by Rhett DeVane
Hannah and Helen stood side by side, their gazes roaming the room. Flower and pastel-painted egg garland draped the doorways, paper maché bunnies stood by several chairs, and straw sun bonnets trimmed with greenery and posies rested on most horizontal surfaces. Social director Catharen had hit her stride.
Mae rounded the corner and waved the group toward the hallway. “I waited and waited in my room until I was plumb worn out. When you girls didn’t show up, I decided to traipse on down and see if you’d gone on to the party without me.”
Helen glanced at her watch. “Ma-Mae, we’re fifteen minutes early.”
“Miss Esther—she’s head of the kitchen staff and my personal favorite— told me she made petit fours shaped like little Easter eggs. We need to get up to the sunroom before they’re all snatched up.”
Mae walked a few paces ahead, joining a line of resident-powered walkers. “Y’all surely missed the excitement.” She glanced back to assure they were tuned in. “Beulah Lambert lost her dang mind.”
“How’s that?” Helen asked.
Mae paused to wait for them to catch up. “She came charging down the hallway a couple of hours ago—up on second—a-carryin’ on to beat the band. Half naked!”
Suzanne’s lower jaw dropped. “Wha—”
“Screaming ‘We’re at war! We’re at war!’ at the top of her lungs. It took all of us aback. We were five minutes into Bingo and none of us had heard anything about a war. I had watched the midday news on WCTV, and I couldn’t fathom how it could happen so fast.”
Helen looked befuddled. “There is a war, Ma-Mae, in the Middle East. Nothing new.”
Mae’s voice grew intense. “Here’s the thing. When the aide finally grabbed a’holt of Beulah’s walker and put a halt to her headlong rampage, he asked her what the Sam Hill she was talking about.” Mae’s eyes flashed. “Beulah hollered back at him, ‘there’s some fellow named Hitler and he’s ripping a path through Europe!’ ”
“Lord help.” Suzanne’s perfectly-plucked eyebrows stood at attention.
“They had to call the doctor to order a calmative, and there’s talk Beulah will be moved to the . . . third floor.”
Mae’s eyebrows lifted when she said “third floor.” To the more mentally sound residents, the top story—a secured special needs unit for the memory-impaired—was the equivalent of an assisted living Alcatraz.
Mae continued, “And they’re making sure she doesn’t get the History Channel on her cable TV anymore.”
Hannah sucked on her lower lip to avoid laughing. In reality, it wasn’t funny.
“Poor dear,” Helen said.
Suzanne cut her eyes at Hannah and winked.
“I hope my mind outlasts my body,” Mae said, shaking her head. “This old age trip ain’t for the faint of heart.” She pushed her way into the waiting elevator and motioned for them to follow.
Catharen O’Kelly greeted the family at the entrance to the sunroom. The long rectangular hall, used for Bingo and social functions, was decorated in shades of lemon yellow, mint green and bright white. Windows ran the length of three walls with double French doors opening to an inner courtyard. In one corner, a thirty-gallon aquarium teemed with exotic fish. At the far end, an upright piano shared the space with a TV/DVD combination on a rolling cart.
“How’d you organize this so fast?” Helen asked Catharen. “We just brought Lucy by last weekend.”
When Catharen smiled, twin dimples formed on her cheeks. “It was the most perfect timing. I wanted to have a spring party, but many of the residents are leaving with family for the holidays. So I tacked this event onto the Singing with Velma spot, already on the calendar.” As the social director spoke, her hands carried on their own air dance. “Voilá! A party with live entertainment.”
Mae pushed past the group and ambled to the food tables.
Suzanne picked up a small ceramic duckling. “Where’d you find these adorable decorations?”
“I’m a Dollar Store addict,” Catharen confessed. “I have to work within a budget. I find some of the cutest things for next to nothing. Y’all help yourself to the refreshments and sit wherever you please.” She turned to greet another group of party attendees.
“Looks like your mama made a bee-line for the cake,” Suzanne said.
Hannah spotted Mae at the far end of the sunroom surveying the confections. “Nothing wrong with Ma-Mae’s appetite. That’s for sure.”
