Last Will

by Bryn Greenwood

  “If Annadore’s sick, I’d hate to think of her out in the cold if you had car trouble again. Why don’t you take the Fleetwood, and I’ll take another car to my meeting.” He took the keys out of his pocket and tried to hand them to me.

  “That’s so nice of you to offer, but I couldn’t.”

  “Would you rather drive the Bentley? Or a Rolls Royce? Those are your other options.” He opened his desk drawer and took out two other sets of car keys. He was teasing me, but I got the feeling that if I said yes, he really would loan them to me. I guess that’s what being rich is for, being able to loan someone a Rolls Royce, but it made me feel like he was so nice that I was never going to be nice enough back to him.

  “No, I guess I would rather take the Cadillac,” I said, because I figured it was about the only graceful way out of it. “Thank you. That’s really nice.”

  “Do you need some money for the doctor’s visit?”

  I turned around and walked out, because I didn’t want to think about what something like that would mean.

  Being Meda

  I tried to give Meda money. She was taking Annadore to the doctor and she looked worried and tired; it was a simple mistake. I wanted to help her, and I guessed that money was tight. I was annoyed that Mrs. Bryant hadn’t asked for a better salary for Meda, knowing she had her family to take care of, and I was annoyed at myself.

  After I made the offer, Meda wouldn’t even look at me. The one mistake was forgivable, but what I did next wasn’t. I got out the phone book and dialed the number for the County Hospital, not knowing what I was going to say until the receptionist answered the phone. Then I realized it was quite simple. I told the receptionist who I was and asked her to send me the bill for Annadore Amos’ visit.

  When it was time to go to the attorney’s office to meet with the museum representatives, Celeste gasped when she saw that we were going to take the Rolls. “Where’s the Cadillac?” she asked. Wanting to tell her it was none of her business, I explained that I had loaned it to Meda. Celeste remarked that I was “very generous,” but it was tinged with disapproval. The meeting was brief, and when I dropped Celeste back at the house, I worried about tensions that might be created by Meda’s situation. Were Mrs. Trentam and Celeste doing their jobs, perhaps angry that Meda got special treatment? I didn’t know how those things went. I didn’t want to know.

  Meda’s grandmother had told me to come by some time to talk, about aliens she meant. I went anyway, intending to pump her for information, and with a little prompting, she offered to show me some family photos. I couldn’t help but contrast the bound volumes of my family’s photos with the mousy smelling shoebox Miss Amos retrieved from her bedroom. She spooled through story after story of her dead relatives, until I wanted to pluck the box out of her withered hands, dump the pictures out on the coffee table and paw through them like a dog. Almost when I couldn’t take any more, Miss Amos pulled out a school photo of Meda. She looked ten or eleven, and I was astounded by the subtle changes brought about by the years since the photo in Muriel’s wallet: the thinning of her face, the way the hate in her eyes had blossomed into something more pragmatic. Her eighth grade picture, however, defied all my expectations. Meda’s gaze was distant and devoid of hostility. I had viewed the procession of photos like a ripening process, but there it was interrupted. Her lips formed a shy smile.

  Returning the box to its storage place, I found a real treasure. Amid a clutter of pharmaceutical products on Miss Amos’ nightstand was a framed photo of a young man in a World War Two-era naval uniform. Tucked into the lower corner of the frame was a newer photo. The familiar shape of Meda’s face caught my eye. She wore a deep blue formal dress and a rhinestone tiara. In the crook of her left arm she held an avalanche of roses. Her hair was tamed into convoluted waves and curls, her eyelids drooped sensually under the weight of mascara, and her lips gleamed red with an invitation to debauchery. The feral eight-year-old Meda looked out of a woman’s face. Someone had cropped the photo at Meda’s right elbow, leaving a slivered vestige of her escort: the edge of a shoulder, a wedge of head and hair, perhaps topped by another cheap crown. From behind me, Miss Amos said, “Billy Gertisson. I loved him, but he died at Midway.”

  “What’s this picture of Meda?”

