The Wedding Party (3 page)

Charlene got herself to the parking lot, into the car, and out of the vicinity before she succumbed to the needy impulse to rush to the hospital cafeteria, where she might catch them in the act of holding hands over the tuna surprise, gazing adoringly into each other's eyes.

She drove to her favorite mediterranean café and parked. She sat in the car feeling alone and bereft, feelings that were completely alien to her. Suddenly she knew her life would be awful if she didn't have Dennis in it. And she knew how much
more
awful it would be if some doctor young enough to be her daughter had him. “Okay, it's an age thing,” she said aloud in self-analysis. “A little premenopausal panic. Well, I'll be damned if I let myself turn into some wimpy dependent old woman who can't even have lunch because—”

Her cell phone twittered inside her purse. She plucked it out and studied the caller ID—it was her
office. She didn't admit to herself that she felt enormous relief.

“Yes, Pam?”

“Char, you've had a disturbing and confusing call from Ron Fulbright, the manager at the Food Star Market in Fair Oaks. Something about your mother. I think you'd better go over there.”

“My mother?”

“Yes, something about her not being able to find her way home…”

“What? That's ridiculous.”

“Well, that's what I said. To which Mr. Fulbright said this wasn't the first time. They've started having a bag boy keep an eye on her when she leaves the store, watching to see if it looks like she knows where she's going.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute. She drives to the market, right?”

“Apparently she walked.”

“But it's drizzling. She wouldn't walk there in the rain.”

“Mr. Fulbright has her in his office. You'd better go get her. I could hear Lois in the background. She's…ah…unhappy.”

“Well, I imagine so,” Charlene said, indignant. “Call him back. Tell him I'm on my way.” She clicked off without saying goodbye, put the car in reverse and headed toward her mother's neighborhood.

Lois must have been somehow misunderstood, Charlene thought, and the grocer interpreted this as her being lost and in need of her daughter's rescue. But it
was absurd! Lois had only just returned from a rather taxing trip to Bangkok. At seventy-eight, she was anything but lost. She was an independent traveler of the world. Widowed for over twenty years, she was a modern, youthful, brilliant woman who refused to be called Grandma.

Charlene beat down a powerful sense of foreboding, terrified by the prospect of her mother—her rock—falling apart.

C
harlene racked her brain for any incident in which her mother had seemed confused or disoriented, but could think of none. She lost her keys, but who didn't? She forgot the occasional name, as did Charlene. Although there was that time, not so long ago, when she put the yogurt and cottage cheese away in the rolltop desk and then couldn't locate the source of the foul odor…. But they had laughed about it later.

When she arrived at the grocery store, she was directed to Mr. Fulbright's office in the back of the store. She heard her mother before she saw her. “May I have a drink of something, please?” Lois asked in a small voice. Charlene was brought up short. She hadn't heard that kind of meekness from her mother since Lois's gallbladder surgery sixteen years ago.

Charlene peeked into the partitioned room. Lois sat hunched on the hard chair beside Mr. Fulbright's desk. Though Lois Pomeroy was petite, she was such a formidable personality, Charlene tended to think of her as larger than she was. And Lois
always
sat or stood straight, her head up. She was prideful and pigheaded. In fact, she was a bossy pain in the ass, who at the
moment looked stooped and cowed and…
frightened.
It was very disturbing.

“Anything you like, Mrs. Pomeroy.”

“Just water, thank you.”

“Be right back,” Fulbright said. He nearly ran into Charlene as he exited his cubicle. “Oh, my heavens!” he said, laughing nervously. He grinned at Charlene in a big, perfect Cheshire smile. “Go ahead in,” he said.

Lois raised her bowed head and saw Charlene. “Oh. He said he called you. I told him not to.”

“Mom, what happened?”

“I just got a little turned around, that's all. It happens to people my age from time to time.”

“And has it happened before?”

“Well, no, not really….”

“But Mr. Fulbright said they've been having bag boys keep an eye on you until it appears that you know where you're going. What does
that
mean?”

Mr. Fulbright brought the water. Lois sipped before speaking. “Well, there was one time last year—”

“Last month,” Mr. Fulbright corrected.

“It wasn't last month!” Lois shot back. “Sheesh,” she added impatiently.

“Yes, it was, Lois. Remember?” he asked too patiently, as though speaking to a child. “You were all turned around in the parking lot. Driving in circles. You went around and around, then back and forth past the store. One of the boys flagged you down and asked if you needed something. Remember?”

