There's a (Slight) Chance I Might Be Going to Hell - v4 (31 page)

“And you’re dressing up exactly like Pat Benatar?” he queried. “Wasn’t she a sex-trade worker in that video?”

“Yes. I shredded your old T-shirts to make my slut skirt,” she answered.

“Isn’t that what every man hopes his wife will do with them?” he asked wistfully, shuffling through envelopes. “Look, here’s your best friend, right on the cover of the English Department newsletter. Boy, what a smile on Rowena, huh? Even the Grinch is more photogenic. She looks like she was just impaled with something. What a smile.”

“What is
she
on the newsletter for?” Maye asked. “Is she having people burned at the stake for using the passive voice?”

“No, there was some sort of dinner for Dean Spaulding’s birthday,” Charlie mumbled as he read the accompanying story. “Dinner and a golf tournament—for two hundred dollars a head. Glad we weren’t invited.”

“Who has a birthday party and charges people two hundred dollars to come?” Maye asked, clucking her tongue.

“No, I think…” Charlie said as he continued to read, then reached out his arm to hand it to Maye. “Here, read it.”

“No, I have my hands full,” she said as she tasted the spaghetti sauce with a wooden spoon. “Read it to me.”

“Hmmm,” Charlie replied, mildly protesting. “‘It would be fair to say that the birthday of everyone’s favorite Dean went straight to the dogs. On Friday, a four-course meal catered by La Vaca Bonita was followed by an afternoon golf tournament hosted by Dean and Mrs. Minturn Spaulding, the proceeds of which are to benefit the Spaulding Humane Society, Dean Spaulding’s favorite charity. Although the Dean did not walk away with a trophy, he did successfully blow out all the candles on his birthday cake, which was shaped like a giant golf ball. The tournament winner, Ms. Heather Megyesi, clobbered the competition by—’”

“Wait—wait—what did you say?” Maye said suddenly as a bubble of sauce popped and shot a red streak onto her T-shirt. “Read that again.”

“‘Although the Dean did not walk away with a trophy, he did successfully blow out all—’” he repeated.

“No, Charlie, the name,” she said irritably. “What’s his name?”

“Dean Spaulding?” he asked, furrowing his brow. “It’s Minturn, but I’ve never called him that. That is a fancy man’s name. I’ve always just called him Dean. No one calls him by his real name.”

Maye stood in silence as the water on the stove began to boil.

Papa. Mama, Lula. Captain, Junior.

She named them after people she cared about, people she missed, Maye realized. She named them after people she loved.

Minty.

In the pot on the stove, the popping water spilled over the silver rim and hit the burner, sizzling away to nothing with a hiss.

“And one, two, three, four!” Ruby yelled, calling out each number with a snap of her fingers. “Shimmy left, shimmy right!”

Ruby, missing the chunk of hair in front of her ear due to an overly exuberant butane lighter, had been snapping her fingers for weeks, Maye had been shimmying her heart and fat flaps out, and Mickey had been busy playing his toy piano and wailing in the background. The three of them had put together quite a little number, complete with a dance sequence in which Mickey got to roll over and play dead, courtesy of the bribe of a beef chewy stick Maye held secretly in her palm.

Ruby had even helped Maye construct her costume; the raggedy slut skirt, the pinned-together top, little rag wristbands, and torn fishnet stockings. Maye felt ridiculous in it, but that, honestly was the point—she was going to entertain, put on a show, and hopefully make some people laugh.

“Come on, give me a shimmy!” Ruby screeched from the couch as she ground out one cigarette and then lit another. “You’re fighting a battle of good and evil with your dog pimp! Your only weapon is the shimmy! There is power in the shimmy! Make him fear your shimmy! Now, goddamnit,
show me your war shimmy
!”

“I’m trying,” Maye wailed pathetically as a drop of sweat the size of a nickel flew from her forehead. “My back hurts, my arms hurt, my shoulders hurt, and if I shimmy any more, I’m going to need a boob lift. I think I’ve shaken the joy out of them.”

“Go ahead, then, stop,” the old woman said, taking a gulp out of her tumbler and ashing her cigarette. “Give up, surrender. What do you think Melissabeth is doing right now, huh? She’s singing, is what. Doing her scales, drinking tea with lemon, holding her breath, whatever those opera people do. If you wanna let her win, go ahead and stop, be my guest, I could use the rest.”

“I don’t want to stop,” Maye gasped in midshimmy. “I just want a break!”

