The Future Homemakers of America (36 page)

I told her we'd seen her in San Antonio. Told her I'd seen her on TV.

She said, ‘Sometimes I wake in the night, wonder if I just dreamed it all. Don't need to tell you, this isn't what I planned for my life.’

She told me about all the travelling her and Lemarr had to do, the whole year ahead already fixed up and starting to fill dates in early ’82. ‘It's like a runaway train,’ she said. ‘And Lemarr is nearly seventy, you know? He don't look it, but he is. He oughta slow down but, like he says, the Lord tells you when to slow down.’

I said, ‘I know you kinda specialise now …’ I was embarrassed to hear myself say it. Crystal was predicting Betty'd get a porcelain crown.

‘Not me,’ she said. ‘Whatever the Lord sends.’

I said, ‘Well, I'd sure appreciate it if you could have a word to him about Betty.’

‘Already doing it, Peg,’ she said, ‘already doing it. Now, what about a little human intervention too? She in a good clinic?’

I said, ‘She's, getting her treatment at State. Carla works there.’

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘But there might be someplace better, you know? I mean, you know the town, you know Betty's set-up. Whatever you think. Just don't let her go short. I have money.’

Crystal and Marc flew in Wednesday night. She was looking good. Married life seemed to suit her. The latest from Maine was, Mom Dewey had had a couple of dizzy spells. Eugene's wife had said she was happy to go up and down the ladder as required, but so far as Mom Dewey was concerned whoever climbed that ladder ruled the roost and, to her way of thinking, Filomena was closely related to the slant-eyed hordes of China.

Crystal said, ‘Yes, the tide of Communism has been checked at the doorway to Clementine Dewey Yarns and Notions. We've been hearing a lot about a guy called Norton Beebe. Got shot in Korea? Anytime the subject of ladders and dizzy spells comes up Gramma says, “I let an Oriental run my store, Norton Beebe will have laid down his life for nothing.”’

I said, ‘So what's the answer?’

‘Get rid of the ladder,’ she said. ‘All the yarn has been brought down from the high shelves and stacked on the floor, on the counter, up along the walls. You can't move. They get any more stuff in there, the customers'll just have to stand outside. Gramma'll be walled up. I reckon Eugene'll have to hack out a hole, to allow the exchange of notions and greenbacks. She may have to rename it. Clementine's Yarn Kiosk.’

Marc and Crystal wanted to watch the football, so we ate at half-time. Felt like we were a real family, first time in years.

Crystal said, ‘I found out some stuff for you. Huntington's Disease? How much do you want to know?’

Marc cleared the plates and served the apple pie.

She said, ‘It's inherited. First it makes your muscles jerk. Only time they stop is when you're asleep. Then after a few years the jerking stops and the muscles seize up. Last thing is, the mind goes. Does Aunty Kath know somebody has this?’

I said, ‘It's in her family. Her mother had it.’

Crystal whistled. She said, ‘She probably doesn't have it, though. She'd be sick by now. And she never had kids.’

I said, ‘What if she had done? Would they have had it?’

‘You got a piece of paper?’ she said.

She drew out a load of Xs and Ys to try and explain about genes and stuff, Marc watching her. He said, ‘Isn't she something? Brains. Beauty. And she does this great thing with bay scallops.’

I said, ‘Crystal, you're making my head spin. Just give me the bottom line.’

‘I'm getting there,’ she said. ‘If you have Huntington's and you have a kid, it's a fifty-fifty chance he'll get it.’

I said, ‘Okay, I can grasp that. Like heads or tails.’

‘Correct,’ she said. ‘Problem is, though, it's a slow-developing condition. You wouldn't know for sure if you had it till you were past the time of getting babies. See what I mean? So Aunty Kath did the right thing. I don't know if anybody ever explained her the odds, but she didn't risk it anyhow.’

Friday we met Grice for ribs at the Black Diamond Grill. Crystal wanted Marc and him to meet.

She said, ‘He's the nearest I ever had to a brother. No, that's wrong. He's the nearest I ever had to a sister.’

Grice said, ‘Well, darling girl, have you mounted anything interesting lately?’

‘Wolverine interesting enough for you?’ she said.

‘No regrets then?’ he said. ‘I thought you might be missing those white-water thrills of being self-employed.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Anyway, my life isn't totally safe and dull. I just had a mite-infestation in a case of rodent skins.’

‘I hate it when that happens,’ he said.

