Looking for Me

by Beth Hoffman

  Miz Olson, who had been a Rockette back in the thirties, looked up. “G’mornin’, Teddi.”

  Crystal-encrusted earrings, as big as walnuts, tugged at her thin lobes. One earring caught a ray of sun and threw a glint of light across the room.

  “Well, look at you two, all glittery and glamorous this morning. Is there a special occasion?”

  Miz Olson grinned. “It’s Beauty Day. Those sweet girls from Lindy Lane’s Beauty School are comin’ to give us manicures.”

  “For free!” Miz Fitzwater added, resting her arm on her walker as if the weight of her bracelets were tiring her out.

  I smiled. “Well, I hope y’all have fun.”

  “We always do.” Miz Fitzwater waved, and the tinkling sound of her charm bracelet drifted through the air.

  I passed the tiny library and turned down the hallway that led to the nonambulatory wing, a one-story brick addition at the back of the main house. While maneuvering around a cart piled high with freshly laundered linens, I saw a row of three brand-new wheelchairs lined up against the wall—the brightly polished chariots of the noble but failing aged. Dangling from the arms were large red tags printed with the words LIMITED LIFETIME GUARANTEE.

  Yeah, I thought, now, there’s a safe guarantee. Limited lifetime. As if anyone living here needs reminding of how limited their lives have become.

  I ripped off every one of those tags and crammed them into my handbag. As I turned the corner, I could see her partially open door. On the wall next to the doorjamb was a green plastic nameplate that read: BELLE FORRESTER—ROOM 7.

  I stepped to the doorway and peeked in.

  And there she was, my Grammy Belle, sitting by the window in her rocking chair. Smack in the middle of the fault line of her final years, she was caving in on herself with each passing day. Arthritic, deformed knees peeked out from beneath the hem of her lavender robe, and wisps of white hair stood straight up from her scalp. On a small table next to her chair sat an open tin of cookies.

  For a moment I stood and watched her, the way she examined a cookie before taking a bite. How she chewed with such simple joy that it made my heart ache. I waited until she swallowed, then lightly rapped on the door.

  She looked up and smiled. Cream filling clung to the corners of her mouth, and her eyes grew huge behind the thick lenses of her glasses. “Teddi!” she said, brushing crumbs from her lap.

  I wrapped her shrunken, brittle body in my arms and gave her a hug. “Good morning, Grammy.”

  “You smell so good. Just like bitin’ into a fresh peach.”

  “Where’d you get the cookies?”

  “Won ’em at bingo last night. Have one, honey. They’re good.”

  “Maybe later. Would you like to go for a ride through the gardens?”

  Her face lit up. “Oh, I would.”

  I helped her into the wheelchair, draped a sweater around her shoulders, and pushed her down the hallway. The electronic door opened with a whoosh, and fresh air rushed in, delighting my grandmother so much that she laughed. “What a beautiful day!”

  As we approached the perennial garden, Grammy said, “You know what I just realized? I’ve only been on this earth for ninety-one planting seasons. Doesn’t seem like much when you think of it that way.”

  I was caught so off guard by her statement that I didn’t know what to say. All I could do was bend forward and kiss the top of her head. When we reached a shady spot, I parked the wheelchair and sat down on a bench next to my grandmother.

  “Lately I’ve been missing my peonies. Remember how many I had? Lord, I loved ’em all.”

  Grammy slipped back in time and shared stories about her gardens, speaking of her flowers as if they were her children. Though she knew I had driven home to visit Mama over the weekend, she didn’t ask about it. I couldn’t tell if she was hoping to avoid the subject or perhaps had momentarily forgotten, so I decided not to say anything, at least not today.

  While she told a story about planting tomatoes that segued into how, during a bitter-cold winter during the Great Depression, she’d stuffed newspapers between layers of her clothes to keep from freezing to death, I watched ribbons of light push through the trees and come to rest across her hands.

  Grammy’s hands: It broke my heart whenever I looked at them.

