“Punkin’,” my rock, my hero, my parent who not only loved me, but also liked me, said.
“Stop doing whatever it is Mother has you doing to the tomatoes,” I said. “I don’t need her help after all.”
“I’m assuming that’s good news,” he said. “False alarm?”
“Not really,” I said, “but it doesn’t look like I’ll need to travel. Sorry for the trouble. Put the tomatoes back in the ground.”
“I’m not sure I’m following. Your mother’s tomatoes weren’t in the ground. They were in ten-gallon paint buckets. I loaded them on the truck for her—” he hesitated “—almost an hour and a half ago.”
Then I was the one not following. “Wait, Daddy. Where’s Mother?”
“On her way to you. She was out the door fifteen minutes after you called. She had me call her prayer circle and tell them she was under the weather. She should be there soon.”
Fantasy leaned in, her face a huge question mark. I shrugged, my face a huge I-have-no-idea mark.
“Daddy, I’m so confused. Mother lied to her prayer circle?”
“Technically, she had me lie.”
“What’s going on with her tomatoes? Since when did she grow them in paint buckets? And since when does she drive a truck? Has mother ever driven a truck? Full of tomatoes?”
“Since blight,” he said. “Do you know what blight is?”
“No.” I halfway knew it killed tomatoes and I didn’t want to know the other half. “But keep going.”
“Your mother lost her entire crop of tomatoes to blight. She took it hard. You can’t believe the mood she’s been in.”
Oh, I believed it.
“Honey, when she settled down after your call, she thought about it, then started packing. Rather than an inconvenience, she realized it was an opportunity.”
“For her tomatoes?”
“She had to start her crop over from seedlings, Davis. She’s desperately worked them night and day so they’ll bear fruit before the Tomato Festival. We’re looking at a week of rain while you’re looking at ninety-five-plus degrees of sun every day. You may have saved her tomatoes and her Best in Show winning streak.”
I slumped in my porch chair.
Thanks a lot for the guilty trip, Mother.
Who was doing whom the favor here?
Across the table, over the magazine letter note from Elvis, Fantasy gave up. “Don’t tell me,” she mumbled. “Get me out of bed in the middle of the night, make me bring breakfast, make me open an anthrax letter, and don’t tell me.”
I waved her off. Six o’clock wasn’t the middle of the night, I hadn’t made her bring breakfast, and she hadn’t been much help opening the anthrax letter.
“Watch out,” my father said, “they should be there any minute.”
I’d have asked if by they, he meant Mother and the tomatoes, but had to say goodbye quickly, because just then, Bexley, Quinn, and Candy raced through the kitchen and out to the porch. “There’s an old lady man wearing jewelry pajamas here, Mama,” Bex, who was Communication Director for Quinn and Candy, said.
“A what, honey?” I asked. “Is it Nana?”
Quinn leaned over to whisper in her sister’s ear. Bex nodded, then said, “Is Nana coming?”
“We hope not,” Fantasy said.
I smacked her arm.
“It isn’t Nana. It’s an old lady man wearing jewelry pajamas,” Bex said.
“Your nana is an old lady man,” Fantasy said. “Not sure about the jewelry pajamas.”
I smacked her arm again.
“Did you let the old lady man wearing jewelry pajamas in, Bex?”
Quinn cupped her hand over Bexley’s ear. Bexley nodded, then said, “No. Stranger Danger. We don’t know the old lady man wearing jewelry pajamas.”
Quinn whispered in her sister’s ear again. Bex nodded, then announced, “Candy didn’t bark.” Which was proof, to my daughters at least, that whoever or whatever was at our front door wasn’t a threat. I assumed whoever or whatever at our front door couldn’t possibly be much of a threat, because Security, who screens all traffic to my home, allowed the person up. They usually called first, but it had been a very unusual morning.
I stood. “Let’s go see.”
Fantasy stood.
“Do you want to see too?” I asked.
“An old lady man wearing jewelry pajamas? You bet.”