She said, ‘It won't happen again. From now on I'm treating all my study skins with arsenic.’

He said, ‘You mean you can get your hands on arsenic?’

‘Sodium arsenite,’ she said. ‘Why? Who upset you?’

He had spent Thanksgiving out at Corinth. They didn't get dinner till nine p.m. and then Miss Lady had kept them up, playing cards, till two.

He said to Crystal, ‘Some day, if we all live long enough, I may have to ask you to come out of retirement and stuff Miss Lady. If Tucker doesn't have her around, I know he's just going to go to pieces.’

She said, ‘Miss Lady's a human, right?’

‘So they claim,’ he said. ‘She weighs about the same as a German shepherd. But she has some traits of a reptile too, wouldn't you agree, Peggy? I could be putting a unique specimen your way.’

He joked about Miss Lady but sometimes he was really down, the way Tucker always had to put his mother first. Always had to be there to take in her breakfast tray, about two in the afternoon. Always had to sit and read the newspaper with her, tell her who had died. Grice just had to make do with what he could get, and meanwhile him and Tucker weren't getting any younger. ‘Good thing we didn't want to have children,’ he always said.

Him and Marc got along fine.
‘Cranberry News?’
he said. ‘Never miss it. In my opinion it stands head and shoulders above the rest of the fruit press. I especially admire the fashion pages.’

Marc said, ‘Glad to know that. I write it all myself.’

Grice kept yawning, his late night catching up to him.

I said, ‘Are you driving out to Tucker's place tonight?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I'll just go home. Eat pineapple out of the can. Night, y'all.’

Marc said, ‘Tell me something? I always wondered, is there a plural of y'all?’

‘Why, yes, there is,’ Grice said. ‘It's all y'all. So what I really intended to say was, night-night, all y'all.’

Crystal and Marc started for home Saturday morning. ‘Mom,’ she said, ‘you ever think of retiring?’

I said, ‘I doubt I'll ever afford to. Why?’

‘Just wondered,’ she said. ‘I miss you. And Maine's too far for you, while you're working.’

I said, ‘Maine's too far. Let's leave it at that. Tell you what, I'll meet you halfway. You guys move to Cincinatti and I'll retire.’

I hated to see her go. Got a first little bit of grey coming into her hair, I noticed.

Crystal's Sour-Cream Scallops

Splash lemon vodka over ½ lb of bay scallops, cover with sour cream and sweet paprika, and marinate overnight. Broil for five minutes. Serve with a little freshly chopped dill weed.

93

February fifteenth was gonna be Tucker Hoose's sixtieth birthday, and we were throwing a party for him out at Hickory.

Grice said, ‘What the heck. Let's call it the fourteenth and go Valentine crazy.’

We started to plan the food. He said, ‘First, we must not forget for one instant Hickory is Miss Lady's house, so … let there be perfect tomato sandwiches, and let there be chicken salad, white meat only. Duty done, respects paid, now we can plan something quite fabulous.’

We ordered salmon sashimi, a baked Virginia ham with a salad of beets, radicchio and walnuts, raspberry palmiers and pink French champagne.

I said, ‘You sure Corinth is ready for raw fish?’

‘It's a fair question,’ he said, ‘but I'm going to ignore it. I'm willing to sacrifice everything to my colour scheme. Pink hyacinths everywhere and a net of rose petals to let down at midnight, and everyone has to wear pink. I mean
everyone.’

I said, ‘What about a cake?’

‘That,’ he said, ‘will be dealt with on a need-to-know basis – and you don't need to know.’

About forty people were invited and Grice was on pink patrol, out front, wearing crushed strawberry. Anyone arrived had ignored the dress code, he had a bagful ties and scarves, get them pinked-up before they went in to greet the birthday boy. Miss Lady and Precious already had pale-shell ribbons in their hair, Etta was in bubblegum gingham and the hired help were all in carnation vests. I was in fuchsia and so was the woman playing the harp. It never was an instrument I cared for.

Tucker seemed happy, pushing Miss Lady around in her bathchair. You'd have thought it was her birthday the way she was holding court. He didn't look sixty, I will say. Then, he never really did a day's work, except run around after his mother. I liked him, though. Whatever else she may have done to ruin his life, Miss Lady had raised him to have perfect manners.

