The Future Homemakers of America

by Laurie Graham

  ‘What does “contrary to nature” mean?’ she said. ‘And how come a black can be a Marine but he can't ride on any bus seat he chooses?’

  Seemed to me, fourteens were a deal more forward than in my day.

  Lois and Kirk waved us off at the bus terminal next morning. Lo tried to kiss Kath goodbye but they bashed noses, the English not being accustomed to kissing on the cheek.

  Lois said, ‘Next time, Kath, you come to New York, and I'll show you a different side to things.’

  I said, ‘You really think you're gonna get Herb down there?’

  ‘Yes. Just watch me,’ she said.

  I cried when the bus pulled out. I cried all the way to Fayetteville, embarrassing my poor child.

  Betty said, ‘You got the blues, honey? You're probably over-tired. Have one of my happy pills.’

  First I knew Betty Gillis was taking anything stronger than BiSoDol.

  Kath said, ‘That gets you thinking, when you haven't seen people in a long time. How the years do fly.’

  She was exactly right. I was feeling so old. Nearly thirty-eight and I hadn't done a damn thing except hang drapes in a dozen different Wherry cabins, try to give Crystal a home.

  I said, ‘Lois is gonna be a secretary.’

  Betty said, ‘That's just talk. She better stay home, straighten out that boy, or she'll be sorry. Secretary!’

  I said, ‘I wouldn't mind being a secretary myself. I could go to classes. Kath did, didn't you?’

  ‘I did,’ she said. ‘I went for book-keeping, and I soon picked it up. But that's boring, Peggy. I can't see that being up your alley. You know what I'm thinking of? Get myself a little motor and teach people to drive, like you taught me. I might just teach ladies. The way I see it, the motor'd soon pay for itself. And I'd be out and about all day. I'd call it Kath's School of Motoring. Have it painted on the side.’

  I said, ‘See, Betty? Everybody's planning something. What are you gonna do when your girls are all grown up and gone?’

  ‘Mind their babies,’ she said.

  I said, ‘But what if they never have any, or they move away?’

  ‘Peggy!’ she said. ‘No wonder you have the blues! Well, first, of course they'll have babies. And second, even if Carla and Sherry don't, I'll always have Deana's to mind. And anybody else who needs me. The world will always need babysitters.’

  I looked at Crystal, sitting there in her dungarees, playing Go Fish with Carla. Still hoping to see a revolution, I daresay. We were barrelling along the Interstate 20 and I was forming a plan. Write to Vern. Put it to him, we could try again. Crystal'd have her daddy.

  There'd be two of us to meet the payments every month. And I'd learn typing. Take a leaf outta Lois Moon's book. First time for everything. Hell, I was even willing to relocate.

  Turned out, same time I'd been thinking of Vern he'd been thinking of me. The day I took Kath to catch her plane, I got his letter. Crystal was hopping around, dying for me to come home and open it.

  ‘Dad sent for me?’ she said. ‘He send bus money?’

  ‘Dear Peg,’ he wrote. ‘Hoping this finds you well. Mom has a hiatus hernia, has to sleep sitting up else she gets acid indigestion. Heather had to have a mole took off, all the way to Portland. Otherwise can't complain.’ Heather was one of his sisters.

  Reason for my putting pen to paper, I have met somebody, and hoping to make a go of it. Her name is Martine, very nice, I think you'd like her. She has a boy, Eugene, same age as Crystal — same month, too; it's a small world. Anyways, we have found a place, looking to start up a bait farm. Always was my dream to have a fishing store, as you know, but it's a risky business, tying up all your money in rods and stuff. Bait farm has lower start-up costs. We're going in for leather worms. Grow a quality worm, have it available all through the season, it has to beat nightcrawlers for reliability and freshness. Eugene has read up on it and we think this could be a sure thing. I'd say the sky is the limit.

  So if you and me could do the necessary I'd be obliged. Be nice for us if we could get wed in the winter before business gets going. You let me know what you spend and I'll send you a check for my half. Love to Crystal. She's getting to be quite the young lady.

  I said, ‘You're getting a step-brother. His name's Eugene and he's a expert on worms.’

  She said, ‘I guess that's a “No” on the bus money?’

