“Apples and oranges,” she said, laughing as she hauled her suitcase to the middle of the room, dropping it like a ton of bricks. “I was close.”
Gus shuffled the heavy box to a chair and set it down. “What’s in this?”
“Fifty-six hundred copies of It’s My Rain Forest Too. One for everyone in town,” she said, still marveling at the paint. “And you did all this work yourself?”
“Yes.” She looked around the room as if she’d never seen it before. She felt vague and confused. “Most of it.”
“You still need drapes, I see, but I imagine you’re taking your time and picking out the exact right colors. I’m so parched. Honey, can I bother you for some tea? I hate to admit it, but my nerves aren’t what they used to be. I remember a time when I thought a bus ride from Seattle to Muskogee, Oklahoma, and then on to Augusta, Georgia, and back again in the heat of the summer to attend a couple Civil Rights rallies was a lark—and now an eighty-minute plane ride just frazzles me.”
“Well...yes. Of course. Tea? Ah, right. I didn’t even ask how your trip was, Mother,” she said, as if she’d had a chance to. “Oh dear, I left Liddy on the phone. Come...come into the kitchen. That way. You can say hello to her while I heat the water.”
Listening to her mother reexplain her independent thinking to Lydia was like watching reruns of the first O.J. Simpson trial, but ten times more frustrating.
It was one unbelievable little complication after another. Two weeks without sex notwithstanding, she wasn’t looking forward to being interrogated about Scotty or the long evenings of empty conversation as they both skirted all subjects that might brush on the failure of her musical career or the tense moments of heavy innuendo pertaining to her contributions to society...albeit Tylerville’s.
This as she actively waited for the blight of her life to have its inevitable effect on what was fast becoming the one thing in her life she didn’t think she could bear to fail at—her future with Scotty Hammond. How much more could she deal with?
“Gus! Gus!” Chloe shouted, blasting through the back door without her usual ring on the bell. “Guess what I got? Just guess. I get to keep her here at Daddy’s house. Guess what it is. Guess where it is.” She laughed excitedly. “Just guess.” Spotting Wanda two feet away on the phone, she frowned a moment, then asked, “Who’s that on your phone?”
“That’s my mother, Chloe. Mother,” she said, noting the keen interest she was taking in the child. “This is Chloe Hammond from next door.”
“How do you do, Chloe?” she said, smiling.
“I’m doing real good. Guess what I got? Guess where it is?”
“All right. One moment, Lydia. Chloe?” she said, bending low, playing the game like a pro. “What have you got? And where is it?”
Chloe laughed again, putting both hands in the muff-pocket of her hooded sweatshirt. “You’ll never guess,” she chortled. “I got a mouse in my pocket. See.”
Though the mouse was hardly much bigger than Chloe’s fist, the thin pink tail dangling long and rat-like from the bottom, it was the unexpectedness of it that triggered the bloodcurdling scream from Wanda, which frightened Chloe half out of her mind, causing her to drop the mouse, who—understandably—ran for its life.
“My mouse!”
“My God, a mouse!”
“My mouse!”
“Where’d it go?”
“My God, a mouse!”
“There. There.”
“Anybody home?”
“My mouse!”
“Quick. Get it.”
“There.”
“What’s happening here?”
“I’m fine, dear. Lydia, I may have to call you back. It’s...there. There.”
“Get it, Chloe.”
“Aw! There it goes!”
“My mouse! Daddy, look out.”
“There. Catch it. There.”
“My God, a mouse!”
Gus did a high-stepping jig when the rodent passed between her feet, then grabbed the first thing she touched off the countertop—a plastic bowl. Cautious as a lion tamer, slow as a postal worker on Valium, she trapped the cornered mouse under it.
“I got it. I got it.”
“Chloe, how did I tell you to bring it over to show Gus?”
“In its cage.”
“And where is its cage?”
“Who are these people?”
“At home, but I had her in my pocket and I was holding her real tight. And then she screamed,” she said, pointing an accusing finger at Wanda.
“Augusta? These are friends of yours?”
