by Jackie Weger
“I don’t know,” said Justine.
“You can stay home,” said Tucker, keeping his eyes on the entertainment page. “The kids and I will go.”
“How dark is it in movie theaters these days?” she asked.
“In the back row? Very,” he said.
“I’m sitting in the front row!” said Pip.
“I really need to get some work done. The electricity’s been off so often, I’ve fallen behind.”
“I understand,” said Tucker. “I admire your dedication. Would it help if I took the kids out to supper, too? Say pizza? That’d give you a couple of extra hours.”
She smiled sweetly. “What time would you like for us to be ready?”
He leaned over and gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek. “What was that for?” she asked, distracted because the kids were watching them, wide-eyed.
“No reason,” he said and crossed his legs to better control a certain wayward part of his anatomy.
As if she had antennae on alert, Agnes reappeared the moment Wheeler was seated and offered coffee. She wore her Sunday purple best, even adding a dash of matching lipstick.
“Don’t sit across from me, woman,” Wheeler started in. “You hurt my eyes.”
“From the looks of you, you can’t see beans,” she said, commenting on his face full of shaving nicks.
“Cuttin’ my throat ain’t the same as lettin’ purple smote me between the eyes.” He sipped his coffee and with an air of disdain packed his pipe.
Justine was on the brink of saying something, but Tucker beat her to it with a discussion of movies.
Wheeler looked at him, trying to hide his alarm. “I suppose that means you’ll be handing me back into the clutches of old Iron Bottom early. Save you another trip into town.”
“Who’s Iron Bottom?” asked Agnes.
“This nurse. She drives me crazy. Wants my body.”
“That broken down old thing?” Agnes couldn’t have had a clearer opportunity. She turned to Tucker and spoke in her kindest tone. “If you want, I’ll keep an eye on Wheeler, see he doesn’t get into mischief.”
“By gar! I don’t need a babysitter! If I wanted turmoil and insult, I’d’ve stayed home.”
Agnes patted his gnarled old hand with her gnarled old hand. “Then make yourself useful. Help me learn to parallel park the station wagon. We’re taking our driver’s tests tomorrow.”
Wheeler drew himself up to the moment. “I reckon I can do that.”
Justine gathered up plates and carried them into the kitchen. Tucker followed.
“Out with it, what’re you mad about?”
“I can’t figure Agnes. She was almost sugary. That’s not like her.”
“Dad loves to bicker and I don’t accommodate him. Agnes is a perfect target. Wouldn’t you say it helps if she likes my dad?”
“I know what you’re aiming at. I can’t think that far ahead.”
He leaned against the counter, watching her put the dishes to soak. “You know, Justine, you’re one smart lady, one of the smartest I’ve ever met, but you don’t read your men right.”
“Me? What men? There’s only Philip, and now you.”
“Last night we talked about being together.”
“That was in the heat of passion.” It hadn’t been like that at all. He had been gentle and caring and strong. Concerned not to do anything that made her feel awkward or embarrassed. And when they were lying in each other’s arms, she was happy. “This is ten o’clock in the morning.”
He reached around her and turned the water taps off. “Look at me.”
“I’m looking.”
“You’re scared.”
“If it was just us, I wouldn’t be. You have to understand, I dated Philip for six years—I lived with him before we married.”
“So what did that six years tell you? Where is he now?”
“That’s low.”
“Life is chancy.”
“Next you’ll be entering contests like Agnes does.”
“Next you’ll be saying I took advantage of you.”
She dropped her eyes. “No. You didn’t. I wanted the same thing you did.”
He put his arms around her. “And still want?”
Her heart beat faster as she snuggled against him. “Yes. But find out from your dad what’s going on between him and Agnes.”
“I won’t pry and neither will you.”
“I don’t like the way you said that, like you’re ordering me.”
“I’m suggesting. They’re adults and we’re adults. Here’s another suggestion from one adult to another. Come back to my place with me for an hour.”
“In daylight?”
He sighed heavily and with knight-errant reluctance, released her. “You mean to make me walk the long road, don’t you?”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“I’ll explain it to you when we’re in that dark row at the movies. Meanwhile, I’m going home, get some puttering done. If I keep near you, the savage that lurks inside this good old boy will bust out, and no telling the damage he’d do.”
“Do you go on like this all the time?”
“Only when there’s somebody around who brings out the best in me.”
“Best or beast?”
He brushed her cheek with his lips. “Same thing.”
He walked home whistling and high of spirit, ready to do battle with his typewriter.
Justine stood at the sink with her hands in soapy dish-water, smiling.
“What’s funny, Mommy?”
“Nothing, sweetie. What’re you up to?”
“Wheeler says I can sit in the car while he teaches Grandma to park between some sticks on the road. Can I?”
“Sure,” Justine agreed and made a mental note to casually question Judy Ann about the septuagenarians. Judy Ann could repeat entire three-sided conversations when the spirit moved her.
Later in the afternoon while they were getting dressed for the movies and Justine was braiding her daughter’s hair, Judy Ann, giggling, told her that Wheeler had asked Agnes if her teeth were her own or store bought.