  When I was a little girl, my grandmother had been a sorceress of all growing things—the high priestess of peonies and a heroine to any hollyhock that ever knew the pleasure of her touch. I swear her hydrangeas put out blooms the size of cantaloupes.

  I could still recall a summer’s day when I was no more than four years old. Grammy had taken me outside while she tended her garden. After spreading a blanket on the ground, she gave me a canning jar filled with pop beads so I’d have something to play with. Hanging her wicker basket over her arm, she disappeared into the riotous colors of her flowers. Then came the butterflies, and my grandmother told me all about them as she worked.

  “See that one? That’s a cookie-dittle. And see that one over there by the fence? That’s a wise old bonnie-bow.”

  When the butterflies moved deeper into her garden, I emptied the pop beads onto the quilt while my grandmother began cutting flowers. “Smell this one, sugar,” she said, pressing a bloom to my nose. “It’s a peony. I suspect this is what heaven smells like.”

  Grammy encouraged me to sample the scent of every flower she placed in her basket. The more I smelled, the more I wanted to collect all that perfume. I took the empty canning jar and went from flower to flower, gathering each fragrance. I still remember the tenderness in my grandmother’s eyes as she held the jar in her callused hands and tightened the lid.

  But she was dealt a cruel card, and the hands that had once created magic with a little soil and a handful of seeds now lay gnarled with arthritis in her lap.

  We talked and shared stories until nine o’clock, and after wheeling Grammy back to her room and kissing her good-bye, I set off for town. The minute I unlocked the side door of my shop, I heard the rapid-fire clicking of typewriter keys echoing down the hall.

  Inez was a spitfire, at typing and just about everything else. I had hired her three years ago, and from the day she began her job, it felt like she’d always belonged. Last month she turned fifty and had ushered in that milestone birthday by treating herself to a complete makeover. Her once salt-and-pepper hair was now fiery red and supplemented by a pouffy wiglet she bobby-pinned to the crown of her head, and her formerly nondescript eyebrows were drawn on in a way that gave her a look of perpetual surprise.

  Albert and I still weren’t used to it.

  “Good morning, Inez.”

  She continued typing and raised her voice. “Nothing good about it. The copy machine is on the fritz, and the repairman can’t come till tomorrow. And you forgot to buy sugar and toilet paper again. We’re almost out of both.”

  “Sorry. I’ll run out at lunch and—”

  “I already took care of it, gave Albert money from petty cash. He just left for the store.”

  “Thanks.” I looked at the old IBM Selectric. “I wish you’d let me buy you a computer. It’d be easier, and you could use it to keep track of inventory.”

  “Forget it. They’re nothing more than a crazy fad. Besides, they’re ugly. I like my Selectric.”

  “All right, have it your way.” Just as I turned to leave, I remembered. “Inez, when you’ve got a minute would you look up the price of the Limoges box that had the frog on the top? Then send a bill to—”

  “Oh, let me guess.” She stopped typing and swiveled in her chair to face me. “Miz Poteet’s been at it again?”

  “Ding-ding-ding, you win the prize. I caught her red-handed, right as she was shoving a sterling candlestick into her handbag. But she walked out with the Limoges box. I could wring her neck.”

  “Well, at least you’re making an extra pro
fit on her.”

  “Extra profit?”

  Inez’s eyes twinkled. “Last year I started adding ten percent to the bill for everything she steals.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Serious as a train wreck. Anyway, I think it’s time to up the ante. Starting today I’m adding twenty percent.”

  I leaned against the doorframe and thought for a moment. “I like the idea, but it might be unfair—”

  “Baloney. It’s fair as hell.” Inez crossed her legs and gave a tug to the hem of her skirt. “Think about it. When people get divorced, there’s alimony. And what is alimony anyway? It’s money owed for years of torment. Just ask me, I should know. That’s exactly what Miz Poteet is giving you. She’s been stealing from you ever since you gave her that quote to design her living room.”

  “I know, but I don’t understand why.”

  “Because she wanted to tell her highfalutin friends that Teddi Overman redid her house, but she didn’t want to pay for it. So anyway, from now on I’m adding twenty percent. If she keeps this up, I’ll add thirty. Then we’ll be able to retire in five years and I’ll be driving a red convertible.”

