Scrapbook of Secrets (4 page)

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Authors: Mollie Cox Bryan

BOOK: Scrapbook of Secrets
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Chapter 4
After the squeaky police officer left the hospital room, a team of nurses came in. One took Bea’s pulse; the others were poking her with an IV needle.
“Guess, I’ll be going to sleep now,” Beatrice said. “When I wake up, I’ll be a new woman—sans knife.”
Vera harrumphed. She should have known her mother would agree to the operation when Vera said it was fine not to do so.
“Vera, you better get down to the studio. Don’t you have a class to teach this evening?” Beatrice managed to say.
“I put a notice up on the door,” Sheila said. “It’ll be fine. Don’t you worry,” she said more to Vera than to Bea. “I’ll go get us some coffee.”
“Hey,” said Bea. “If anything happens to me—”
But Sheila kept walking. “I won’t hear of it, you old bat.”
But she caught her daughter’s eye as Sheila walked out. “You know where all my papers are,” she said.
“Yes.”
Was that all it had come to? Vera’s stomach churned. Her life, her life with her mother, her mother’s life? A box of paper in a fireproof safe? Hidden in the basement closet? Was she not going to speak to her of love? Of the past? Of her father?
Her mother’s face suddenly softened, the lines almost fading. “I’m an old fool,” she said. “And where is your father? I cried about the beauty shop. It’s closing.... Things have a way of changing before you know it.... I do love you, Vera, even if you are getting fat.... Ha! My fat little ballerina ... ,” she said, and seemed to fall asleep.
Vera laughed. “I love you, too, Mama.”
Vera had made up her mind to stop dieting last year. She decided to become a better role model for her students—and there was just no point in starving herself any longer. She would never be a ballerina. She had been on a diet for more than thirty years—after her dance teacher made a remark about her thighs when Vera was ten years old.
Forget her. I am not starving anymore.
It was so freeing.
 
 
The first thing she ate—really ate with abandon—was her mother’s blackberry cobbler. Not a piece of cobbler, but the whole thing.
She sat at her mother’s 1950s chrome-and-turquoise Formica kitchen table set—the same table from which she had eaten almost every meal when she was a girl—and ate a piece while it was still fresh out of the oven.
“Do you have any vanilla ice cream, Ma?”
“Huh? Yeah, sure,” answered Beatrice, who was visibly taken aback by her daughter’s sudden love of blackberry cobbler.
“I have always loved it, Ma,” Vera said, as if reading her mind. “I just was always watching my weight. And I figure, well, what’s the point?”
Vera then ate a slice covered with vanilla ice cream. Real ice cream—for her mother never bought anything low fat or low carb or low sugar. She almost fainted at the creaminess, the mixture of textures and temperatures in her mouth. The next piece was covered with a dollop of whipped cream, while her mother tried to look busy wiping off a nonexistent crumb from the teal-speckled Formica counter, not wanting to stare at her only child as she seemed to be enjoying a private moment with the cobbler.
As Vera relished each bite—the mixture of the gritty and gelatinous mingled with sweet, juicy berries, covered with a light but substantial crust—her mother gave up her stance and watched intently. Her mouth hung open after Vera’s fourth piece.
She handed her the pan. “Here, baby, this is the best way. Have at it,” she said, and left Vera alone with the blackberry cobbler. Later she explained that she felt it was the only proper thing to do.
After all, Vera had not touched cobbler, pie, or cake since she was ten years old.
So Vera had put on about twenty pounds. But it was a good gain. She had more breasts and hips and thighs than ever before. And she loved her body. It was hers, and it did everything it was supposed to do, and more. She rewarded it often with good chocolate—preferably fresh and artisanal. She was still a graceful woman and dancer, even with the extra twenty pounds, and she was a happier person.
 
