Honey, Baby, Sweetheart

by Deb Caletti

  Mom put her palms to her eyes. When she removed them, she gasped. “Motor home.” She breathed. “Oh, my God, motor home!”

  I looked. She was right. A huge motor home, with big wide windows and an ambling, overweight gait, a fat guy hurrying down an empty hall. Not Captain Ed, but someone else, the biggest motor home I’d ever seen, with two green stripes zipping boldly down the sides. My mother waved, a two-arm wave of desperation. Harold stood in the middle of the road, a heroic but unnecessary gesture, as the motor home swayed to a stop a few paces behind us. Then came the friendly slam of the driver’s door, an unbelievably cheerful sound. Miz June clasped her hands together. Peach jumped up and down a bit with excitement, like she’d just won the washer-dryer combo on a game show.

  “Hi, folks,” the man said. He looked like the kind of guy who would say hi, folks—small and round with gray hair making a half circle on his head. He had a generous nose, belly slung over his pants, a big silver belt buckle with a deer on it trying to breathe under there. His shirt read PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN, and featured a bald eagle with the same haircut as his own.

  “Thank goodness you stopped,” my mother said. “We ran out of gas.”

  “Well, that’s not the smartest thing you ever did,” the man said, and was instantly forgiven, I’m sure, by all of us. If that camper had a bathroom, he could rip us apart like a vulture if he wanted. “Frank,” he said, and held out his hand. That was certainly true.

  “Ann McQueen,” my mother said. She introduced everyone.

  The door of the camper opened and a woman stuck her head out. She had short hair Clairol-ed orange and big warm eyes and a motherly body. Well, nothing like my mother’s slim curves, but how you picture other mothers—shoulders and chest as round and squishy as bread loaves. She wore the same shirt with the eagle, not tucked in, though, but smoothed over her jeans as flat as her bumpy terrain would allow.

  “You can come out now, Marjorie,” Frank said.

  “Frank was making sure you weren’t rapists,” she said.

  “Just fools who ran out of gas,” Frank said.

  My mother eyed Peach to make sure she’d keep her mouth shut, and then tried to get a peek inside the camper. She was thinking the same thing I was about the camper bathroom.

  “Silly us,” Miz June said. She was trying to peek in there too.

  “I don’t have a gas can, but I got myself one of those phones. Where you folks headed?”

  “Carmel,” my mother said.

  “What brings you folks that way? Washington plates.” Frank was a regular FBI agent.

  “We’re bringing Lillian here to live with an old friend of hers.” Lillian smiled.

  “How sweet,” Marjorie said.

  “Get me that cell phone, Marjorie.”

  Marjorie disappeared. “Where in Washington you from?” Frank asked.

  “Nine Mile Falls. Just east of Seattle,” Harold said.

  “Woodburn, ourselves. Oregon. We’re retired. Traveling the country. Best way to see the sights, right here. We got everything we need. Wife’s got her sewing machine in there. VCR. Every Demi Moore movie.” Frank winked at Harold. “Wife brought the china. The girls grew up and we always said we’d sell the house and just go. Well, the wife couldn’t sell the house, of course. You shoulda seen the waterworks on that. So I figure, what the hell. You only live once.”

  Sometimes, I’ve discovered, people only ask a question so that they can answer it themselves.

  “Met some helluva fine people on the way. Helluva fine people. Everywhere around the world. You wanna meet people, this is the way to go.” He slapped the side of the RV. He remembered his poor belt buckle, gasping for air, and hitched it around a little.

  “I can’t find it, Frank.” A small voice from inside the camper.

  “Under the seat,” he shouted. “Move the atlas.”

  “Atlas?” she said.

  “Under the seat,” he yelled.

  “We met people from as far away as Japan,” he said. “Mooshie mooshie.” He put one hand up. “That means hello.”

  “How about that,” my mother said. She had practice at dealing with the public from being a librarian.

  “You’d think one mooshie would do,” Peach said.

  Frank laughed. He shook his head. “Isn’t that right. One mooshie would do.” He would use that line on the next stranded motorist, I was sure.

  “Found it!” Marjorie said. “Thank goodness it has enough batteries.”

  “Don’t push anything. Last time you pushed something you erased all my messages.”

  “One message. I erased one.”

  “Hand it to me. This baby’s got everything you need. I can see what time a movie starts in Idaho.” I knew personally that there were many times in my life when I wondered what time a movie started in Idaho.

  “It was a wrong number, anyway,” Marjorie said. “Someone calling to tell us that our lawn mower repair was completed. No charge.”

  “Mooshie mooshie.” Chip Jr. made kissy noises my way. I whacked him.

  “Check this out. Name a city.”

  “Carmel,” my mother said. She was doing her best to keep him on track.

