Dearest Dorothy, Merry Everything!

by Charlene Baumbich

  “Who do you think I learned this from?” Steven said, dipping his icing-smeared finger into his mouth. Dorothy took the plate and with one slick move swiped the entire edge of the frosting off the cake and onto her pinky. She’d scalped it clean as a whistle. She held up her stealth conquest and pointed it at Vinnie. “Yeah! Where do you think he learned that?” The giant wad of icing started to slide off her finger and she rushed it into her mouth in the nick of time. They all cracked up laughing, Dorothy laughing so hard she had to struggle to keep from spewing the entire mouthful. Sheba was already lapping up the remaining smear of icing from her owner’s hand.

  “Mom,” Jacob said sternly, trying to sound reprimanding, “look what you’re teaching my nephews!” He scruffed Steven on the head, then stepped over his mother’s extended legs to bonk Bradley who launched off the couch and grabbed his uncle’s right hand before it could land on the crown of his head.

  “Think I’m old and strong enough to take you yet, Uncle Jacob? Huh? Huh?” No need to explain the implication; some Wetstra traditions needed no words. In a wink they were both sprawled head-to-head on the floor on their bellies, left forearms supporting their upper bodies, right elbows on the floor, right hands linked in an arm-wrestling lock. Vinnie settled into Bradley’s vacated spot on the couch to watch the competition. Sheba jumped off Dorothy’s lap assuming the boys were on the floor to play with her and they had to tell her to get back in Grandma’s lap, which she did.

  “Sheba,” Dorothy said, “first they tuck me in so tightly I can’t move, then they sequester you. I bet they’re afraid we could whip ’em if we had the chance! Or are they worried we might turn their challenge into tag-team wrestling like we saw on the television the other night?”

  “Oh, like that would ever happen,” Steven said with a laugh.

  “You think not?” Dorothy asked, wearing a devilish grin. “Well then, you haven’t seen The Dreaded Dorothy and Sheba the Wonderlick in action! Let’s sick ’em, Wonderlick!” she said, launching a surprised Sheba toward her son. “You get Vinnie and I’ll take Steven!” As if Sheba understood English, and most in Partonville thought she did, she began licking Vinnie on the chin while Dorothy started tickling Steven under the arms.

  “All right, you three . . . four,” Jacob added when Sheba started barking. “We’re the show here.”

  “On the count, Uncle Jacob,” Bradley said. “Ready, set . . .”

  “GO!” Jacob shouted before the count was over. In one swift move he’d pinned Bradley’s hand to the floor at the same moment Steven yelped “I GIVE!” so his grandmother would stop the tickling. Since he was a baby, he’d been rendered powerless by her tickling attacks.

  “No fair! No fair! ” Bradley protested to his Uncle Jacob.

  “You see, Bradley, it doesn’t matter if you’re old and strong enough, it only matters if I’m still smart enough,” Jacob retorted.

  “Out of the way, son,” Vinnie said as he set Sheba back in Dorothy’s lap. None too gracefully (he definitely wasn’t in his brother’s hard-body shape), he lowered himself to the floor and positioned himself in front of Jacob as Bradley rolled aside. “Let me show you what Mr. Smarter Than looks like when pitted against He Who Thinks He’s Smart Enough.”

  “Now boys,” Dorothy said trying to stifle a grin and sound commanding, “no roughhousing inside.” She wondered how many times throughout their youth she’d uttered those words. Funny, Lord, how a thing you most want to end eventually does, and then you miss it. Thank You for these memories, both the oldies and the ones being formed right this second.

  Jacob and Vinnie locked arms and rocked their stretched bodies until they were balanced and settled on their bracing forearms. Jacob looked over his shoulder at his mom. “I assure you, our dear mother, you were heard but shall be completely ignored. Besides, this will not be roughhousing; this will be another swift defeat.” Sheba let out one loud bark as though to reprimand him. Jacob turned back toward his brother, whose face wasn’t more than a foot from his own. They locked eyes. “Somebody give us the count.” But before the last word was out of Jacob’s mouth, Vinnie had made his move. After fifty-plus years of brotherhood, Jacob had anticipated just that and was prepared for the challenge. What Vinnie perceived to be his jump, Jacob—who spent hours in the gym every week—quickly made up for in reflexes and conditioning.