We paraded to the front door, where we found the oldest human on God’s Green Earth, and Bex was right; at first glance, it was impossible to tell if it were an old man or an old woman. Over what looked like a woman’s faded flannel nightgown, circa 1820, he/she wore a man’s heavily embellished blue silk cape, circa Elvis. On he/she/Elvis’s feet, blue suede slippers with young Elvis’s likeness. He/she/Elvis was shorter than me (and I’m not tall), and so old, he/she/Elvis looked mummified. The vintage gold souvenir Elvis sunglasses covering half of his/her/Elvis’s face slipped down an inch to reveal concrete gray eyes darting everywhere, looking for a place to land. I matched them up with the concrete gray wig helmet he/she/Elvis had on the top of his/her/Elvis’s head, and that’s when I knew. “Birdy!” I would have yanked her arm and dragged her inside quickly, but she was so frail, I was afraid I’d come away from it with a Bird arm in my hand.
Fantasy had no qualms about it. She grabbed Birdy by her Elvis cape. “Get in this house, Bird Woman.”
“I lost my glasses,” Birdy said. “Someone please help me find my glasses. I can’t see.”
Bex and Quinn—no flies on them—jumped clear of the old lady man wearing jewelry pajamas who couldn’t see, lest they, so close to the ground, were stepped on. Then Candy darted past all of us to bark at the elevator, which meant she could hear it; our private elevator was on the move again. Someone else was on their way up to invade my otherwise peaceful life. Fantasy stepped in front of Birdy, hiding her, from whoever was behind the parting elevator doors. And that was when my ex-ex-mother-in-law, Bea Crawford, stepped out of the elevator, then I wanted to hide behind Birdy, who was hiding behind Fantasy.
Bea Crawford, all of Bea Crawford, wearing nude leggings, as in tights the color of skin, under a black tank top featuring fighting cats, so at first glance, Bea looked naked under the fighting cats, dropped into a wide-legged nude-leggings squat, threw her arms out, then yelled at the top of her lungs, “It’s your Banana Nana Bea Bea!”
My daughters, who, bless their baby hearts, knew no better, who only associated Bea Crawford with sweet slow country life in Pine Apple, ran in for hugs.
Until my mother stepped out of the elevator.
Then they ran for their nana.
Next, four bellmen, pushing two double-wide flatbed rolling carts, the kind of double-wide flatbed rolling carts that could hold small swimming pools, ten racks of wood, and hybrid cars, struggled out.
The elevator doors closed behind them.
Before I could shove my ex-ex-mother-in-law back on it.
I surveyed the carts, stuffed with white plastic buckets. The buckets were filled with dark soil. Above the soil, and peeking just above the rims of the buckets, were two-inch tomato plants.
The gray helmet of a wig poked out from behind Fantasy. Birdy leaned north, her nose in the air, sniffing like a geriatric hamster. “Are those tomato plants?” Her blank eyes roamed the crystal chandelier centered in the recessed vestibule ceiling, ten feet above everyone’s head, fifteen feet above the tomatoes.
I answered her. “Unfortunately, yes. Those are tomato plants.”
Birdy leaned farther north to blindly address the tomato-plant guardians. “Did somebody get the blight?”
“We got the blight alright.” Bea shifted her considerable weight. “Our butts got blighted all the way to Biloxi.”
Why was Bea Crawford there?
I slowly shifted my gaze to my
mother. I narrowed my eyes. “Mother?”
“I can’t drive a truck, Davis,” she said, by way of explanation, as to why she’d drag my ex-ex-mother-in-law with her. “My feet don’t reach the pedals.”
Birdy leaned out from behind Fantasy again. “I haven’t driven a car since nineteen and thirty-four.”
“Boy—” my ex-ex-mother-in-law beamed, taking in the Bellissimo, my home, and my children “—it’s good to be back! I’m here and so is Elvis! Elvis is in the house!” Then, in her nude leggings, slinging a very generous hip out, she snarled her upper lip and howled, “I’m a hunka hunka hunka hunka burnt love.”
Bex sang, “Hunka, hunka, hunka.”
Quinn danced.
Candy barked.
I cried.
“Say.” How Bea started almost every sentence. “Guess who we ran into?”
I watched my mother’s hand slide behind Bea’s arm. I knew that move. She was pinching the soft flesh of the back and just inside Bea’s upper arm.