They joined the crowd in line for food. Lucy Goosey served as the centerpiece and guest of honor on the main table. A triple-tiered glass platter stood on either side, laden with cookies, brownies, fruit and the coveted Easter-themed petit fours.
Suzanne leaned over toward Hannah and said in a low voice, “Good thing you bleached the mold and bird poop off ole Lucy before you donated her.”
Maxine pulled alongside with her walker. “Glad to see all you gals.” She grabbed a plate and loaded up with five petit fours, three brownies, and two chocolate chip cookies. “Did Mae tell y’all about our plans for this here goose?”
Suzanne shook her head. “Just what we read in the little paper.”
“We’re going to donate stuff for her outfits. Doll hats, beads, that sort of thing. Then, Catharen’s going to help us make up all sorts of little clothes in the arts and crafts hour each Thursday morning. By the time we’re done, Miss Lucy Goosey will be a true fashion princess.”
Helen smiled. “That’s nice, Maxine. You want to sit with us?”
Maxine balanced her over-filled plate in the basket seat of her deluxe walker. “Thanks, honey. I’m waiting on my granddaughter to get here. If there’re a couple of seats by y’all, I’ll take them. If not, we can light most anywhere.” She rested a fleshy hand on Helen’s forearm. “Me and your mama spend lots of time together. This time is for family.”
“How are all my grandbabies?” Mae asked when the three women joined her at a table.
Helen’s expression grew wistful. “My boys aren’t around much, anymore. I get them home for special occasions, but they’ve got their own lives. I may see more of Michael Jack if he ends up buying the house.”
Mae beamed. “It would do my old heart good to know it’s still in the family. I know it’s no mansion, but your daddy and I managed to raise three children in it.”
“My kids are on spring break,” Hannah said. “Jonas is at the beach with a group from church, and Justine’s at a river house on the Ochlocknee.”
“You’d better start reining that gal in some, Hannah,” Mae warned. “She’s got a wild streak in her. Starting that trip up Fool’s Hill, that’s for sure!”
“I can handle her, Ma-Mae.” Hannah took a sip of the punch and winced. “She’s a good kid.”
Mae shook a crumb-coated finger in the air. “She might be, but I’d still not give her so much leeway. Lots of meanness to get into, these days.” She studied her youngest daughter’s pinched expression. “You got the sweet punch by mistake, didn’t you? The one made with the pink sweetener is on the opposite table. It’s better for you.” She took a huge bite of a petit four and licked the butter crème icing from her lips.
Velma Brackenburg settled onto the piano bench. The majority of her ample rear hung from the back of the seat. Her hair, sprayed to stiff curls, shone in a pastel shade of blue, and her fingers displayed so many rings, Hannah wondered how she could pound a single key.
“Good afternoon, everyone.” Velma plunked out a few opening trills. “Let’s lift up our voices!” As she played, flaps of flesh beneath her upper arms waved in a rhythm all their own.
“That— ” Hannah whispered to Helen and Suzanne “—must be the famous yodeling Velma Ma-Mae’s talked about.”
Velma was blessed with the type of vocal cords that could have called up hogs from a ten-mile radius, or announced supper to the field hands toiling on the back forty acreage without benefit of a megaphone.
The entertainer ripped into a raucous rendition of “Camptown Races” followed by “Way D
own Upon the Swanee River,” then slowed it down for an impassioned rendition of “Beautiful Dreamer.” As her pitch intensified, age-spotted hands around the sunroom reached up to adjust hearing aids.
Periodically Velma twanged a sour note, at times veering off key for a few bars before hemming the melody back into line. By the time she brought it home, the residents and guests appeared slightly dazed, as if they had stepped from a scary theme park ride.
Hannah imagined the scene:
Snaking lines of Rosemont’s finest and their loved ones inch between the “you-are-just-minutes-away” signs. Blasts of air-conditioning from overhead keep fainting to a minimum. A cart shaped like a giant grand piano swishes into place and the air brakes hiss.
Hannah and her family settle in, secure the yellow woven seatbelts, and grab a padded lap bar. “Little Brown Jug” plays as they enter the darkness. The last thing Hannah recalls is the sound of yodeling and the squeal of an overworked hearing aid.
