Why My Third Husband Will Be A Dog (22 page)

Mother Mary has gone back to Miami, and I miss her snowy white hair, her homemade meatballs, and her lab coat. And there’s one other thing I miss.

Her back scratcher.

Yes, you read it right. She has a back scratcher, which she brought to my house with her. Of course, like any smart-alecky daughter, I gave her a lot of grief when I saw it, as she was unpacking.

“Who travels with a back scratcher?” I asked.

“Who doesn’t?” she answered, because, as you may remember, Mother Mary always answers a question with a question.

So I let it go. Mother has had a back scratcher for as long as I can remember. I’m not sure if this is an age thing or a Mary Scottoline thing. I don’t know anyone else who owns a back scratcher, much less who won’t leave home without one. The back scratcher she had when I was little was of pink plastic, with a tiny hand at the end. It looked like a baby arm.

Borderline creepy.

Her new back scratcher was even odder. A foot long, made from a weird piece of teak or other endangered wood, and at the end where the baby hand would be was a bend shaped like
an L, with long fingers carved half-heartedly into the bottom. Misused, it could put out an eye.

“They let you take this through security?” I asked her.

“Why wouldn’t they?” she answered. She slid the back scratcher from my hand, crossed to the dresser, and put it with the neatly folded shirts in her dresser drawer. Mother always uses the dresser drawers, no matter how short her visit, and even in a hotel. When she met me in Boston, she stayed in the hotel one night, and still she unpacked her neatly folded clothes and placed them carefully in the dresser. I didn’t ask her why, because I knew she would answer:

“What’s the difference to you?”

The other thing of note about Mother Mary is her suitcase. She always travels with a red canvas duffel, which she got free as part of a promotion for Marlboro cigarettes. She used it for almost ten years, until one of the pleather handles fell off and the Marlboro red took on a carcinogenic hue.

I hate the Marlboro duffel, and on her last trip, I finally persuaded her to let me replace it. This is a nice way of saying that we fought about it all the way to the airport, so that I had exhausted her by the time we reached the Brookstone in Terminal B, where I saw my opening and didn’t hesitate. I bought her a new black bag with wheels, then sat down on the floor of the store and transferred all of her clothes, including the back scratcher, into the new bag. Still she wouldn’t let me throw the Marlboro bag away, but insisted that we pack it inside the Brookstone bag.

Maybe she became addicted to the Marlboro bag.

It got me thinking about suitcases, in general. I remember perfectly our family suitcase, which we used growing up. I’m going out on a limb here, but I’d bet money that you can remember the suitcase your family had when you were little.

Our family suitcase was a rigid rectangle covered with royal blue vinyl, and it had white plastic piping. Inside it were all manner of fake silk pouches with generous elastic gathering. It was so heavy only my father could carry it. And we all four used it, so either we didn’t have much stuff or it was the size of Vermont.

The suitcase fascinated me, and I always imagined that someday it would be plastered with stickers in the shape of pennants, each with the name of an exotic city. Paris. Rome. Istanbul.

We went only to Atlantic City, but still.

Now nobody will grow up fascinated with their family suitcase, because everybody will remember the exact same one. A soft black box on wheels, like the one I bought at Brookstone. No decals. No tangy whiff of faraway places.

And barely enough room for a back scratcher.

Since my mother left, my back itches all the time. I got in the habit of using hers while it was here, and since she took it away, I’ve substituted a carving fork, a wooden spoon, and a bread knife. I ended up with a hole in my shirt and an itchy back.

Now I need to go out a buy a new back scratcher.

Preferably one with a mommy attached.

I don’t know if you’re like this, but here’s something weird that I do.

Let’s say I’m going along, not paying attention to something. Like my hair, for example. Then all of a sudden, I realize I need a haircut. Suddenly I feel as if have to get a haircut that very day, though I have ignored it for two years. I can’t explain it, but a sense of urgency sweeps over me, and it means either that I need a haircut or I must escape a burning airplane, hurtling earthward.

There’s no distinction in my tiny little brain.

So I call around frantically to get a hair appointment somewhere, which is always a bad idea, because it’s guaranteed that I’ll notice I need an emergency haircut on a Monday, when salons are closed. Don’t get me started on this Monday-closing tradition, which is so entrenched that it will never change. We’ll get universal health care before we get salons open on Monday, and that’s backwards. Ask any woman if she’d rather have a haircut or a mammogram, and you’ll see what I mean.

Anyway, if I can’t get a hair appointment, I usually stop short of taking a scissors to my own hair. I’m already single enough.

Well, to stay on point, I just did the same weird thing with my house.

I have lived here for ten years, but last month, I started looking at the white stucco on my house. It needed repainting, but I hadn’t repainted because I never liked the stucco in the first place. I always knew that it hid lovely tan and brown stones, because I have them on an inside wall. So last month when I saw the stucco, wheels started turning in my head. I thought, if that stucco were gone, my house could look like something out of Wyeth.

I mean Andrew, not the drug company.

Then all of a sudden, I knew the stucco had to come off. That day. If the cost were even close to reasonable, that stucco was history. If not, I’d dig it out myself with a shrimp fork.

So I went inside and started calling around like a crazy person. I managed to raise a stonemason, who came over, gave me an estimate that didn’t require a second mortgage, and told me he would take the stucco off.

“Can you do it right now?” I asked.

“Are you serious?” he answered, because he didn’t know me yet. About my emergency hair and all, and how I get.

So I explained, and the stonemason started the next day, which was a compromise for me. I wrote him a fat check, but it turned out to be the best money I’ve ever spent, if you don’t count my second divorce.

The masons started jackhammering, and beautiful stonework started to show, authentic and old, which is just the look I love, as I am authentic and old myself. Every day brought new progress. The stones were tan, brown, and gold; of all shapes and sizes. I took daily cell phone photos and sent them to my friends, who stopped opening them after day three.

But then I noticed something. Next to the lovely stonework was aluminum siding. And I was pretty sure that Wyeth never painted aluminum sliding.

Let me explain.

When I bought my house, I did notice that its clapboard was unusually nice and white, but I didn’t realize it was aluminum siding. I never knew that aluminum siding could look exactly like clapboard, even embossed with fake–wood grain. I didn’t learn I had aluminum siding until the home inspection, but by then I was already in love with my house.

I overlook everything when I’m in love. A red flag could hit me in the nose, and I’d see only clear blue sky.

Anyway, I pried up a panel of the aluminum siding to see what was underneath. Real wooden clapboard, in need of paint, but crying for sunlight. So you know what happened next. The aluminum siding had to come off. My stonemason said he knew a contractor who could do the job and he’d get me the number.

“Right now?” I asked, but by then he knew me.

So now I have three new workmen at the house, stripping aluminum siding. The clapboard underneath is moldy and grimy, and of course, there are rotten soffits and crumbling fascia, which need to be replaced. I didn’t know what a soffit or a fascia was until yesterday. Now I must have new soffits and fascia. Immediately.

And you know what’s coming next.

Painters.

I can’t wait.