What Are You Wearing to Die?

by Patricia Sprinkle

  Anna Emily joined in. She’d been clinging to Selena’s hand ever since we got there, but I hadn’t paid much attention until then.

  “You sure made a new friend fast,” I joked, hoping she’d accept the invitation.

  Joe Riddley clapped Maynard on the shoulder. “Why don’t you come, too, to help us ride herd on these cowboys and Indians?”

  Maynard looked startled. He’d had little experience of being a child, much less taking care of them. He’d been too young for our boys to play with, and while he was growing up, we had no other children down our road and his mama tended to keep him home helping her rather than encouraging him to join other children’s activities. After his initial hesitation, however, he said with a show of enthusiasm, “That will be fun.” He did enjoy Joe Riddley, so I hoped his meal wouldn’t be a total waste.

  From the giggles and squeals we kept hearing, the children’s table had a better time than ours.

  I cannot say that the adult table was a success. Robin had put on her denim skirt and dark navy shirt in honor of the occasion, but she said no more than the turkey and kept looking toward the kitchen door and tightening her lips in a way I couldn’t interpret. She left the table three times to check on her girls. Martha and I exchanged a look that said if Robin wasn’t careful, she’d wind up as overprotective as Maynard’s mother. We both felt that children deserve stretches of independence from their parents. How else will they learn to live in the world without us?

  Trevor wasn’t lively, either; in fact, he was sunk in gloom. And Hubert was downright testy about “being forced to close the doors on a perfectly good store.”

  If it hadn’t been for Bethany and her two guests, we’d have had a pretty thin time. Fortunately, they were at that self-absorbed age when they presumed everybody wanted to hear about their lives, and they had lots of funny stories to tell about their first weeks at college.

  After dinner, Bethany and her friends offered to clean the kitchen. Joe Riddley, Ridd, and Hubert went to watch football on TV. Robin, Maynard, and Selena stayed with Martha and me on the porch, and the children went out to play in the yard.

  “Aren’t the woods pretty?” Selena was holding her husband’s hand, but addressing us all. “All gold and green. And look at that Bradford pear up by the road. It’s green, gold, burgundy, and peach, all at once.”

  “My favorite is that dogwood.” Maynard pointed to a small tree covered in deep plum leaves. “I used to climb that thing.”

  “Joe Riddley planted it the year we moved into this house,” I told them. Before we could continue our praise of the gorgeous day, Robin’s girls came pelting back in terror.

  “There’s dogs!” Natalie made them sound like man-eating beasts.

  “The big ones are penned and cannot get out,” Martha assured her. “The only two in the yard are Me-Mama’s beagle, Lulu, and Lulu’s son, Cricket Dog. Both of them are very friendly. If they jump on you, say, ‘Down,’ and they’ll obey.”

  “I want to stay with Mama,” Natalie whined.

  Anna Emily buried her face in her mother’s skirt. “I doesn’t like dogs.”

  “They eat you up,” Natalie explained.

  Martha gave a reassuring laugh. “Not those two. The worst they’d do is lick you some. Come on, let me introduce you.” She held out a hand.

  Natalie edged closer to Robin and Anna Emily clung to her mother. “No!”

  Anybody could see that the girls were truly terrified.

  I started to get up. “Let me put them in the pen. It will only take a minute.”

  “I’ll do it,” Maynard offered. The rest of the afternoon was punctuated by an indignant beagle duet.

  Once the dogs were penned, Selena was able to persuade the girls to walk back outside with her and play with the others. Maynard stayed out, too. Anna Emily clung to Selena’s hand for the rest of the afternoon, and several times I saw her give the barn and the dog pen an anxious look, but Natalie played happily with Bradley, Cricket, and Maynard. As I watched Maynard giving piggyback rides and pushing kids on the swing, I wondered if he was making up for his isolated childhood.

  After a while, Bethany and her friends came out and joined Maynard and the children in throwing Frisbees and playing keep-away. I was delighted to hear children’s voices echoing up and down our road again.

