“I have never seen such a to-do over a period,” Gram says now and Virginia opens her eyes, those heavy yellow shades over there too big for the duplex window, overlapping the sill.
“Period,” Esther laughs, her face like it’s in the frame of the mirror over Gram’s buffet. “Honey, she’s pregnant. I wish Hannah would hurry up because I need to get home.”
It feels better if Virginia closes her eyes, sick and dizzy, round and round, lips clamped against that spoonful of pancakes and syrup that Esther is holding.
“She’s got to eat more,” Gram says. “Might need some fluids.” Gram has stories about starving, the one that she would always tell if Virginia and Robert weren’t eating their meal.
“I had a sister who starved,” Gram would say. “Wasted away. My mama said it started real slowlike the way she wouldn’t eat but would pick little meat scraps from somebody else’s plate when she cleaned the table. Then, she stopped altogether, stopped eating and died, wasn’t but thirteen. She had pneumonia.”
“Sounds like anorexia nervosa,” Cindy had said once when the story was told. “I have to type that all the time and so I know all about it.”
“I never missed my time of the month,” Gram says and Virginia opens her eyes to see her mother there, a glass of water in her hand. And she lifts Virginia’s head and puts the cool glass against her lips.
“I told Esther not to feed you anything rich,” her mama says. “You were doing so much better yesterday. I think I’ll call the doctor.”
“I only missed my time when I was carrying,” Gram says. “We never discussed such. I told Esther to fix up some hotcakes. I told her that whenever Ginny Sue comes out here to spend the night with me that’s what she wants for breakfast before we walk to the store.”
“This is different now, Mama,” Virginia’s mother says, slowly, patiently. “Ginny is pregnant.”
“I wouldn’t discuss it,” Gram says.
“I know.” Virginia’s mama holds the glass while she drinks, so good and cool against her throat. “Madge is the one that told me about everything and she didn’t know much.”
“Madge shouldn’t have told,” Gram says. “Tessy would whip her good if she knew.”
“It’s a good thing she did tell me something or I’d have been scared to death of a period.”
“Hush now, I would’ve told you when the time was right.”
“When?” her mama asks and places a cool wet cloth on Virginia’s forehead. “After the fact, like Lena?” Her mama laughs; Virginia knows that story, that story of how Lena thought she was dying, the way Lena flung herself down on the bed and screamed that she was dying, call a doctor, call a preacher, pray to God because she was bleeding to death.
“Gram asked Felicia for a Kotex,” Virginia whispers, feels her lips spreading into a smile when she thinks of it. “She told Felicia that she didn’t know if she had ever needed one because of what people say about her.”
“Mama, did you? Ginny Sue, why didn’t you tell me that before now?”
“I didn’t think of it,” she says. “It was just earlier.”
“Today? Mama did that today?” her mother asks, the day bed sloping when her mama sits down.
“Right before Felicia came and brought the nurse,” she says, no noises from the kitchen. “I told Felicia I was sorry.”
“Today is Thursday,” her mama says, “That was Friday, almost a week ago. Now, I’ve got to call and apologize to her for that.”
“A week?” Virginia asks. Yes, a week. She left that rented house almost a week ago and she hasn’t even missed it. Her mama smells like Prell and Spic ’n Span.
“I’m going to call Felicia,” her mama says. “I’m going to call her right now. And when you’re feeling better, I think you should write her a thank-you card for coming over here and helping you. She’s the one that brought dinner over here last night, too.”
“She’s that way but she’s good,” Gram says. “Another woman that way will be lucky to marry her.”
“She is good,” Virginia’s mama says. “And it’s nobody’s business what way she might be.”
“You should write those thank-you cards just as soon as you receive the gift,” her mama had said when presents started arriving for Virginia and Bryan Parker. “Some people go off on a long honeymoon and you don’t find out until six or seven months later that they even got what you sent.”
