“Daddy don’t you walk so fast, daddy don’t you walk so fast!” Harold, Jr., holds his hands behind his back and sings as loud as he can. Patricia has to cover her ears up cause he’s off key something awful. “Daddy, slow down some cause you’re making me run. Daddy, don’t you walk so fast.” Harold, Jr., bows and Patricia claps her hands together and laughs; she actually laughs.
“Who told you to learn that song?” Harold asks and Juanita gives Harold, Jr., a quick glance.
“I learned it off the record,” he says. “You want to hear it again?”
“I bet I know who put you up to that.” Harold looks at Juanita. “You trying to make me feel like I done wrong by walking out of here?”
“No, Harold. You know me better than that.”
“Yeah, I know you too well,” he says and goes back to his chair. Juanita can’t tell if he’s mad at her or not. She certainly never intended that Harold, Jr., would sing that song with her standing there. Thank God, Harold, Jr., was too busy playing with Petie Rose at the party to sing it there. Kate and Ernie would have gotten just what they wanted from that.
“Now, let’s finish talking about this room,” Juanita says and Harold interrupts her, tells Harold, Jr., to go get him a beer. “Patricia, I’ll let you decide. You might want to ask Aunt Kate what she thinks.”
“What?” Harold shakes his head from side to side and then points his finger at his head like Archie Bunker used to always do, and acts like he shoots himself in the head.
“Daddy, don’t you drink so fast.” Harold, Jr., hands him the beer and is so tickled that he sprawls out on the floor. Patricia is laughing, too, laughing up a storm until her eyes get all watery and she sits over there crying.
“What’s wrong?” Juanita asks. “I mean that you can decide, and what’s more, we’ll go to that decorator furniture place over in Newton, too. I mean we can’t do the whole house but we can do this room and maybe your room, Patricia.”
Patricia shakes her head back and forth and then she jumps up and wraps her thin arms around Juanita and puts her head up against Juanita’s neck. “I’m not ashamed of my name, Mama. I’m not.” Patricia looks up and shakes her head back and forth.
“It doesn’t hurt my feelings if you are. You got a right to say what you want to be called.”
“No, no, I’m sorry that I ever said that. I didn’t mean it. I know we can’t afford to do all of those things.”
“We can, too,” Harold says. “Not all at once by any means, but we can do those things.”
Patricia wipes her eyes and runs over to hug Harold; Juanita stands there crying, too, wiping her nose on her apron. Harold doesn’t know what in the hell to do. If he had known it was going to be so damned crazy over here, he probably would have stayed over at his crazy Mama’s house. He presses his large hand against Patricia’s back and hugs her.
“Okay, okay,” he says. “That’s enough, now. You’re gonna get snot all over my shirt.”
“Harold!” Juanita says. “You could at least say mucous.”
“Mother, that sounds worse than snot.” Patricia stands up and laughs. “I’m going to go fix that salad now, okay?”
“If you don’t mind,” Juanita says, and watches her walk to the kitchen. Already it looks like those shoulders have straightened up. “Harold, Jr., why don’t you run outside and see if the paper’s been delivered. He nods and goes outside. The screen door slams behind him and he starts singing again.
“You thought that song would get my gut, huh?” He rolls his head to one side in that chair and watches her standing there, that hair so curly and sparkly. “Might as well admit it Juanita Sucks Weeds, I know you like a book.”
“I thought it might make you want to come home, yes.” She goes over and sits on the footstool in front of the window. “I know we can’t do all of that decorating at once, but you just don’t understand why I …”
“I reckon I see what you’re doing.” He shakes his head and takes a big swallow. “We been going round and round and not thinking a thought of those two. We been stupid, Juanita.”
“I know.” She moves over to his chair and kneels right there by his feet. “I want to make it up to them.” She rubs her hands up and down his calves. “I want to make it up to you.”
“Well, that’s gonna take a while.” He shifts his legs around, crosses them and she sits back. “But I reckon it’s best for the kids that I stay here. Else, no telling what you’ll have Harold, Jr., doing, probably have him wearing girl clothes or such.”