“She scared my mouse,” Chloe said, frowning with animosity. “It wriggled right out of my fingers.”
“Hello. I’m Scott Hammond...” Dimples dented, but went unnoticed as Wanda’s attention was directed at the child.
“You startled me. I’m not used to having mice stuck in my face. I mean, you’d be expecting something like that from a little boy, but...”
“Mother, these are my next-door neighbors. My friends. My—” How to put it delicately?
“...And this is my daughter, Chloe.”
“Obviously,” she said.
“I’m sorry about all this. I didn’t realize you were here already. How was your trip?”
“The cabbie was a cretin, but other than that it was fine,” she said, looking at him directly for the first time. “Are there any others?”
“What? Children? No, it’s just me and Chloe next door.”
“Oh. Oh, yes. The next-door neighbor,” she said, and even though Gus hadn’t mentioned him to her mother, there was a light of recognition in her eyes.
Lydia...
“And your daughter,” Wanda added, her appraising stare moving from Scotty to the frown on Chloe’s face. Wanda started thinking so fast that Gus could actually hear the whirring of gears. “I’m very fond of little girls. I had two of my own once, but now they’re all grown up. And do you know that I once saved thousands of mice from being put to death? At a pharmaceutical company. Hundreds of thousands of them, just like yours. I’m actually very fond of all animals,” she said, sucking up to Chloe in the most conspicuous fashion.
Ingratiating oneself to the daughter to get to the father was such an obvious ploy—Gus blushed from the tips of her toes to the roots of her hair.
“Why don’t you get...What did you name your mouse?”
“Annabelle,” Chloe said, wary but open to a diplomatic relationship.
“Well, why don’t you get Annabelle out from under that bowl and come into the living room so I can drink my tea in comfort, and I’ll tell you all about saving the mice,” she said, then turning her overpowering personality on Scotty, she smiled and said, “I understand you’re a man with a calling...”
TEN
IT WOULDN’T BE FAIR to say that Wanda moved in and took over Gus’s life...it was more like she was just there, and really, really comfortable. Certainly, more comfortable than Gus was—but then, hadn’t that always been the way of it with them? Wanda taking the ups and downs of Gus’s life in her stride, propelling them both on to the next step, the next audition, the next accomplishment, the next performance, the next failure...
“Don’t you worry about a thing, sweetie,” she’d said that morning. “I’ll have dinner ready on the table when the three of you finish dress rehearsal. Then I’ll take my Chloe girl next door, give her a bath, put her to bed, and read her a couple stories until she falls asleep. I can watch television over there as well as I can here, and you two can have a few minutes alone...or several hours if you want. I’m not so old I can’t remember how it is to be young and in love.”
Something evil in her heart wished her mother was that old. Forgetfulness could be a blessing sometimes, but aside from that she could at least look more her age, if she couldn’t act it. Even after years of sun worshiping and the fifty-six years of living she’d admit to, she still looked way too young and too vibrant and too full of life.
“
Mother,” she said, hurrying to get dressed for school. “Please. Scotty has to leave school early to pick Chloe up, then drive all the way back in time for dress rehearsal. He’ll be too tired to do anything after dinner, number one. And number two, you don’t need to keep toadying up to him. He likes you. So does Chloe.” Was that galling, or what? She turned her back and, lifting her hair, waited for a zip. “And three, don’t you think that would be a little obvious?”
Wanda zipped. “Don’t be silly, number one. Number two, I don’t toad, I owe him a favor. And three, no more so than the two of you.”
Gus had to take the time to mentally line up the answers and came up with, “What favor?”
“Delivering all my rain forest pamphlets,” she said, going back to her coffee and the morning paper. “He said he knew all the best places in town to take them for the best distribution.”
“Mother. You didn’t. Not now. Not when he has so many other things on his mind. Chloe. The play. The high school. The house. The...”
Wanda looked up with a frown. “I know what that boy has on his mind and believe me, delivering a few hundred pamphlets isn’t going to cool it any.”
Gus tsked. “Mother.”