  “Oh, that. That’s when she won the Winter Homecoming Queen. I cut that wicked boy right out.” It was a story I could have gotten from anyone in town, if I’d asked. My aunt would have told me, and it was only a matter of time until somebody told me. I hoped the inevitability of it made it less of a betrayal that I heard it from her grandmother.

  “Her ninth birthday she wanted to have a sleepover party, but no one came. The other little girls in her class didn’t want to go. Or their mothers wouldn’t let them go. Their mothers didn’t trust Muriel to stay sober and take care of the girls.” Miss Amos interjected this in the middle of the larger story, perhaps to illustrate the odds that had been against Meda winning a popularity contest.

  In the mutilated picture, the failed party was behind her. She was the first sophomore girl ever to win the Winter Homecoming Queen, a title usually accorded to the prettiest senior. It all came out in a gush from her grandmother: a tangled web of pride and sorrow, the sort of story that doesn’t bear dramatizing. Her escort, the boy clipped out of the photo, had some particular ideas from his father about the sexual availability of the Amos women. When Meda didn’t want to play along, her date and his two friends beat her up and raped her.

  And they lived happily ever after. That’s the part of the story Miss Amos didn’t have to tell me. I figured it out myself. Meda had no father, an uncle who was a wandering spirit, and her brother had been a little boy. I thought of Robby, who despite his charm and reserve had a certain brutality to him, an eagerness to punish wrongdoing with violence. Miss Amos’ silence told me that nothing had happened to the boys who did it. She looked up into my face with eyes as black as Meda’s, full of a lifetime of disappointment. I had to look away.

  By the time Meda came home, Miss Amos and I were recovered, sitting on the sofa talking about aliens. Meda gave me a funny look, and I gazed at her in amazement, knowing all the people she was carrying around inside of her. The Ghost of Winter Homecoming Queen Past.

  “Ear infection,” she said, laying a fussy Annadore on the ottoman and sitting on the sofa between her grandmother and me. “He gave her some drops, and uh, some Amoxicillin.” She fished the bottles out of her coat pocket.

  “How much?” Miss Amos said.

  “Nothing. The receptionist said it was taken care of.” She sounded angry.

  “So sue me for trying to help.” I was startled to hear something so flippant come out of my mouth. Meda was not impressed. Instinctively, I leaned closer to her, enjoying the aura of cold around her, and the smell of warm skin sneaking up out of her coat collar.

  “You don’t know what it’s like, having people think, you know, because you were paying.”

  “It’s part of your benefits,” I said.

  “That’s not true. And you know that’s not what people think.”

  “You,” I started, but stopped, wanting to find a diplomatic way to say it. “You wouldn’t do it the easy way. That’s why I called.”

  “I don’t like taking your money.”

  “Why?”

  “You don’t know what it’s like being me!” The outburst startled Annadore into tears. Meda reached out and stroked her hair until she settled down again.

  “You don’t know what it’s like being me,” I said quietly.

  Meda took off her coat, picked up Annadore, and carried her down the hall. A little later, I heard Meda in the kitchen and then she poked her head into the living room.

  “Come eat,” she said.

  The kitchen was like a movie set, everything in it straight out of the Forties, including the refrigerator and stove. The wallpaper and cabinets had once been white, but were yellowed with age. Fifty years of foot traffic had worn a ring in the l
inoleum around the table. Only Meda looked out of place, in the wrong costume for the movie: a black thermal undershirt and a pair of men’s corduroy jeans, both of them unnervingly tight.

  Meda seemed embarrassed when she put the meal on the table, and there was nothing to alleviate that except to eat it. I liked soup and grilled cheese sandwiches fine.

  When the railroad crossing bells began to clang outside, I was the only one who flinched. I nearly choked on a bite of grilled cheese, but Miss Amos went on grumbling into her soup. Meda went on cutting the crust off Annadore’s sandwich, and Annadore went on dabbling in her glass of milk, making a mess. I half-expected the train to come through the room next door, but I focused on getting my sandwich down the right way.