“Thank you, Harold,” she says. “It hurts me so bad to think that our children could ever be ashamed of us.”
“Well, they’re not. I mean all children get mad at their parents, but it don’t mean they’d really be ashamed. Ernie Stubbs was ashamed of his Mama. Now, I can’t picture either of ours ever acting that way.”
Juanita is on the verge of telling Harold what she heard today, but she simply can’t bring herself to do it. “Let’s make sure that never happens,” she says and wipes her nose again. “Now, what would you like with the ribs?” She stands up and shakes her hair from side to side.
“I’d like a beer, Nita. I’m gonna sit here and think a little.” That’s the first time that he’s called her Nita in ages and she’d like to run over there right now and kiss that filthy mouth of his as hard as she can. But, no, she can’t push it; he’s gonna make her pay, and she might as well go along with him. It’s a hell of a lot better than having to move out of town.
“I’ll bring you another,” she says, and she doesn’t even tell him not to drink too much, though she hopes with all of her heart that he won’t, considering she’s made a little breakthrough with Patricia. This room does look a little bad, though Juanita had never seen it as being as bad as the picture that Patricia painted for Kate Stubbs. Deep down that’s what bothers Juanita the most, the fact that Patricia never let on to how she felt to her own mother, but instead went to somebody like Kate who already turned her nose up at them. “Oh, that salad looks so good,” she says, and Patricia halfway smiles at her, her eyes still red and a little puffy. “I’m sorry that I slapped your face, Patricia,” she says. “But you know your Daddy isn’t a bad man; he’s a fine man deep inside where it counts.” Patricia swallows hard and her eyes well up all over again. She nods. Juanita goes and gets a beer from the refrigerator, pops it open. “My mother made me the ugliest dress that you’ve ever seen in your life one time. I got up on Easter Sunday and there it was right next to my brother’s basket full of eggs.” Juanita tilts her head to one side and snickers. “It was this purple ruffly dotted swiss dress with a big bow at the neck. I’d much rather had those Easter eggs.”
“What did you do?” Patricia asks and scrapes all the tomatoes she has chopped into the big salad bowl.
“My mother was standing right there when I first saw it and she was so proud of it, said that she had worked for days on that dress while I was in school.” Juanita gets to the door with the beer and stops. “I said that I loved that dress even though I hated it, and I wore it to church that day even though I was scared to death that somebody was gonna say something about it.”
“Did anyone?”
“No, I don’t think it was really as ugly as I saw it, or rather not sticking out like a sore thumb like I imagined.” Juanita laughs again. “The worst part, though, was that it made me feel ashamed of that dress and ashamed of my Mama for choosing such ugly cloth and an ugly pattern, and then I felt so guilty for thinking all of that because I knew that my mother hadn’t meant to hurt me at all. She had wanted to make me happy.” Patricia stares back at her and doesn’t say a word. “I know now that I just should have looked at my Mama and told her that I didn’t like it, but something inside of me kept me from doing it.”
Patricia puts down her knife and steps closer, those shoulders slumping again. Juanita straightens up herself and Patricia gets the hint and stands straight. “You heard what I said today, didn’t you?” Juanita starts to look
confused, starts to shake her head but there is no way to lie her way out of this. She nods her head and Patricia lets out a little sob, pulls up her tee shirt and wipes her nose. “I’m sorry, Mama, I didn’t really mean it.”
“Look at that snot on your shirt, would you?” Juanita puts her hands on Patricia’s shoulders and pushes her back, looks her up and down. “You are gonna be the prettiest flag girl in all of Marshboro! Yes, you are, and what’s more before you start wearing those little suits, I’m gonna thin out that thigh hair for you.”
“Mother!”
“I mean it. You’ll be so glad when you’re out there lifting your legs and such!”
“Juanita, did you forget my beer?” Lord, she’d like to tell that stinking man to come get it himself, but no, gotta make her slave it for awhile.
“I’m coming, honey.”
“Mama, I am sorry that I said all of those things.”
“I know you are,” she says. “I was sorry as hell myself that that dress my Mama made was so ugly. But you know what? That didn’t make it any less ugly, and so sometimes people need to be told the truth.”
