The Future Homemakers of America

by Laurie Graham

  I could remember a time when it was hard to get a word out of Kath Pharaoh.

  66

  Summer evenings Grice'd make me a mint julep and we'd sit a while, wind up the day.

  Grice's Guaranteed Mint Julep

  Generous for two. Sufficient for three.

  Fill the glasses with crushed ice until they are frosted. Strip the leaves from ten good sprigs of fresh mint. Using a pestle, crush them in a bowl with a large spoon of fine sugar and a jigger of club soda. Add six jiggers of bourbon and leave to stand for no more than five minutes. Strain into the glasses of ice, stir, garnish with extra mint.

  Wear chiffon and sip through a straw.

  We were in the early stages of the Jenneau-Carson wedding, and we already realised Mrs Jenneau was gonna be one of those make-or-break clients. For a start, there were twenty bridesmaids plus ten flower-girls and ten pageboys who had been matched for height; but they were flying in from all over so rehearsing them was gonna be a nightmare if not downright impossible. Then there were the butterflies. Rose Jenneau wanted a cloud of them, all the same shade, preferably pastel-lemon, released at the moment she and Robert E. Carson started making their vows.

  Grice had his doubts it could be done. He said we should persuade her to go for doves, but I didn't like to think Peggy Dewey Weddings should be so easily beat.

  He said, ‘Even if we can get them, I don't know that a butterfly can be made to perform. They're only a form of insect life, after all. Mood takes them, they might just fold their wings and stay put for hours. You can rely on a dove.’

  The phone rang. ‘Or, how about this,’ he said, ‘silk butterflies, on wands, waggled about by the junior attendants. Peggy Dewey Weddings, Grice speaking, how may I help you?’

  He put his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Marie Hollick?’ he whispered. ‘Calling from California?’ He fluttered his hand over his heart. ‘I think we may be about to go inter-state!’

  ‘Hello,’ she said. She had a slow, dopey way of speaking, like she was pacifying a child. ‘Am I speaking with Mrs Peggy Dewey?’

  She said, ‘I am calling on behalf of the Rudman family. I have been asked to let you know that the funeral service for Colonel Rudman has now been fixed for Friday next at 3 p.m.’

  I could hear Grice, busy with something behind me, humming a little tune.

  I said, ‘Excuse me? Are we talking about Lance Rudman?’

  ‘Colonel Lance Rudman,’ she said. ‘Is this Mrs Peggy Dewey?’

  I said, ‘It is. Are you telling me about funeral arrangements? I didn't even know he had died.’

  I heard her gasp. ‘Oh my!’ she said. ‘I am so sorry. We are working in teams here, to help out Audrey at this sad time, there being so many people to call, and I was given to understand you had already received the news of his passing. I can only apologise. I guess your name was checked off by mistake.’

  All she'd say was, it had been sudden, which I had worked out for myself. All she wanted to tell me was the arrangements for parking, and that Audrey was not taking calls. ‘Messages can be left with the Adjutant's Office at any time,’ she said. ‘May I help you in any other way?’

  I said, ‘Yes. Tell me who else you got checked off on your list.’ I knew if Betty had heard, or even Lo, they'd have called me for a pow-wow. But Marie Hollick, being military, was real cagey. Name, rank, number. That's all, folks!

  I said, ‘Well, it's hardly classified information, is it? But okay, let me tell you, I don't believe Lois Moon or Betty Gillis has been informed either, because if they'd have heard, I've have heard. Probably neither has Gayle Jackson Flagg Passy. But I intend calling every one of them as soon as I'm through talking with you.’

  ‘Well, I'm obliged to you,’ she said, ‘And I'll certainly make a note of that. And may I know whether you'll be attending?’

  I said, ‘I'm thinking about it.’ I was staring at my schedule, trying to remember Lance's freckled face. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I'll be there.’

  Grice had made a butterfly shape out of Kleenex and Scotch-taped it to the end of a coat-hanger. He flitted round in front of me and flapped it a little. ‘Or,’ he said, ‘here's another idea. We issue the guests with bubble pipes and little tubs of liquid soap. The bride and groom make their vows, the guests start blowing and voilà, hundreds of pretty bubbles float up into the sunshine. Well? What's up? Are we going to San Francisco?’