The music abruptly halted after Ruby quickly hit “stop” with her warped, barnacled finger.

“There,” she said as an exhaust pipe’s worth of smoke shot from her mouth. “There’s your break.”

“Release, Mickey,” Maye said, breathing heavily, and stopped as her dog ran off to tackle Puppy, who had been watching the rehearsal from Ruby’s recliner.

“Now, I’ll let you have a short break, but hard work will pay off when you’re up there on that stage,” Ruby reminded her as she pulled a paper towel from her sleeve and handed it to Maye to wipe her sweaty and, thankfully, healing scab brow. “When I’m down there looking at you doing this number for real, don’t make me wish I hadn’t given you this break, Girl.”

“Ha-ha,” Maye said. “If you want, though, I will have Charlie videotape it so you can see it later.”

“What do you mean, see it later?” Ruby asked, duly offended. “What kind of coach would I be if I didn’t show up? I’ll be there, all right. I wanna take the credit when you win! I wanna rub it in!”

Maye sat down on the couch next to the old lady. “Ruby, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to come into town,” she said as gently as possible. “I’ll come out here as soon as the pageant is over, I swear, whether it’s good or bad news. But I—I just think it’s better if you don’t go. I would love to have you there, but I’m sorry.”

“You can’t tell me what I can and can’t do,” Ruby warned harshly. “I have just as much right to go into that town as anyone does.”

“I think you do, too,” Maye said, trying to comfort her. “And I wasn’t going to tell you this, but one of the times I went to Hopkins to get you a malted, I saw Rowena. She was being her typical nasty self, and she got me into a huff. I mentioned that you were my coach, and she replied that if you tried to step foot into town, you’d be lucky if you didn’t get lynched. I’m afraid she’ll start something there and that you might get hurt.”

“That’s what she thinks!” the old woman cried. “She thinks she runs it all! I go into town whenever I please, and no one says anything!”

“I know,” Maye said. “But this time is different. This time she’ll be looking for you. This time she’ll know you’re there.”

Ruby looked lost and defeated. She shook her head, which caused little singed bits of hair to tumble from the ends.

“But I want to go,” she said weakly, almost sounding like a child. “I was the queen, remember?”

“You’re still the queen,” Maye replied, patting Ruby’s gnarled hand. “And that’s why Rowena is so horrible. She knows that’s not her crown, she knows she didn’t win. But look at what she did to get it, and that woman still has that in her. She’ll do anything to get—or take—what she wants. Particularly from you.”

“My crown is not all she got,” the old woman mumbled quietly.

Maye took a deep breath. “I know, Ruby,” she said, finally forcing it out. “I know about what Rowena did.”

Ruby shook her head again. “No, you don’t,” she said tiredly. “No, you don’t.”

“I know about Dean Spaulding,” Maye reiterated. “I know about Minty.”

Although Ruby took a deep breath, it seemed like she had suddenly deflated. The old woman’s shoulders dropped and fell, as if she had just tossed off a load she never wanted to be carrying.

“You shouldn’t think poorly of him. He was only doing what he thought was right,” she said, not so much to Maye but in a mantra that she had ingrained in herself for the last fifty years. “Anybody would have done what he did. He thought I burned down his family’s factory. They lost everything, everything his family had built up. The town lost jobs, they weren’t even sure if that place would survive. Any man would have done what he did. He had no choice. He had to…he had to send me that note. I understood. I did. I thought he did the right thing, too, if I had to make that choice.”

Suddenly, Maye realized what she hadn’t been able to connect since the first day she pulled up into the dirt driveway of Ruby’s tumbledown gray shack. How a vibrant, fiery, beautiful young woman had drifted away, away, away, until a weathered, acidic, and turbulent recluse finally took her place.

Ruby Spicer blamed herself.

She blamed herself for nearly ruining a town she never touched with a badly intentioned hand, she blamed herself for losing the opportunities that had been stolen from her. She blamed herself for getting a note that said the kindest man she ever met could not spread that kindness to her. Even if Ruby Spicer didn’t set that fire, she might as well have; she had even convicted herself.

“Have you seen him?” the old woman asked, not looking at Maye. “Can you tell me what he’s like now?”

Maye nodded. “He was very nice to me,” she said. “He came over and talked to me at the faculty mixer when no one else would. He remembered my name. And he insisted that I come to the holiday party because I think he knew I was too embarrassed to go. And they always have the most beautiful flowers at the house; they’re usually out of season.”

