The Ladies Farm (16 page)

Della nodded, relieved to resume their earlier conversation.

“And Barbara?”

“She’ll own half,” Della conceded.

If Tony was surprised, he didn’t show it. “Hard to imagine you partners with Kat,” he said.

“Why?”

He shrugged. “She’s hard, isn’t she? I mean, she and Richard, they’d talk about hitting up a client, you’d wonder what the guy had left by the time they were done with him.”

They talked a little more about Kat, Della conceding that the Ladies Farm was mostly a convenience for Kat, who traded business management for homemaking, and Tony acknowledging that she was no more avaricious than most men in business.

Tony took three or four calls, then left her alone while he tended the front counter. Della opened another Diet Dr Pepper and leafed through the paper sample books.

Quick-print shops had no need for fine writing papers, but Tony had samples of everything. Della ran her fingers over the linen weaves and deckle edges, imagining journals of fine writing paper covered with one of Pauline’s special fabrics. A nice spiral bind, she imagined, black metal, so it would lie flat on a table.

Maybe even lines, printed in a variation of the pastel papers themselves. Peach sheets with cinnamon lines, pink with rose, yellow with gold. We could do a whole course, Della thought. Make the journal, then write in it.

We could print the lines on the small hand press. Or maybe Tony could give them a break on the color printer. I could operate the thing myself, she thought, smiling. During off-peak hours. And then we could bind them.

Tony grinned when she asked about the printing. “I’m sure we could work something out.” She scowled to let him know this was business. He switched gears to talk about the binding.

“You’d do better to use a plastic spiral,” Tony advised. “Much cheaper, and you could do it yourselves. Then, you make a cover with sleeves, that covers the whole thing, including the binding.”

“We’d have to buy the binder?” Della asked.

“Yeah, but they’re cheap. In fact,” he grinned, “I’ve got a small one you can borrow. If you’re interested.”

He was showing her the binder, explaining how to judge the size spiral she needed, when Barbara showed up. “Am I interrupting?” she cooed. “You two go right ahead, don’t mind me at all.”

Della and Tony exchanged glances. Della explained what they were doing, and Tony carried the binder and a carton of spirals in mixed sizes out to the Thunderbird. He laid them in the trunk, arranging packages around the binder to keep it from sliding around.

“That should hold you,” he said with a small grunt as he closed the car trunk.

“You’re a good man, Tony.” Barbara flashed a smile at him and patted the back of her head where hair used to be.

“That’s kind of a cute haircut,” Tony replied. “Like a teenager these days.”

“Oh, you’re so sweet to say that,” Barbara responded. “But I know men. You always like long hair. But this is easier and now … well, now’s a time when easier makes more sense for me.”

After more awkward pauses, Tony hugged them both and they got into the car. “See you Friday,” he told Della, closing the car door after her.

“We have to stop at the crafts place,” Barbara said as they drove away.

“I thought you already went. What were you doing all morning?”

“Didn’t you see my packages? I shopped.” She glanced at Della. “What’d Tony mean: He’d see you Friday?”

“We have a date.”

“You’re kidding! That’s great!”

“I don’t know if it is or not.” Della stared out the window.

They bought a lot of jewelry supplies—clasps, earring backs, silk ribbons, necklace strings—but it didn’t take very long.

Barbara sailed up to the check-out counter and deposited her red shopping basket in front of the clerk. The girl, a teenager who Della thought belonged in school, interrupted her conversation with the clerk at the next counter and began ringing up their purchases.

“That’s what I mean,” the other clerk said in a loud voice, nodding at Della and Barbara.

“Huh?” their clerk responded, concentrating on counting each kind of trinket and punching the right keys.

The other clerk sported a name tag that said
Kelly
and chewed her gum and handled all the display items at her counter in a jittery way. “That’s when I want you to shoot me,” she said now.

“Huh?” their clerk, Kim, repeated. She pushed the total key with a flourish. “That’s thirty-four seventy-three,” she told Barbara. “Shoot you?” she repeated loudly, looking over at her co-worker.

Barbara rummaged deep in her leather bag for her checkbook, then searched again for a pen. “I thought we just had an account,” said Della, her eyes on Kim. “The Ladies Farm.”

