by Lee Smith
Now Livingston remains just as stuffy as he ever was, but whoever thought their own Lilah would turn out to be more like him than her own real biological father? Lilah works incredibly long hours and has her calendar and address book and 401(K) plan and long-range plans and God knows what all on her blackberry or raspberry or whatever that little thing is that she carries around with her all the time.Lord! Roxy’s got so much to do before they get here: Lilah has such high standards, who would have thought it, this child of their hearts?
Roxy glances up at the Elvis clock on the kitchen wall, which says 4 p.m. already. Elvis’s pelvis swivels, his black and white checkered legs swing back and forth, back and forth, beneath his cool blue sports jacket. Lilah has called this clock retro and offered to sell it on e-Bay for them. Roxy and Willie have said no thanks. But now Roxy will have to get something ready for dinner, won’t she? She’ll have to go to the store. At least she brought that big tin of chocolate chip cookies along.Thank God. Roxy decides to take all these old magazines and newspapers to the dump on her way to the grocery store — and she’ll leave Willie a note too, so he’ll know what’s going on. He might get here sooner than she thinks. But first she’d better put clean towels out in the bathrooms, she might forget later. Roxy is very dismayed to find that there’s no overhead light in the tiny guest bath; this is a fixture she hates, you have to take the whole damn thing down to put in a new bulb. She gets a bulb and stool to stand on. Well, shit! Now she remembers. You have to have a Phillips head screwdriver too. Damn. She knows they’ve got one someplace. Roxy looks in the bottom drawer in the kitchen, then in the tool chest on the shelf above the washer and dryer where she finds every kind and size of screwdriver in the world except for a Phillips head. Wouldn’t you just know it? Meanwhile Elvis swivels on, tick tock tick tock tick tock. If you wind him up, he sings, Down at the end of Lonely Street, it’s Heartbreak Hotel.
Finally she looks in Willie’s rusted old tackle box, jammed into the back of their bedroom closet. It’s not in the top layer, filled with hooks and lures and pliers and knives and loose change and God knows what all. She starts to close the top, then — she will never know why she does this — she lifts that tray out and finds the stack of letters in the bottom of the box, bound with a rubber band.
THERE ARE MANY LETTERS, written in a large, loopy though somehow feminine hand, all addressed to Willie at a post office box — since when does he have a PO box? Roxy goes hot, then cold. She picks up the entire tackle box and goes over to sit down on the blue rocking chair in the corner beneath the cross-stitched sampler on the wall, made by her grandmother up home. It says, “Peace be with you while you stay, God be with you on your way.” Roxy can hardly breathe. She takes an envelope at random — not the top envelope — and smooths the letter out on her knees. It’s dated September 18, 1990, five months after Alice died.
Honey
You have just left and I am laying here on the bed still thinking about you and everything we do together and I can tell you, it means the world. I don’t know what I would of done if it was not for you, me or Ricky, ether one. I am so glad he is out of here now he is doing so good isnt he. I do not know what would have happened to him if he would not have met you. If I would not have met you ether. I just hope he can stay off the drugs, what do you think about that. Oh honey I hate to get up from here I can still smell you in this bed and feel your arms around me. You are so good to find some time for me I know it is hard for you to get away. You know I want you when ever I can get you honey but don’t worry I do not expect a thing, I am just so happy to see you whenever you come in this door with your big smile. I am just going to lay here for a wile and think about you honey then I am going to get up and take a bath and go over to the rest home and see Bill as it is Sunday thogh he don’t know it of course. But then sometimes I think, well he might, so I will go over there and take him some potato chips, he loves potato chips, and feed them to him one by one and tell him things just like he can hear me such as how the Atlanta Braves are doing, because who knows? Who knows a damn thing in this world? not me that is for sure ha ha except I am just happy that you are in it with me ever minute that I can get with you it makes all the difference. I will see you when I see you
I love you love you.
