A Day Late and a Dollar Short

by Terry McMillan

  "Testy?"

  "That's what I just said."

  "Then maybe I should just cook and not say a word."

  "No, wait. Cecil, didn't you say you had some good news?" I ask.

  "Me?"

  "No, your uncle."

  "It can wait," he says.

  "No, come on, Daddy," Paris says, "we would love to hear some good news, couldn't we, you guys?" She looks around at everybody until it seems like they all agree.

  "Good news is always worth sharing," Janelle says.

  "I could sure use some," I say.

  "Me, too," Lewis says from the front porch. I'm beginning to wonder if he gon' sleep out there.

  Cecil looks nervous, worried, scared. Maybe his news ain't good. He just said he had some news. He didn't exacdy say it was good news, now, did he? Hell, I didn't mean to put him on the spot. Maybe it's private business. Between me and him. "Tell me later and then I'll tell the kids," I say. He looks relieved. Good, I think, 'cause things was getting a litde too thick around here. All I know is that I'm home. I'm alive. And happy to see my kids and grandbabies. We need to break this up some. Lighten up. "Hey, did I men- don that I dreamt about fish last night?"

  "No," Paris says, her hands pressed hard on her hips, like she can't wait for Cecil to leave so she can go on in the kitchen and do her business.

  "Yes, you did," Janelle says.

  "Well, I gotta be going," Cecil says.

  "What's up with dreaming about fish?" Dingus asks.

  "It means somebody supposed to be pregnant or something like that, doesn't it?" Lewis asks, standing at the screen door again.

  "It most certainly does," I say, and if I wasn't on so much medication right now, I'd swear that Janelle and Cecil, and even Paris and Dingus, all look like they just seen God or a goddamn ghost.

  Chapter 11

  Ten Thousand Things

  "Did you like the halibut, Mama?"

  "It was different, that much I can say. Seem like it had kind of a vinegary taste. I ain't complaining, but I was sure in the mood for some fried pork chops smothered in gravy."

  "I don't fry anything. Mama."

  "Of course you don't, Paris. Anyway, what I really liked was the dressing on that salad and that crumbilay stuff you made for dessert."

  I chuckle. "It's called creme brulee, Mama."

  I'm lying next to her in her bed. I'm surprised she's still up. After all, it's almost one o'clock in the morning. We've been playing Trivial Pursuit since right after dinner. Lewis won. Mama just watched. She abandoned us a little after eleven. The TV is on with no sound. We're half under the covers and half out. Everybody else is asleep, except Lewis. I hear the TV out there and the ice in his glass clinking. His mind is probably flitting from one thing to another, because he hasn't learned to compartmentalize like the rest of us. I feel sorry for my brother, really. He's so smart he's dumb. Sometimes I feel like I've got too many circuits going at once, too, but I unplug a few in order to get the pace down to a manageable level so I can do one thing without thinking about the ten thousand other things I still have to do. I often wonder, will I ever have a day with nothing on my "to-do" list?

  "Paris?" Mama's over near the edge, and I can just barely feel her body heat. I slide closer to her, which I can tell makes her somewhat uncomfortable, but I take hold of her arm so she can't squirm away.

  "Yes, Mama."

  "Is the mattress all right?"

  "It's very comfortable," I say.

  "I had it on layaway for the longest. It's a Sealy, you know."

  "It's nice."

  "I got a bed and dresser on layaway at Thomasville. You ever bought anything from them?"

  "Nope."

  "For my money, they got the best layaway plan in town. You can take your time and pay 'em twenty dollars a month, they don't care. And their furniture ain't cheap. It's good quality and very sophisticated. I love that store."

  "I'm glad you do. Mama."

  "I need to do something in here, but it might not be worth my time and energy."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "I don't feel like talking about it right now."