  After Annadore’s bedtime, we sat on the sofa, watching TV. I was acutely aware of the pressure of Meda’s arm against mine. I thought of putting my arm around her, but reminded myself of all the reasons I wasn’t going to succumb to the temptation. We sat for almost an hour, her grandmother next to us, Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom flickering across our faces.

  Meda jumped up when someone knocked on the door. I had a sinking feeling I had again intruded on her personal life, but when she opened the door it was her sister Loren. I’d seen photos of Loren, but in her current incarnation, she was making every effort to be Meda’s opposite. Where Meda curved, Loren was rail thin. Loren’s hair was as blonde as Meda’s was black. So blonde it had to be bleached. While Meda was fair, Loren was tanned, again I assumed artificially.

  “Did you know there’s a Cadillac and, I think, a Rolls Royce in the front yard?” Loren said.

  Meda shifted to look at me and Loren followed her gaze.

  “This is Bernie. This is my sister, Loren.”

  I stood up to shake her hand, but she ignored the gesture.

  “So now you’re borrowing his car. Did you get to drive the Rolls Royce?”

  “No,” Meda said. “Which sweater did you want?”

  “The sexy red one with the V-neck. The one that makes your boobs look big.”

  “My boobs are big. I don’t have a sweater that can do that for you.” Meda gave me a smile that carried more warning than amusement, and I had to bite the inside of my mouth to keep from laughing. I was sorry I hadn’t seen that sweater in action.

  “You’re such a bitch.” Loren flopped onto the chair opposite me. “Her boobs wouldn’t be so big if she weren’t so fucking fat.”

  “Watch your mouth, Muriel,” Miss Amos said.

  “I’m Loren, not Muriel,” she snapped. When Meda went down the hall, toward her bedroom, Loren turned back to me. “So, Bernie. Meda says you won’t sleep with her. Never happened to her before. Maybe you like blondes better. Thin blondes?”

  I hoped some catastrophic incident would occur and end the conversation. I envisioned a train derailing into the house. I wasn’t surprised that Meda told her sister things of that nature, but I didn’t like being asked to comment on them.

  “Well, her boobs are big,” I said, pretending to have an internal debate about the sisters’ respective charms. Loren narrowed her eyes at me.

  Meda came back with a red sweater and threw it in Loren’s lap.

  “Gramma says you’re an abductee, too,” Loren said to me.

  “No, Gramma’s confused,” Meda said.

  “Mom said so, too.”

  “Shut up, Loren. He was kidnapped, you moron, like for ransom. Not by aliens. Now that you have what you came for, maybe you could leave.”

  “Why? Are you going to try to get laid again?” Loren said

  Meda answered with a malevolent smile and grabbed Loren’s arm.

  “My boobs are big,” Loren mimicked in a whiny little girl’s voice, as Meda walked her to the door and pushed her out.

  With Loren gone, Meda considered me with a look of annoyance. It was late.

  “Look, for whatever reason, I know you won’t stay, so I’m not sure I should keep asking. Except I don’t want you to think that the invitation’s closed just because I don’t keep asking.” She rested her hands on her hips and glanced at her grandmother, who did not seem to be listening.

  “It’s okay. I like you asking,” I managed to say, surprising myself.

  “You want to come and help put up Christmas lights Sunday?” she said.

  Being Bernie

  Meda

  Bernie didn’t even need a ladder to put lights on the edge of the roof in front. We were almost done when Gramma came out to tell me I had a phone call, which I knew meant it was a guy. If it was Loren or Mom or Aunt M., she would have said so. It was Jeff.

  “I wanted to come over for a little while tonight,” he said.

  “I don’t think tonight would be good. Besides, I’ll see you Friday, right?”

  “Just for an hour or so. I want to see you, give you your Christmas present.” He had this cocky voice he used when he was trying to get people to do what they didn’t want to do. He thought I was too stupid to notice he was using it on me.

  “I don’t want you to give me anything, and tonight’s not a good night.” I wouldn’t even do Christmas except for Annadore. I hated to think about what he was giving me for Christmas, but I guessed it involved him trying to talk me into letting him spend the night. I’d slept with him once, almost three months before, and he wouldn’t let me forget it. I don’t know what it was. I would have let Bernie stay if he wanted, whether we had sex or not, but the idea of Jeff coming and staying the night depressed me. They say you always want what you don’t have, so maybe that was it.