  I called Vern first. He said, ‘He must have been near retirement. What'd he get? Coronary arrest?’

  I said, ‘Don't know. I don't suppose you'll cross the country for his funeral?’

  ‘You kidding?’ he said. ‘Like Rudman would have come to mine?’

  Lois didn't think Herb would either. She said, ‘Jeez, Peg. Folks have their lives to get on with. Herb's place has a big dining-set event on, stock clearance. I doubt he could get away, and anyway, him and Lance were never close.’

  I said, ‘How about you? Audrey'd appreciate it.’

  ‘Hey, kid,’ she said, ‘don't make me feel bad about this. I can't just drop everything, fly out there. Audrey'll understand. People go their ways, you know? It's not like it's family.’

  A foreign person answered the phone at Gayle's. Said Pastor Passy and Mrs Passy were at the radio station. She gave me the number, but the secretary was as far as I got. She said Gayle and Lemarr had appointments all day, but that she would be sure to pass on the sad news. She did call me back later, too. ‘Gayle asks me to tell you Colonel Rudman and his family were remembered in her prayers today, and will be again on Friday, 6 p.m. Standard Time.’

  I said, ‘She won't be coming then, to the funeral?’

  She said, ‘Lemarr and Gayle have preaching commitments in Charlotte and Hickory, Friday through Sunday.’

  I knew it was one of Betty's late days at K-Mart. Still, I thought it was worth a try. I was dying to talk to her. Course, Deana picked up. I said, ‘Tell your mom, Lance Rudman died. Tell her, call me the minute she gets home. How're you doing these days?’

  ‘Yeah, pretty good,’ she said. ‘Delta won two pageants.’

  I said, ‘I'm surprised you're home, this time of day. You still not working?’

  ‘I do crochet,’ she said. ‘Pillow covers and stuff. I got somebody might be interested in selling them.’

  Betty called me that evening. ‘It had to have been his heart,’ she said. ‘Or an aneurysm. That's like a tyre blowout, only inside your body. You can walk around, never know you have got one till it blows. Carla was telling me.’ Carla was doing her nurse training at State. Looked like she was gonna be the only one of Betty's brood to lead a normal life and pay taxes.

  Betty said, ‘Audrey must be in shock. They tell you how she was?’

  I said, ‘They told me nothing. You know the score. You'd think it was NASA launch, not some little old funeral. I think we just have to go there, see for ourselves.’

  ‘Well, I can't go, Peggy,’ she said. ‘They're laying people off here. I go missing for a day or two, I'll be one of them.’

  I said, ‘Can't you use vacation time?’

  ‘No, I cannot,’ she said. ‘I have to conserve that, so I can take Delta to her pageants.’

  67

  They had a service for Lance in the base chapel at Beale, but I just flew in for the burying, Golden Gate National Cemetery being situated just along the freeway from the airport. I took flowers, from me and Kath.

  Mikey Rudman was greeting people as they arrived. Last time I had really seen him, he was still in diapers. There had been the photos every year, of course, but it was still weird to see him standing there in a dark overcoat, six foot tall, just like his daddy.

  Lance Jnr was taking care of his mom. He had his daddy's features but not his build. In fact, he was quite a delicate-looking bloom for somebody that had been white-water rafting and all those manly things expected of a Rudman boy.

  I didn't get to speak to Audrey till the buffet lunch afterwards, at the Geary.

  ‘You came a
ll this way? she said. ‘How kind. People are so kind.’ She seemed a little hazy. I guess they'd given her something, help her through the day.

  ‘The whole gang wanted to be here, Aud,’ I said, barefaced liar that I was, ‘but we're so scattered now. It's hard for people to get away at short notice.’

  ‘Peggy,’ she said, ‘there's something I want to say to you.’ She was wearing a beautiful two-piece, black slub linen, and a big brimmed hat. She kinda took me to one side. ‘There are some people,’ she said, ‘they're not coming right out and saying it, but it's obvious they're thinking it – some people feel that this was all brought on by Lance Jnr. But I won't have it, Peg. I won't have him blaming himself.’

