The Future Homemakers of America (21 page)

First thing Gayle said when she got in my car was, ‘Peg. I'm drinking.’

I said, ‘Okay. I like a drink myself.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I mean I'm really drinking.’

I didn't know what to say.

She said, ‘I don't get drunk or anything. I won't do anything to scandalise Betty. But I have liquor in my bag, and I just wanted you to know, I'll be drinking it. It helps me sleep.’

I said, ‘Well, Betty takes pills. Pills to make her sleep and pills to make her happy, and she dishes them out like candy, so just promise me you won't mix any of Betty's little helpers with the stuff in your bottle.’

‘I promise,’ she said.

I said, ‘And maybe some day you'll get by without it. Give yourself a chance. My God, honey, it's a miracle to me you're still standing.’

‘Two fine husbands,’ she said, ‘and I never did get to have a little baby. It just wasn't meant to be.’

I said, ‘It might happen yet. You still have time.’

She was only thirty-five. She was still a pretty woman, considering what she had been through.

‘No,’ she said, ‘I'm resigned. Tell you the truth, Peg, I don't think my insides are working right. Little procedure I had when I was fourteen, I think it maybe threw a wrench in the works.’

I said, ‘It don't seem fair. You were always so nice with Crystal and Sandie.’

‘Yeah, well,’ she said. ‘Being nice to other folk's kids ain't hard.’

That was before she had eaten dinner in the company of Betty's three grandbabies, Dawn and Delta and Danni.

56

Betty had done up the duplex. She had created a dinette, with a table in wood-effect Formica and bench seats and a big new TV on a swivel stand, so you could eat dinner and not miss your favourite shows. She had made changes in her bedroom too. Crocheted covers for the bed and the cushions and the lamps in a pale shade of pink.

Gayle said, ‘Wow! You got yourself a real boudoir here!’

Betty come over all modest. She said, ‘I just like to keep it nice and dainty.’

I noticed she still kept a photo of Ed on her night table. Ed in his Blues, long ago and far away.

There was no sign of Sherry. She was spending the day with her boyfriend's family, out near the Kelly air base.

I said, ‘Not another of your girls gonna marry air force?’

‘They're civilians,’ she said, ‘but what if she did find an airman? I'd be proud.’

Carla said, ‘Why didn't Crystal come?’

I said, ‘Well, she's all grown up and pleasing herself these days. She's gone to Maine to visit with her daddy. She's a college girl now.’

Carla said, ‘I'm gonna go to college.’

Then Deana arrived with her brats. Delta was four, Dawn was going on three, and Danni was one year old. Dwayne was away on exercises.

Gayle said, ‘I wouldn't have known you, Deana.’

I should think not. She was remembering Deana the brat. Gayle had kinda stood still in time, in spite of the liquor and the widowings. But Deana had grown up and out and messy. She was barely twenty-one, but she looked ten years older. Only thing I'll say is, her kids were turned out clean. Nice little dresses, all matching. I guess that was Betty's handiwork.

Deana said, ‘You hear about Perry Kaiser, Mom?’

Perry was that boy Crystal had hung out with. News was, he was on his way home from Vietnam, blown up by a mine, not expected to walk again.

Betty said, ‘Deana! Not in front of Gayle! She's had her own sorrows.’

Gayle said, ‘Don't mind me. I don't have anything left the military can take. They cleaned me out. But y'all better get used to it. There'll be a whole buncha Perry Kaisers coming holme.’

Betty said, ‘Well, anyway … dinner's ready. So let's all wash our hands, and then we can give thanks. Peggy? Would you like to do that for us?’

I don't know what her game was, dropping a thing like that on a person. I didn't know any prayer. Far as I knew neither did Betty. This seemed to be some new thing she'd gotten up for the benefit of Deana's girls. Gayle picked up on my difficulty.

She said, ‘Can I do that, Betty? If Peggy don't mind, I'd just love to do that.’

And she stood up and said some real praying words, about feasting in paradise. Little Gayle from Boomer, North Carolina. All the years I'd known her, I'd felt like a kinda mother to her. Guess it was my turn to feel like the child.

Betty had prepared us a feast, I must say. Turkey, cornbread dressing, baked sweet potato, fried squash, Niblet corn, marshmallow and fruit-cocktail salad and, of course, her Three-Color Refrigerator Cake. We were as full as ticks.

