Tell Me a Story

by Cassandra King Conroy

  Then we visited Bill and Loretta in Montevallo, where Loretta prepared dinner for us. It turned out to be one of those evenings we’d joke about in the years to come. Although Loretta had entertained many visiting writers over the years, including Eudora Welty, having Pat as a dinner guest flustered her—maybe because she’d read Beach Music, where the character based on Pat is a food writer. Although primarily a novelist, Pat did his share of writing about food and would eventually get a James Beard award for it. Loretta put her trademark Greek stew in the oven, set the timer, and shooed us outside for cocktails on the patio overlooking their pool. After a lively hour of laughing and gossiping, we filed inside to the dining room, famished. Loretta put on her oven mitts then froze in dismay in front of the stove. She’d forgotten to turn it on.

  Back in Gadsden it was late Sunday afternoon before Pat and I said our goodbyes. Would it be okay, Pat asked, if he came back the next weekend? Sadly, we hadn’t made it to Piedmont, his mother’s hometown. He still longed to see it, he said so sincerely that I didn’t see through his innocent-looking expression to the sheer bull beneath. He was welcome to visit anytime, I told him. And I answered his other question in much the same vein: Yes, of course I’d be glad to accompany him to Piedmont. Poor thing was so anxious to see where his mother was born, how could I not?

  * * *

  On his next visit, Pat came in with flowers, then he handed me a small gift bag. Inside was an oblong gift box from a Beaufort jeweler. I opened it in astonishment to find a long string of perfect pearls, the most beautiful I’d ever seen. Being Pat, it hadn’t occurred to him to remove the receipt, which I spotted when putting away the bag. It was as much as I made for a whole month of teaching, which confused me even more. I still couldn’t read him, couldn’t tell what kind of relationship we were in. Last time he’d visited, it had moved swiftly from friendship to romance, and in typical Conroy fashion. When we finally went upstairs to bed, having exhausted ourselves talking half the night, Pat stopped me on the landing outside my room. “I took your room on purpose,” he confessed, “hoping you’d get the message.”

  I couldn’t resist teasing him. “Oh? And what message is that?”

  Pat grimaced. “Don’t make me say it, King-Ray. You know I’m not good at this kind of thing.” Determined not to laugh, I raised my eyebrows and watched him expectantly until he gave in. “Okay, okay. Shit!” he said with a heavy sigh. Pulling me in close, he murmured, “I don’t want to be your friend anymore, and I’m tired of pretending to be. I want to be with you. That night in Birmingham? It took every bit of willpower to make myself stay upstairs. I’ve wanted to be with you ever since.”

  I looked up at him. “Oh, I wouldn’t say you’re not good at this, Conroy.”

  * * *

  The main thing was, we just enjoyed being together. We talked for hours and we laughed a lot—about everything and anything. In the past I’d learned to suppress my dark sense of humor, but with Pat, I could just be myself, which is why I loved being with him. I’ve never felt as comfortable with anyone else. Going Zen, I shrugged off the uncertainty of our relationship by repeating the mantra I’d adapted for uncertain situations: it would either work out or it wouldn’t.

  We finally made a visit to Piedmont, where Pat’s mother had been born. Her family, the Peeks, was having a big reunion that Sunday after church, he told me, and it’d be the perfect occasion for him to reconnect with relatives he rarely saw. His mother claimed Rome, Georgia, as her hometown because the family moved there shortly after her birth; so she’d never really lived in Piedmont. Nonetheless, Pat couldn’t wait to see it. (I was astonished to find out later that he’d been there several times before. The whole thing had been an excuse for him to visit me. Why he felt the need to fabricate an excuse I will never know.) It was obvious that Pat had worshiped his mom, who’d died of leukemia in her fifties, and he told me about her on the drive over. When we pulled into the church parking lot, he warned me that his dad would be there. I guess he feared I wouldn’t go if he’d told me in advance.

  “Oh, how sweet,” I said, “that he keeps up with your mother’s family.” At our dinner in Atlanta, Pat’d told me how his mother had finally left his father, a few years before her death. Since then his father had lived in an apartment complex in Atlanta, but he’d never remarried. Pat doubted that his dad would ever love anyone else like he’d loved Peggy Peek.

  Pat snorted. “Shit. Dad’s a lot of things, but sweet ain’t one of them.”