“Hannah? Hannah? HANNAH?!” Mae’s voice snapped Hannah back to the sunroom. “I thought you gave up that day-dreaming when you were a teenager.”
“Sorry.” Hannah smiled sheepishly.
“You missed out on Lucy Goosey getting invited to join the Rosemont Charter of the Red Hat Society,” Suzanne said.
“I thought a woman had to be over fifty to be a Red-hatter,” Helen said.
“I’m sure that doesn’t apply here, her not being human and all,” Mae said. “We’ll have to get her something to wear to the socials.”
“Maybe it’s like it is with dogs—you know, seven to our one,” Suzanne added. “Lucy is fifty, if you count in cement yard goose years.”
Hannah closed her eyes and rotated her head side to side. One day, her doctor would think she had the beginning of Parkinson’s tremors because she had shaken her head in disbelief so often, it had become an unconscious habit.
Chapter Thirteen
Hannah stepped from the shower and grabbed a towel. After a quick sniff, she dropped it to the floor and snatched a laundered one from the cabinet over the commode. Slug stretched and yawned, then settled onto the toilet seat lid to keep his mistress company.
Nothing in the known world, other than a free week in Tahiti, could equal the feeling of a clean, de-haired body. Hannah’s scrubbed skin tingled as she applied a layer of soothing aloe and shea butter lotion.
Being a card-carrying owl, Hannah shunned bright lights in the morning until after the first cup of strong coffee. A single-bulb night-light provided the only bathroom illumination. She reached for the roll-on container next to the sink and slathered its contents under her left armpit. The pungent locker-room scent of menthol reached her nose at about the same instant the burning sensation registered in her sleep-deprived brain.
“Shoot-fire!”
Hannah flipped on the light and squinted at the label. She fumbled for a washcloth. For the next few moments, she soaped and scrubbed vigorously. The white heat continued for a brief period before being replaced by intense cold. The sore muscle reacted exactly as advertised.
Hannah wrapped the damp towel around her body and snorted to the second bathroom. A blast of steamy air hit her in the face when she opened the door. “Was your back hurting again last night?” she called out over the roar of the shower.
“Yeah,” Norman said. “Why?”
“You moved the Freeze-Out.”
“Uh . . . yes . . . guess I did.” He stuck his dripping wet head around one end of the shower curtain. “I got up in the night and put some on. Was that . . . a problem?”
“Not life or death. I mistook it for my roll-on deodorant, is all.”
Norman flinched. “Sorry.”
“Let me tell you, that stuff doesn’t feel real special on raw armpit skin.”
“Don’t imagine it would.”
Norman allowed the shower curtain to fall back into place. Hannah heard his muffled laughter as she shut the bathroom door. She paused a beat before she cracked the door, reached back in, and flushed the toilet, sending a blast of cold water into his hot shower.
The day could only get better. But it didn’t. At work, everything she touched turned to a pile of poop, traffic held more than the normal maze of texting, lane-shifting, doddering misfits, and she broke a nail to the quick. By the time she crawled into bed at day’s end, Hannah wanted to escape into a good, solid dream, preferably one involving someone bringing her mounds of imported chocolate truffles on a silver tray. A dream with respectful children, a healthy mother, and a husband who always put her first in his every thought and deed.
She’d settle for a few moments of peace and a Hershey’s bar on a paper plate.
Hannah dreamed of antebellum mansions and mint juleps. She heard a telephone trill; strange, everything else about this dream predated electrical wiring. The ringing became more insistent, until she realized it emanated from the headset on her bedside table. She wrestled with the sheet, freed one hand, and answered.
Her brother said, “Pookie?”
She flipped on the small bedside lamp. Norman grunted, rolled over, and pulled the sheet over his head.
“Hated to call you up at such an ungodly hour, but you and Norman need to throw on some clothes and come over to the sheriff’s office in Quincy.”
Her fun-loving prankster brother was known for practical jokes, but this was a toe over the line. “Hal, what the—?”
“Don’t panic, Sissy. Justine’s okay. She’s gotten herself in a little trouble.”