Delta had been eating candy all morning, so she had to have every mouthful coaxed into her, Betty cutting it all up small and playing games to get her to swallow another bite. There was no need. Delta looked like she could have gone a week without eating.

She said to Gayle, ‘Where's your daddy?’

‘In heaven,’ Gayle said.

Delta said, ‘Why ain't you crying, then?’

Betty said, ‘Delta! Would you like to see the princess gown Gramma's making for your dolly?’

‘Already seen it,’ she said. She still had her beady eyes on Gayle, waiting on an answer.

Gayle said, ‘Because you don't cry at parties. You wanna play a game? You know how to play Simple Simon?’

I helped Betty clear away while Gayle played with Delta and Deana changed two diapers.

I said, ‘If you don't mind, I'll drive round to San Jacinto Street. Say hello to my mom.’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘You must be missing Crystal.’

I was.

Connie and Mom were watching the
Loretta Young Show.
They had had Thanksgiving dinner on trays.

I said, ‘Didn't know you were back, Connie.’

‘How could you?’ she said. ‘You're the one walked out on us.’

I said, ‘Three hundred miles. And you have my number.’

She said, ‘You ever call Mom?’

I said, ‘She's never home.’ It was a feeble excuse. We both knew I didn't call because all I'd hear was another hard-luck story, and never an enquiry about me or Crystal.

Mom said, ‘You're wearing your hair different. You making good money up there?’

I noticed she still had the walrus-tusk Bambi I'd brung her when me and Vern come back from Alaska.

I said, ‘I'm working hard. Helping Crystal, through school. She sends her love.’

Mom said, ‘She courting?’

I said, ‘No. She's studying.’

‘Ha!’ she said. ‘Then she'll be gone. You'll see.’

I said, ‘You living here again, Connie, or just visiting?’

‘I'm getting back on my feet,’ she said. Connie was always getting knocked off them by lying, cheating men. Every one she took up with was the one who was gonna be different, but sooner or later he'd turn out to be exactly the same.

Me and Gayle shared Carla's room that night.

After we'd closed the door, Gayle said, ‘Okay, Peggy. I'm gonna spend a little time with my friend Jack Daniel's and if you want to creep out and fetch yourself a glass, you're welcome to join us.’

I said, ‘I can't touch that stuff. But you go ahead.’

I wished she wouldn't. All the drive down, all through dinner, she had been so bright and brave. But it was clear she was just papering over the cracks. Seemed to me she probably needed to dress in black and do a little weeping and wailing. She read my mind.

‘I'll cry tomorrow, Peggy,’ she said.

Crystal come back from Maine in an ugly mood. She called her step-brother Eugene ‘the missing link’.

I said, ‘What does that mean?’

‘It's evolution,’ she said. ‘It means he's what you'd expect for a bait farmer.’

I said, ‘How about Martine? She treat you nice?’

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘She makes pie.’

I said, ‘So your daddy's happy?’

‘I guess,’ she said.

I told her the news about Perry Kaiser. She stood gazing outta the kitchen window for a while, drinking a can of soda. Then she crumpled the can with her bare hands and hurled at the wall.

I said, ‘There's no call to act so tragic. It's not like he got killed. Think of poor Gayle, and her Ray.’

She looked at me.

I said, ‘Anyway, you weren't that keen on him.’

She said, ‘I didn't have to be
keen
on him. What kind of a fool attitude is that? He could have been my worst enemy, I still wouldn't have wished that on him. He's nineteen.’

Get on to the subject of Vietnam was the surest way to ruffle her feathers. Also, she had started using the F-word.

Betty Gillis's Three-Color Refrigerator Cake

Make up a box each of lime, orange and strawberry jello and put in a cool place. Cover the bottom of the cake tin with Graham crackers.

Cream together half a cup of fine sugar with one egg yolk and a tablespoon of Crisco. Add a can of crushed pineapple and one cup Angel Flake coconut. Beat egg white till stiff and fold in. Pour over the Graham crackers and refrigerate. When set, cover with layers of colored jello. For a lighter cake, break up the set jello with a fork before spreading. For a fancy finish, if you have company, cover the top with Cool Whip and silver candy-balls.