  I was apprehensive about meeting his father, but who wouldn’t be after reading The Great Santini? As soon as we arrived, Pat dutifully took me by the arm to make the introductions. Colonel Don Conroy turned out to be a good-looking man in his midseventies. He had a regal bearing and the piercing, ice-blue eyes that his son had inherited. Despite my fears, Colonel Conroy couldn’t have been more charming or attentive to me. Although he and Pat joked around with each other quite a bit, an undercurrent of tension lurked beneath their conviviality. It was the first time I’d seen Pat, usually peppy and outgoing in a crowd, so tightly wound. Understandably, being with his dad still made him jumpy.

  The family reunion was held at a church fellowship hall, and I felt right at home with the down-home folks I met there. They were my kind of people. The good old country food laid out on long tables was familiar as well: fried chicken, ham and redeye gravy, field peas, creamed corn, butterbeans, okra. I’d brought a plain old pound cake, which quickly disappeared despite the dozens of other cakes. In addition there were pans of banana pudding; pies of pecan, chocolate, egg custard, or apple; and peach or blackberry cobblers big enough to feed most of East Alabama. Pat’s dad, mingling with his former wife’s relatives as though they were his own kin, told me that I simply must try the baked bean dish he brought. “I’m famous for it,” he told me solemnly. “It’s an old family recipe.”

  “Old family recipe, my ass,” Pat muttered as we piled our plates. “I’d steer clear of it if I were you.”

  “Shh!” I chided. “You’ll hurt his feelings.”

  “Not a chance,” Pat said dryly. “He doesn’t have any.”

  To compensate, I took a double portion. The beans were in a scratched-up old Pyrex dish, which made me sad. I pictured Pat’s poor dad in his lonely apartment laboring lovingly over his prized heirloom recipe. Sitting across from him, I smiled and took a big bite of the beans he was so proud of. Watching me, Colonel Conroy beamed. “It’s an old family recipe,” he repeated. “I take it everywhere.”

  I managed to swallow it down without gagging as Pat watched me with a smirk. Someone came to sit beside his dad and engaged him in a lively conversation, which gave me the chance to whisper to Pat. “It’s pork and beans right out of the can! He didn’t even warm them up.” Thankfully his father’s conversation lasted long enough that I was able to dispose of the remains on my plate without getting caught. Seeing the vacant spot on my plate, Colonel Conroy tried to refill it for me but I demurred. Oh, no—it’d be too selfish of me to deprive everyone else, I purred, ignoring Pat’s snort of derision.

  Later a relative would report to the family that Pat had shown up at the reunion with a “young filly,” which tickled both of us. I was a year and a half older than Pat, which bothered me more than it did him. Later when we discussed marriage, I would argue that my age should be a factor in the decision. Who knows, I said—he might want to start another family. Pat had hooted at that notion. The last thing he needed, he said, the very last thing, was another frigging family.

  * * *

  Pat kept coming up with reasons to return to Gadsden, but at least I began to see through them. It amused me that he thought it necessary to invent excuses, though I couldn’t imagine why. As comfortable as I felt with him, I couldn’t think of a nice way to say Cut the crap, Conroy; if you want to see me, just say so. He called after his visit for the family reunion to ask if I’d be home the following weekend. The thing was, he’d been in touch with a young writer in New York who
he was just dying to meet, and the kid was going to be visiting his mother who lived—surprise!—not far from Gadsden. Sure, I said; I’d be home. He’d seen firsthand how uneventful my life was. Both times he’d visited, he’d had to entertain himself while I marked essays. Every Thursday, my students wrote in-class essays, and regardless of what else I did on the weekend, those essays had to be given back for revision on Monday. If I got behind, it threw off my whole week.

  One time Pat looked on as I graded essays and was appalled by what he saw. “I’d hoped things had changed more since my days of teaching,” he remarked. “But some of these kids can’t even put a sentence together.”

  I looked at him in surprise. “Pat, these are college freshmen. You should’ve seen the papers from my remedial English classes.”

  He blinked at me, then sighed. “Jesus. I’m glad I didn’t.”