  "Okay," I say. The bed, chest of drawers, and dresser in this room are clearly from the seventies but everything in here is well kept. The sheer cream curtains have been starched and ironed. I know she did them herself. Mama's always been clean and neat. I like that about her. Her perfume bot- des are all lined up on the dresser, even though some are thirty years old and only full of fumes; there are round containers of dusting powder with various paisley prints and flowers with mint-green vines swirling around the curves; tons of lipsticks, some of them I know are at least five or six years old because I can spot about ten pink Fashion Fair tubes that Janelle, Charlotte, and I gave her for her fiftieth birthday. There's no sign of jewelry, because, even though most of it's costume. Mama still keeps it hidden in her drawers, between all her "raggedy" underwear (and she's got stacks of them), because that's where a thief probably wouldn't look. Daddy gave her a diamond so small that when it fell out she didn't even notice. It's in the box with the fake stuff.

  The walls are an old eggshell color that's yellowing by the minute, and on top of that they're bare except for two identical seascape prints she got from a garage sale. The carpet is an atrocious rusty brown. AJways been ugly, but she works around it. I wish I could buy her a new house, full of brand-new furniture, with shiny hardwood floors, area rugs from some other country, and at least one original piece of art.

  "Thank you for coming," she says.

  "You don't have to thank me."

  "I know. But I already feel better, knowing y'all are here."

  "That's what kids are for, Mama. To give you some degree of comfort."

  "I wish Charlotte felt that way."

  "She does, Mama."

  "Who you kidding? I think she like adding to my misery, but it's okay. Three out of four ain't bad."

  "Charlotte's always been jealous of anybody you show some attention to besides her. In your heart, you should know she doesn't really want to hurt you, Mama."

  "All kids don't like their parents, you know. And ain't no rule that say you gotta like your kids either. Anyway, I don't wanna talk about her. I want you to listen to me and listen to me good, you understand?"

  "Okay."

  "And take everything at face value."

  "Mama, please don't let this be one of those if-I-die-today-or-tomorrow speeches. Please?"

  "Be quiet, Paris. You can call it anything you wanna call it, I don't care. Just pay attention, would you, Miss Know-It-All?"

  "Okay, I'm listening."

  "This attack scared the hell out of me."

  "They all should, Mama."

  "No, baby. This one was a doozy."

  "But you're still here," I say, trying my damnedest to sound positive even though my cheery voice is fake.

  "Yeah, but I can't keep doing this."

  "Doing what?"

  "Fighting."

  "What do you mean, 'fighting'?" "Every time I feel one of these things coming on, I panic, and that's what makes it harder and harder to breathe, and it's taking all the strength I have to keep doing it."

  "So what are you saying, Mama?"

  "I'm saying that, if the day should come when I can't fight 110 more, I wanna make sure you see to it that the other kids don't completely fuck up their lives. They need guidance, Paris, and you might have to be the one to give it to 'em."

  "Me?"

  "Yes, you."

  "Just because I'm the oldest?"

  "Naw, that ain't the only reason. You got good sense. And you using it the way I always prayed all of you would, and you also doing something the rest of us ain't."

  "What's that?"

  "Making money."

  "Oh, really. Well, first of all, Mama, you might want to consider giving up this gloomy notion of dying altogether, because, as soon as you get on this new diet-if you can force yourself to give up that stupid beer, among
other things-and you go see a holistic doctor instead of these pill pushers, you'll see how you can learn to manage this disease."

  She's shaking her head like I don't get it and is squeezing my hand hard. Too hard.

  "Lots of people are leading productive, active lives who have asthma. Look at Jackie Joyner-Kersee. She's a heptathlete, a gold-medalist, an Olympian."

  "Yeah, well, she's also young."

  "Mama, you're not old. You're only fifty-five."

  "I won't be fifty-five for two and a half more weeks. Anyway, I don't wanna run or jump no-damn-where. So more power to that girl. I would just like to walk up a flight of stairs or to the corner and back without getting short of breath."

  "I know."

  "No, you don't know."

  "Okay," I say, not sure what to say next, but this is what comes out of my mouth: "Well, Mama, let's just say that, hypothetically speaking, if something were to happen to you and I became the so-called guide, as you say, my question to you is this: who's going to be there to help guide me?"

  "Me," she says, matter-of-factly. And then releases her grip.