  I said, ‘Don't you want to hear about your step-mom?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Why can't we be a normal family, like Carla's or Kirk's?’

  I was filling up again, feeling so sad for my kid, so sad for myself. Then I seen her cheeky smile.

  ‘Carla,’ she said. She had Betty's voice exactly. ‘Here's your sick-bag, now, honey. Hurl into it nicely for Mommy.’

  I said, ‘Crystal, what am I gonna do when you're gone?’

  ‘Darned if I know,’ she said. ‘Answer my fan-mail?’

  50

  First thing Kath did when she got back to England was spend the rest of her winnings on a car. Then she took her friend May Gotobed out in it and taught her everything she knew. That was the start of Kath's School of Motoring.

  Vern and Martine were married in December, and Crystal marked the occasion by burning his picture. She was just mad about not being there, I guess.

  Vern had said, ‘Put her on the bus. I'll meet her.’

  I said, ‘Out of the question. I guarantee you, somewhere between here and Maine she'd take up with a bunch of black revolutionaries and we'd never see her again.’

  He said, ‘Sounds like you need to take a firmer line with her.’

  I said, ‘I'll bear it in mind.’

  Men have no idea.

  October of ‘62, Deana gave birth to Dawn, a baby sister for Delta and a second grandchild for Betty and Ed, and Fidel Castro and the Russians pushed their luck a step too far. Betty laid in an extra store of canned corned beef in case of atomic war. I didn't bother. Crystal had become something called a vegetarian.

  When Audrey wrote, at Christmas, she described it as an exciting time, although that wasn't my recollection of it.

  ‘We were sealed off here,’ she wrote. ‘We were in a state of combat-readiness and the perimeter was secured with armed patrols. But, as the president said, we faced the Soviets eyeball to eyeball, and they blinked.’

  Lois, said ‘Can't you just imagine Audrey ready for combat? Standing alert with her sugar tongs. We'll probably be seeing the inside of the Rudman bunker in Better Homes and Gardens. How about Gayle, though? Ain't she the lucky one?’

  Ray Flagg had got an accompanied tour to Honolulu, but Gayle wasn't happy. She had left behind all her friends at the Silver Moon Luncheonette and, being a haole, she didn't have a snowball in hell's chance of getting work.

  I said, ‘She's lonely. Lying on a beach ain't everything.’

  Lo said, ‘I'll trade with her. She can come to Kurpenkill and listen to Herb holding forth on the termite resistance of the Douglas Fir.’

  51

  November twenty-first, 1963 was my fortieth birthday. It was overlooked by everybody except Kath Pharaoh, who sent me a card all the way from Norfolk, England, and my daughter Crystal, who made me a dinner of rice and beans.

  At 12.30 p.m. on Friday November twenty-second, 1963, President John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie were riding in a open-top limousine through downtown Dallas when a sniper opened fire. Two rifle bullets struck the president at the base of his neck and in his head. He was dead on arrival at Parkland Manorial Hospital.

  At 11.30 a.m. on Monday November twenty-fifth, the presidential cortège arrived at the White House from Capitol Plaza. The Naval Academy Catholic Choir sang ‘Dona Nobis Pacem’ and Ed Gillis hurled his family's TV set from the window of their second-floor apartment on Gibb Street South.

  First I knew of it, Betty was hammering on my door and when I asked her why she wasn't home, didn't she know the requiem mass had already started, she near enough fainted in my arms. Crystal helped me get h
er inside and we wrapped her in a blanket, put her between us on the couch so we didn't have to miss any of the funeral. Wasn't long before she was watching with us. We got through a whole box of Kleenex that day.

  All she kept saying was, ‘I'm so ashamed. I'm so ashamed a thing like this could have happened in Texas.’

  I made potato-chip sandwiches and coffee while they were taking him to Arlington Cemetery. I heard Crystal say, ‘Everything okay at home, Aunty Betty? Sherry and Carla okay?’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘Sherry is watching with the Lopezes. She's seeing Freddy Lopez, you know? And Carla's out to the base, helping Deana with her babies. I don't know that everything's all right at home, though. I'm not sure if I still have a home.’

  Then she told us about Ed and the TV. ‘He was in one of his jealous fits,’ she said, ‘ ’ cause I've been so upset about the president. Not paying him attention, I suppose. But he's gone too far this time, Peggy. I've had as much as I can take.’