It was a perfect party for a perfect gentleman. I can't say I enjoyed it. Fact was, I didn't really know my place that night. I was there to make sure we did a good job, but I was there because he was a friend too. I couldn't mix with the hunting crowd because they knew I wasn't one of them. And I couldn't hang out with the help because I was wearing a dress from Neiman Marcus. One thing: I was right about the sashimi.

I nearly slipped away after the buffet was cleared and the sax combo were setting up ready for dancing, but I couldn't find Grice anywhere and I had to be sure the rose petals got released on cue. Just before midnight there was a long drum-roll, three of the waiters wheeled in a cardboard cake, size of a tank, and Grice come bursting out of the middle, singing ‘You're the Top’ in the style of Ethel Merman. Precious yipped and growled all the way through.

‘Tell me truly,’ he kept asking me all the next week. ‘How was I?’

We were doing some corporate stuff for Bosque Oil, lunches, receptions. It was just grunt work. I said, ‘You were a star, same as you were last time you asked me.’

‘You don't sound very sincere,’ he said. ‘What's bugging you, anyway?’

I didn't know what was bugging me.

He said, ‘What a party! Though I do say so myself. All the best people were there.’

I said, ‘What in tarnation does that mean? The
best
people.’ There was that side to him.

He said, ‘You losing your sense of humour, Peggy Dewey? You feeling lacklustre? Disinclined to get out of your bed in the morning?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I'm gonna be fifty-seven next birthday.’

‘I know an outfit does great parties,’ he said.

I said, ‘I don't want a party. I don't even like parties.’

He said, ‘You just like making lists.’

It was true. I liked dotting every ‘i’ and crossing every ‘t’ and making sure everyhing came out perfect. I hated the schmoozing. I said, ‘All I do is work and go home. And I don't have a damn thing to show for it. Pay the rent. Find people their stupid party favours. What's the point of it? My friend Audrey can paint pictures good enough to hang on the wall. And Betty makes beautiful things with her sewing. I don't have the gift for anything like that.’

Then he said the nicest thing. He said, ‘You have a gift for friendship, Peggy. Sitting there spinning your web, sending out letters, calling people up. Heck, you're still up with folk from high school. I mean, you could be creative too, if you really wanted. Make things out of dried seed-heads or something, But your best thing is being a good friend.’

We sent out for Singapore noodles and finished off the Bosque schedules. He said, ‘Hey, friend, wanna play hookey? Wanna go to Ripley's Believe It Or Not?’

94

The next thing that happened was, State told Carla and Slick they couldn't do anything more for Betty. It was time for her to go home.

I hadn't spoken with Lois since our falling out over Kirk and the reel store job, but I had the strongest feeling I had to talk to her.

‘Hey!’ she said. ‘How ya been?’ Lois never did brood over cross words.

I said, ‘I've been good. Wish I could say the same for Betty. She's on her last legs, Lo. They've done everything they can for her and now they're just keeping her comfortable.’

‘Shit!’ she said. ‘How'd a thing like that happen?’

I said, ‘Would you think of visiting? I know it's a long way, but it'd sure make Betty happy.’

‘Oh, I dunno about that, Peg,’ she said. ‘I'm not much good around a sick room. I'd probably knock something over or pull out a tube or something.’

I said, ‘There aren't any tubes.’

‘Other thing is,’ she said, ‘I don't know that I can get away. I'm working all hours as it is.’

I really didn't want to hear about Lois's hard life. I said, ‘How're the brats?’

‘Yeah …’ she said, ‘Patrick's cute. Gory we don't see, but we keep hoping.’

I said, ‘Kirk and Sandie?’

‘Sandie's okay,’ she said. ‘Kirk's … kinda between jobs. How long do you reckon Betty has?’

I said, ‘Weeks. I dunno. I'm going down there. Carla's nursing her, plus they have an agency nurse at night. But they need company, Lo, and nice surprises, to get them through the days.’

‘I'll will think about it,’ she said. ‘I promise.’

I called Kath next. She said, ‘I thought that didn't sound too good, when she had to have more of the rays. Will you get her some flowers, from me? Tell her I'm thinking of her.’

I said, ‘Lois might visit.’

‘Well that'll kill her or cure her!’ she said. ‘And how's she going on, being a gran?’

I said, ‘She likes it. Must be mellowing at long last. Kirk's back home, though. Vern fixed him up with a job, but he left that under a kinda cloud. Well, you know what a temper he had when he was a kid. Lo reckons he's got arthritis of the joints, but I don't know. She's always made excuses for him. I'm starting to think he's just plum work-shy.’