  I just nodded. Tried to look understanding. It didn't seem decent to come right out and ask the burning question. I thought I'd work my way round to it. I said, ‘Will you go back east?’

  She still had family in Chicago. She said, ‘I don't have any money worries.’

  I said, ‘Well, that's something. But what do you think you'll do?’

  ‘My brother's here,’ she said. ‘You ever meet my brother?’

  That's how it went. Whatever you asked her, she answered about something else. Then somebody came along, wanted to condole with her, so that was the end of our conversation.

  There was a face I knew, waiting on line for coffee. I couldn't put a name to it, but she had me picked out anyway. ‘Peggy?’ she said. ‘Remember me? Yvette Franklin, 366 Squadron.’

  She had gone platinum. ‘I was grey by the time I was forty,’ she said, ‘so I figured I'd find out if it's true what they say about blondes.’

  I said, ‘And?’

  ‘Jury's still out,’ she said. ‘Course, I'm still married to Pat, so fun has to come a way to find me. Well this is a terrible day. I don't think Audrey's taken it in yet.’

  I said, ‘Do you know what happened? I still don't know what happened.’

  ‘Sure,’ she said.

  She steered me outside. ‘They were all having dinner, you know how Lance insisted on that. No running in, grabbing a sandwich, in his command. There was a fight. They'd been having a few of those lately, with the boys. You know the kinda thing. You thought they'd go to law school and they join a rock group instead. Been there, seen that movie. Anyway, there was a shouting match and Lance got a piece of steak caught in his throat. They tried whacking him on the back because he couldn't get his breath. All those first-aid classes Audrey musta been to, whiling away the hours. Anyway, by the time they got a medic out to him he was gone. Asphyxiated.’

  I said, ‘You get this from Audrey?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘I know somebody from the OWC at Beale.’

  I said, ‘Audrey's worried people are blaming Lance Jnr. You know anything about that?’

  She said, ‘Well, Lance Jnr told me he doesn't want people blaming Mikey. They are weird boys, Peggy. And I'll tell you something else: I haven't seen either of them shed a tear. Not even when they sounded Taps. You show me any right-feeling person stays dry-eyed through that.’

  Yvette and Pat had settled in Sacramento after he quit the force. He was teaching flying, little planes for people with big money. She was teaching high school.

  ‘I've had to start at the bottom,’ she said. ‘And that's a hard place to be when you're nearly fifty. Comes of spending the best years of your life being a camp-follower.’

  She told me Ruby Bergstrom was back in Minnesota, breeding pug-nosed dogs, and Ax had married an Oriental girl young enough to be his daughter. Lorene Bass she didn't know about.

  I said, ‘There was a Kurlich, J., killed in action. Was that Dorothy's kid?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Joey. I read that too. I lost touch with them, but that was him, for sure. Last few years, I've been glad we never had a boy.’

  I called Grice from the airport. I said, ‘Well, how was your day?’

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Apart from the building burning down, the dawn raid by IRS investigators, and Mrs Jenneau finding out I served time in Sing-Sing. How were the obsequies?’

  I said, ‘Do you want to pick me up from the airport. Get a late dinner?’

  He hesitated. ‘Would you be very offended?’ he said. I guess he had a date. Grice always kept those kinda cards close to his chest.

  68

  Lois got her broker's licence beginning of ‘72.

  I said, ‘Congratulations. Now you'll never get a day off.’

  She said, ‘I've had enough days off.’

  I said, ‘And you'll lie awake nights worrying.’

  She said, ‘Done plenty of that already. Worrying I was gonna spend the rest of my life making fifty per cent of four per cent. Anyway, what's your beef? You're doing it.’

  I was, and I did love it. There were times, when we'd solved some big headache – like finding a replacement harpist at two hours’ notice or the time we had to work out a seating plan for the Linwood-Friend rehearsal dinner with two ex-Mrs Linwoods, the second one insisting on bringing along somebody she called her same-gender partner – times I really felt satisfied with my work. And when folks really loved something we suggested, like Grice and his soap bubbles. After Rose Jenneau's wedding, everybody wanted soap bubbles.