“Oww, Caroline.” Bea smacked Mother’s hand away. “Guess,” Bea said. “Just guess who we saw.”
Beside me, Fantasy was discreetly slashing a finger across her throat, as in, shut up, Bea.
I side-eyed her.
Her hand slowly dropped to her side. She smiled. Innocently.
“Miss Hoity-Toity herself,” Bea announced.
I turned to Fantasy.
“Bianca is here?”
“She is?” Fantasy was wide-eyed and full of wonderment.
“You knew and didn’t tell me?”
Worse than that, if Fantasy knew, it meant my husband knew. And my boss, No Hair. And Baylor, that punk. Everyone knew Bianca Casimiro Sanders, the owner’s wife, who lived in the Penthouse above me, who’d fired me from half of my part-time job, who I hadn’t spoken to since just after Hurricane Kevin, was back in residence after an eight-month absence.
And no one had bothered to tell me.
I had to hear it from my ex-ex-mother-in-law.
Who shouldn’t have even been there.
SIX
Before everyone and everything settled, a dark spattered trail of Alabama soil led from the elevator, through the vestibule, into my foyer, then down the main hall, where it split and branched off in three different directions. First, the dirt trail led down the guest hall to the balcony between the guest bedroom suites, then through my living room to the veranda, and finally, down the main hall and through the kitchen to the kitchen porch, the same kitchen porch that still had a magazine letter note on the same kitchen porch table. The whole time, the thermometer continued to climb. It was a humid ninety-six degrees out. And it wasn’t even noon.
Bea Crawford, who shouldn’t have even been there, under any circumstances, was busy issuing tomato orders to the bellmen like they were her personal field slaves. Point this bucket that way. Get that bucket out of the shade. Line them up better. One ten-gallon bucket, one marked with a tiny red B, which meant it was Bea’s, as opposed to my mother’s B-less buckets, was missing—find it. “It’s a Cherokee Purple Heirloom,” Bea said.
“What is, ma’am?”
“The missing bucket.” Bea was cracking whips. “My tomato bucket, dummy.”
“Ma’am, they all look the same to me.”
And to me. Every dirt bucket had a two-inch green stalk sprouting furry leaves. “Bea,” I said. “You’re being rude. Apologize.”
“I’m not a bit sorry, Davis, because he’s being dumb.”
Bea was sweating with such force, the fighting cats on her tank top were surely drowning. I glared at her while speaking to the bellman. “Excuse her. She’s had too much sun.”
“I’ll tell you who better be getting too much sun, and that’s my Cherokee Purple Heirlooms, that’s who.” She tipped her head back. “Here sunny-sun-sun! Come get Bea’s heirlooms!”
When the tomatoes were finally, finally where she wanted them, Bea, fists buried in generous hips, said to one of the bellmen, “You boys are going to need to rig us up a irrigator.”
“I’m sorry?” Sweat rolled down his sharp nose and dripped onto his bellman’s uniform.
“Water?” Bea said. “You ever heard of water? These tomatoes need water.”
Her mouth was open to explain water to the bellmen when I interrupted. “That’s enough.” I turned to the sweaty bellman. “Thank you for your help. We’ll take it from here.”
Bea turned to me. “Since when do you know how to rig up a irrigator?”
I totally and completely and thoroughly ignored her.
Meanwhile, inside, Bexley, not yet three-year-old Bexley, had been busy vacuuming. Helping Mama. Quinn was mopping. Also helping Mama. The problem was, Bex’s Fisher-Price Light-up Learning Vacuum wasn’t vacuuming. It was spreading and smashing. And the ten-gallon plastic bucket full of dirt and a tiny tomato plant, clearly marked with a red B, into which the girls emptied an entire bottle of shampoo and a gallon of almond milk for Quinn to slosh her Melissa & Doug Let’s Play House! mop around in wasn’t mopping. It was slopping and slinging. The girls had gone through the foyer, down the hall, and into the living room spreading, smashing, slopping, and slinging soapy milky mud. In the time it took to place the tomato buckets on the porches, Bex and Quinn had managed to coat at least half of our ten-thousand-square-foot home in mud. Candy, a toy broom in her mouth, happily playing along, was clearing every flat surface with the straw end of the broom and scraping every wall in the house with the broom handle, her tail wagging wildly as she tracked muddy pawprints everywhere.