It was only May then but it seemed like dog days, the sun searing that asphalt that surrounded the condos, the heavy lifeless air hanging like a blanket of stillness, stifling stagnated stillness. The wedding was only three weeks away and it was the heat that brought the realization; it would catch her off guard and make her shake her head reproachfully, then leave her as limp and lifeless as the air.
The afternoon light came through those miniblinded-will-not-open-modern windows in a thin dust-flecked plane and cast distorted images of the window on that brand new plastic-smelling simulated brick congoleum. A stack of unwritten thank-you notes were beside the empty coffee cups where she had put them early that morning, the classified section of the paper, a big big paper, The Atlanta Constitution, fine newsprint that says no word of how the folks are doing in Saxapaw, if it has rained in Saxapaw. “That newsprint is getting all over the counter,” Bryan Parker had said, tall as a mountain with that thick straight hair, bushy eyebrows. Newsprint is sterile, you can have a baby in a piece of it, wrap it up and put it in the bullrushes. “You’d do better to go to a job agency,” he told her. “Call the school board,” and he had nuzzled her neck in a way that made her feel like she was standing in the doorway watching it all.
Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today. And the power saw that was leveling all of the trees across the asphalt was saying “for the rest of your life, for the rest of your life.”
“Today is the first day of the rest of your life,” that girl with straight orange hair had said in the school cafeteria.
“Who the shit cares?” Cindy asked while that girl’s face turned the same shade as her hair.
“Jesus loves you,” the girl said.
“Everybody does.” Cindy twisted her hips, carried her tray down the line to desserts. “When you are a child, you speak like a child and now it’s time to put those toys away. That’s in the Bible and you should listen to it.”
“I will fear no evil,” the girl said and followed Cindy.
“Psalm 23. You can’t say a verse I don’t know,” Cindy said and put her tray on the table. “You act like you’re the first to ever hear of Jesus.”
“I’m only trying to save you,” the girl said and looked at Virginia. It sent a chill down her spine the way that girl’s eyes were so hard. “One way,” she said, still looking at Virginia, one finger pointed upward.
“Jesus wept!” Cindy yelled when the girl had gone and sat down by herself at a table in the corner. “Swaddling clothes! Saw that baby in half! Daniel in the lion’s den! A camel in the eye of a needle! You take the high road and I’ll take the low road and I’ll be in heaven before you.” All the people around their table laughed and after Cindy had twisted around and nodded to everybody, she turned to Virginia. “Thanks a lot, Ginny Sue,” she said. “You really helped me a lot. Thank you so much from the very bottom of my heart.”
“One way,” Virginia had said when she bought that bus ticket from Atlanta. But that was after the thank-you notes, a week after she wrote the notes. “Dear Mrs. Jones,” she wrote. “Thank you for the Tupperware tumblers that you were so kind to give me along with the shower.” It made her cringe to think of the shower, the advice: how to fix a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, how to boil water, “if he has butter in the fridge, he won’t look for margarine on the street,” can’t get pregnant? get him to wear boxers. She wanted to tell a Tarzan/Jane/Cheetah/banana joke. Cindy would have done that. Cindy would have said, “What’s gray and comes in quarts? Give up? Do you give up? An elephant. Ha Ha Ha.”
“Dear Mrs. Jone
s,” she wrote, that power saw like it was drilling a hole in her head. “I had a horrible time; I hate these tumblers. My butter is in the fridge and it might stay there till it curdles.”
“Dear friends of Bryan Parker’s mama’s second cousin by divorce, thank you for the bottle of Blue Nun, a bit too sweet for my palate, but sweet is as sweet does and you were so sweet! I’m going to drink it all right now as it is feverishly hot outside and chillingly cool in my condo. My thermostat is busted.”
“I can’t believe you’d sit here in the middle of the day and get drunk,” Bryan Parker had said, but that was before he knew the truth. I can’t believe you waited this long to tell me. Mark will shake his head and stare at the floor.
“What is wrong?” Bryan Parker had asked and she shook her head, stared at the floor.