“Hey, Juanita!”
“I’m coming!” she yells. “Patricia, why don’t you cut up a few radishes while you’re cutting?” Patricia doesn’t even bitch about that, either. Now all Juanita has to do is get Harold back to where he can trust her, back to where hell say that about the shit and the pony, back to where hell call her cooter clam late at night when just the streetlight shines in their bedroom window.
Granner is fixing to take herself a bubble bath and then put on that new gown and robe that Kate bought for her, though she wouldn’t want Kate to know it, when Pete Tyner and Petie Rose ring her doorbell. Petie is standing out on that porch with the biggest stuffed cat that Granner has ever seen and Pete’s got a grin on his face that goes from ear to ear. Better than that, he’s got a great big pretty present under his arm.
“Look!” Petie Rose screams as soon as Granner opens the door.
“I bet I know what that cat’s name is, too,” Granner says and goes to turn on a lamp. Very rarely does she even need to turn on a lamp in the summertime, because as soon as it gets dark she goes to bed.
“His name is Harold Pete,” Petie Rose says, and goes and crawls up on the couch with that big cat right along with her.
“Well, that’s some name for a cat,” she says.
“Isn’t that a good name?” Pete asks and winks at Granner. “I completely forgot to bring in your present this morning. I’m really sorry about that.”
“No need.” Granner takes the box from him before he even offers it to her. After all, it’s getting late. “Go on and get yourself some cake, Pete.”
“Maybe tomorrow,” he says. “Petie and I just went to Burger King.”
“Me and Harold Pete got a pita,” Petie Rose says.
“A what?”
“It’s like a salad, something new.” Pete goes and sits down. “Open your gift.”
“I can’t keep up with all those new things.” Granner goes and sits in her chair and starts taking the ribbon off slowly. After all, this is the last present that she will open until Christmas. It could be the last one that she ever opens.
“It’s a stove!” Petie screams, and that makes Granner so God blessed mad for somebody to do that to her. Petie is as bad as Kate.
“Not a stove, honey.” Pete comes over now to get in the act. He’s got to take it out of the box for her. “It’s a toaster oven. You see? This way you don’t have to heat up your stove all the time. We’ve got one and it saves on electricity and your kitchen doesn’t get so hot.”
“Well, that’s nice,” Granner says. “That’s a nice gift.” She nods at Pete and motions for Petie Rose to come over so that she can give her a big hug and a kiss. “I’m proud of that boy, Pete. Have you named him?”
“Yes, just now. His name is Brantley Rhett Tyner.” Pete shakes his head and grins that great big grin again. That grin is bigger than Pete’s head near about. “I just left Rose and she’s fine, just fine.”
“She waved to me from the window!” Petie Rose says. “She held up our baby and I held up Harold Pete.”
“Well, that’s fine. What are you going to call him? B. R.?”
“No, I think we’ll call him Brant,” Pete says and Granner has never in her life heard of such. Whatever happened to all those good names like Charlie and Sam or Joe, Gus or Buck? Who in their life ever heard of a baby called Brantley Rhett? Lord, Buck and Jesus are probably mopping up the floor laughing about now. She can just hear Buck’s great big laugh, though she can’t imagine how Jesus’ laugh might sound. She’ll know one of these days soon, though.
“Well, we better go on. It’s about Petie’s bedtime and I know you must be tired, too.” Pete leans down and kisses Granner’s cheek. “We’ve all had a big day, haven’t we?”
“Yessirree.” Granner stands up and walks to the door. “It’s been about the biggest that I can remember. Did Kate and Ernie get to the hospital?”
Pete shakes his head and calls out for Petie to wait for him. “They didn’t get the chance, said they’d be there tomorrow. They sent Rose two dozen red roses, though.”
“Roses for Rosie,” Granner says and laughs, lifts her hand to Pete and then stands there watching them walk across her yard to next door. “You’re the last rose of summer,” Buck used to tell her, which was a nice way to tell her that she was old as a dirt dauber. She shuts the door and locks it tight, turns on her outside floodlights and goes to the bathroom. She is just about to turn on the water and pour in some of that foaming milk bath when the phone rings. If it ain’t somebody at the door, it’s somebody on the phone, and it all comes in one day. Now, she’ll probably go days with hearing from nobody but Harold Weeks. She picks up the receiver and waits. She hears some breathing at first and then she hears him, clear as a bell with that foreign tongue.