“Oh, that was last year!” A little strength was seeping into her voice under the mantle of anger.

Mr. Fulbright rolled his eyes in frustration. He then connected with Charlene's eyes, smirked and shook his head. “Well, if you say so,” he relented, but he shook his head. “You have some groceries, Lois. Let me carry them to your daughter's car, okay?”

“Don't bother yourself, I can do it.”

“Yes, I know you can, but it's my pleasure. I'm afraid if I don't take good care of you, you'll shop at another store.”

“I'm thinking about doing that anyway,” she said. “
Been
thinking about it, actually.”

Charlene got her mother settled in the front seat of the car, the groceries in the trunk, and stood behind the car with Mr. Fulbright.

“This is an old neighborhood, Ms. Dugan. It's an unfortunate part of the job that we see some of our best customers go through aging crises. Lois got lost about a month ago and couldn't get herself out of the parking lot, much less find her house. She kept coming back to the store, driving around and around the parking lot, until someone helped her. She knows it happened—she started walking instead of driving, and don't let her tell you it was for the exercise.” He rolled his eyes skyward, where heavy, dark clouds loomed, just waiting to let go. “Who would take that kind of chance in unpredictable weather like this? A person could drown! It's so she doesn't get too far away from home before she realizes she doesn't know where she is.”

Charlene was absolutely horrified. “This is impossible! She just returned from the Far East!” But in thinking about it, Charlene realized that that trip, a tour, had taken place over two years ago.

“Nevertheless…”

“What happened this morning?” Charlene asked.
“Exactly.”

“I had one of the boys watch her walk down Rio Vista to make sure she turned toward her house, but she walked right by. She could have been going to visit someone, so Doug stayed with her just in case. She went another block, doubled back past her street again and finally sat on a retainer wall, in the rain, looking dazed. He asked her if he could help her and she started to cry.”

“Cry? My mother doesn't cry! For God's sake, this is crazy!”

Mr. Fulbright touched her arm and Charlene snatched it back as though burned. “She should see her doctor. It might be just a fluke, a medication screwup or—”

“She doesn't take medication!”

“Well, maybe it's something more serious. But Ms. Dugan, it's something.”

The passenger door opened. “Are we
going?
” Lois wanted to know, that impatient edge back in her voice. “I could have been home by now!”

Mr. Fulbright crossed his arms. “Or in Seattle,” he muttered under his breath.

“Yes, Mom. Coming.” Then, feeling protective of Lois, she glared at the grocer for his cheek.

“Goodbye, Lois,” Mr. Fulbright said. “See you soon.”

“I doubt it,” she said, slamming the door.

“Well, thank you,” Charlene said. “Though I really think—”

“When you run a neighborhood market in an area with a large retired population,” he said, “there are some things you learn to watch for. They're my charges. It won't be that many years before I'll benefit from having people watch after me now and again. Just as the postman keeps track if the mail stacks up, merchants keep an eye out for their regulars.”

“Thanks, but—”

“Get your mom to the doctor now. We don't need a senseless tragedy just because it's hard to think about Lois getting older.”

As Charlene fastened her seat belt, she muttered, “God, he's annoying.”

“Tell me about it,” Lois said.

“I guess he knows what's right for everyone, huh?”

“I never could stand that guy. He's a hoverer, you know? Always looking over your shoulder when you pinch the grapes. Probably a pervert. I'm not shopping there anymore.”

“I can't say I blame you, Mom. Especially if you're going to find yourself held hostage in the back room.” Charlene shuddered, but not for thinking about Mr. Fulbright's back-room office.

“The rhubarb stinks. Smells like fish and tastes like rubber.”

“Rhubarb?” Charlene couldn't remember ever having rhubarb at her mother's house.

“Let's get moving. I think I have a hair appointment.”

“When did you start caring about rhubarb?”

“My mother always had a rhubarb cobbler on the Fourth of July. I wish I could remember if I made that hair appointment for today or next Tuesday. Damn!”

Charlene drove in silence for a moment. Then, with a sigh, she asked, “Why did you decide to walk to the market today of all days? It's cold, and it's drizzled on and off since morning.”

“I needed the exercise.”

“Really?”

“Why else would I walk?”

“Well…I don't suppose a checkup would hurt,” Charlene suggested.