“I’ll be fine once I throw up,” she told him and made her way to the bathroom.
“Vomit will rot your teeth,” Cindy had told her once. “I figure Jane Fonda must have gotten hers capped because she used to be bulemic. I know all about it.”
“I just Fonda-ed,” Cindy says. “That’s why I’m running around in tights, okay?” Virginia opens her eyes to see Cindy there with her hair pulled up in a high ponytail and a purple leotard cut low. “I was hoping you’d wake up,” she says. “I’ve been scared you were going to get as boring as the rest.”
“She’s sick,” Madge says from the other side of the room, a white uniform, hot pink can of Tab in her hand. “Been over there sweating and kicking; Hannah said she was sick to her stomach earlier.”
“Don’t surprise me,” Gram says. “The TV says those things that young women are sticking into themselves during that time can cause a fever that can kill.”
“Toxic shock,” Cindy says. “I once thought I had a touch of the toxic shock only to find out that I had a touch of salmonella. It was right after I ate a piece of chicken at Mama’s house.”
“Blackberries will cure the diarrhea,” Gram says. “And a slice of onion under your arm will cure the vomiting.”
“Lord, the medical community would laugh you into tomorrow,” Cindy says. “Eternal B.O. That’s what somebody with onions in their pits would have.”
“You can laugh all you want,” Gram says. “I could have helped Ginny Sue with those onions and Hannah wouldn’t let me. I can regulate the bleeding, too. Cayenne pepper will regulate a period.”
“My cycle was never regular,” Madge says and opens a magazine.
“Nothing about you is,” Cindy says and it makes Virginia laugh. She can’t help it. She looks over there and sees Madge with her face so tight and serious, and she can’t help but laugh.
“Laughter is the best medicine,” Gram says. “If you ain’t over bleeding.”
“I’m not bleeding, Gram,” she says. “I just spotted that one time.”
“Then why do you put those fever sticks inside yourself?” Gram asks and Cindy stretches out on the floor laughing. Virginia is laughing now, too, laughing until her stomach aches more than it already did. She looks at Cindy stretched out on that floor and cannot keep from laughing. Just like that time at Cindy’s house, she could not help laughing.
“I can’t find it,” Cindy had wailed and run to the door of the kitchen where Virginia and Madge were sitting at the table. She had stood there, a jar of Vaseline in one hand, the other hand held way out to the side and her underwear around her knees.
“What are you talking about?” Madge asked. “You put your pants on before your daddy comes in here.”
“What am I gonna do?” Cindy pulled up her underwear and squatted down in the doorway.
“Cindy Sinclair, what on earth is wrong with you?” Madge asked and Virginia had to turn her head to the side to keep from laughing though it didn’t work.
“It’s not funny, Ginny!” Cindy’s face was fire-red and tears were welling up in her eyes. “I’ve got a tampon up me and I can’t find it!”
“How on earth?” Madge got a fixed look on her face, a blend of shock and disgust with her eyebrows raised and nostrils flared.
“I squatted over the mirror and I couldn’t see it, not a bit of it and then the mirror fogged all up and I’m scared to go up there and see.”
“Hush. I never heard of such in my life. And which mirror did you use?”
Virginia could not control herself then and had to run to the sink to spit out a mouthful of Coke.
“Goddamnit, Ginny Sue!” Cindy screamed and stretched out full length on the kitchen floor, her hands clasped on her abdomen like she was dying of pain.
“Do you want your mouth washed out with soap?” Madge asked.
“Somebody tell me what to do!”
“I told you what to do a long time ago,” Madge said. “I told you not to wear those things, it’s not natural to wear those things. It’s just not right what you girls do, swimming and carrying on during that time.”
“That time, that time,” Cindy mimicked and sat up. “If I did like you say and did nothing at ‘that time’ then I’d be sitting in a chair for close to twelve weeks out of the year. That’s close to,” Cindy looked away for a minute.