  That Saturday, Pat and I drove north to meet the writer he’d told me about, a New York Times reporter who’d written his first book. I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend the day with some hotshot reporter but kept that to myself. When Pat told me about the young man’s book, however, I changed my mind and couldn’t wait to meet him. “It’s about his mama, and the publisher sent it to me for a blurb,” Pat said. “After I read it, I wrangled the address and sent his mama flowers. She’s had a really rough life.” The book, All Over but the Shoutin’ by Rick Bragg, became the big bestseller Pat’d predicted. Instead of flowers, I brought his mama a chocolate cake I’d made from scratch that morning.

  Driving a little sports car, Rick Bragg came varooming into the driveway of his mother’s farmhouse just as Pat and I were getting out of Pat’s car. I loved Rick on sight; he was adorable and as down-home country as every good old boy I’d ever known. His Deep South accent was as thick as mine. Holding Pat in a long embrace, Rick must’ve thanked him a dozen times for the blurb and flowers for his mama, whom he couldn’t wait for us to meet.

  Like her son, Mrs. Bragg was a sweetheart. Although she was shy and unaccustomed to entertaining her soon-to-be-famous son’s friends, Pat set her at ease with his usual joking and teasing about Rick, and what a disappointment he must be to her. After she found out that I’d been born and raised in LA (Lower Alabama), she relaxed with me as well. She proudly showed off her new house, the first thing Rick had bought with the advance from his book. One thing touched me so much that I had to blink back tears. Although Rick was almost thirty and lived in New York, Mrs. Bragg had fixed up a room for him. With navy-and-green plaid curtains and the walls decorated with banners and sports memorabilia, it was the little boy’s room that she hadn’t been able to give him in her hardscrabble life. My eyes met Pat’s, and I saw that it moved him as well.

  I understood that Rick’s devotion to his mother had struck a chord with Pat, and it saddened me to think I’d never meet the mother he’d so adored. Neither would he meet mine. I’d lost my sweet mama only five years before, just after she turned seventy. I decided to give each of my boys a copy of Rick’s book as a reminder to cherish their mama while they could. Like Rick, they were good boys and fiercely protective of their mother, even overly so on occasion. I’d learned the hard way not to tell them if someone hurt my feelings because they’d swear vengeance. For the first time, I wondered what they’d think of Pat. I’d taken care not to introduce them to anyone I’d been involved with since the divorce, not sure how they’d react. Oh well, I thought, turning my attention back to Mrs. Bragg’s home tour, I’ll cross that bridge when and if I get there.

  * * *

  The end of spring semester freed me from classes until summer sessions started, so Pat proposed a trip. “I’ve got a great idea—let’s go to New Orleans!” he called to say. I have no idea what made him think of New Orleans that time of year, but I guess he’d run out of excuses to come to East Alabama. The heat in New Orleans is unimaginable in early June, but fools rush in where angels (or saints, I guess) fear to tread, so we went anyway. I look back on that trip as the first time Pat got to see the real me. And it wasn’t pretty.

  Decked out in my new pearls and sipping sauvignon blanc as I showed off my knowledge of Renaissance poetry (based solely on the graduate courses I’d fallen in love with years before), I tried hard to pass myself off to Pat as a sophisticate. Trust me, with a southern accent that sounds like you’re speaking with a mouthful of corn pone dipped in sorghum, it’s not an easy thing to do. “We’ll get to know each other better,” Pat announced as we set out on the drive. I dared not tell him what I was thinking: that’s what I was afraid of. In comparison to him, I was a rube when it came to travel. My last two trips to New Orleans had been strictly business—once to present a paper at a conference, another time to conduct a business-writing seminar with a couple of colleagues. The benefactor of the writing center had been a successful businessman with holdings all over, and he’d sent Loretta and me to do seminars for his corporate executives all over the South. In New Orleans, he’d put us up in a grand hotel in the middle of the French Quarter, but we’d stayed too busy to step out on the town.

  Even though I’d visited New Orleans several times in the past, it’d always been on a limited budget. I’d never set foot inside Commander’s Palace, Antoine’s, Brennan’s, or any of the other upscale eating joints Pat and I discussed on the drive down. I wasn’t about to let Pat know that, though. I figured I could play the sophisticated lady without flat out lying if I took care with wording. “The Commander’s Palace,” I gushed with a carefree flap of my wrist, “might have a lot of ambiance, but nothing quite compares to Antoine’s. Don’t you think?”