I couldn’t begin to describe the chaos.
“Fantasy!”
Everyone above me and everyone below me, all the way to the casino, twenty-eight floors down, and all the Elvii all over the building, surely heard me.
Fantasy’s head popped up from behind the dining room table. “What, Davis? What?” Then she took a look. “Oh, dear Lord.”
“Did I ask you to watch the girls?” I demanded. “Did I?”
“Yes, Davis, you did. But you also asked me to get information out of Bird Woman. I can’t do both, so I asked your mother to watch the girls.”
Birdy James, from deep in a dining room wingback chair, waved. “Are you talking to me, Davis?”
“Bird Woman’s hearing aid fell out of her head,” Fantasy said. “Now she can’t see or hear. I’m looking for her damn hearing aid.”
“Ugly word jar!” Mud-covered Bex pointed and yelled. “Fantasy, you said ugly words! Put a quarter in the ugly word jar!”
“I’m going to empty out the ugly word jar, Bexley,” Fantasy said, “because your mother needs the money. She’s lost five million dollars.”
Fantasy was right. Not about me losing five million dollars, but about five million dollars being lost. Hearing aids, tomatoes, mud, my insufferable ex-ex-mother-in-law, who shouldn’t have even been there, not to mention Bianca Sanders making a surprise appearance aside, I still had a five-million-dollar problem, the thought of which stopped me in my tracks. I just stopped. I did the 4-7-8: I inhaled for four seconds, held it for seven, then let it go for eight. I did it three times. Lest I kill someone. When I’d calmed down enough, I eased the toy cleaning equipment away from Bex and Quinn and asked if they’d like to watch Frozen again.
They did. They very much wanted to watch Frozen for an unheard of second time in one day.
“I won’t tell Daddy,” Bex said.
Quinn nodded.
“I’ll tell Daddy,” I said. “We don’t keep secrets from Daddy.”
Fantasy laughed. Slapped-her-leg laughed. Doubled over laughed.
I didn’t appreciate it a bit.
I called Housekeeping and asked for a cleanup crew. A very large cleanup crew. Wet/dry vacs, industrial carpet and upholstery shampooers, the works. Immediately.
My mother, who was supposed
to be watching my children, appeared, wearing an apron over her summer-weight double-knit jogging suit. She’d set up camp in my kitchen. She was cooking—when the going got tough, my mother got cooking—by way of watching Bex and Quinn. To her, feeding them was watching them. She surveyed. “Davis, you’ve let your children run hog wild again. I’m trying to prepare them a balanced meal, and you’ve let them tear up the house.”
My jaw was slack. My head shook slowly of its own accord.
“Where’s your sweet tea?” Mother demanded. “Do you not have a pitcher of sweet tea? Bea’s about to fall out. I’ve made us a nice platter of liverwurst and pickle-loaf sandwiches with boiled beets and sliced persimmons,” Mother said, “and we need something to drink besides soda pop. Soda pop gives Bea gas.”
Fantasy said, “Since when do you eat liverwurst, Davis?”
Mother answered. “I brought groceries with me, Fantasy. Davis never has a bite of nutritious food in this house. She feeds my granddaughters garbage. Pure garbage. It’s a wonder they don’t starve to death.”
From the wingback chair, Birdy yelled, “Did someone say liverwurst?”
Bexley asked, “What’s a worse sandwich?” She tugged at the hem of my t-shirt. “Do we like worse sandwiches, Mama? Worse than what?”
I didn’t say a word to any of them. I gathered my daughters, Candy trailing behind, stopped by their room for clean clothes, then marched everything and everyone to my room. I locked the door. I bathed the girls, put them in the middle of my bed, then turned on the television. I cued Frozen. I hit play. Candy, who was next in line for a bath, hopped on my bed before I could stop her. She settled her muddy self between the girls. She thumped her muddy tail on my pillow.
I closed my eyes and shook my head.
Quinn leaned over to whisper in Bex’s ear.
“Mama, we’re hungry.” Candy’s muddy tail pounded my pillow. “Candy’s hungry too.”
Double Trouble Page 6