  But Vinnie wouldn’t go down as easily as Jacob thought. After all, his sons were watching and he didn’t want to get shown up in front of them, especially by his own brother. Although the wrestlers continued to smile, their fun game soon turned For Real, as they used to call it in their “dare you, double-dare you” days. It wasn’t long before Vinnie’s face was red and Jacob’s chiding voice revealed a tad of shortness in his breath, which made Vinnie smile through his gritted teeth.

  “Don’t you boys hurt yourselves now,” Dorothy said. She’d moved the footstool aside and leaned forward to watch, half-eaten piece of cake still on the plate in her hands, Sheba keeping a close eye on it. “You’ll like to give yourselves hernias!” The boys now flanked their dad on the floor, as though their presence could infuse him with their youthful strength. “If you all knock yourselves silly down there, then what? The new doctor in town doesn’t make house calls, and old Doc Nielson sure couldn’t get you up off the floor. I’ll have to call 911 for the whole lot of you!”

  “Don’t worry, Grandma,” Bradley said, “this’ll be over in a minute. Dad’s about to take him.”

  “Come on, Dad!” Steven shouted, slapping his palm on the carpet. “Show him what you got!” Vinnie’s only response was to grunt. Jacob smiled. He knew Vinnie was running out of gas, and yet, the cheers of his sons spurred him on to fight the fight with all his might.

  Three against one, Jacob thought, all three whom he loved. Strength in numbers, he mused just before the pang arrived: with no family of his own, who was there to root for him? Such an odd thought out of nowhere, and in the middle of a game. The residue of the emotion drove straight into his forearm (he’d long ago learned to disperse hard emotions into physicality) and he unquestionably knew the moment had arrived when he could take his brother, no matter how many people were on his team.

  But he didn’t.

  In the midst of “COME ON, DAD! HE’S FADING! YOU GOT HIM!” Jacob started to grunt and groan. In a sudden shudder of surrender, he allowed Vinnie to crash his hand to the floor. The boys went wild cheering as they piled on their dad in a victory tumble. Jacob rolled onto his back and huffed and puffed, partly for real.

  Vinnie raised his arm high in the air, fist balled. “Oh, Victory! How sweet your rewards!”

  “I’ll take you next time, bro,” Jacob said, his momentary pang of hollowness quickly lost in the triumphant joy of his brother and nephews. “Just wait and see.”

  Dorothy laughed at the sight of them. Here were her two men-children nearly head-to-head down on their backs, talking to each other while they faced the ceiling, her grandsons’ gangly limbs flailing here and there as they punched the air and touted their father’s “Victory!”

  After the celebration ended, the boys crawled up off the floor and reclaimed their seats on the couch, but not before tucking Dorothy back in and once again propping her feet up on the footstool.

  “Who were you rooting for, Grandma?” Bradley, the younger of the two, asked as he threw his arm over her shoulder.

  “Now, how could I pick one of my own sons over the other, huh? It would be like having to choose one of you!” She looked from Bradley to Steven, then back again.

  “Yeah, but wasn’t Dad something?” Steven asked, gently elbowing her.

  “He certainly was. He certainly was.”

  “He was too much for me,” Jacob said as he sat up with a groan and caught his mother’s eye.

  She winked at him, and he knew she knew he’d thrown the match. His entire life she’d been able to detect when he was telling a whopper, when he was sad even though he was laughing, when he was tenderhear
ted even when he often sounded so gruff. She’d always been able to read him, his “hidden” feelings revealing themselves to her as though he were a neon sign.

  2

  Even though Katie was bone tired, she was restless, fidgeting up and down out of her cushy chair to get a drink of water, find another magazine, retrieve a slice of lemon for her water, jot a few more notes about her new business venture, look out the front window again (Come on, Josh! You should be home by now!), check the clock again (9:05 P.M.), plop back down and begin the cycle—again. It had been a long day.