Hannah flung off the covers and sat up on the edge of the bed. “Trouble? Trouble? What do you mean trouble? What kind of trouble?”
She could hear the muffled sound of her daughter blubbering and snuffling in the background.
“Justine and some of her friends drank a little hooch and went joy-riding down one of the dirt roads near the river. Their car hit a patch of pine saplings.”
“Oh my God!” She turned to Norman and shoved his shoulder. “Wake up! Justine’s been in a wreck!”
Hal’s voice was gentle and coaxing. “Sissy . . . Sissy?”
“We’re on the way, Hal. Is she hurt?”
“A little shook up. And more than a little crocked. They checked her over at the scene. Luckily, the driver wasn’t going fast. Only one was taken over to Tallahassee.”
Hannah held the headset between her shoulder and cheek and grabbed a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, then rummaged in the dresser for clean underwear. “We’ll be there as soon as we can.”
“Don’t kill yourselves driving over,” Hal said. “She’s with me. She’s safe. You stay that way too, hear?”
When Hannah and Norman entered the officer’s break room at the Gadsden County Sheriff’s Department, Justine lifted her red-rimmed gaze and blinked to focus. The flourescent lighting cast a faint green tinge on her skin. Her damp blonde hair hung in dirty strings.
“Hi, Mom. Dad.” A cloud of putrid air hovered around her like an evil aura.
“You’ve been throwing up.” Hannah hated herself for stating the obnoxiously obvious.
Hal clamped a hand on his niece’s shoulder. “All over the passenger side of my county truck.”
Hannah took in the sparse room. Empty. Either the others were on their shifts, or Hal had discreetly asked his fellow officers to allow them a little privacy.
“She’ll clean it up, Hal. I’ll see to it,” Hannah said. “Who do we have to see to post bail or whatever?”
“She’s not under arrest. Released to parental supervision.”
Justine leaned to one side, over-corrected, and almost fell before her father reached out a steadying hand. “For now, let’s get you on home, young lady.” Norman held Justine by the shoulders and guided her toward the door. “Appreciate you, Hal.”
Hannah’s lips twisted. “Maybe a night in jail would do her some good.”
Hal chuckled and rested his arm across his sister’s shoulders. “We don’t like to lock someone like Justine—someone with no priors—up
with the real hard-core juvenile offenders. We’ve found it traumatizes them too much and doesn’t have the desired results.”
“So that’s it?” Leftover adrenaline morphed Hannah’s initial jolt of fear into parental annoyance.
“Not exactly. She’ll have to go in front of the county judge. Then she’ll have to undergo substance abuse counseling. After that, dependent on what the counselor advises, she’ll either be exonerated, or have to do community service.”
“That ought to scare some sense into her. She’s always had a thing for authority figures. She has a fit when she sees a police cruiser in the rearview mirror.”
Hal’s expression darkened. “Be happy you weren’t called to the ER. At least she’s not hurt, except her pride. From what I’ve heard, the boy driving got off with a busted leg. If they’d been going a little faster or the trees had been bigger than saplings, we might not be having this discussion.”
Hannah took a shaky breath. “Kind of puts it in perspective, huh?”
“Justine’s not a bad kid, Sissy. You know that. It’s going to be okay.”
Hannah sighed so deeply, she feared her skin would cave in. “I know. This too shall pass. But why do all the little life lessons have to crowd in together?”
“Ah-hah! There you are, you little dickens.” Mae plucked a blue puzzle piece from the cardboard lid and fit it into the shoreside scene. “That nearly-’bout does it for the sky, honey.”
“Happy for you, Ma-Mae. This sand section is a total bi—”
Mae shook her finger. “Watch your language, young lady!”
Hannah huffed and raked one hand through her hair.
“You’re a bit peevish this afternoon. Are you plugged up? I get a bit out of sorts when my bowels aren’t regular. Do you need one of my little pink pills?”
“No. I’m fine in that department. Thank you.”
“Something weighing heavy on your mind, hmm?” Mae’s gaze bored into her. Hannah recalled the same piercing expression from her youth. When Ma-Mae looked at her that way, her mother already owned the details and it was up to Hannah to come clean.