Love you
Mary Etta
Roxy’s hands are shaking so much that it’s hard for her to fold this letter back up and put it back in its envelope, one of those cheap oblong envelopes from the dime store. The return address reads
1104 Peach Road
Holly Springs
GA 30456
Which Roxy knows to be a country town someplace south of Macon, an old mill town she thinks, but definitely below the gnat line. A sleepy dead little redneck racist mill town, lots worse than Rose Hill. She grabs up another letter and reads
Bo,
Sometimes I think, well, what if I had never met you? What if Ricky had not gone up before that nice lady judge who sent him to the special school where you taught him music and saved his life? what if he had just went straight to prison instead, which he probably should of. Then he never would of met you, I never would of met you. What would of happened to us then, I wonder? and now Ricky is doing great at Ga. Southern, he has got a 3.5 average, did I tell you that, and a nice regular girlfriend and the band has got as many gigs as they can take while still in school, it sounds like too many to me tho. Sometimes I worry that there is something real bad out there waiting on Ricky around the bend but lord I hope not. I know I have got to quit thinking like that. I worry that he will go crazy because Bill was pretty crazy you know, even before the accident. I have not told you the half of it, the accident was just the last straw. Though I can not say that I did not love him, I did with all my heart, tho we was just kids of course at the time. And at least he got me out of that house. And Bill done the best he could, I will have to hand it to him. He did not deserve what has happened to him but then nobody does.
Bo? Where did that Bo come from? Roxy feels like she doesn’t know Willie at all, like she never knew him. Furiously she tears through the pile of letters, lines jumping out at her.
I wish you could come over here more but I know you can not Believe me I apreciate every minute of your time I can get I know it is hard
and
Bill apreciates that new TV so much I know even if he can not talk, it is company for him. Thank you so much you are so good to do it. You are so good to all of us.
Jesus! What does Willie think he is, the fucking United Way?
Bo,
If there is one thing I can not stand, it is for you to feel sorry for me. I am glad to do an honest days work too. Cleaning is honest work. I have done worse, believe me.
Plus I make more money than Rita, you remember Rita that lives in number 14? And she is a substute teacher at the high school. I know this is a shame but it is true. They is something wrong with this country. Also I can quit a person anytime if I want to, and not lose my job. I do not have to pay SS ether, ha! I have done a lot worse as you know, right after the accident when Bill was in the hospital and I had those little children at home, I am ashamed of what I done sometimes to put bread on the table. Well I was drinking then too. That was in Florida, down at Tampa, all them tourists in the plaid shorts. Well you never know what you will do until you have to. It is just a good thing Bill had been in the army or we would of all been up shit creek without a paddle, but at least he got the medical and now he is in the VA. I truly do not know what we would of done without the VA. Lord I was not but 22 when it happened, I am not even old now, you know it? I forget. I have felt old as the hills for years now but I am not relly. You make me feel young again, you have gave me back some of my life honey.
And to tell the truth, I like to clean, I am good at it too. I have got an eye for it according to all. It makes a body feel good to straighten up peoples shelves and fold their laundry and put the magazines in stacks on their coffee tables and line up all the chairs and lea
ve everything so clean and neat and straight as it is not in life, ha! Where everything is a goddamn mess. I will even iron their pillowcases if I have got time. Mister Souci says I am the best he ever saw, he swears by me. He is the one that owns Pinetops. So do not pity me, I do not want your pity honey, just save some of the other stuff for me, ha!
Your Mary Etta
and
Well of course your wife is sad what in the world can you expect. It is harder for the mother, it just takes a long long time honey. There is a lot of us that lives in sad houses believe you me. But you go on, you have to. You will too. After Bills accident somebody told me it is like walking cross a big field in the dark all you can do is put one foot in front of the other and keep on walking and some day you will get there. You will too.
Roxy remembers something her own mother used to say when times got tough, that you just have to “keep on keeping on.” In spite of herself, Roxy sort of likes this Mary Etta, Mary Etta is her kind of girl. Plus Mary Etta can’t help any of this, she is just a poor dumb woman, a maid for Gods sake! with about a sixth grade education. A poor disadvantaged person that Willie has clearly taken advantage of, damn his sorry hide.