 
Vera caught a view of her blond hair in the mirror above the sink in her mother’s hospital room.
Maybe it’s too blond this time,
she thought. But she loved the way it looked with her bright fuchsia lipstick and blue eyeliner. Maybe next time, she’d go red. She loved her red hair with the blue eyeliner. She never left her home unless completely made-up—and then some.
Sheila could use some color in her hair. Vera tried to sway her for years to go blond or red, but Sheila wouldn’t hear of it.
“I don’t have time to keep up with such nonsense,” Sheila would say.
“It’s all about priorities,” Vera often said back. “I want to look good, don’t you?”
“Sure. I’m clean. My hair is combed, most of the time. Sometimes I put a little lipstick on. But to have to run back and forth all the time to get my hair colored, you know, to keep up with it? Nah.”
Sheila always was that way. Vera remembered all through high school, Sheila never wore a bit of makeup. But then again, she was an athlete and a budding young artist, and just had a different sensibility than Vera had. But they knew each other since before they could walk—their mothers were good friends and neighbors.
When Vera thought of Sheila’s mother, her heart sank. If she thought hard enough, she’d sit here and cry. Poor Gerty died a horrible death, racked with cancer, which started in her breasts. She wondered if Sheila had gotten over the anger she felt about that.
“The old fool never had a mammogram in her life!” Sheila had spat through tears. “She refused. So, of course ... it’s too late.”
Too late
. Beatrice had mouthed those same words to her as she exited Gerty’s hospital room, tears forming in pools in her gray eyes. Suddenly Vera saw her mother’s age, her deep creases around her eyes and mouth and on her forehead. Most of the time, Beatrice’s age hardly showed at all—or at least not that Vera had noticed.
Funny how people’s looks changed, sometimes almost momentarily. For an instant, today, Beatrice’s face looked almost childlike, and Vera had caught a glimpse of her own mother’s vulnerability.
Chapter 5
“Why don’t you go out, anyway?” Mike said to Annie as they were clearing away the supper dishes.
Annie leaned against the counter and crossed her arms. “I’m not sure where I’d go.”
She thought momentarily of the mall. It would be nice to shop without the kids along—but it would also be nice to shop if she had more than fifty dollars in the bank. Movies? Nah, nothing she wanted to see bad enough to spend the money on.
Just then a crash came from the other room—where both of the boys were. Annie and Mike ran into the room to find the boys were into the box of pictures that she so carefully gathered and labeled. Pictures were scattered across the carpeted floor and the furniture. Ben looked sheepishly at them, while Sam danced around with the box on his head.
Annie’s stomach twisted. She worked on gathering and organizing those photos for weeks. “Ben! Sam! Damn it!” she roared, lurching forward and gathering the crumpled pictures, with tears falling from her as if someone had died. She knew she was overreacting. A part of her seemed to be watching herself. She gathered the pictures, sobbing. “I can’t believe it,” she cried. “Look at this!”
Mike rounded up the boys and took them into their room. Annie saw her hands shaking as she lifted her treasured photos off the worn couch. She took a deep breath.
How did the boys get the box?
She had left it on top of the TV stand. Then she saw the chair behind the stand. As she placed the pictures in the now-disorganized box, she turned to face her husband.
“Hey,” he said, with his dark eyebrows lifted, “you need to take a deep breath. You scared the boys half to death.”
“I’ve been working on this for weeks.”
“I know, but still, you lost your temper.”
Next she was in his arms, sobbing. What was wrong with her? The boys were always into everything. This was really nothing new. What was different? She was disappointed at not getting to go out. Then she read the awful online report about Maggie Rae—a woman she saw around town a few times and had hoped to get to know better. A stay-at-home mom, like she was.
Maggie Rae was always alone with her kids. When Annie first glimpsed Maggie Rae, she wondered if she even had a husband. She was surprised later on to find out she did. It was jarring to read about her, so alone in this town, and driven to kill herself. God, she lived just down the street, and Annie never heard a gun go off, never knew her neighbor was in such emotional turmoil.
What could make a person do it? She looked up at her husband and took another deep breath. “Being a stay-at-home mom is harder than I thought it would be.”
Her eyes met his watery brown ones.
He gently stroked her hair. “I know.”
“Maybe I should go out for a walk,” she said. “Or better yet, I’ll go to the hospital to see how Vera’s mom is doing. I’ll bring flowers.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” Mike said. “But first—” He placed his lips on hers and held her firmly; then he cradled her chin in his hands. “Mmm. I love you. That woman, that Maggie, if you ever feel—”
“I’ll let you know. I promise. But for now, I need to go and say good-bye to the boys.”
She cracked open the door—as she often did, just to watch the boys while they didn’t know she was watching—they were both coloring while lying on their stomachs. Ben’s elbows formed triangles against the blue carpet. Sam was so intent on staying in the lines; his tangled dark brown hair was in desperate need of a good brushing.
“Boys,” she said in a low voice. They both looked up at her and dropped their crayons. She sat on the corner of the toddler bed. “I wanted to tell you both that I’m sorry I yelled.”
“Why did you yell?” Sam asked. “We just wanted to look at the pictures.”
“Those pictures are very special to me,” she said, and paused. “It’s like your blankies. You know how it’s hard to share them sometimes?”
“It’s okay, Mommy,” Ben said, and hugged her.
“It’s okay,” Sam said almost at the same time—and then both boys were in her arms. Warm boys. Her boys. Flesh of my flesh.
“Well, now, I’m going out for a while. Will you be good boys for Daddy?”
They both nodded their heads.
 
