Stirring It Up with Molly Ivins (39 page)

37

HOPE REYNA
.

Where to start?

What to say?

Hope was probably as close to Molly as anyone—maybe closer than most. By the time Molly died, Hope had been with her for almost a quarter century. Hope was there during Nadine Eckhardt's tenure as Molly's first official assistant and through all successive ones.

Over the years Molly realized she needed help managing her schedule, which, with the success of her first book, became ridiculously demanding. Riding to her rescue was a series of steady assistants—Nadine, Liz Faulk, Betsy Moon, and Mike Smith (who in 2009, with author Bill Minutaglio, coauthored
Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life
), all of whom miraculously got Molly to the airport almost always on time. Getting Molly to the airport, or anywhere else, on time merited hazardous duty pay.

Betsy's six-year tenure was the last—and longest—unbroken stretch of Molly management and the most taxing. Keeping Molly on track, as old-timers say, was more than a notion. Betsy's responsibilities included navigating Molly's propensity for making flights just as the doors were closing; making sure Molly had the appropriate text for her multiple and varied speaking engagements, whether in or out of town; organizing breakfast, lunch, brunch, and dinner schedules; holding Molly to deadlines for syndicated and other columns she wrote for various publications; and later, managing her rigorous medical regimen. When neuropathy made it almost impossible for Molly to type, she dictated and Betsy typed. We looked on and marveled at Moon Management.

When Molly insisted on honoring a speaking engagement despite faltering stamina, it was Betsy who quietly rearranged her life to factor in as much rest as possible. When Molly became too weak to travel alone, Betsy rode shotgun. There was decreasing light at the end of the tunnel, yet Betsy continually dodged the oncoming train.

But Hope. God Almighty. Hope didn't just keep Molly's house in order; she was the Mussolini of housekeeping. She had an almost mystical ability to enter a kitchen that was in astounding disarray and, within minutes, transform it into a room suitable for making a brand-new mess.

Neither Molly nor I thought anything of having a dinner party for eight on Friday evening, a barbecue for twelve on Saturday, and late breakfast on Sunday for six or so. We had Hope. This mad round of cook-and-eat-and-cook-and-eat-and-cook-and-eat-some-more didn't always make sense, but it made as much sense as trying to make me believe a giant fish leapt up and gobbled a lure in midair.

Hope would walk into the house, look at the kitchen, look at me, heave a sigh, and work Reyna magic. I'd retreat to my room with a book until the kitchen was quiet. Molly hid from her, too. We never realized how much mess we'd made until cooking and eating were over and done with.

On her way out the door Hope would shout, “Try to keep it that way until I get home!” She lived a block away. Then she'd look toward Molly's room. “Have you lost anything you need me to find before I go?”

Hope knew when Molly would need to find keys before Molly knew they were missing. “Hopester,” Molly would intone, in that voice that signaled something was not findable. That was all she had to say.

“On the kitchen counter, near where you left your coffee.”

“How'd it get there?”

“You were about to order something online when the phone rang and you put the credit card down to answer the phone in the kitchen. You were in the kitchen to check the spice rack you wanted to buy as a housewarming gift for somebody. The phone rang. You put the card down.”

Molly loved to shop online, and she especially loved shopping for kitchen-related exotica of any kind. Anyone who knew her also knew the perfect gift for her was something with either practical or no utilitarian value.

Scales? She baked. Reasonable.

Digital thermometer? She roasted great hunks of meat. Okay.

Cherry pitter? Okay. For the
clafouti
. Got it.

Zesters? Whisks? Graters? Peelers? Fine. But an avocado masher? Tomato holder? Shrimp deveiner? Corn stripper? Onion goggles? Electric salt and pepper mills?

The crème brûlée torch made sense; Molly actually made a lovely crème brûlée. And I must admit to getting a kick out of the egg topper—a truncated scissors-like device used for clipping off and removing the pointy end of a soft-boiled egg. I sometimes think Molly served soft-boiled eggs just so she could do the snip-'n'-spoon-the-egg thing. Of course, she had a set of small spoons for scooping out the egg—all of which struck me as some form of Houston-induced affectation, which of course, it was—but at least it was for fun.

I still think she fabricated the business about planning to buy a combination bread- and coffeemaker just to hear my tirade about what a totally dumb idea it was.

Molly loved an honest-to-goodness chili supper beer blast, but she had just as much fun with the silliness that others took seriously. Those of us who went along for the ride learned what an oyster plate (which more often doubled as a deviled-egg plate) was for, whether we liked it or not.

Once she tried to incorporate as much over-the-top stuff as she could into a single dinner party: individual salt cellars with itty-bitty sterling silver salt spoons (one of which became an itty-bitty spoon sculpture after it fell into the garbage disposal); asparagus tongs that left all but one guest completely bumfuddled (when you see these by your plate—and may you never—wait for someone else to use them, then nonchalantly follow suit); finger bowls (that no one drank from); and demitasse spoons, none of which went into the disposal and none of which were confused with dessert spoons.

More often than not, she'd start out buying some novel piece of kitchen paraphernalia for someone, but end up buying one for herself as well. Why else would she have the Dean & Deluca French
and
Italian spice collection in addition to rows of alphabetized herbs and spices sequestered in her kitchen pantry?

Hope met Molly through Shelia Cheaney. Like a lot of professional women, Shelia doesn't have the time (or, let's face it, the inclination) to work seventy to eighty hours a week, cook, and clean house. At one point, however, she was between jobs and had to reduce Hope's working hours. Hope, a single mother with four children, one of whom is disabled, needed all the income she could earn.

At the time Molly was living with Shit—the dog, not a hygienic abomination. Molly, who has never been known as anybody's domestic goddess, would later insist that “everyone needs a wife, or at least Hope.”

Hope went to work for Molly when Molly was living a tiny two-story town-house in South Austin and writing for the
Dallas Times Herald
. When it folded, Hope stayed on, first as an every-other-week housekeeper.

When Molly signed her contract for
Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?,
she got enough of an advance that she could make a down payment on the bungalow in Travis Heights. “When she first looked at the house the price was too high and she wouldn't buy it,” Hope said. “Then it vanished from the listings. Molly assumed it had been sold. Later, she saw it was on the market again at almost half the original price. I remember Molly saying, ‘I'm gonna pack up all my stuff.' I looked at her and said, ‘What stuff? You don't have anything worth moving.'

“Once the requisite papers were signed, movers were supposed to come on Monday and didn't,” Hope continued. “I went back the next day and the movers didn't come again. On the third day, I called Molly, who was out of town, and said, ‘They still aren't here; what am I supposed to do?'

“That's when she told me: she had bought a bunch of furniture and it was coming from Italy. It was a kinda like ‘oh and by the way, the furniture's coming from Italy,' you know, like it was no big deal. Like everybody bought furniture from Italy.

“So every day for five days I went to her house and sat and waited for this leather couch and fancy cobalt blue buffet. Then for all that, when it arrived it was broken in two or three places.”

It wasn't just that Hope maintained order. Until I got to know Hope, I wondered how Molly managed to produce columns for
Mother Jones
and the
Nation
, write books, travel to give speeches, and still find time for grocery shopping.

She didn't. Hope did. In time the Hopester had her own credit card to Molly-shop.