“What did Grandma say?”
“She said it wasn’t polite to discuss body parts in mixed company.”
“Then what?”
“Then she told Wheeler about raising Daddy and about being the best waitress in Henrico County, Virginia, for thirty years.”
“They didn’t argue back and forth?”
“Only when she knocked down the mailbox. But Wheeler and Pip put it back up so you’re not gonna get mad at them are you?”
“No.”
“Wheeler’s old enough to be my grampa.”
Justine smiled. “Yes, he is.” And that meant he was too old for anything beyond talk. A harmless old man. And she couldn’t fault Agnes for enjoying Wheeler’s attention. She got so little from the rest of them.
The problem with the elderly couple, and what made Justine so anxious, was that she didn’t know what to be anxious about.
— • —
Lottie was discovering many things, the foremost being that she should never, ever, imbibe rum while in her present condition. She had the sense that it made her head swell up to the size of a ripe melon. And one little tap would’ve made it burst, so dreadful was the ache. The pain surprised her, for during the decades she had been betwixt and between, nothing had ever hurt, except the pain in her soul.
For the past few days she had been in pitiful repair, slinking downstairs only often enough to keep up with the family.
Pauline kept hard at planning a coup on the world, Agnes was making goo eyes at Wheeler Highsmith, and Justine was behaving like a courtesan, allowing Tucker into her bedroom every night. It was Lottie’s considered opinion the moral fiber of the modern world was in need of great repair or a good old-fashioned Christian revival. And she wanted desperately to voice her opinion. She might be surrounded by people, but she was extremely lonely. It was no good being ignored.
And for all the attention anybody gave her chair anymore, that incident might never have happened. Agnes had even got into the habit of tossing her sweater across it.
This morning Tucker had no sooner sneaked out of Justine’s bedroom than the entire household awakened, bathed, dressed, and left the house to go get driver’s licenses. They left wet towels scattered, coffee cups on nightstands, and dishes on the kitchen table.
And not once since they’d moved in had a body sprinkled the floors and damp mopped to keep the dust down.
Howsomever, she had at least learned that unscrewing the fuses meant no electricity flowed. It had finally dawned on her that she needed to be on the opposite end, like the toaster, or the television, or the light bulbs hanging at the end of the wires. The electricity flowed into them and made them work.
After much thought, Lottie deciphered she needed to somehow connect herself to an outlet where electricity was stored.
And so without knowing the technicalities of electricity, or that it was a natural phenomenon, or anything about how subatomic particles freed themselves from association of any particular molecule or atom; without knowing about vacuum tubes, gases and semiconductors, positive particles or negative particles, Lottie Roberts understood electricity was energy and that it conducted itself upon those little wires, as if on tour, and was available to all and sundry who had the sense to flick a switch.
She deduced, too, that she must be some form of energy, for one could not see electricity, yet it existed, invisible.
It was an enormous discovery, she knew. She understood that no matter how forbiddingly awesome electricity might be—it was now quite reasonably possible for her to return. The problem as she now saw it was to avail herself of that flow, soaking it up until her aura filled out with good, solid flesh.
The electrical impulses in Lottie’s brain put everything into order the same way they had when she ruled the house and was the comfortable wife of Elmer. But instead of planning when to set bread to rising, when to churn butter, when to boil starch, and what day in spring she would take up wool carpets against moth eggs and put down hooked rag hugs against summer’s dust, Lottie planned her emergence into a world she found wanting, and one which she hadn’t yet found a better replacement for, despite what the Good Book said. She wasn’t blaspheming. She made a vow that she’d make things right with Himself the instant she was decipherable and got her voice back.
Meanwhile she dusted her bones, aired Pauline’s gray silk, the stockings, Agnes’s shoes, laid out undergarments, a hair brush, and bone hairpins; her hair was long and she wore it knotted at the back of her head. She was probably tolerably gray by now. She wished she had her cameo and wedding ring, but those could be retrieved from hiding once she could direct Milo where to dig. Of course, her family Bible would have to be handy, else how could she prove who she was to Justine?
Since there was no electricity in the attic, all of these things would have to be moved downstairs for the event. The experience in the bathroom with that freeloader, Kessler, proved that. She couldn’t tolerate the anxiety of wondering if she’d make it back to her bones in time or not. Best to have them on hand. Best to be sitting right on them when she plugged herself into the flow.
By the time she thought she had perfected her plan, down to the last detail but one, Justine and her family were noisily arriving home.
She went downstairs to join in the celebration. The two old biddies had passed their driver’s tests! Unexpectedly, envy tweaked Lottie. Mayhap one day she could set aside her fear and could herself master the automobile. Leastways the machine was a lot less balky than a pair of mules.
There was a sly smile at the ends of Agnes’s perennially downturned lips as she toasted Pauline. “Now the whole world knows how old you are. It’s in a computer.”
“You deplorable old nag! You were eavesdropping! At least I don’t have any restrictions. I can drive at night.”
Justine stepped in before there was a full-fledged fight. “Mothers dear,” she said brightly, “have some more champagne.”