 
After the gift shop soaked her for thirty dollars for a small flower arrangement, Annie walked over to the information desk to see where Vera and her mom might be.
“Excuse me, please. Where might I find Beatrice Matthews?”
“Now, let’s see.” The receptionist looked at Annie through thick glasses, and then turned to her computer. “Room one-thirteen.”
“Thanks,” Annie said.
“Sure thing, hon,” she said in a warm voice as she looked back to her computer screen. Annie could hear her fingernails clicking on the keys. Why didn’t she cut those nails? How could she stand that?
Saturday night at the hospital: Annie noticed clusters of people around chairs. Some were sitting; some were standing. Others were drinking coffee and soda, eating snack machine potato chips. The very worst food for stress, Annie thought. She saw room numbers on the sign up ahead, with arrows pointing in both directions. She at least could still follow directions, she mused as she walked down the long hallway with barn paintings on either side of her.
Don’t these people ever get enough of barn art? As if there aren’t plenty of barns to look at in person, they have to have paintings everywhere with barns in them.
Her tennis shoes squeaked on the shiny floor as she turned the corner. Standing five-nine, Annie used to wear pretty little flats with her business suits. Flats that didn’t squeak on shiny floors—but these days, she was all about the sneakers and blue jeans. A brief flash of her old closet in D.C. came to her mind—all of the designer flats she had donned were lined up neatly. The Guccis were her favorite.
She thought she heard music as she approached room 113 and knocked lightly on the door. Vera answered.
“Well, hello, Annie. How lovely to see you,” she said, with a huge smile on her face.
Annie thought she smelled wine. As the door opened, she could see why. Four women were scattered through the room—each held a glass of wine, and one was pouring more. A huge platter of cheese and dark bread sat on the bedside table; a basket of muffins sat on the other side. One woman was reaching for the biggest blueberry muffin Annie had ever seen—not much smaller than Ben’s head.
“Mama is still in surgery,” Vera said as she grabbed Annie’s hands. “Let me introduce you. Well, now. You know Sheila.”
Vera moved her arm with the grace of a dancer—even now, in the hospital room, looking slightly haggard, she still held herself with such elegance.
“How are you?” Sheila came up to her and took the flowers out of her hand. Annie had never noticed how small and thin Sheila was. “Let’s see where we can put this. Oh, there’s a little space on the window shelf over there.”
Annie was shocked at how many flowers and plants were in the room. She smiled.
“This is Paige. She teaches history over at the high school,” Vera said, opening her arm to a slender, shaggy-haired blonde, with huge blue eyes, wearing a green tie-dyed T-shirt, which was a bit too tight and revealed an ample, freckled chest. The name “Paige” somehow didn’t suit. Annie had always thought of a “Paige” as having a more classic look. She looked more like a “Willow” or a “Star.” Annie shook her cool hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Likewise,” Paige said, turning back to the cheese plate. “Help yourself to some food.”
“I will, and thank you,” Annie said.
“And this is DeeAnn,” Vera said. “Owner of DeeAnn’s Bakery in town. Ever been there?”
“Oh, yes,” Annie said, politely shaking her hand. “Very good bread.”
“Thanks, but you need to try these blueberry muffins. I hired an intern and she just seems to have a way with the muffins. Good God, I can’t get enough of them,” she said.
She looked like a baker, Annie mused. Large, but not really fat; more muscular, with a little extra on those muscles. Huge hands and her forearms were sort of sculpted. Veins were popping out.
“Mama loves Vivaldi, you see,” Vera told her as she walked over to the boom box sitting on the floor. “We thought it would be nice for her to wake up to it.”
For such an event, Annie thought Vera would be a mess, but her blond hair was neatly brushed in its pageboy style and her makeup was flawless—of course, to Annie’s taste, it was a bit too much. The dark eyeliner, rouge, and lipstick looked a little like stage makeup.
“Now that you’ve met the scrapbook club, have a seat,” Sheila said, pulling up a chair and looking quite a mess, mousey brown hair barely combed, lipstick carelessly splashed on. “Oh, and have some pie. Do you want chocolate or apple?”
“Chocolate,” she replied. “Are we allowed to have wine in here?”
Vera shrugged. “I don’t see why not. We didn’t ask permission. Why would we?”
Annie sat in the chair and looked around at the group of women. For the first time since she had moved to Cumberland Creek, she felt the possibilities.

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