“Three months,” Virginia said and Cindy made a face back.
“I can add, Ginny Sue,” she blared. “You didn’t think it was all so funny that time you fell on that boy’s bike now did you?”
“God, that hurts me to think of it,” Madge said. “I’ve never felt so sorry ‘cause I can’t even imagine how that must have hurt.” It made Virginia cross her legs tightly, just the thought of when she straddled that bar.
“Well hurt now!” Cindy wailed. “Imagine this! Imagine what I am feeling right now!”
“Why don’t you try to find it,” Virginia said and came back to the table.
“I don’t understand how it happened in the first place,” Madge said. “I’ve never in my life used one.”
“There’s a lot you’ve never in your life done!” Cindy stretched back out and pressed all around her abdomen like she could find it that way. “I had one in and I accidentally put one on top of it.”
“Well, there’s no place for it to go really,” Virginia said, legs crossed tightly as she tried not to laugh.
“My stomach! It can go right up in my stomach!”
“Well, I’ve heard enough and I’m calling a doctor,” Madge said and went over to the phone. “I have never been so embarrassed. What on earth can I say?”
“You’re embarrassed? I’m the one with it wedged way up in me somewhere!”
“I have gone to Dr. Wilson my whole life near abouts,” Madge said and looked at Virginia. “He delivered Cindy. My face turns red as a tomato every time that I have to go. I think it’s the worse thing in the world to have to go.” She flipped through the phone book and ran her finger down the page. “He’s busy, too, and I don’t know if this is an emergency or not.” She dialed six numbers and then held her finger on that last number before releasing it. “I’m going to say that Cindy is going through that time of the month and that she does not use sanitary napkins like I suggested and as a result has lost one of the others in herself and needs it extracted.”
Cindy had walked in front of Virginia, up the stairs, stomping her feet with every step, and flopped down on her bed. “If you ever tell this,” Cindy said, “if you ever tell Aunt Hannah or Lena or Emily, I will never speak to you again.”
“Oh Cindy, I’m not going to tell.”
“I mean it,” Cindy sat up straight and looked Virginia square in the eye. “If you do, I’ll tell what you did down at the beach with that dumb boy.” Virginia felt her face flush and Cindy laughed, those blue eyes in a devilish squint. “I’ll tell how first you tongue-kissed and then about how he felt you off and did all but.”
“I never said that!” Virginia raised her voice a little. “I didn’t!”
“But that’s what I’ll tell.” Cindy put on her jeans, the ones that Virginia had embroidered for her. She hadn’t wanted to embroider them but Cindy
had used that same story to blackmail her. And then Cindy had told her exactly what to embroider, tacky things, loud colored peace signs and “Twist and Shout” across the butt. “I’ll tell that and I’ll tell that you designed what’s embroidered on my jeans.”
“Cindy!”
“I will and I’ll tell about that funny feeling you got you know where when you were with that boy.”
“I’m never going to tell you anything as long as I live!” Virginia said. “I never would have told you if you hadn’t talked about how you felt.”
“So?” Cindy smoothed her finger up and down that hideous chartreuse peace sign just above her knee. “We’re talking about what you said, though. I remember just how you said it, too.”
“Please stop,” Virginia begged. “I’ve never told anything on you.”
“You said, ‘Cindy, I felt so funny inside, kind of fluttery. . . .’”
“Stop!” Virginia held her hands over her ears and closed her eyes.
“Cindy?” Madge came into the room, her hands on her hips, face still red. “Dr. Wilson has squeezed you in and we’ve got to hurry. Now, you go wash and put on clean underwear.”
“I took a shower when I got up.”
“I don’t care. Now, that man’s got a hard job and I think people ought to be clean when they go.”
“I’m clean I tell you!”
“Well, too clean doesn’t hurt.” Madge turned to leave the room. “Ginny Sue, we’ll take you home on the way. Cindy, try to use the bathroom good before you wash so you won’t have to go again.”
Tending to Virginia Page 19