Wanda tsked. “Augusta.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. So is he, for that matter. I’ve never seen a man more in love with someone than he is with you.”
“You think?” she asked after a brief hesitation.
“I know.”
She sighed and left the room, wishing she had a fraction of her mother’s confidence. Wishing she knew if a powerful love could defeat shame and disillusionment. Wishing the test of their love would come before she ended up on drug therapy...
“All the DRUG FREE SCHOOL ZONE signs will have to come down now,” Carrie Mutrux said, slipping into her train of thought as she fell into the seat beside her. “These kids are on something. Look at them. The Munchkins look as if they’re sitting on anthills. Dorothy can’t remember half her lines. The Tin Man keeps falling over his own feet, and the Lion isn’t a coward, he’s an idiot. He hasn’t caught a cue yet.”
“And yesterday we ran through the whole thing without a hitch. Maybe they are on drugs...or maybe they’d look better if we were on drugs.” The two of them laughed and shook their heads. “Let’s just hope that what they say about horrible dress rehearsals is true and tomorrow night will be perfect.”
Scotty and his three assistant directors were milling about in the crowd onstage, talking to this one, reminding another to do this or that, rearranging props, shouting out lighting orders.
“At this point anything would be an improvement,” Carrie said, curling a finger at a Munchkin who belonged to her personally. The rest were sitting—squirming and bobbing really—in the first eight rows of seats to the left of the stage in front of them. “What’s the matter with everyone tonight?” she asked her solemn little first-grader—a miniature of his older brother Stevie—straightening the pink and yellow daisy hat perched on his head. “Are you tired of sitting? Getting hungry? I think we’re almost finished, if you could just sit still a little—”
“I am sittin’ still, Mom,” he said, looking back at his classmates.
“Honey, you were moving from seat to seat. I saw you.”
“That girl’s gonna hurl, Mom. She’ll get my costume dirty. And I don’t want to get it on me anyhow.”
“What? What girl?”
“Chloe. Ms. Miller’s friend from the other school. She’s all red in the face, and she says she’s thinkin’ ’bout getting sick.”
Frowning at each other, the two women were on their feet and heading for the middle of Munchkin Land. In seconds they spotted Chloe drooping over the arm of her seat like a limp begonia, the seats around her having been cautiously cleared. Her face was indeed flushed almost as red as her hat, and her eyes were closed.
“Chloe?” Gus said, making her way through short, busy legs to get to her. “Chloe, honey? Are you sick?”
Brown eyes looked at her, dazed, glassy, and watery. Without a doubt it was the most pathetic thing Gus had ever seen. Her heart twisted painfully in her chest as she sat down beside her and wrapped her arms around the listless child.
“Baby, you’re burning up. Why didn’t you say something?”
“I want to be in the play.”
“I know, sweetie. But not if you’re sick. Come on. Come with me, Chloe. We’ll tell your daddy, and then one of us will take you home.”
“But I want to stay in the play. Will I be better tomorrow?”
“I don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see. Come on now. Aw, you just don’t feel good at all, do you?”
Hanging her head, she shook it no and followed Gus into the aisle. Carrie, knowing a sick child when she saw one, had gone to fetch Scotty, who was coming at them with long, purposeful strides.
“What’s this? We have a sick Munchkin, do we?” he said, a sympathetic smile on his face as he went down on one knee beside his daughter. Putting his hand on the most obvious symptom, he asked softly, “Can you tell me what’s wrong, Chlo?”
Again she shook her head and let her face fall into the curve of his neck. Automatically he picked her up and held her in his arms, rocking gently back and forth.
“I’ll take her home,” he said, casting a quick glance over the entire proceedings, running down his mental list to be sure everything else he was responsible for was being taken care of.
“Or I can,” Gus said, worried and wanting to stay with them. “Or maybe she should go to a hospital. She’s so hot and she looks so...Actually, I can handle everything here for you, so you take her to the hospital and I’ll come as soon as I can.”