  “Well, I—”

  Inez peered over the top of her glasses and grinned. “Think of it as designamony.”

  “Designamony?” I laughed.

  Looking enormously pleased with herself, Inez swiveled her short legs back beneath her desk and resumed typing.

  After placing orders for gesso, oil paints, and sheets of silver leaf, I opened the shop for business. While straightening a painting that hung above a Savonarola chair, I heard the phone ring. A moment later Inez called out, “Teddi, it’s for you.”

  I walked into my office and leaned across the desk to pick up the receiver. As I listened to every word being said, my mind chanted, Are you serious? Do you mean it . . . do you really mean it . . . ?

  The call was brief, and the moment it ended, I dialed my best friend. Listening to the phone ring, I wound the cord around my fingers. I was about to hang up when she answered. Olivia had a late-night kind of voice that made it impossible to discern if she’d just woken up or had just gotten home from being out all night.

  “Olivia, can you meet me at Pernelia’s at one o’clock?”

  “You know it’s my day off. I was sleeping in. This better be important.”

  “It is,” I promised, pushing my office door closed with the toe of my shoe. “You’ll never guess who just called me . . .”

  TEN

  At twelve-forty I left the shop with a wicker lunch basket swinging from my hand. Turning on King Street, I walked several blocks, slowing to look at the window displays, especially those of my competitors. After crossing Clifford Street, I entered the rear entrance of the cemetery.

  Set back from the sidewalk, the old iron gates stood open to a path so narrow it could be easily missed. Shaded by a canopy of ancient trees and fringed by overgrowth that tickled my ankles, I walked into the cool shade.

  Though I didn’t know many of the residents’ names, I had the feeling they enjoyed my visits. Some might say the property was a tangled mess of plantings left to run wild, but I’d always thought that added to its charm. Olivia and I had been coming here for years and agreed it was the closest thing to a secret garden either one of us had ever seen.

  Reaching my favorite spot, I brushed away a few fallen leaves and sat on the moss-stained marble bench. From my lunch basket, I removed a thermos of lemonade and gave it a few shakes. While unscrewing the cap, I spoke over my shoulder, “How are you today, Pernelia? I’m feeling wonderful. This is a big day. In fact, I circled it on my calendar in red.”

  Of course Pernelia never says anything, but I liked to think we’d become friends. I leaned over and blew a layer of dust from her stone. Sunlight settled across the carved words:

  PERNELIA M. OWNBY

  DIED ON MARCH 4TH 1889

  IN THE 72ND YEAR OF HER AGE.

  MAY HEAVEN’S ETERNAL JOY BE THINE

  Other than its graceful arch, the stone was simple and devoid of decoration. I imagined that it suited Pernelia’s personality.

  While taking a sip of lemonade, I saw a flash of red on Archdale Street. I peered through the lacy vegetation and watched Olivia Dupree park her ’64 Chevy pickup at the curb—a restored beauty, right down to the gleaming silver grille. A few moments later, she came around the side of the stone church, the oldest Unitarian church in the South.

  Olivia maneuvered around the plots, her curly chestnut hair pulled in to a cockeyed ponytail; chances were good that she’d not even bothered to brush it first. The sleeves of her coral linen blouse were rolled up to reveal densely freckled arms, her jeans were worn to near disintegration, and peeking from above her brown leather ankle boots were ruffle-topped socks. Olivia possessed a chameleon kind of beauty. Though she was approaching forty, sometimes, in just the right light, she didn’t look a minute over twenty-five. Some days she’d flounce around town in a Gypsy-style skirt and sandals, looking mysterious and as delicate as a cameo, while other days she’d dress in denim and black leather from head to toe. Those were the days when she looked as if she could easily, perhaps even gladly, kick someone to the curb. I could detect Olivia’s mood by the clothes she wore more than by the words she said. Like me, she wasn’t a native of this glowing city, but she’d succumbed to its lure back in the late seventies and had moved from Jacksonville, Florida, without looking back. Unlike me, Olivia had once been married. His name was Eric, and after five years into a marriage that Olivia claimed was blissful, he’d left her without warning. And he did so to pursue the love of his life—a young blond photographer from California, who oddly was also named Eric. Though Olivia’s former husband apologized profusely and gave her everything, including the house they’d shared, the split-up had come close to destroying her.