This reminds Roxy of that poem from Willie’s class, the one about the girl that got raped by the swan. What was that girl’s name? Leda! Roxy still remembers the ending. “Did she put on his knowledge with his power, before the indifferent beak could let her drop?” and clearly the answer is No, she did not. She did not put on one damn bit of knowledge or power either one, clearly she was an ignorant slut to begin with and she is still an ignorant slut today. She did not take in a damn thing, Roxy thinks furiously, but she is not really furious, not entirely, because there is something so sad and so sweet about this woman, oh Roxy gets it. She gets it all too well. Willie is a sucker for a sad story. But he is not a psychiatrist, damn him.
It is not really Mary Etta’s fault at all. This makes Roxy madder than ever, she’s going to wring Willie’s neck when he gets here. And then she is going to divorce him. Willie can keep his bass boat and his damn convertibles. She is going to keep the 4Runner and the house in town and the rental properties which they never would have owned if wasn’t for her anyway. But oh God, who will get this little house? She reads on.
Honey,
You have just left but I cant do a thing, I can not come back down to earth. I can not ever thank you enogh for taking me to Daytona, it is the nicest thing that anybody has ever done for me, ever. I loved that hotel and even roses in the room. It is a birthday I will always remember. I loved the white cloths and the candles on the tables and the moon on the water when we walked out onto the beach and you said that beautiful poem to me the one about that other beach, I will never forget it. Also what we did on the balcony, it is probably against the law ha ha! I will never forget that ether. Honey I could just eat you up with a spoon. I have got to calm down I have got to get some sleep you know tomorrow is my longest day first the Armstrongs then Mrs. Johnson then the Pinetops Motel. I think I will just stand dreaming at every bed thinking of you. Well thanks. Thanks thanks thanks baby, I am yours for ever no matter what.
Mary Etta
Dover Beach! Roxy can’t believe he said “Dover Beach” to her. This is unforgivable, the worst thing of all. This istheir poem, hers and Willie’s. Was. This was their poem which has always reminded her of this very place, Fernandina Beach, where they have spent so many days and nights and hours of their lives, where Roxy thought they were so happy. Ah love, let us be true / To one another!
Right. Roxy puts this letter back into the stack and sticks them all in the bottom of the tackle box and puts it back in the closet and closes the closet door. She is never going to look at them again. They are too upsetting. She does not need this! She is either going to kill him or leave him, one, she just can’t decide which.
Roxy drives down the beach to Food City and buys red potatoes and celery and eggs and mayonnaise and French dressing and everything else she needs to make her famous potato salad because she can’t think of anything else to make right now. She buys a Hormel Cure 81 ham and cloves to stick into it, and bananas and Cool Whip and vanilla wafers and pudding mix for banana pudding, which used to be Lilah’s favorite when she was a little girl. After all, Lilah is bringing this brand-new boyfriend to their home for the first time, they’ll have to eat something, it is certainly not Lilah’s fault that her daddy is an adulterer.
Roxy buys two bottles of white wine and two bottles of red and a six-pack of imported beer because who knows what this boy will want to drink? They’ve already got plenty of liquor back at the house. Roxy drives home and makes herself a gin and tonic and unloads her groceries and boils the potatoes and the eggs and sticks little cloves into the ham like it is Willy’s head, and puts it in the oven. She probably is going to kill him, but not in front of Lilah. She is not going to embarrass Lilah no matter what. She chops up the celery and the onion and the pickle and adds it to the potato salad, which turns out to be delicious. Good. The smell of the ham cooking fills the house. Maybe she’ll make some corn bread too. Roxy makes great corn bread.
She takes a nice long shower and washes her hair and puts on some sexy new underwear from Victoria’s Secret and even perfume, so Willie will see what he’s missing. She puts on her aqua V-neck top and some white pedal pushers and gold high-heel sandals and sits at the old oak table waiting and watching Elvis’s legs swing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Down at the end of Lonely Street at Heartbreak Hotel. You make me so lonely, baby, I get so lonely, I get so lonely I could die. The sun puts on a big Technicolor show going down, but nobody cares. Nobody comes. Roxy smokes a cigarette and taps her foot. She pours herself some more gin. She takes the ham out of the oven and makes the banana pudding.