  I'm not enjoying this conversation. Don't like the topic or the tone, and especially the direction it's going, so I decide to change it. "What's the real deal with Daddy, Mama?"

  "We ain't talking about Cecil right now, are we?"

  I shake my head.

  "Look, Paris. I ain't trying to scare you. I could live another two years or another twenty. You just never know. I been meaning to get some things out in the open in case something was to happen to me, so somebody would be prepared."

  "I feel lucky. Okay, Mama. I get it. Now, can we talk about living for a few minutes?"

  "Okay," she says. "What do yon want?"

  "What do you mean, what do I want?"

  "For yourself."

  "I've got just about everything I need."

  "I beg to differ with you, baby."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "You got blessed with Dingus. We both know that. But, Paris, it's written all over your face: something's missing in your life. Food and money ain't quite cutting it, can't you see that?"

  Why does she have to go here? I said I was going to put everybody in their place when I got here, didn't I? But this doesn't exacdy feel like the wisest time to chastise my mother, so I just say: "I'm doing the best I can."

  "That's not true. You trying too hard to do all the right things, to fill up all your blank spaces. But you filling up them holes with bullshit. Stuff that don't make you feel good inside. It look good from the outside, and that's why you getting headaches and taking pills. But ain't no pill in the world can cure what you got."

  "And what is it that I've got?"

  "Heartache." "Heart what?"

  "You can spell it any way you want to, but it still boils down to plain old loneliness."

  She does not know what she's talking about. "I'm not lonely, Mama. And when was my heart supposed to have been broken?"

  She looks at me like I'm crazy. I guess she would be referring to Nathan. "You can't fool me, Paris. I brought you into this world. I can see right through you. What you need to do is drop your guard and let somebody find the latch that opens the gate to your heart. You'll feel a whole lot better."

  "What makes you think it's not open?"

  " 'Cause you shooting out radar that screams: 'Don't talk to me, don't bother me, I'm fine, I can manage all by myself. I don't need nobody!' "

  "I think you're overstating the point, Mama. But what's bad about managing on my own?"

  "Nothing, Paris. But stop focusing so much on Dingus. That boy's already on his way. You've done a good job raising him, and he's gon' be all right. Now put some of that energy into you." "How?"

  "Go out. Do something stupid sometime. Something silly, something that tickle you-hell, something that don't make no damn sense." "Could you be more specific, Oprah?" "Join a club." "What kind of club?"

  "Hell, I don't know! They got clubs for everything." "What about you, Mama?"

  "We ain't talking about me now, is we, or are we?" "No. So let's make this a two-way session. Try this on: I'm not the one who's fifty-four and seven-eighths years old with a husband who has moved in with some welfare hoochie and left me in a tacky litde house by myself that from what I gather the IRS has a lien against, and I didn't just get out of the hospital after having a severe asthma attack, and I'm not the one who doesn't have a major source of income except Social Security. So-what kind of changes do you have in store, Miss V?"

  "Well, first of all, if you gon' tell it, get the shit right. This house got more than a lien against it, baby. They gon' take this hellhole in a hot minute."

  I get a lump in my throat. "Take it?"

  "You heard me."

  "Well, what do we need to do to stop it?"

  "We ain't doing nothing. I don't wanna live in this dump no more."

  "But what about Daddy, Mama? Are you sure he's not coming back?"

  "I don't want him back."

  "We've heard this before."

  "Anyway, do you wanna hear some of the things I wanna do or not?"

  "Yes I do."

  "Okay," she says, her tone softening. "I would love to go on that cruise with Loretta."

  "Sounds good."

  "I wanna get some decent dentures. A tight fit, so they don't click when I talk."

  "You should have only the best teeth, Mama."

  "I'm serious, Paris! I hate these damn things. They make my gums sore."

  "Sorry," I say, smirking and glad it's dark in here.

  "And I'm gon' lose some weight. At Jenny Craig."

  I want to laugh when I think of Mama doing a commercial for Jenny or starving on those miniature meals, but I know she's serious, so I just say, "Uh-huh."

