This Is What I Want (15 page)

MAMA

Blanche sat on a stool in her bedroom, staring into a mirror at the strange creature looking back at her. She had to concede that Patricia had done good work. Her wispy, unruly white hair had been tamed, first by the brush and then by the curling iron, and now soft curls framed her face. She hadn’t wanted the makeup, but Patricia had been deferentially insistent, and a few well-placed accents had brought her into better visage. She still couldn’t make sense of that face, though, makeup or not. Blanche was not a vain woman, Lord no, but the toll of the years always caught her by surprise on those rare occasions when she’d look herself over. In her mind and her memories, she would ever remain the redheaded girl who liked to climb trees, was a better fisherman than any of her brothers, and would play catch with the boys in the yard when Big Herschel was too tired to do so.

Patricia stood behind her and to the left, holding up a blue dress Blanche hadn’t seen in a moon. “How about this, Mama?”

Blanche shook her head. “There’s a white one with a floral print in there somewhere,” she said. “That’s the one I want.”

Patricia turned and went back to digging in the closet.

Something’s leaning hard on that girl,
Blanche thought. She could guess that Samuel was part of it, but it was more than just that. She’d come in tentative and small-voiced, and that wasn’t Patricia by any stretch. Blanche had loved her like one of her own from the get-go. She liked her spunk and decisiveness. Can’t raise kids the right way except to be the alpha. Blanche knew this from experience, and she recognized it in her daughter-in-law. The woman who filled her door this morning didn’t arrive with that kind of bearing.

Blanche didn’t care for the way people were pussyfooting around her. She didn’t care for it one little bit. Sam all the time making excuses for Samuel’s absences. “He’s busy out there in California, Mama.” That was pure bullroar, and she knew it. Life’s a strange thing. When you’re young, they cut you out of everything to protect you. You grow up, and everybody wants you to solve every problem. Then you get old, and they cut you out again. Blanche figured she’d had about enough of this nonsense.

“What are you going to do about this Norby business?”

Patricia whipped around. “What, Mama?”

“Samuel’s new name.” Blanche paused, waiting for a fresh blast of oxygen. “It’s ridiculous.”

Patricia held out a dress. “This one?”

“Yes, that’s the one.”

Patricia walked it over. “This is lovely, Mama. Good choice.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

Patricia laid the dress on the vanity and then set herself onto the bed. “I don’t know how we got lost,” she said. “Everything is so dramatic. He feels like he needs this. It’s not a big deal.”

“I think it is.”

“Why, Mama?”

Blanche closed her eyes and waited for her lungs to fill again. She’d taken to burning off her mornings with prayers of deliverance. Now, she silently implored the good Lord for the words she needed.

“He has a name. It’s a good, sturdy name that tells him who he is and the people he comes from,” Blanche said. “You, more than anyone, should know what comes with Norby. You couldn’t rid yourself of it fast enough.”

“I know. It’s just that he’s—I don’t know, this will sound dumb, but he’s trying to figure out his place.”

“You mean because he’s gay?”

Patricia covered her mouth with her hand.

“You think I don’t know?” Blanche said.

“I guess . . . no, I didn’t think so. How did you know?”

Blanche laughed, and the phlegm rattled in her chest. “I’ve always known.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.” She drew in breath again. “I could just as easily tell you how the sky looks blue to me. It just is.”

“We had no idea,” Patricia said. Her voice dropped, meek. “Is there something wrong with us?”

Blanche laughed again. “Gracious, no. When you’re a parent, you like to think you’re in control. I don’t mean that in a bad way.” She waited again for the oxygenator. “It’s just that it’s sort of in your nature to project things out for your children. You probably figured him for college, for church, for marriage, three or four kids. Does that sound right?” Lord, she was nearly spent. This was more talking than she’d typically do in a fortnight.

“Yes,” Patricia said.

“Kind of hard to let that go, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” She was whispering now. “Much more for Sam than for me.”

“I see.”

“He’s hung up. He says it’s wrong.”

Blanche closed her eyes. This was partly her fault. She hadn’t considered that until now.

“I know what the book says,” she said at last, her lungs set for another go-round. “I also know God doesn’t make mistakes.”

Patricia dabbed at her eyes.

“You talk to that boy.”

Patricia nodded, and then stood. She positioned herself behind Blanche and draped the dress across her.

“This is the one,” Blanche said.

THE MAYOR

John Swarthbeck figured the walk was his favorite part of Jamboree, every year.

The mayor would begin at the south end of town, where the final parade highlights were assembled—this year, the new Case IH Magnum tractor that Rob Kobuck was pushing down at the dealership. He’d wend his way past the entire procession, shaking hands. Past the Grandview High School classes that had reunited, past the floats for the drill team and the cheerleaders and the Science Club; past the 4-H crew and the Rotary Club and the Toastmasters and the Junior League; past the Knitting Circle, the Lutheran Church, and the Chamber of Commerce; past rusted-out Humvees, tricked-out Cutlass Supremes, and a line of classic cars that could set anyone to dreaming of the fifties. At the head of the line, he’d shake hands with the sheriff and the president of the VFW, mounted on their ponies with the state flag and the Stars and Stripes, and he’d thank them for their service; then he’d cross the street to Clancy Park and make the rounds there before finding his way down Main Street to his perch on the viewing platform.