  When she’d phoned her friend Jessica at noon to see how she was feeling—early pregnancy playing havoc with her stomach and energy—Jessica had sounded like she was holding tight to her last drop of sanity. Sarah Sue was cranking at the top of her five-month-old lungs in the background. Paul was torn between trying to help Jessica clean the rooms at their little motel and calming their teething daughter. Katie, happy for something to do, decided to offer her assistance (not that she had ever in her life stooped to anything like cleaning hotel rooms—nor was she about to do that now) by coming over and entertaining Sarah Sue so her parents could finish their tasks and maybe have a moment to rest, regain their sanity. Then for the umpteenth time that weekend she’d remembered she didn’t have a car; Josh had taken it to Chicago. Just like when your electricity is out and you keep mindlessly flipping on the light switches, she thought. She was stranded out in the country several miles from being able to help anyone. “Let me phone Dorothy’s,” she’d said, after having vocalized her DUH of a moment. “Maybe one of her sons or grandsons can come get me, bring me over.”

  “That’s a really sweet offer, Katie, and I thank you for it,” Jessica said, “but we’ll make it. We always do. Besides, Dorothy doesn’t get to visit with her family very often; let’s not tear any of them away over a few unmade beds.”

  “You’re probably right. But this really has me thinking. Josh has been bugging me for a car and I’ve been holding strong against it, but I’m beginning to wonder if it’s maybe time. Single parenting has so many drawbacks, and I guess making solo decisions and being stranded alone are just a couple more on the long list. Now I know how Josh feels out here on the farm when I’m gone with the SUV for the evening. You’d think after all these years of the two of us being on our own, I’d be better at this.”

  “Well, owning a car is a big responsibility, Katie. Don’t beat yourself up. I think you’re right to move slowly with that decision. Plus I can’t even imagine how much the insurance must cost you for a teen driver, let alone doubling that with another car! Isn’t it more for boys, too?”

  “Let me assure you, I am paying a bundle.” In the background Katie heard a motel guest asking Paul a question and realized she was holding up the Joys’ progress. “I’m hanging up now, Jessica. I’m sorry for taking this much of your time. The longer I keep you on the phone listening to me whine, whine, whine, the less you’re getting done.”

  “I really do have to go, Katie. But now I feel like I’m abandoning you in your hour of need.”

  “You know what Dorothy would say about my hour of need, don’t you?”

  “What?”

  “Pish-posh.” Their chuckling helped lighten their spirits, even if only the slightest bit. After their quick good-byes, without another thought Katie dialed Dorothy’s number. Couldn’t hurt to just ask Dorothy if she’d mind if someone gave her a ride.

  “Wetstras,” the male voice said.

  Katie had been expecting Dorothy to answer and she had no idea which of her sons or grandsons might be on the other end of the line. Although Jacob’s voice was somewhat lower than Vinnie’s, they were similar. And boys, well, at their ages of development, they could sometimes sound like anyone from the father to the baby sister. “This is Katie Durbin. Who am I speaking with, please?”

  “Katie Durbin, I recognized your voice. This is Jacob.”

  “Hello, Jacob. Is your mother there?”

  “Nice chatting with you, too,” he said dryly. But she neither heard him calling his mother nor the clunky sounds one usually hears when someone’s passing off the phone.

  Katie didn’t know Jacob very well. She had a hard time telling when or even if he was kidding, that is unless she could see his bright, warm smile which didn’t seem to appear very often, at least when she was around. He was a high-powered attorney and pretty much sounded like one at all times. They’d gotten off on the wrong foot when they’d first met, Jacob not trusting Katie and Katie resenting him for it. They’d ultimately settled into a wary truce before he headed back to Philadelphia after coming to Partonville to help his mother with her auction. A couple months later she’d enjoyed the company of both the Wetstra brothers at the Thanksgiving dinner at United Methodist Church, and she and Jacob had gotten along fine during Dorothy’s birthday party yesterday. He’d seemed a little different to her from that last visit, less edgy. But today, here he was on the other end of the phone line somehow making her feel guilty for not chatting it up with him.

  “Has everyone recuperated from Thanksgiving and the big birthday party yesterday?” she asked, attempting to engage in polite conversation.

  “I think so. But we’re just taking it easy anyway. Josh home yet?”