  It wasn’t long before Trevor left the men and joined us. As he sank into a wicker chair next to Robin, he muttered, “Can’t seem to get interested in football these days.” He seemed content to sit without talking, watching the children play and listening to us women chatting. Martha and I tried not to let on that he had cramped our style.

  Anna Emily pitched a fit when her mother said she couldn’t go home with Selena or stay with Cricket and his parents. Tears streaming down her cheeks, she held up her arms to Maynard. “I want to go home with you!”

  Poor Maynard didn’t know how to respond.

  “She says that to everybody.” Natalie clued him in. “Come on, Anna Emily. I’ll race you to the car.”

  Obediently, Anna Emily turned and ran.

  When the guests had gone, the dogs were let out of jail and Bethany took her friends over to visit with some of her high school buddies. Martha and I finished up a few last chores in the kitchen. “Do you think Trevor is interested in Robin?” I asked her. Martha is one of the wisest women I know.

  “Not romantically. They treat each other more like father and daughter. Did you notice how he kept making sure she had what she needed, and how she told him a couple of times that he needed to eat? My guess is that Robin is becoming the daughter Trevor always wanted Starr to be—thoughtful, hardworking, clean of drugs. Maybe Trevor is a father figure Robin is lacking. She seems woefully short of family.”

  “She has a brother over near Tennille, but I’ve only seen him once. I think it could be good for both their kids to have something like a normal family, don’t you?”

  Martha didn’t answer for such a long minute, I thought she hadn’t heard me. Then she stood from putting bits of turkey into her cat’s bowl. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think Anna Emily had reactive attachment disorder. But that’s something Starr’s child ought to have had, not Robin’s. If anything, Robin smothers those children. I never see them away from her.”

  “What’s re—whatever it is?”

  “Reactive attachment disorder? It’s what happens to a child who fails to bond with somebody in the first couple of years. One of two things can happen. Either they don’t bond with anybody, or they bond casually with everybody, like Anna Emily tends to do.”

  “Couldn’t it be a habit, sort of testing the waters to see what she can get? Or a way of getting attention from her mother?”

  “I hope so.” Martha didn’t sound convinced.

  Around three the following Wednesday afternoon, Evelyn came in to say Gladys had everything under control out front and she was going home early because she and Hubert were going to Dublin to eat dinner and see a movie. I started thinking about them—whether they were really suited or whether she’d be borrowing trouble marrying a man that old with a tricky heart. Gradually it dawned on me that I wasn’t going to get any work done with all that on my mind.

  “I’m going down to Myrtle’s for some pie,” I informed Lulu. “Hold the fort.”

  Myrtle still made chocolate pie like my mama used to, rich and dark, with three-inch meringue. The kind of pie that is good for anything that ails you.

  The beautiful weather we’d had for Thanksgiving had been blown away by a stiff, steady breeze that brought clouds in on Sunday and a chill on Monday that lingered. Winter was definitely coming. The wind wasn’t what folks up north might call cold, but it was chilly enough for me to wrap my coat around me as I walked and decide to order coffee with my pie instead of iced tea.

  When I entered the restaurant, I thought at first that I was the only person there. Midafternoon is Myrtle’s dead time, especially when school is in session. I was delighted to spot Selena’
s bright head over in a far booth.

  “You having a pie break, too?” I called as I walked across the restaurant.

  The face she turned toward me was pink and wet with tears.

  “Oh, honey! What’s wrong?” I slid into the booth across from her and handed her a tissue from my purse.

  She sniffed and dabbed her eyes, but she would need several tissues before that flood was mopped up. I pulled out a whole pack and set it on the table beside her black coffee. Before we could say another word, Myrtle called from the kitchen door, “You want your usual, Mac?”

  “Yeah, and bring a piece for Selena, too.”

  Selena lifted a limp hand. “I don’t need…” Then she dropped her hand, pulled out a fresh tissue, and held it to her nose as she fought back tears.

  “You okay?” Myrtle asked as she set our pie and my coffee before us.

  “We’re fine.” I waved her away after she’d heated up Selena’s cup. Myrtle had a tendency to hover if she thought a good conversation was in progress.

