spread apart.

  “Mama, what are you doing in there so quiet?” Hannah calls.

  “Swinging on the front porch,” her mama says. “I’m cooking some butterbeans.”

  “Won’t that be good?” Lena asks and stretches her arms up and over her head like she’s posing for a centerfold.

  “It sure will,” Hannah says and flushes the toilet.

  * * *

  It is hot and even pressing the pedal makes Virginia tired. She slows down as she crosses the Saxapaw River. Usually there are old men fishing from the bridg
e, cane poles and beer cans, but not today. She has never seen the river so low, the huge gnarled roots of the river trees exposed as they cling to the banks. There is a man halfway out where her parents had said that she and Robert were never to go, and the water is only up to his hips. Everything is drying up; the radio says no rain in sight for a week, says to conserve water.

  She passes the Hardee’s at the edge of town where she once threw a bracelet that Bryan Parker had given her. It had seemed that by getting rid of every reminder, she could rid her mind of the near mistake, rid her mind of the expression on Bryan Parker’s face when he left her at the bus station. He carried no blame, an innocent bystander. She never passes the Hardee’s that she doesn’t remember all of that, remember that sliver of silver on the ground near the drive-through, the thought that one of those young boys, with his brown cap and pointed stick, found the bracelet and slipped it on the wrist of some young girl who stared at it lovingly as Virginia had once done, words like “eternal” and “always” slipping from adolescent lips with no thoughts that it all might end, that so quickly it can end. It makes her feel sick to think about it now, heavy and sick when the radio says that it’s a hundred degrees.

  “Now what is your married name?” people ask when she’s at home. Nobody cares; nobody remembers. They just call her Ginny Sue Turner who “thank God, no matter who she’s married to is finally going to start having some babies. We feared that she couldn’t, feared that she was gonna dry up before she did like her Great Aunt Lena Pearson Carter, must have got her man to wear boxers instead of briefs, works every time.” Virginia had heard that little tip for years, though no one had ever been able to explain it to her. Easy access? Anatomical freedom?