Did some folks find it an ostentatiously regal display? Yes, Swarthbeck supposed they did. He couldn’t find it in himself to care one whit about such pettiness. Jamboree was bigger than anyone’s out-of-joint nose, and as mayor of Grandview he considered this time his opportunity to express gratitude on a grand scale for the way the town’s heritage was celebrated every year.

As folks milled about in the park, sucking on snow cones and waiting for the parade to start, the mayor zeroed in on a familiar face. Wanda Perkins stood chatting with Alfonso Medeiros, with Larry Grubbs moving around them like a shark, firing off shots from his camera.

“Grubbsie,” Swarthbeck said, “don’t you have a real job back in Billings?” He took the three of them in with a sweeping look. “Alfonso. Miss Perkins.”

“I gotta get back to the truck,” Medeiros said. “Nice meeting you, Miss Perkins.” He moved away in double time, a single glance back over his shoulder.

“Well, Mr. Mayor,” the reporter said. “You certainly have a way with people.”

Swarthbeck let it pass. “Nice to see you back in town. How go the travels?”

“Good. Spent yesterday in Watford City.”

“Excellent. Nice town.”

He really did like her, he had decided. She talked in a set-jaw manner that made even innocuous banter such as this seem like a confrontation.

“Alfonso’s a good guy,” he said. “Of course, you really ought to talk to Dea, his wife. She’s the one who makes that family business go.”

“Funny,” she said. “He was telling me the same thing.”

“What else was he telling you?”

“Oh, Mr. Mayor.” She glanced at her watch. “Wasn’t this thing supposed to start at two?”

Swarthbeck held her in his gaze. “We’re not real particular around here about time. It’ll start when I get to where I’m going.”

“Well, then,” she said, “you better get moving, huh?”

He tipped his cap to her. “Staying for the party?” he asked.

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

“We’ll talk some more then.”

Before she could reply or retort—
Smart girl,
the mayor thought,
but she overplays her hand sometimes
—Swarthbeck was on the move again, his hand raking through a little ginger boy’s hair, and then he was the recipient of handshakes and backslaps and hoots and hollers. The sidelines swelled now with anticipation as he made his way down Main Street. It wasn’t all adoration, of course. He caught the eyes of Tut and Marian Everly, him looking as though his life force had been wrung out and her face drawn and gaunt, and the mayor scrambled for a more charitable place to direct his point of view.

“Are you ready for a parade?” The mayor boomed the question as he drew near to the viewing platform, and a mighty cheer went up from all within earshot. Sam Kelvig waited at the base of the platform, ready to shinny up with him. Big day for the mayor, and big day for Sammy, too. They shook hands, and then they climbed the ladder, the mayor first, Kelvig behind.

Once in place on the platform, Sam took the microphone.

“We’re going to get started here in a few minutes,” he said as the chatter died down. “First, I just want to thank you for coming out today. The parade, as you know, is pretty much the centerpiece of everything we do this weekend. I want to say, now that I’ve been director of this thing for ten years, I’m just so pleased that everyone comes out and supports our town in this way. So thank you.” Cheers and whistles barreled in. “Now, here’s the mayor to get us started.”

Sam passed the microphone like a baton and then took his seat.

“Thanks, Sammy,” Swarthbeck said. He loved this part, loved being the mayor, loved the chance, here, to burnish his standing just a little more, same as he did every year at this time. He took a moment to calibrate his words to the tiny gap between his saying them and hearing their echo out in the street. “You know, I say something like this every year, and every year I think I won’t and then realize I have to. I’m not from here. Some of you know that, maybe some of you don’t. I grew up in a little house on the south side of Billings, and I didn’t move here until after I left the Marine Corps. But from that day on, Grandview became my home, and will be until the day I die.” He paused here, giving space to the cheers he knew would be coming. “I felt like one of you, and you made me feel that, and I’ve never forgotten it. That’s what Jamboree is about. Whether you’ve lived here all along or you’ve moved away but come back for this, remember that you’re everything that defines Grandview. You’re what makes this the best town in America. Thank you for coming.”

He leaned over to Sam as the chants began—“
May-or! May-or!
”—and cupped a hand over the microphone. “That’s what’s called a red-meat speech,” he said, grinning.

Now he stood straight again. “So let’s have a parade.” He drew out that last syllable, until the crowd was at a fever pitch, and here came the sheriff and the man from the VFW, their flags notched into the saddlecocks, and behind them, a car with Barry Bristow’s real estate signage on the door puttered forth, hands emerging from the windows to toss candy to the assembled children.

“By god, Sammy,” the mayor said, “we have us a party now.”