  Trotting at Olivia’s side was her trusted guardian. Bear was a big brownish black mixed-breed dog that she adopted from a shelter on the day she got divorced. When he saw me, he looked at Olivia. She gave a nearly imperceptible command, and he joyfully loped forward, all but knocking me off the bench. “Hey, Bear,” I said, regaining my balance. “Wow, you smell good.”

  “He had a bath yesterday,” Olivia said as she plopped down next to me. “Rolled in something terrible. I don’t even want to know what it was. He’s the smartest dog I’ve ever had, but he loves to roll in the most disgusting things.”

  “Sorry about waking you,” I said, unwrapping my sandwich.

  Olivia peeled the top from a yogurt container. “Apology accepted. So now that I’m here, let’s have it.”

  “Well, when I was up home, I all but begged Mama to come for a visit. But that’s always our parting ritual. I beg, she says maybe, and that’s the end of it. So when she called and said she wanted to spend a week with me, I about fainted.”

  Olivia licked her spoon and looked at me thoughtfully. “Any idea why she changed her mind?”

  “I can’t imagine. At first I wondered if she was thinking about selling the farm, but she’s doing pretty well leasing the land to a neighboring farmer, so that’s probably not it.”

  “You’ve lived here for . . . what, eighteen years? And all of a sudden she wants to come visit? Sounds serious to me. So will I get to meet her? I’m dying to, you know.” Olivia turned on her hip and said, “Sorry, Pernelia—just a figure of speech.”

  “Of course you’ll meet Mama. She’s amazed that you make a living restoring and selling old books.”

  “Not old books, Teddi. Rare books. There’s a huge difference.”

  “I know, I know. Sorry.”

  Olivia’s lips curved into a wry smile. “I wonder what she’ll think of my Pez collection.”

  I laughed and took a bite of my sandwich. “She’ll be speechless. And she calls me a junk picker.”

  “Guaranteed that’ll chan
ge when she sees your shop.”

  “I’m not so sure about that. Mama’s not inclined to admit she’s wrong.”

  Olivia tore open a bag of pretzels, crushed a few in her hands, and tossed the crumbs to a chickadee that was pecking around Emma Wilson’s stone. On the opposite side of the cemetery, an elderly couple strolled arm in arm along a path. He was dapper in a beige seersucker suit and a blue bow tie, and she looked feminine in a flowery print skirt that moved gently in the breeze.

  “Look how cute they are,” I whispered, nodding toward the couple. “Do you think we’re missing out?”

  Olivia unscrewed the cap of her water bottle and took a long drink. “On what, getting old?”

  “C’mon, you know what I mean. They just seem so . . . I dunno . . . so connected.”

  “Of course they’re connected. They’re holding each other up.”

  “I’m serious. Look how they walk in perfect unison. Maybe they used to be dancers. Do you think you’ll ever get married again?”

  Olivia unwrapped a cheese-and-tomato sandwich. “Well, if the past few years are any indication, then I’d say the chances are slim. That last one stripped me to the bone and left me for dead. I never want to go through anything like that again.”

  “Well, what did you expect? He was only twenty-three years old.”

  “Age doesn’t matter,” she said defensively. “I adored Louis. It was the most intoxicating two months of my life.”

  I laughed. “It was the most lustful two months.”

  Olivia gave me a narrow-eyed look. “What’s with these questions? Have you met someone?”

  “No,” I said, grabbing my napkin as the wind tried to steal it away. “But some days I wonder if something’s wrong with me. I mean, think about it. I’m in the prime of my life and I’m not even interested in going on a date. Why am I so happy being alone?”

  Olivia nearly choked on her sandwich.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Teddi, you’re the only person I’ve known who analyzes why she’s happy. Does your mind ever rest?”