  "And I wanna live in a real house with a garage-door opener, but a condo would be just fine, as long as I can have enough yard to plant a handful of something."

  "Sounds like a plan to me."

  "Now, this last one might seem oudandish," she says. I assume because the others haven't.

  "What's that?"

  "I want a brand-new car. 1 don't care what kind it is. Did you know that me and your daddy ain't never had a new car?"

  "Nope. But, Mama, I don't mean to put a hole in your balloon, but how are you planning to get all this stuff?" "I don't know." "You have to have some idea." "I might start a day care." "A what?" "You heard me."

  "I thought kids got on your nerves."

  "They do. I could just run it. I wouldn't necessarily have to take care of 'em."

  "Good idea. But you have to get a license."

  "So I'll get one."

  "You have to take classes."

  "I can read."

  "I know that."

  "Plus, I been playing the lottery and been hitting for four numbers off and on this past year, and my palm keep itching which means something's gon' happen in the very near future. I just feel it."

  "So-I'm assuming you'll be alive when you hit the lottery?" "You go to hell, Paris."

  "I'll keep my fingers crossed for you, Mama. But, in all seriousness, I might have a few extra dollars to spare. After my taxes are paid this quarter I'll check with my accountant and see what I can do to help you out in a few of those areas."

  "That would be nice, but don't strain yourself."

  "Well, I have to do something."

  "You ain't gotta do nothing."

  "But I can, Mama."

  "Okay, can I ask you something else?"

  "No, Mama."

  "Why don't you wanna do that television program?"

  "Because it would be too time-consuming."

  "What ain't? It sounds like a whole lotta money."

  "That's why so many people are miserable as it is, doing it just for the money. And it's not as much money as you think."

  "Well, what about that cookbook idea?"

  "I'm working on it. I just need time to develop the proposal. It's more to it
than handing over a bunch of recipes, Ma."

  She rolls over and, out of habit, reaches for her inhaler and takes a few puffs, then rolls back over and looks up at the ceiling. She's quiet for a few minutes. I'm listening to the silence. "Janelle is going through something. I think she done found out that George been doing what I suspected he was doing all along."

  "What makes you say that?"

  "Can't you see how grown Shanice is looking, not to mention acting?"

  "I didn't notice one way or the other."

  "She's different."

  "She's going through puberty, Mama.'.'

  "Puberty, my ass. Somebody done messed her puberty all up, and his name is George or my name ain't Viola Price."

  "So what should we do?"

  "I don't know. But if I tell you something, I want you to keep it to yourself."

  "All right."

  "I smelled liquor on Shanice's breath today."

  This makes me sit up. "What?"

  "You heard me. I know it was beer."

  "Mama, she's only twelve years old."

  "Wake up, Paris. Something is bothering that child. My instincts is telling me that things ain't right in their house. I just wanna make sure you watch out for her, 'cause if Janelle's too goddamn stupid and put that man before her own daughter-if and when the shit do hit the fan-promise me, before anybody else gets her, you'll take care of Shanice."

  "I thought Janelle said George was gone?"

  Mania just sucks 011 her teeth, then takes them out and sets them on the table. I think I will get her a decent set.

  "How far could he go?" Mama says. "It's his house."

  "Well, I'll ask her about it in the morning."

  Mama grabs my arm. "I just asked you not to say nothing about Shanice and no drinking."

  "1 won't. I'll ask her why George is gone and if she's planning to take him back, if he comes back."

  "He'll be back," she says, and rolls over on her side. "I'm going to sleep now. So, if you got something else to say, you'll be talking to yourself. Good night."

  It's hard to get to sleep. I toss and turn and then slide ofF the bed, reach for my purse, and feel inside until I find my pills. I almost step on Dingus when I go out to the living room. He's rolled up inside a few sheets and a small flannel blanket Mama must've taken from an airplane. Lewis is conked out on the couch. From the kitchen, I hear a glass clink against the inside of the sink. Shanice appears, in the same shorts she had on earlier and a light-pink tank top. "What are you doing up so late?" I ask. She of course is surprised to see me.