  I started to eat my pie. Selena would speak when she was good and ready.

  I’ve heard you can tell a lot about a person by where she starts to eat her pie—from the tip or from the back. I don’t know what it says about me, but when it comes to Myrtle’s pie, I start with whichever part she has set down nearest my mouth. I had taken two good-sized bites before Selena poked a tentative fork into the point of hers. She took a tiny nibble, then another. Her third bite was of a decent size, her fourth rivaled one of my own.

  We did not say a single word until our plates were scraped clean and our cups were empty. I slid out of the booth and went to the employees’ door, which led to the kitchen and Myrtle’s office. “Could we have some more coffee in here?”

  Myrtle slouched out of her office and reached for the pot. “Aren’t you going to complain about my floor today?”

  “Nah, I’m gonna let somebody trip on one of those holes in the tile and sue your pants off. Hand me the coffeepot and go back to your smoke.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Don’t lie to me. I can smell it from here. I don’t mind you smoking. It’s the lying I can’t tolerate.”

  Before you think I’m hard on Myrtle, you need to know that we go way back. In first grade, she used to steal cookies my mama put in my lunchbox and replace them with little boxes of raisins her mama put in hers. That wouldn’t have been a bad swap, except she told me after I’d been eating raisins for half a year that raisins were dead baby roaches. That set the tone for our lifelong relationship.

  I carried the coffee back to our table, poured us each a fresh cup, and slid into my side of the booth. “I don’t want to pry, but do you want to tell me about whatever has you watering the earth? Not that we can’t use the moisture, mind you, but you are wasting it on those tissues. I’ve got some pansies that could use a drink.”

  Selena sniffed. “I’m okay now.”

  “You sure?”

  She started to nod, then flung her arms down on the table and laid her head on them. “No! I’m not fine. I can’t…I can’t…” She gasped for air and got it out. “I can’t have a baby! I’ve got endometriosis too bad.” She started to bawl.

  “Oh, honey!” There are no words sufficient for that tragedy in a woman’s life. I let her sob. That whole time, I was informing the Boss upstairs that when I arrive in heaven, one of our first conversations is going to be about why foolish fourteen-year-olds can get pregnant and a married woman who would make a great mother can’t.

  When her sobs had slacked off, I asked, “Does Maynard know?”

  She sniffed. “No. I just saw the doctor this afternoon. He won’t mind as much as I do, though. He’s already said”—she hiccupped—“he prefers an adult household.”

  I knew as well as she did that was because he was an only child who had never been around children growing up. Maynard would make a terrific dad once he got used to the idea.

  As if she had read my thoughts, Selena swiped her nose with another tissue and wailed, “But he’s so good with children. And they adore him. You saw him down at Ridd and Martha’s. All I wanted was one child who looked like him.” Her fountains gushed forth again.

  It took nearly ten minutes before she took a deep breath and sat erect. “I guess it wasn’t meant to be.” She didn’t sound resigned. She sounded as bleak as if somebody had condemned her to a life in solitary confinement.

  Which could have been how she felt.

  Lots of things I could say flitted through my head, things like “Lots of couples are happy without kids,” or “Why don’t you all consider adopting?” None of them were appropriate at the moment. I winged a quick prayer for wisdom, hoping I’d get an inspiration that would turn me into a good counselor. Instead, the first thing that popped into my head was that new apartment Maynard had been talking about. Maybe it was as good a distraction as any.

  “I hear you all are turning the upstairs of Gusta’s house into an apartment.”

  She nodded as she gave her nose a final wipe. “It got finished Saturday. Maynard thinks it will be good security to have somebody living on the premises, and he doesn’t need the upstairs for display. It’s lovely. Would you like to see it?” She stuffed all the soggy tissues into her pocketbook and gave me the first hopeful look I’d seen from her all afternoon.

  I had half a dozen things I ought to be doing, but none of them were all that important right that minute. I gathered up my pocketbook. “I’d love to see what you’ve done with it.”