“I just had a checkup.”

“Well, another one won't hurt.”

“I'm not going to the doctor and that's the end of it.”

“Mom…”

“I said
no.
”

“Mom, I'm not going to argue with you—”

“Good! That will be a refreshing change.”

“I'm worried, that's all.”

“Waste of energy. Worry about something you have some control over. This is out of your hands.”

She pulled up in front of Lois's house, parked, killed the engine and turned to regard her mother.
“Why are you acting like this?” she asked in a gentle voice.

“I've had a rough day,” Lois said, looking away from her daughter, out the window.

Haven't we all, Charlene thought.

“I have things to do, Aida, so let me get my groceries and get busy.”

“Aida? Mom, you called me Aida. I think I'd better get you in the house and—”

Lois groaned as if in outraged frustration and threw open her car door. She pulled herself out with youthful agility and, once extracted, stomped her foot. “You're starting to get on my last nerve! Get me my things and get out of my business!”

That's when she knew. She wasn't sure exactly what she knew, but she knew. The only Aida Charlene had ever known was an old cousin of Lois's who'd been dead over thirty years. And while Lois was admittedly a frisky character, Charlene was unaccustomed to such anger and temper in her mother. Lois was going through some mental/medical crisis.

Trying to remain calm, she went to the trunk, pulled out two bags and handed one to Lois. She followed her mother up the walk to the front door. Lois got the door unlocked easily enough, and they went inside and put the groceries away without speaking. When the bags were folded and stowed on a pantry shelf, they stood and looked at each other across the butcher block.

“I'm very sorry,” Lois said. “I'm sorry you were
bothered, sorry I was rude to you and sorry about what's happening.”

“What
is
happening?” Charlene asked.

“Well, isn't it perfectly clear? I'm losing it.”

 

Charlene went back to the office in something of a trance. Was it possible that even though she spent a great deal of time with Lois, she'd been too preoccupied to notice these changes?

She threw herself into the accumulated work on her desk, plowing through briefs, returning calls, writing memos and dictating letters. She also spent some time on the Internet, researching dementia in the elderly and Alzheimer's disease.

It was getting late and she should have gone home long ago, but she wanted no spare time between work and evening—she wouldn't know how to handle it. She could research Alzheimer's, but she couldn't think about her mother suffering from it. Tonight was dinner at her place with Dennis. And until she could talk to him, until she could take advantage of his cool-headed appraisal of her problem—not to mention his medical expertise—she couldn't allow herself to focus on it. But when the intercom buzzed and she looked at her watch, she realized she wouldn't even make it to her house ahead of Dennis, much less have time to cook him dinner. “It's Dennis,” Pam intoned from the outer office.

If he cancels, Charlene thought, I will kill him and hide the body. She picked up. “Dennis, I lost all track of time. I can leave here in just a—”

“Listen, if you have to work late—”

“What? You aren't going to cancel, are you?”

“No,” he said calmly. “I was just wondering if you'd like me to pick anything up.”

“Oh.” The perfect man. The most stable and reliable thing in her life. With Lois falling apart and Stephanie making her crazy, maybe the
only
stable and reliable thing in her life. “Did I just bark at you?” she asked him.

“Pretty much. Bad day?”

“Well, I would reply ‘the worst' except that I stopped by the hospital and I know you had a terrible day yourself, one that included fatalities. So…”

“Yes, you were gone by the time I realized you had just made a rare unannounced appearance. I was so distracted at the time. So, what is this? Professional or personal?” he asked.

She thought about dodging the question, but then, after a pause, she slowly let it out. “Personal.” It might as well have been a dirty word.

“I should have guessed. I can hear the tension in your voice, and you're working till the last possible minute. I know what that means.”

She leaned back in her leather chair. “You do? What does it mean?”

“That you're upset, and you don't want any time on your hands during which you might think too hard, because you're afraid you might become distraught. You never have, but you're still always afraid of that. Of losing control.”

Embarrassingly, unbelievably, she began to cry. The
tears had been there all day, just below the surface, but this was the last straw. They suddenly welled up in her eyes, her nose began to tingle and her face reddened and flooded. She pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger, but it did no good. She accidentally let out a wet, jagged breath. She couldn't remember when she had last cried. Probably years ago; certainly pre-Dennis, but he seemed to know what was happening anyway because he said, “Hey, hey, hey. Charlene, honey, what's the matter?”