  “No, he’s not due until this evening. I’ll be glad when he arrives.”

  “Yes, I bet you will.”

  Silence. Katie heard what sounded like dice rolling in the background, then she heard Dorothy laugh, one of the guys counting, “three,” more rolling dice, “four . . .”

  “Bunco?” Katie asked.

  “How’d you guess?”

  Flat. His tone of voice was absolutely flat. Was he kidding? Being sarcastic? Just asking?

  “The counting. I heard the counting and the sound of the dice bouncing on the table.”

  “Oh, that’s right. You’re a Happy Hooker now, too, aren’t you?”

  “I can tell you I never thought I’d hear myself answering yes to that question!” He didn’t exactly laugh, but she heard his muffled chuckle.

  “No, I don’t imagine you did. And you also can’t imagine how odd it is to say your mother is a Happy Hooker and be . . . happy about it.” Katie burst into laughter. “But sometimes it’s just more fun not to explain the whole ‘they used to hook rugs and thus the name’ story. Gives folks something to fret about. Everybody needs more to fret about these days, don’t you think?”

  “Hey, I’ve got my hands full waiting for Joshua to return from Chicago, thank you very much. Sometimes I wonder what I was thinking, letting him set out alone at sixteen.”

  “Right.”

  Is he affirming my worry or my stupidity?

  More silence.

  “So, you want to talk to my mom. I’ll see if I can tear her away from the action. Since I’m not playing—it’s Mom and Vinnie against the boys—I guess I could offer to sit in for her turn while you ladies catch up on whatever might have happened since . . . yesterday.”

  Just when she’d conclude he had a dry sense of humor, he didn’t sound funny at all. Sarcastically rude was more like it. What was up with him!

  “Actually, I was going to ask her a favor. But now . . . You know, don’t bother her.”

  “Nonsense. Mom,” Jacob said without covering the mouthpiece, “it’s Katie. I’ll roll for you.” Just like that, he had neither honored her request to not bother his mother, nor had he said good-bye. It flicked through her mind that Dorothy’d once told her he’d never married. She said he’d come close a couple times, but just when everyone thought he’d be popping the question he’d either find something wrong with the woman or things just seemed to fall apart. Maybe the women got tired of trying to figure him out.

  “Katie! I’m glad to hear from you! Did Josh make it home okay?”

  “No, he’s not due back until this evening.”

  “In that case, how’d you like to come over and play a few rounds of bunco with us while you wait? We were just about
to make popcorn.”

  Katie heard a male voice counting in the background, a tone of high-pitched exaggeration lacing the words. “One-sy! Two-sy!” She heard the sound of shaking then rolling dice. “Three-sy . . .”

  “Uncle Jacob!” one of the boys yelped. “Do you think you’re a Happy Hooker now?” Everyone including Dorothy was now laughing at his antics.

  Jessica was right, Katie thought. She shouldn’t interrupt their family time. “Thank you for the invite, but I don’t have a car.”

  “For goodness sakes, of course you don’t! What’s wrong with me?” Someone shouted BUNCO! in the background. Dorothy laughed again. “How about I send a runner to come get you?”

  After a brief argument with herself as to whether or not to even bring up Jessica, Katie plowed ahead and explained the situation. She knew Dorothy adored Jessica, too.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Dorothy said, “I’ll send Jacob Henry right over to pick you up and run you over to the Lamp Post. Maybe he can give the Joys a hand, too. To be honest, bunco isn’t really his thing, or so he tells us. Nonetheless, he just rolled one!”

  “That’s not necessary, Dorothy!” Katie said, more emphatically than she intended.

  “Don’t be silly. He’s been antsy today anyway. Besides, I don’t need him here stealing my bunco thunder. Nobody will want me for a partner again if he sticks around with those hot rolling fingers! Get your coat on, he’ll be right over. Good-bye, dear.”

  Dorothy set the receiver in the cradle and turned to look at Jacob, who was giving her his squinty evil eye, the same look he used to give her as an obstinate five-year-old. Obviously he’d overheard her conversation.

  Sarah Sue stopped squawking the moment Paul released her into Katie’s open arms. What was it about fresh arms that so often quieted a baby’s cranking?