“That’s Minty,” Ruby said, nodding slightly. “Did he seem happy to you?”

Maye winced, then shook her head. “I don’t know, Ruby,” she answered honestly. “He always seemed happy when I saw him, but he is an excellent host, he made sure everyone always had what they needed, and that they felt welcomed. I do know, though, that Rowena attempted to order his favorite pastrami sandwich from Hopkins but had no idea what he liked on it.”

“Oh,” Ruby replied.

“Are you all right?” Maye asked, to which Ruby nodded.

“You know, I’m a little tired,” the old woman said, finally looking at Maye. “I think I’m going to pop in a good movie and relax in the chair. You can go on home. The act is as good as gold.”

“Well, I have some more strips to sew to my skirt, anyway,” Maye said. “The backside is a little bare. Are you going to be okay?”

“I’ll be fine, I’m fine,” Ruby replied, waving her away. “I’m in the mood for a little
Johnny Guitar
. The idea of Joan Crawford playing piano in a flowing white gown as everything burns down and a lynch mob is coming at her sounds very appealing.”

“I can stick around, Ruby,” she said. “I can call Charlie and tell him I’ll be a little late.”

“Nope,” the old woman said adamantly, with a cigarette dangling from between her teeth. “Go on and work on your costume. You’ll look adorable. Now go out there and be so swell that you’ll make me hate you.”

Maye looked at her quizzically.

“
42nd Street
,” she offered, smiling.

“Okay then,” Maye said hesitantly as she got Mickey’s leash and hooked it to his collar. “I’ll go.”

She turned off the CD player, picked up her purse, then headed for the door. She had her hand on the doorknob and was about to pull it open when she stopped.

“It’s very simple, really,” Ruby called out to her. “On rye with lots of mustard.”

When Maye arrived at the Sewer Pipe Queen Pageant check-in table at the back steps of the town square stage in her Pat Benatar slutty rag outfit and her dog dressed like a Huggy Bear, no one even came close to asking where her sponsor was, despite the fact that it was listed on the entrance application that she’d filled out months ago. The pageant director, a nervous-looking fifty-ish woman, gave her a badge with her name on it for backstage access, told her to be ready at 7 P.M. sharp for the contestant introductions, where to find the music coordinator, who needed her musical selection if she had one, and what place she had. Then she plucked the thirty-five-dollar entry fee, in cash only, from Maye’s hand without so much as a “Thank you very much.”

And Maye was in. She and her pimp dog walked up the whining wooden stairs to the backstage area, which was hidden from view by a large, heavy canvas curtain. Backstage was a buzzing little community of its own, with sponsors rushing back and forth and contestants siphoning the last minutes of practice in before the pageant started.

Maye was amazed at how many contestants there were shoved together between the canvas curtain and the stage itself. She wasn’t exactly sure what to expect, since in Ruby’s day, the competition had been more formal and traditional. Over the years, it had lost all traces of conventionality, and in turn, it had become a free-form contest. In order to compete, the competitors needed to meet only three qualifications: they had to be a citizen of Spaulding, they needed a sponsor, and they needed a talent routine. That was it. Gone were the pageant gowns, the swimsuit segment, the host in a tuxedo. Instead, Spaulding’s modern-day Sewer Pipe Queen Pageant was open to anyone who had a spare thirty-five bucks and a hankering to get onstage.

With Mickey by her side, Maye set off to find the music coordinator and hand over her CD. She passed by a five-year-old dressed in exquisitely frilly pageant wear, dutifully practicing dance steps; she skirted by a man mumbling out of the side of his mouth while operating a dangling marionette dressed in what looked like a baby unitard; she stood behind someone dressed like a scarecrow holding a staff with jangly bells attached who was blocking the hallway, shaking her stick at no one; and just as she reached the man who looked harried enough to be the music coordinator, she saw the back of a young, slim woman dressed in an elegant, floor-length silver evening gown. She was speaking quietly and calmly to the harried, sweat-drenched man.

It was Melissabeth.

Maye took a deep breath, attempted to smile, and waited. She couldn’t make out exactly what it was that Rowena’s flying monkey was saying, but she did see the music coordinator pat his brow several times with a hankie from his pocket as he compulsively nodded in agreement. It took less than a minute for Maye to feel a chill against her back, but she already knew it was coming by the sound of determined, furious pumps rushing toward her as they clipped the worn wooden floors.