  Mrs Kennedy looked beautiful. I was really sorry for all the bad things I'd said about her.

  Betty said, ‘She's a inspiration, to stand tall in adversity. I only just finished paying for that TV, and now it's lying in pieces on Gibb, advertising the fact Ed Gillis flew into one of his rages again.’

  I said, ‘What'll you do?’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I'll have to go round there. I ran out without my pills or anything. I'll go after they box the flag. I oughta make sure Ed didn't hurt himself neither.’

  I said, ‘We'll come with you. Get Perry to come with us, in case there's trouble.’ Crystal was kinda seeing Perry Kaiser.

  I said, ‘You think you should stay here a while? You can do.’

  ‘You're a good friend, Peg,’ she said. ‘If Carla could have your couch and I could manage with pillows on the floor, and maybe Sherry could stay with the Lopezes for a day or two.’

  Crystal said, ‘You don't want Sherry staying in the same house as that sidewinder. Next thing she'll be pregnant and then she'll never finish school. You and Carla can have my bed, Aunty Betty. I got a double. Me and Sherry can bunk down in here. It'll be fun. We can talk in the night.’

  Everything was quiet on Gibb. Betty's downstairs neighbour had cleared away the remains of the television, but I got the impression she had done it in the interests of neighbourhood standards, stop the place looking like a slum, not as a act of kindness. She had a face on her would have stopped an eight-day clock.

  Betty ran round, gathering up her bits and pieces, twittering to herself whether to take this or leave that, kinda gay, like she was going on vacation. I guess in a way she was.

  I was taping brown paper where the window was broke, looking over my shoulder all the time. I figured he had to be somewhere in the neighbourhood and I didn't want him walking in on us.

  I said to Betty, ‘Has Ed got a gun?’

  She looked at me. ‘Well, of course he does,’ she said. ‘But he wouldn't shoot family.’

  I made Crystal wait outside in the street. Perry Kaiser had declined when we asked him to accompany us, said he wasn't allowed out on a day of national mourning.

  ‘He's history,’ Crystal said.

  Betty was nearly done when I heard Crystal whistle. She could do it with two fingers, so piercing they probably could hear her in Laredo. Vern taught her the trick of it when she was seven years old. Didn't matter how hard I tried, I never could do it.

  Ed must have bounded up those stairs.

  I said, ‘Let's go, Betty.’

  He was a sight. Had a two-day beard and a real sloppy shirt. When I think how sharp those boys were turned out when they were in the military. Their belt buckle wasn't in line with their fly, somebody'd want to know why. But those days were long gone for Ed.

  He sat down and put his head in his hands, started weeping. I braced myself for Betty to put her bag down, take off her coat. Start some big forgiveness scene. What I knew of her, she wasn't gonna walk out on a broken man. But she just said, ‘Ed, I'm leaving. There's only so much a person can take.’

  He dropped down on his knees and sobbed and sobbed. Great big Ed Gillis, built like a meat-locker.

  And I have to hand it to her. She never looked back. When it came to it, if there was anybody liable to go back in there, try to offer him a word of comfort, it was me. I did so hate to see a man cry.

  52

  ‘I don't intend imposing on you,’ she said. It was a week since they moved in, but I wasn't chafing to get rid of them. Betty worked eight till four at the Jitney Jungle, brought in all kinds of goods they had on sale, had to be eaten or dumped. And by the time I got home, she always had dinner fixed. Made me realise what a thing it must be to have a wife. She didn't just serve up stew or pie. We had fresh-baked stickies and fudge and a great thing she made with black cherry jello and shredded pineapple.

  I had just started as junior bridal consultant at Clancey Reed and it was hard work. I had so much to learn. All the silver patterns and the porcelain and the linen. Last thing I wanted to do was come home and start folding laundry and frying food, and with Betty staying I didn't have to lift a finger.

  Crystal was getting on okay with Sherry, too.

  ‘How come I never got a brother or a sister?’ she said to me one time.

  ‘So you could be raised in the lap of luxury,’ I said, ‘like a regular little princess.’

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘And when did that idea start to go horribly wrong?’