She was truly proud of their achievement. What scared her was that they were both making long verbal lists, trying to outdo one another, of the places they would go and errands they could run, while behind the wheel of the only vehicle among them. Of course, should there be a mishap, insurance would replace the car. But what of Mother and Agnes? The images of their maimed and broken bodies, laying in a ditch somewhere, blunted her gaiety.
Chapter Fourteen
A burst of panic made Justine’s pulse fluctuate wildly. “Mother,” she pleaded, “please reconsider.”
Pauline clamped her mouth into a thin line as if she had been taking lessons from Agnes. “No. You promised if I passed my driver’s test, which I did last week, I could use the car to job hunt. The State of Alabama says I’m equipped to drive. Here’s proof.” She waved her temporary license under Justine’s nose with righteous indignation. “Nothing on this says I need a guide, or someone sitting next to me in the front seat. Especially that bully, Agnes.”
“I’m only thinking of your safety.”
“I will never get a job if I have to drag Agnes, wearing that ghastly purple, everywhere. In addition to which she’s become positively mewly. Wheeler this and Wheeler that.” Pauline mimicked Agnes perfectly. “You’ve put me off with one excuse or other, but now I have an interview. How do I look?”
“You look fine.”
“Professional? This is a Coco Chanel suit, years old. You don’t think it’s overdone? I’ll make a good impression, won’t I?”
“I’m afraid you’re going to impress yourself into another car or the pavement. Mother, please…”
Pauline drew herself up. “Justine, if I have to, I’ll manage without any encouragement whatsoever from you. And, I would remind you that you got your first license at aged sixteen. Not to mention your father bought you a car. Did I ever withhold your keys?”
Justine felt small for being anxious, and smaller still for refusing her mother the station wagon. The panic she felt was becoming weighed down further by guilt. Yet she had to try one more time. “Mother, if you could just wait a few minutes, I’ll dress and drive you myself.”
“I have an interview in less than an hour. It will take you that long just to do your hair. Then the children will want to come, and Agnes won’t stay by herself lest something jump from behind the drapes and grab her. If I wait, it’ll take up the time I’ve allowed for getting lost, which I won’t because I took down the directions very carefully.” Imperiously, she held out a perfectly manicured hand.
Justine tried to erase images from her mind; a fiery crash, the telephone call…the rush to the hospital. With the same reluctance with which she would approach a snake, which was not ever unless forced, she reached into her robe pocket. She put the car keys into her mother’s hand, knowing there would be no redemption for her in her mother’s eyes if she refused again.
“Call me if you have any problem, call me when you get to the interview. You’ll have time. They always make you wait. And don’t forget to give turn signals, don’t tailgate, and remember to stay on your side of the road.”
“I will, dear. All of those things. Now, which key goes in the ignition? The square or the round? I always forget.”
“The square one,” Justine said and bit the inside of her lip.
The morning sun was golden warm; the breeze rippled low making the webs of moss in the trees sway gently. Chickens came up to the back door hoping for a handout, blackbirds swooped and woodpeckers pecked. Justine didn’t notice.
The telephone was mute.
For the remainder of the morning she lived with growing apprehension and a self-recrimination that refused to allow her to concentrate on her own work.
Over a lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches she lectured the children. “Don’t either of you ever consider asking me if you can drive the car until you’re twenty-one, and then only after you’ve had years and
years of driver’s education.”
“I’d rather have a motorbike anyway,” said Pip.
“How old is twenty-one?” said Judy Ann. “As old as Grandma?”
The phone rang. Justine answered it before the first ring died. “You promised to call me as soon as you got there!” she hollered into the receiver.
“Ain’t been nowheres,” said Wheeler.
“I’m sorry,” Justine said, deeply embarrassed. She called Agnes to the phone and hovered until the older woman put her hand over the speaker and said indignantly, “Justine, do you mind?”
A second phone call came at ten minutes after two. It was her contact at the insurance company wanting to know how she was progressing on the software. Fine, Justine told him, excellent. Glad to hear it, said the contact, to which Justine replied she had every intention of collecting the bonus they had promised if she brought the project in on time. The contact chuckled and said the company had just been licensed in two more states and the computer network was of utmost importance now and would it be possible for her to complete the software and instruction manual ahead of schedule? Say by the end of August instead of September. The company was prepared to up the bonus to five thousand dollars. And Justine heard herself agreeing because Pauline had no doubt had a crash and was at this moment in some hospital emergency room and she would need all the money she could lay her hands on to call in specialists to repair bones and do plastic surgery. Undoubtedly Pauline had gone through the windshield because, foolishly, Justine had forgotten to remind her to buckle the seat belt.
If Pauline had told her the name of the company for which she was to interview, Justine failed to recall it. At three-thirty she called all the area hospitals. No Pauline Gates, injured or applicant.
At five-thirty Justine was lying prostrate on the sofa with a cool cloth over her eyes.
Lottie sat in her chair, trying to console her. Used to, it’d take Elmer two days to travel down to Mobile, she said. And up to a week there and back if rain had rutted the roads and bogged down the wagon. Why, Pauline’s hardly had time to turn around.
“Maybe she missed the turnoff from the highway,” suggested Agnes.