57

I was under a person called Marguerite, at the Dallas Bridal Registry. Marguerite was always threatening to retire to Florida and I was waiting to step into her shoes, but the day never seemed to come. She was given to changing moods. Sometimes she was friendly. She'd bring me in romance stories she had finished with and back issues of
Vogue.
But the next day she was just as likely to give me the cold shoulder. You never knew where you stood with her. Looking back, it was probably the time of life she was going through.

Anyways, during that period I had troubles of my own, namely Crystal. Whatever I said, Crystal would argue the opposite. We were seeing terrible things on the TV every night. Rioting and buildings set alight and coloured folk marching, which she was all in favour of, and then our boys coming home from Vietnam, shot up or worse, which she said was their own fault for going. Seemed to me, everything in her mind had turned topsy-turvy. Also, she had quit wearing nylons, and she didn't keep her hair nice any more neither. It just hung there, getting longer and longer, till you could hardly see her face.

One thing about it that bugged me was, everybody else's kids seemed to be turning out nice. Audrey's boys were learning to talk French. Kirk and Sandie Moon were giving Lois a smooth ride. And Sherry Gillis, who was never all that, had gotten strawberry-blonde highlights and the chance of a career in movies. She was still waiting tables at the Alamo International House of Pancakes, but she had met a man said he definitely could get her into something in Hollywood, so she was just biding her time, waiting for the contract to come through.

Betty said, ‘I told her, she has my blessing, just as long as she keeps her clothes on.’

Betty was having a few problems in that direction herself. She had Slick Bonney trying to coax her out of her undies. He had run into her when he was in K-Mart buying his spring wardrobe. Slick had never married, never crossed the state line. Never shown any interest in Betty, neither, when we were in high school, but the minute he heard she had split up from Ed, he set his sights on her. He said he'd never forgot her running round in her apron, when Future Home-makers catered a Father-Son Banquet for the Topperwein chapter of Future Farmers of America. He had been very keen on tractors in those days. Still was.

Betty said, ‘I've given him no encouragement, Peggy. Far as I'm concerned, I'm still a married woman.’

But that didn't stop Slick going round with his flashlight when she thought she could hear critters in her roof space. It didn't stop him buying her a heart-shaped box of candies.

Lois called me up one night. Woke me up. I had come home from the Registry, ate my fried-egg sandwich over the sink, and fallen asleep in front of another race riot. That was my life.

She said, ‘Sandie's coming to Fort Worth. Her band's in some kinda contest.’

I said, ‘She need a place to sleep?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘they got places in a hostel. But you could take her for a soda. You anywhere near the Irving Center? You wanna try and meet up with her?’

I said, ‘Sure. How come of child of yoiirs has musical talent?’

‘Whaddya mean?’ she said. ‘I played triangle in second grade.’

I hadn't seen Sandie since Vern quit the service and we left Wichita, or McConnell as they call it nowadays. She had only been knee-high, to a cricket then, always got a smile on her face. I picked her out, though, with her hair, real carroty red.

I said, ‘Well, you remember me?’

‘Course I do,’ she said. ‘Mom has your picture. She has one from that wedding, and a real old one, from when we went to the beach? In England? The beach where there wasn't any ocean.’

She was such a cute kid, bright and cheerful and full of good plans. Reminded me of Crystal before she started trying to overthrow governments.

I said, ‘You've got your mom's beautiful hair.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘This is all my very own.’

I said, ‘Tell me something. Does she dye hers? When we went for Gayle's wedding she was the only one of us didn't have a trace of grey.’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘you'd have to apply to the Pentagon for that kinda information.’

I asked after Herb. ‘He doesn't dye his hair,’ she said. ‘He doesn't have too much left to do anything with. He just kinda
arranges
it.’

She showed me all the stuff they were playing in the contest, real advanced, full of tricky little notes. The cornet was her instrument.

I said, ‘How's Kirk?’

‘He's a pain,’ she said. ‘Gets his own way all, the time.’

I said, I suppose he's growing up. Once he's grown up you'll like him better.’

‘If you say so,’ she said.

I said, ‘I hope you win your contest.’

‘I think we might,’ she said. ‘We're good enough. You wanna come and listen?’

So I went to the Irving and listened to ‘The Liberty Bell’ being played a hundred times over. Sandie's band won bronze and it couldn't have happened to a nicer kid.