  53

  Betty had made one of my favourites: spaghetti with canned turkey-chunks and Velveeta cheese. Even Crystal ate it. Under the influence of Sherry Gillis she had quit being a strict vegetarian and become a strict atheist instead, which was a deal easier on the cook.

  ‘It's our last night,’ Betty said, ‘Ed's gone back to Indiana, try to straighten himself out, so we'll go home tomorrow. Leave you kind folks in peace.’

  I said, ‘How are you gonna manage?’

  “We'll get by,’ she said. ‘I've put my name down for extra hours at the JJ, Friday nights. And when I'm not working, I'll find plenty to do. Dressmaking. Babysitting Delta and Dawn.’

  I said, ‘Well, if you're sure. But I'm gonna miss your company.’

  ‘Likewise,’ she said. ‘Now, Crystal, whatever is that you're studying?’

  ‘Chambers of the heart,’ Crystal said. She was tracing a picture out of her science book. ‘We cut up real hearts today, from lambs.’

  My kid had a good head on her shoulders. Planning to go to college and then be a nurse to a veterinarian. The word squeamish meant nothing to that child. She'd pulled a thorn outta Mrs Kaiser's dog's foot one time and she couldn't have been more than thirteen.

  Betty shuddered. ‘Honey, why don't you study something nice?’ she said. ‘You're handy. You could make lampshades, or be a fashion designer. Sherry too. You're both kinda artistic.’

  I said, ‘What's with you and Ed? You divorcing him?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I'm giving him his chance.’

  I said, ‘He won't change. In twenty years what did he do? He got worse. Next twenty years what'll he do? He'll get worse still.’

  ‘I guess,’ she said.

  She was clipping pictures of the president's funeral for her album, sighing over the ones of Mrs Kennedy in her black veil. ‘Me and Jackie,’ she said. ‘Both alone, starting out in our new lives.’

  54

  In ‘64, Lois and Herb moved to Albany. They had finally run out out of schools for Kirk in Rensselaer County so they were trying some special place, had new theories about child development.

  ‘The method is,’ Lo said, ‘let him do as he pleases. His teacher says there's no such thing as a problem child. Only problem adults too uptight to allow him to express himself.’

  I said, ‘How much are you paying this person to insult you?’

  ‘I'd pay double,’ she said, ‘because it's working. He's quietened down. Learned to read. Never thought I'd see the day. And you should see some of th
e fishing flies he's tied. Real works of art. His teacher says a lot of the kids she gets are geniuses almost.’

  Herb was selling furniture. She said, ‘His heart's not in it, of course. Riles him to see what folk are willing to spend on rubbish. All I hear is veneer, veneer, veneer. He sells a person a veneer sideboard, he feels bad about it. Like he'd robbed them at gunpoint. He's gonna stick at it, though. Kirk's settled. Sandie's doing great in school. And he knows better than to upset things for me now.’

  Lois was working as secretary to a realtor. She still didn't know shorthand, but she'd talked her way in somehow.

  ‘Nothing to it,’ she said. ‘I swear, they could train a monkey to do what I do.’

  I said, ‘How many fingers are you using to type?’

  ‘Why, what's it to you?’ she said. ‘Well, okay, two, but I do my letters while Mr Holladay is out showing properties. He comes back, letters are done, coffee's on, and I'm wriggling my ass round his office, watering his cheese plant and generally making him feel like God Almighty. Besides, I improve his letters. When it comes to stringing words together, he don't know shit from Shinola. Anyway, what's new with you? You got yourself any dates yet?’

  I said, ‘I never see any men I want to date.’

  ‘That's because you're looking in the wrong places,’ she said. ‘Let's go on a trip some time. I'll find you a hundred men. Let's go to Chesapeake Beach Resort. There're dance floors and casinos and everything. Guys looking for a little fun.’

  I said, ‘You are a forty-year-old married woman. When are you gonna stop this?’

  ‘When they certify me dead,’ she said.

  I said, ‘I would love to see you, Lo. Forget looking for men. I'd love us all to get together again, like we did for Gayle's wedding.’

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I wouldn't mind Gayle. But not Betty, please!’

  Betty said, ‘Gayle, yes. Lois, no. She wears me out. And if that child of hers is a genius, I'm the Fiesta Queen.’