  “Come on, Meda. Don’t be so hard on me.”

  “Please, don’t come over. I have someone over.”

  “Your boss, right?” He must have driven by and seen Bernie’s car.

  “Bernie’s helping me hang Christmas lights.”

  “So it’s Bernie, now, not Mr. Raleigh. Bernie is helping you put up your Christmas lights. How nice.” Jeff went on like that for a while, so that I kind of tuned him out, started wondering what Bernie was up to. I tuned back in to hear Jeff say, “I guess bowling doesn’t hold a lot of appeal when you’ve got that kind of money dangling in front of you.”

  “God, if you don’t want to go out with me, just say it, okay. Stop with the ‘poor, poor Jeff, mean old Meda has another guy at her house’ routine. I wasn’t aware we were seeing each other exclusively.”

  “I guess we’re not,” he said and hung up.

  When I came out of the bedroom, Bernie was sitting at the kitchen table, working on a string of lights, going through it one bulb at a time to find the one that wasn’t working.

  “Who was that?” He didn’t know the code. He didn’t understand that I wasn’t going to say, “my mom.”

  “Jeff Hall. You met him,” I said, curious to see his reaction. He nodded and kept working on the lights.

  “What does Jeff do, for a living, I mean?”

  “He’s the gym teacher at the high school,” I said. Bernie made a face.

  “He’s taking you out next weekend?”

  “I don’t think so. He called to dump me or to get me to dump him. Same thing.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “He says he can’t compete with you.” I wanted to see if I could get any kind of reaction out of him. What I got was a half smile, and then he went on to the next light bulb. “Says you’re too rich, too tall, too good-looking.”

  “You’re just teasing me.”

  “That wasn’t really what he said, but that’s what he meant.”

  “Well, I’m not an electrician, but there’s something else wrong with this string of lights,” Bernie said when he reached the end of the cord. He was looking at it like he was an electrician, like he was going to try to fix it, so I took it away from him and put it in the kitchen trash.

  Fair to Middling

  “So, what are you doing for Christmas?” I asked, when Meda sat down across the table from me and started to sort through a box of tree ornaments. The oven door was open, h
eat radiating out of it. I was sweating sitting in front of it.

  “Well, Annadore and I are going to Aunt M.’s for the day and then probably everybody will get together here for the evening. Christmas Eve we’re going to hear my cousin Stephanie sing with her church choir. She gets to solo. What about you?”

  “Nothing special,” I said carefully. I didn’t want to spring the trap too soon.

  “You’re not doing anything with your aunt?”

  “She’ll spend the week with her sister in Ohio, like she does every year.” As much as I was operating on ulterior motives with Meda, I was also facing the prospect of several days of utter aloneness, watching awful Christmas specials on TV, or not watching TV, knowing there were awful Christmas specials playing while I wasn’t watching.

  “What about your mother? Aren’t you going to see her for Christmas?”

  “She prefers not to.” Meda gave me a quizzical look, so I added, “She wouldn’t enjoy it.”

  “Spending time with her son?”

  “Well, I’m not the son she wanted.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. I didn’t want Meda’s pity. I wanted her to like me. I glanced up, but couldn’t read her facial expression.

  “What does that mean?” she said.

  “Have you ever read a children’s book called The Devil’s Storybook?” She shook her head. “In the book, there’s a story about a perfect little girl who never lost her temper, no matter what evil schemes the Devil devised to upset her. She was perfect until she had a ‘fair-to-middling child.’ Then she lost her temper every day. Her happiness was destroyed by a less than perfect child.”

  “Are you saying you’re Satan’s revenge on your mother?”

  “No. All she sees is that I’m not as smart or as capable as my brother was.”

  “Too bad for her, she got an average kid.”

  “Fair-to-middling,” I corrected. “Every time she sees me or talks to me, it reminds her of what happened. In her mind, she had a perfect life, until that. It started all the other bad things that happened to her.”