NORBY

A handful of tossed saltwater taffies scattered against the curb, and Norby pointed the bounty out to Randall Junior. “Better hurry, bud.” A half-dozen kids descended on the thrown candy even as more came from the next wave of passing floats, and the little boy tromped happily into the scrum, getting his hands on a wrapped piece of candy only to see a larger boy pluck it from his fingers.

“No, you don’t,” Norby said to the older child. “Give it back to him.”

“It’s mine,” the boy said.

Norby moved up on the boy and snatched the candy from him. He then turned to his nephew and handed it back.

“I’m going to tell my mom,” the boy said.

“Do it,” Norby taunted him.

The older boy ran squalling down the line to his mother, and Norby took the opportunity to pull Randall Junior back into the crowd just as another sugared volley hit the pavement.

“More,” the boy said.

“We will. Just a second.”

Norby had enjoyed hanging out with the kid, much to his own surprise. Denise and Randy had done the hard sell back at the house, asking for a few hours alone so they could go tubing on the river with some friends. It had been his mother’s suggestion that he take Randall Junior to the park to play while she tended to little Chase. The kid had been game for anything. They’d played ring toss, fished in the duck pond, split a Coca-Cola, and Norby had even slipped the dunking tank operator twenty bucks so he could send Ren Brian into the drink five times without having to throw the baseball. That had been Randall Junior’s favorite part, the way the fat man went into the water again and again.

Now he grabbed Randall by the hand and moved up the line a little bit, hoping to avoid a potential clash with the bullying boy’s mother.

“You handled that kid well.”

Norby looked around. “What?”

A woman in front of him waved a hand in front of his face. “Yoo-hoo. Over here. I said, you handled that kid well. I saw what he did.”

Randall tugged at Norby’s hand. “I want more.”

“Well, go get it, bud.”

The boy toddled out to the street and asserted himself this time, getting a rightful share of the Jolly Ranchers that flew out from a cherry-red 1951 Cadillac.

“He yours?” the woman asked.

“No. I mean, yes.”

“It’s not a tough question.”

Norby’s cheeks heated up. “He’s my nephew.”

“I see.”

“Yeah.”

“You really don’t know who I am, do you?” the woman said.

For the first time in his scattered state, Norby took a close look at her. Something there registered, maybe. He couldn’t be sure.

“Give me a hint,” he said.

“Here’s a direct quote: ‘I’d be incapable of loving you.
’ ”

“Holy shit,” he said.

Randall, now back at his side, chided him. “Bad word.”

“Go get some more candy, buddy.”

The boy stormed the curb again, and Norby turned back to her. “I can’t believe it.” And he couldn’t. He hadn’t seen Megan Riley in ten years, not since an excruciating high school graduation ceremony in which Norby had been the only graduate among thirty-one who was booed in the Grandview auditorium. It hadn’t been a unanimous sentiment; he received a smattering of polite applause, too, but in any case, that had been the nadir for him in his hometown. In a few short months of his final year in Grandview, Norby had quit the basketball team midseason and broken up with the girl his parents adored. He’d walked out of his Grandview High days as surely the least popular student council president in the school’s history. Maybe in any school’s history. Now, here was Megan, with close-cropped hair rather than the ringlets of a decade back, blonde rather than brunette, maybe fifty pounds heavier than she’d been in high school. She wore them well, too. Norby had always thought her too skinny before. She grinned at his confusion.

“Why aren’t you on the float?” he asked her.

“Why aren’t you?”

“Didn’t want to be.”

“Neither did I.”

As if on cue, the class of 2005 float, carrying twenty-two of their classmates, came into view. Steve Simic, the de facto class leader if neither Norby nor Megan was going to do the job, stood at the edge of the trailer, wearing wraparound sunglasses and holding a Super Soaker water gun. He drew down on a crowd of kids begging for a shot of water, and he drenched every last one of them, Randall included. When it was obvious that Simic had spotted Norby, he used his middle finger to slide the sunglasses up his nose.

“I was going to ask if anyone held a grudge,” Norby said. He waved Randall back to him, and the boy returned holding out a piece of taffy as a peace offering.

“Well, I don’t,” she said.

“Thank you.”

“It took a fair amount of therapy to get there, though.”

He looked at her, ready to apologize, and she couldn’t contain the laughter. “I’m just kidding.” And then, her laughter quelled, she added, “I am surprised you’re here.”

“You and me both.”

“Are you going to be downtown tonight?”

“Thinking about it.”

“Well,” she said, “if you come, I’d love to talk more.”

“I’d like that, too.”

“OK.”

Megan slipped through the folds of the gathered crowd, cutting across the street between two floats and fading into the packed mass on the other side. Norby watched her go, until he couldn’t find the top of her head anymore, and he startled himself with a sigh. He’d left here with so many things unfinished or unsatisfactory. Here was one more.

He reached down and took Randall’s hand again, and they plied their way through the onlookers to a better vantage point up front. “Come on, bud, let’s go. Great-grandma should be coming up soon.”