She has never been so mad in her life.
She can’t decide whether she’s going to confront Willie immediately, before Lilah and Kyle arrive, or wait until after they’ve left. Obviously it would be better to wait until they’ve left, but the question is, can she wait? Can she even keep herself from dumping this banana pudding all over Willie’s head the very minute she sees him? But then nobody would get to eat any of it after she has gone to all the trouble of making it, and anyway, it’s Lilah’s favorite. Lilah sounded so weird on the phone. Roxy feels weird too, right now, but not like she is floating above herself, the way she has often felt before. She feels like she is somehow concentrated, more herself than she has ever been. She feels strong. And she can do it, she can wait. She’s got to, for Lilah’s sake, because they could never fake it for the rest of the weekend, her and Willie. They have never faked anything.
Oh, but that’s a lie, isn’t it? Willie’s been faking it for years, the son of a bitch, while she thought he loved her so much. She tries to remember back to that time which is all a blur anyway. But wasn’t it the summer of 1990 that Willie took her on that Blues Cruise out of Miami, with Taj Mahal and Sleepy LaBeef? And Roxy thought they had so much fun? Now she feels like a fool, an idiot. And wasn’t that the same year they went up to Gatlinburg for Valentine’s Day and rented that chalet with the hot tub? Was Willie thinking about this woman, this maid, the whole time he was fuckingher ? And Roxy is pretty sure that 1991 was when Willie Nelson played MerleFest, the first year they got the backstage passes. Oh God, who will get the backstage passes to Merle-Fest? These letters have taken it all away somehow — all the good times, her whole marriage, her whole life with Willie is suddenly gone like a shooting star.
If Willie had pulled into the driveway right then, Roxy definitely would have let him have it, first thing. But this doesn’t happen. She smokes another cigarette and drinks another gin which she can’t even feel, she’s so mad. She’s in a zone right now where she could drink a whole bottle and it wouldn’t even touch her. She makes the corn bread to calm herself down, Paula Deen’s recipe with the canned corn and the cheese in it, now Paula Deen is a woman who knows how to cook for men. But who gives a damn. Roxy
pours the batter into her hot iron skillet and then puts the skillet back in the oven at 450 degrees just like her mama taught them, her and Frances, so long ago. Every girl has to have an iron skillet to be a wife, Mama said. But Frances never married, bless her heart, and she was still waiting for Mr. Right when she was killed in an automobile accident on the Atlanta belt line in 1994. Frances held out for love, but Roxy was the one who got it. The one whothought she got it, Roxy corrects herself. Well, shit. What a crock of shit. It all seems so sad and so stupid and so long ago, oh those sweet sweet hopeful girls they used to be.
Roxy is taking the corn bread out of the oven when Willie and the kids all arrive at the same time, first the Mustang convertible, then the navy blue Saab, with lots of spewing sand, slamming doors, and crying out hello, hello. Shit. Roxy puts on her biggest smile and runs out to hug everybody. “Finally!” she says. “At last! I was starting to get real worried about you all.”
“Mmmmm.” Willie breathes into her hair, tickling her ear with his bristly beard and mustache, squeezing her hard against him before turning to Lilah. “Baby! What a surprise. I didn’t know you were going to be down here.” He gives her a big hug. “Man. This is fantastic.”
“You would have known if you had a cell phone,” Lilah teases him.
“And this is . . .” Willie turns to the boyfriend, holding out a hand.
“Kyle. Pleased to meet you, sir.” Kyle steps forward. Willie registers the “sir.” Roxy hides a smile, watching Kyle crunch his hand, that’s the way they do it, these manly types. Then she remembers that she’s furious.
“We’re so glad to have you. Come on in the house,” she says sweetly to everybody. “Here, let me take that.” She grabs for Lilah’s bag, but Kyle has already got it. He’s a dark-haired substantial fellow with nice brown eyes and regular, pleasant features, wearing khaki pants and a white shirt, tucked in. Most of them wear their shirttails out these days, Roxy has noticed. Kyle manages to carry everything and hold the door open for everybody else. They all stand blinking in the sudden overhead light.