“Oh, you do!” Kim said. “I didn’t know. What happened to that other lady?”

“Pauline.” Della said. “Pauline died two weeks ago.”

“Oh, God, I’m sorry. Here, just sign this.” She pushed the receipt in front of Barbara. “I need to see a driver’s license.”

Barbara sighed, then dug a little more in her purse.

“Shoot you?” Kim repeated again at her friend Kelly.

Kelly shot her a warning look, but grinned as she nodded at Barbara’s back. “You know,” nodding again.

Kim frowned. “What?” Meaning surfaced. “Oh, yeah. Here,” she said to Barbara, “this is your copy of the receipt.”

“And you’ll just bill us?” Barbara asked.

“Yeah,” said Kim, but by now she was breaking into laughter. She handed Barbara and Della the bags of supplies as she shook her head at the other clerk.

Barbara and Della exited to the laughter and spent a few minutes behind the car, rearranging the contents of the trunk. “I’ll be right back,” Della said, ignoring Barbara’s startled expression.

She marched back into the store, where both Kim and Kelly were free of customers. “Come here,” she said to Kelly. “You too,” motioning to Kim.

They both looked at her but didn’t move. “Right now, or I’m calling the manager.”

Kelly looked about nervously. “Ma’am, we can’t leave these registers.”

“Just for a second,” Kim contradicted. “What is it?”

They both approached. “Outside,” Della said. “Right now.” She herded them through the doors of the empty store, a third clerk staring as they left. Motioning to Barbara to roll down the window, she placed her hands over the two girls’ shoulders and helped them lean down toward Barbara.

“These girls just wanted to apologize, didn’t you, girls?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Kim said.

“Kelly?” Della prompted.

“Yes, ma’am, we didn’t mean …”

“Didn’t mean … well …” Barbara shook her head to clear the confusion.

“What we mean,” Kim took the lead, “is we shouldn’t have been carrying on a private conversation while I waited on you. You didn’t get our full attention, and I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” Kelly said quickly, ducking out from under Della’s hand. “Bye now.”

“Bye,” said Barbara, studying Della. She waited until Della was back in the car before asking what that was all about.

“Kids with no manners piss me off,” Della said, adjusting the air vent to blow directly at her face. “They were making fun of us, and I don’t think we should put up with it.”

Barbara shrugged. “I’m so used to it, I never noticed.”

“Well I noticed,” Della said fiercely.

They rode without speaking. Barbara was a good driver, and the Thunderbird had a quiet, cushiony feel to it that made Della sleepy. Outside, the green had faded a little as summer rolled in and at places where there were no trees, the grass and the sky met in a white band.

Della felt shaky from her encounter with the two girls. She hadn’t been afraid when she confronted them, but now she wondered what she would have done if they hadn’t come with her. What if she had called the manager and the manager had asked her to leave? What if they had called the police?

She imagined Barbara bailing her out of jail, or, worse, calling Tony or Kat to bail her out. Worst of all, she could remember thinking the same thing as those girls—that she’d prefer death to being a middle-aged fat woman—and laughing aloud about it because surely a middle-aged fat woman would never get the joke.

And, of course, she and Kat had been just as tacky about Barbara in conversation just a few days ago. It’s not the same, though, Della thought. I know better now.

Those girls know nothing, she fumed. Barbara has more wisdom in one fat pinky than they have in their entire cellulite-free bodies. She stared at the landscape, only slightly hillier now, but broken by stands of cottonwoods along the Nolan and groups of live oaks near small, neat houses.

“So where are you and Tony going for dinner?”

Barbara’s voice jolted her back to the soft leather interior. Della shrugged. “Who knows? He’s got something planned, I’m sure. I didn’t ask.”

“What are you wearing?”

“I don’t know.” Della shifted in the seat so that she was facing forward instead of out the side window. “I’ve got a silk pantsuit that I can wear. It’s dressy, but okay if we end up getting barbecue or something.”

“You should wear a dress,” Barbara advised. “Men always prefer dresses.”

The woman who had seemed so wise a second ago suddenly appeared dense. “I might do that if I were interested in encouraging Tony,” Della said.

“You don’t have to encourage him,” Barbara said. “Just see if you like him.”