  She had her car, so we drove the short distance and parked in the driveway of the big antebellum house with the discreet sign out front: WAINWRIGHT HOUSE ANTIQUES. Gusta had agreed to sell her home only if Maynard would use her name. He had kept the feel of the place as well. Bright pansies bordered the walk, and porch rockers invited you to sit a spell on a warmer afternoon.

  “The first time I ever came to this house was nearly sixty years ago, for Gusta’s bridesmaids’ luncheon,” I ruminated. “I was not quite six, and Gusta had asked me to be her flower girl. Mama was worried sick I’d spill something on my white organdy dress at the luncheon, but all I could think about was that I had on new ruffled panties and I was going to lunch in the castle where the princess lived.”

  Selena gave a watery laugh. “She sure grew up to be a queen. You ought to hear her when she stops by. Says she’s coming ‘to visit my old house,’ but she’s really coming to snoop. She tells Maynard how to display every item, and she even made him get rid of one set of dishes. Said they were trash and she didn’t want them in her house.”

  “How does Maynard deal with that?”

  “He adores her, and says she is almost always right.”

  As I followed Selena up the drive I’d used so often, I knew why Gusta kept coming back. Times change and age must make way for youth, but it is hard to turn a house you have loved over to other people. Martha’s den furniture was much nicer than the old recliners Joe Riddley and I put up with, but I still missed our decor. What I missed most was being able to sit out on the wide screened porch after a hard day at work and let the peace of the countryside seep into my bones. What did Gusta miss most about her house? I would have to ask.

  We climbed a new fire escape/entrance staircase on the side of the house and opened a new door where a hall window used to be. I couldn’t remember ever being upstairs at Gusta’s except once, when she was sick and I took her a potted cyclamen.

  “He sealed off the front stairs with that wall.” She pointed. I would never have guessed that the wide curved staircase was beyond the wall. “And he sealed off the back two bedrooms and the attic rooms to use for storage.” She led me through a wide hall, where heart pine floorboards were polished to a gleam, to the front room where Gusta used to sleep, overlooking the courthouse square. The room had been pale gray, for Gusta was fond of gray, especially after her hair went silver. Now it was a soft butter yellow.

  “This will be the living room, with the dining room b
ehind it. See? Maynard had a door opened up that used to be there anyway.”

  “I like the color you used. It brightens the place up considerably.”

  She led me to what used to be a storeroom at the back. “This is the kitchen.”

  It wasn’t large, but seemed larger because it had white appliances, white cabinets, and a white floor. “I like a white kitchen,” said Selena-the-nurse. “If it’s dirty, I want to know it. The tenants can put up curtains and accessories in whatever color they like.”

  Across the hall were a large front bedroom with a full bath and a smaller bedroom with a shower-only bath.

  “That’s it.” Selena concluded the tour. “I hope somebody is going to want it.”

  “Folks will be beating down your door to rent it. Are you sure Hubert couldn’t live here?”

  Even as Selena shook her head, I knew it wouldn’t work. Hubert could never climb all those stairs, and he’d already paid to put an elevator in Pooh’s house as his “entrance fee.” I doubted he’d pay again to put one in Maynard’s. Besides, as Maynard had pointed out, the two of them got along better when they weren’t living in each other’s pockets.

  “You’ll find somebody,” I said again as we clumped downstairs. “Now, you go talk to Maynard. I need to get back to the office, and I’ll walk. I need the exercise.”

  She gave me a quick hug. “Thanks. I’m glad you were there.”

  “Always at your service,” I told her. “Especially for pie.”

  As I walked the short distance to the store, my mood was as somber as the scudding clouds overhead—and as fruitless. Just as they could not seem to bring us rain, I could not think of easy solutions for any of the problems my friends faced. I couldn’t figure out how to help Selena in her sorrow, how to advise Otis and Lottie about getting out of their situation with Gusta and Hubert, how Trevor would ever emerge from his deep pool of bone-numbing grief, or what any of us would do with Hubert once he didn’t have that store to go to every morning.

  I walked along in such a deep funk that I didn’t notice Robin and her girls until I heard Natalie’s piping voice. “Anna Emily! Come on!”