  Pat had reserved a swanky hotel for us, a suite in the Windsor Court with our own balcony overlooking the Mississippi River. I’d never stayed in such a place, although naturally I pretended otherwise. My first misstep was out of Pat’s line of vision: I almost knocked the bellman down when he appeared to open the passenger door for me. Handing over his car keys to the valet, Pat missed the moment when I pushed the car door into the poor bellman’s face as I crawled out unassisted. So that’s what those guys do, I noted. The startled bellman quickly regained his composure and fetched our luggage from the trunk. Unfortunately for him, he hadn’t seen the last of me.

  Pat learned that the restaurant at the Windsor Court Hotel was one of the most highly ranked in the city, so we didn’t have to venture out for dinner our first night. He was thrilled to find that oysters on the half shell were available, even though it wasn’t an “R” month. Having been weaned on the famed Apalachicola oysters, I was equally delighted. Plus I wouldn’t have to wonder which fork to use with foie gras or how to pry escargots out of their shells.

  Either of which might have been a better choice for me, as it turned out. The oysters on the half shell were incredible, topped with a ginger-shallot sorbet and washed down with shocking shots of ice-cold vodka. The tiny vodka bottles were served embedded in a block of ice that centered the table in a footed silver dish. Pat raised his eyebrows when I ordered another round, but I waved him off. For the first time in my life, I was daring and urbane, a Zelda-like sophisticate, dashing down oysters and vodka with the finesse of a true bon vivant. Pat had been right, I realized, about our getting to know each other on this trip. I’d discovered that he was a knowledgeable, cultured person to travel with, and he was learning the same about me.

  The sin of self-indulgence always exacts its price from the sinner. I don’t remember the rest of the evening, except for a vague, humiliating flashback of Pat half walking, half toting me to our very elegant suite, where I promptly passed out, drunk on oysters. (Oysters, for God’s sake. Could anything be more embarrassing?) I awoke the next afternoon when he returned from sightseeing with a knowing smile on his face. “Don’t get out much, do you, King-Ray?” he teased.

  * * *

  What both of us recalled most about the trip to Sin City (or so I tried to convince myself) was how much fun we had. It’d be hard not to, with New Orleans being such a fun place to visit. Playing tour
ist, we went on a carriage ride, then to Café Du Monde for the traditional beignets and chicory-laced coffee. I finally made it to Antoine’s and some of the other landmark restaurants, which were every bit as fabulous as they were heralded to be. We listened to jazz and watched the street artists at work; then after our excursions, we cooled off in the pool at our hotel. We were so hot the water sizzled when we jumped in.

  In many ways that time was the highlight of the trip for me. No one was ever in the pool but Pat and me, and like a kid before bedtime, I made him tell me stories. “Just one more, pleeeze,” I’d beg, despite my skin wrinkling like a prune from being in the water so long. I couldn’t help myself. Pat was on a roll, Scheherazade held captive in a rooftop pool, and he answered all my questions and then some. How much of what he told me was Conroy blarney I’d have to find out on my own, but it was vastly entertaining regardless. Most of his stories about his screwed-up life (the only way he ever referred to it) were hilarious, but occasionally he got serious. I was beginning to get a better picture of how the damage of childhood abuse is carried over into adulthood. I’d been unbelievably fortunate to grow up with loving, uncomplicated parents. Pat was at the top of his game, where every writer dreams of being, but beneath the successful facade would always be a hurt little boy.

  One afternoon, we were passing through Jackson Square on our way to Café Du Monde for more beignets when I grabbed Pat’s arm and asked him to wait for me a few minutes. There was something I needed to do. He eyed me suspiciously, then shrugged and said he’d step in the cathedral to cool off while I did my thing. I waited until he was safely out of sight before making my way to the group of fortune-tellers set up around the fountain. I never came to New Orleans without having my fortune told, but I knew Pat would scoff at such foolishness. If only I’d selected one of the unremarkable-looking women instead of the seven-foot-tall, dark-skinned man in flowing robes, Pat probably would never have been the wiser. But this guy, with his burning black eyes and long hair in a topknot, was hard to miss. Pat reappeared just as the fortune-teller instructed me to bow toward the north, south, east, and west while chanting “Ohm” three times in each direction. My hands folded as in prayer and cheeks burning, I twirled, bowed, and chanted as Pat watched me with a mocking smirk.