“Like him? I was married to him! I already know everything there is to know about him.”

“You didn’t know he didn’t run after other women,” Barbara countered.

“I did know that,” Della argued. “I just didn’t think it was … important. No, not important, exceptional, I guess. Look,” she offered, “let’s not argue about this. I’m going out with him and I’m more comfortable in a pantsuit. Okay? Let’s change the subject. Where were you all morning?”

“Oh, here and there.”

Della felt her annoyance growing. “I know it’s none of my business, but could you be a little more specific?”

“I had to see the doctor.”

“For what?” Della knew it was rude to ask but it was rude of Barbara not to volunteer answers to the obvious questions. “Are you sick?”

“No.” Barbara shook her head. Then, “Yes.”

Must be menopause, Della thought, though she would have guessed Barbara would be through it. She herself had sailed through menopause; it had resembled a special project that she attacked with a fitness program and a new set of vitamins, and it had left her with an altered internal clock that roused her earlier in the morning and a dread of leaving things unfinished.

Barbara didn’t say any more, and Della glanced at her companion, but Barbara was studying the road ahead. Maybe she thought Della wasn’t interested. “What do you mean,
yes?
”

Della saw Barbara’s expression change. It seemed both softer and harder at the same time, with her chin raised slightly and her mouth in a tight line, but her eyes totally round and accepting. “I have ovarian cancer. They removed my ovaries in Dallas, but it had already spread and I’m starting to have other symptoms.”

Her voice was filled with kindness, as if her greatest fear were frightening Della.

“Cancer! Are you sure? Did you get a second opinion?” Della realized how insulting it sounded, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking.

“Dickie sent me to someone. He insisted.” She sighed, but now her voice sounded light, almost gay. “But the diagnosis is the same. One recommended chemo, one didn’t, but even the one who did admitted it would just keep me alive longer. There isn’t enough chemo in the world to stop this.”

“Are you saying you’re dying?” How could they be riding down the road to the Ladies Farm, how could Barbara be shopping and driving and worrying about what Della would wear on her date with Tony?

“Well, yes,” Barbara said. “That’s why I came to the Ladies Farm.”

“To die?”

“Yes.”

“Stop the car,” Della said.

“Why?”

Why! “Because I can’t talk to you about this while you’re driving.”

“Why?”

“I want to know why you lied to us,” Della said finally. “There’s a rest stop just past Foley Road.”

Barbara pulled over.

They rolled to a stop at the center of a semicircular asphalt drive, next to which sat a picnic table, a metal trash can, and a sign proclaiming maintenance of the rest stop a project of Explorer Post 1053. The Explorers were doing a good job, Della thought as she opened the car door and walked over to the picnic table. She didn’t want Barbara to drive off before they were finished and, as she seated herself, she watched the realization cross Barbara’s face that she, too, must get out of the car.

She doesn’t look sick, Della thought, but that wasn’t really true. What she looked was fat and overly made-up. Della had attributed her pallor, her slow gait, even the creakiness that indicated pain, to Barbara’s obesity.

She watched Barbara’s earrings swaying as she approached. They were beaten copper and brass, and they glinted in the sun. The Explorers hadn’t planted much in trees, and except for the shade provided by a green ash that overhung part of the picnic table, most of the area was in full sun.

Barbara was sweating by the time she reached the bench, and she sat down without trying to hide her exhaustion. “How long did you think we’d go without noticing?” Della asked.

Barbara looked at the empty road. “I would have told you this
week anyway. But first Pauline died, and I had to push back my doctor’s appointment; and I had to wait for Dickie.”

“Dickie?”

Barbara met Della’s gaze. “Dickie had that offer in Houston, but he wouldn’t take it because he didn’t want to leave me here. So I concocted this story about what close friends we all were, and how nobody could care for me better than Pauline and you and Kat.”

Della started to speak, but Barbara waved her off.

“What do kids know about their parents’ friendships? I just didn’t want him hanging around Dallas waiting for me to die, and I didn’t want him insisting I be shipped to Houston.”

“Anyway,” she proceeded smoothly but without speed, “I had to make sure he had accepted this arrangement before I told you all. Otherwise, I’d get you upset for nothing.”