“No, no. I’ll take her home for now. But I’d appreciate it if you’d hang around here and keep an eye on my directors. They know what’s going on and what’s needed, if you’ll just help them out.”
“Yes, of course. Go. Call Mother over if you need her, she’s good in a crisis. And call me...well, no...I’ll be home as soon as I can. Don’t worry about anything here. Dress rehearsals are always terrible. Everything will be fine. Chloe’s what’s important now and she—”
To everyone’s amazed delight, he leaned over and silenced her babble with a quick kiss on the lips.
“She’ll be fine,” he said, as much for his sake and Chloe’s as for hers. “Kids get suddenly sick and suddenly better all the time. You call me if you have any trouble, and I’ll see you later.”
“Okay,” she said, watching them walk away. Chloe opened her eyes to look back and flap an arm good-bye, and Gus blew her a kiss. She stood there even when they were gone from sight, worried and wondering and realizing that he’d just left with two huge chunks of her heart—and if she wanted to continue to live, she needed to be with them, close to them, remain connected with them somehow.
“Come on,” Carrie said, draping an understanding arm across her shoulders. “The sooner we get this comedy of errors whipped into shape, the sooner we can go home.”
“Do you think she’ll be all right? I know next to nothing about children. I feel so...”
“Helpless?” she asked, turning her back toward the stage. “Well, welcome to motherhood, Ms. Miller. You may as well get used to that feeling. When they’re little you can fix every toy they own with superglue, heal their wounds with a bandage and a kiss. You’re their hero. But the older they get, the more helpless you become. And not just when they’re sick. When you can’t mend friendships for them or protect them from cruel words or from failure and disappointment, that’s when you feel helpless. Chloe will be fine. You make her some gelatin, give her a hug, and read her stories till she feels better...that’s easy. But there won’t be much you can do about the unhappiness she’ll feel when she realizes she won’t be in the play tomorrow night. That’s when you feel helpless. When there’s nothing you can do to fix it, and no way to make her feel better inside,” she said, thumping her chest lightly with her fist. “That’s when
you’re truly helpless, and it can be very painful.”
With those wise and not so reassuring words, she dashed off to break up a bickerment in the Emerald City.
Gus sighed and began to think of all the ramifications her idea of involving Chloe as a Munchkin was having on the people she loved. It was all her fault. Granted, it was an innocent suggestion, but if she’d kept her big mouth shut, none of this would be happening. Chloe would still be with her mother and maybe she wouldn’t have gotten sick at all and...Oh! Chloe’s mother had gone off for a romantic Thanksgiving vacation with her boyfriend thinking Chloe would be just fine, being in the play and celebrating the holiday with her father afterward. But what if Chloe was seriously ill? Could she be reached in time? Or...or what if it was something minor, but enough to keep her out of the play? Would their sympathy be enough to console her sadness? Would she for an instant believe she’d failed or disappointed her father, or Gus, if she couldn’t participate? It was important that she know her illness couldn’t have been prevented, that the suggestion had been made with her happiness in mind, that any pleasure Gus received from it was in seeing her happy—that any sorrow she might see in the faces of those who loved her was simply a reflection of what they were seeing in her. It was empathy, an understanding, an attempt to share in her unhappiness.
Scotty had been so excited for her, so pleased to be able to involve her in his life—it would be supremely important that he let her know his disappointment was for her, not in her. Chloe was always so eager to please him, to impress him.
She remembered the disappointment in her mother’s eyes, time after time, failure after failure. Her heart twisted in pure misery at the thought of Chloe seeing it in Scotty’s face.
All the way home she thought about it. Being helpless. Being tossed about by fate, in spite of all the efforts you’d taken to control your own destiny. What was the point? Why bother? What difference did it make? she wondered. It was as futile as trying to catch the moon in a bushel basket or building sand castles at low tide.
Failure after failure, and she’d gotten back up, dusted herself off, and gone after the next best dream—only to fail again and again. All that work. All that pain. And for what? To have providence slap her down, kick her into a corner, leave her wounded and bleeding, to die in Tylerville?
Ms. Miller and the Midas Man Page 14