  It was neat, getting paid to make people happy. But most days all I did was work and sleep. Mondays me and Grice'd see Crystal for dinner, Fridays I'd get my hair done and my nails. That was it. At least when Betty punched out she had the energy to deliver her Avon orders or go to a movie with Slick. She even made Delta's dresses for her contests. ‘She's such a darling,’ she always said. ‘Her waist's so tiny I can almost get my hands around it. She does fire-baton and tap dancing and she's getting singing lessons too. She's set fair to follow in her Aunty Sherry's footsteps.’

  What I heard, through Crystal, Sherry's footsteps led mainly to the Home Shows. She demonstrated things. Electric carving knives, trouser presses. She had done a car show too, had to wear a G-string, but I don't think Betty had heard about that and I wasn't going to be the one to tell her.

  Apparently Sherry had split up from the guy who drank his own water. Crystal said, ‘She's in another relationship now.’ That's what people were starting to have, instead of getting married: relationships.

  She said, ‘He's half Comanche.’

  Grice said, ‘Wow! Does he live in a teepee?’

  She said, ‘I don't think so. He cleans pools.’

  I said, ‘Well, I just hope she doesn't go in for one of those mixed marriages. Betty's got troubles enough.’

  She said, ‘Mom, that is such a disgusting thing to say. Don't you know everybody's equal now. The colour of a person's skin don't matter.’

  I said, ‘All I know is, it leads to talk and the children suffer. They don't know whether to act white or act coloured.’

  ‘There you go again,’ she said. ‘You're such a throwback. Act coloured! What century you living in?’

  I said, ‘Heaven's sakes – all I asked was, is Sherry gonna marry this breed?’

  I don't know what Grice Terry found so amusing about that, nearly falling off his chair. I'd have expected a little more respect from him.

  Crystal said, ‘Nobody in their right mind gets married any more. And don't bring up the subject of Trent Weaver; that was a temporary aberration. Soon as I realised what a fool thing I had done, I undone it. Marriage is finished and weddings suck.’

  Well, that may have been the case in California. But in Texas business had never been better. And little Sandie had just gotten engaged. Lois had told me she'd begged her to reconsider, but she was set on it.

  I said, ‘Well, she is young, I suppose.’

  Lo said, ‘I'd feel the same way if she was thirty. Bright girl, got the world at her feet. Why'd she want to go and tie herself down with a man?’

  Sandie had met Gerry Carroll at a brass-band contest. He played tuba and he was taking the tests, hoped to get into the fire department.

  I said, ‘He sounds nice and steady. Maybe
she's picked a good one, like you picked Herb.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘But did you ever hear a man learning a new tuba melody? At least Herb has a hobby he can take outta earshot. He goes down into the cellar, I can hardly hear him whittling.’

  I said, ‘I know what it is. You're worried Sandie's gonna start giving you grandbabies.’

  ‘Peg,’ she said, ‘Whenever I'm feeling low, I know I can always depend on you to push me over the edge. You're as bad as Herb. He can't wait. He's planning a whole ark full of carved animals.’

  I told Crystal. I said, ‘Sandie Moon's a bright girl. Working in New York City. Got a modern outlook on life. But she's getting married.’

  Crystal said, ‘Who the hell is Sandie Moon?’

  69

  None of us heard from Audrey. She had cleared out of quarters, of course. I wrote her, care of the OWC, and so did Kath, but there was no word. I even called up Yvette Franklin, but she'd heard nothing either.

  ‘That's how it is,’ she said. ‘Always was the same story. The military's your whole darned existence. Then you just disappear. Nobody knows where you come from or where you go to.’

  I said, ‘She told me she was okay for money.’

  Yvette said, ‘I'm sure she is. Now she has to find something to do with it. If I hear anything, I'll let you know.’

  Lois said, ‘Peg, what are you doing, worrying about Audrey Rudman? I'll bet she's lying on a beach in Grand Bahama. I'll bet she's on a cruise, playing deck quoits with some old millionaire.’

  Lo was full of her own troubles. She was eager to move down to the city, but Herb was dragging his feet. He had kinda said he'd do it when the kids were off their hands. Now Sandie was married and Kirk starting at the Institute of Meat, gonna stay with Sandie and Gerry in their walk-up, in the Bronx, but Herb was backtracking. He said New York was full of danger.