“I thought Juanita told you to stop calling me!” she screams, but Mr. Abdul said that he never heard anything of the kind. He says that he wants to know what she is wearing and since Granner didn’t get much of a chance to talk at the party today, she tells him, right down to her new bright fuzzy striped socks and her old terry cloth scuffs. She doesn’t even give Mr. Abdul the chance to ask any more questions because she has got too much to say, and she’s gonna say it even if he is an Iranian. “I got me a new great-grandbaby, today,” she says. “It’s my birthday as well. I’m eighty-three years old, born in nineteen hundred so I’m always the same as the new year, makes it easy to remember, too. This baby’s name is Brantley Rhett Tyner which I don’t like so good; they want to call him Brant and I know if my Buck has heard that that him and Jesus is either laughing or mad about it all. Brant! I never heard such. It’s a Thursday child and that means that he’s got far to go. My daughter Kate Weeks Stubbs was a Wednesday child and you know that’s full of woe and it always has suited her so well. You know that’s why they call them homeless children that they show on the news sometimes, Wednesday’s children, cause they’re woeful. If I was a younger woman and Buck was alive, I’ve thought that I might get me a Wednesday’s child. My son Harold is Saturday, which means he works hard for a living and that fits him as well. What day are you, Mr. Abdul, or do y’all have days over there in Iran? Mr. Abdul?” Granner sits there holding the phone next to her ear and she cannot believe that Mr. Abdul would hang up on her. Well, sir, she ain’t going to be friendly to him one more time. She didn’t even get to tell him that she is a Saturday’s child, which means that she works hard for a living and that’s the gospel, though she always has thought she should have been a Monday’s child because she was so fair of face. There was a time when Irene Turner was the prettiest girl in Flatbridge County, not a soul around could hold a candle to her, and Buck Weeks was smart enough with common sense that he knew a good thing when he saw it. He told her that; though, Lord, if he’s seeing her right now he probably doesn’t think so, with her so old and feeble and withered
up. Jesus is probably saying that he sure doesn’t know what Buck Weeks ever saw in her, and Buck is probably telling him that he should have looked down and paid more attention to Irene Turner about sixty years ago, though Lord knows the Lord has watched over her and blessed her. Buck Weeks says, “She was the most beautiful woman in the whole state, the country even. She was the smartest and the prettiest and the very best in the Christian ways and I never could have found myself a better wife.” Buck says, “Happy birthday, old gal. Goodnight Irene, Goodnight.”
“Night, Buck,” she whispers and goes to run her bath water. “You take care of yourself, you hear?” She brings that pretty new gown set into the bathroom and sits on the commode seat and watches those bubbles sudsing up in a pretty blue color. “Buck? Don’t y’all watch me take my clothes off. You wouldn’t want to see me now, yourself. My body has lost its fairness as much as my face.” She steps into that hot water and it feels so good. It’s just what an old woman needs to get her circulation going full blast; that’s all that she needs.
7
Fannie McNair takes herself a swig of that brandy before she pours it all over that flin, flun, flan, whatever that dessert is. Lord knows, she deserves a little taste of something to keep her going and to get her through this night. People are just starting to arrive and already she has rewashed dishes, fixed Parker and Billy something to eat, finished that knick-knack tray, and filled up what seems like a hundred tiki torches to go around that pool. Now she smells like a kerosene stove, and if it weren’t for M. L. she’d probably have the mind to go stand on that diving board, take a match to herself and flame up just like that dessert is going to do. She’d like to see the faces of all those dressed-up people when they saw her out on that board burning slam up.
“Oh, Fannie, everything is going smoothly.” Mrs. Foster glances at the clock and then looks at herself in the window and fluffs her hair a little. “Everyone is enjoying the cocktail hour so much that we may extend it just a speck, okay?”
July 7th Page 28