  “Carmel, okay.” He looked at his phone. “Eighty-two degrees and sunny.”

  “Just like here,” Peach said. “What a coincidence, since we’re an hour away.”

  Mom shot her a look. “I’m thinking the best person to call would be the friend we’re meeting. I’ve got his number.”

  “Okinawa. Fifty-eight and cloudy.”

  “Let them use the phone, Frank,” Marjorie said.

  “Push this here. See? You’re set to go.”

  “Thanks.” Mom walked off a ways on her own and after a moment, thankfully seemed to be talking to someone. She plugged her free ear with one finger to hear better, had her head down.

  “And how old are you two?” Marjorie said to Chip Jr. and me. I told her. “I have grandchildren,” she said, as if that meant we had something in common. “Justine is thirteen. David is eleven. Let me show you the pictures.” She disappeared inside the camper again, ducking her head even though there was plenty of room for her. Frank was telling everyone about the time he accidentally left Marjorie behind at some rest stop by the Little Bighorn Battlefield in Montana. He went twenty miles before he realized she wasn’t there. After he picked her back up, he had to take her to the gift shop and buy her a Bighorn Canyon book bag and refrigerator magnet before she stopped being mad. Mom was nodding her head and pacing. She looked stressed. It was like watching the news with the sound off. Finally Mom approached Lillian, spoke to her softly, then held the phone to her ear.

  “Here they are,” Marjorie said. “This was from our family trip to Santa’s Village last summer. This is Justine, and this is David.” She tapped the photo with her finger.

  Thank goodness she pointed out which was which, since one was a boy and the other a girl. “They look very nice,” I said. Two kids in shorts and tank tops stood next to a huge polka-dotted mushroom and smiled painfully.

  “Why that Denise let David pierce his ear is another thing,” Marjorie said. I looked closer, saw the gold stud in the boy’s ear.

  “Making him into a pansy,” Frank said. “Looks like a fruitcake.”

  Lillian nodded into the phone, and Mom took it back.

  “We got unlimited minutes, so don’t you worry,” Frank said. “We’re all about giving.”

  “Whatever you give comes back to you twofold,” Marjorie said. “Give someone a smile and they’ll give you a hug.”

  “Gag,” Chip Jr. whispered.

  “Was that a yes?” Mom asked Lillian. Lillian nodded again. “Okay,” Mom said. “It’s a plan.”

  “We just love Christmas,” Marjorie said. She’d lost me somewhere on the conversation trail until I realized she was looking at the picture of Santa’s Village.

  “We used to start decorating the house on November first, every year,” Frank said. “Full train set.
Inflatable Santa with sled and reindeer on the roof. So many damn lights that when the dog chewed through the power cord he was thrown across the room.”

  “That was before we got the Winnebago and became vagabonds,” Marjorie said. “‘Bagobonds,’” I call us.”

  “You could make a sweatshirt. ‘Bagobonds,’ in puff paint,” Peach said. I shot her a warning look, since Mom was off duty.

  “That’s what I thought. Hear that, Frank? I said the same thing.”

  “Thank you,” my mother said to Frank and handed the phone back to him. “Well, gang,” she said to us. “Charles will be arriving as soon as he can. And when he arrives, we’ll be having a wedding.”

  “A wedding!” Marjorie said.

  “Here?” I said.

  “What’s the hurry—is the bride pregnant?” Frank chortled, while that innocent deer on the belt buckle was pummeled rhythmically with flab.

  “Delores and Nadine were quicker than we thought,” Mom said. “They’re staying in a motel in Carmel and claim to have a court order that puts Lillian in their care. She meets the requirements for incompetence, and they have several people saying so. Unless Charles is her legal spouse, Lillian will be going back to the Golden Years. They wanted to marry anyway. It’ll just be a little sooner than we expected. Charles is bringing a minister who lives down the street. It’s got to happen now.”

  “We were hoping to get to the Steinbeck Festival in Monterrey,” Marjorie said. “But I don’t want to miss a wedding. This would be perfect for the Bagabond Newsletter.”

  “I love that Heart of Darkness. Steinbeck’s a genius,” Frank said.

  “Joseph Conrad,” my mother said. “Heart of Darkness is by Joseph Conrad.”

  “I’m sure it’s Steinbeck,” Frank said. “I remember it from high school.”

  “She’s a librarian,” Harold said.

  “Joseph Conrad? Didn’t he sing ‘It’s Only Make Believe’?” Marjorie said.

  “That’s Conway Twitty,” Miz June said.

  “Never heard of Joseph Conrad,” Frank said.

  “Well, if it’s not John Steinbeck, we might as well stay for the wedding,” Marjorie said. “Frank, a wedding.”

  “Oh, all right,” Frank said.

  “Do you all want a drink of something while we wait? Fresca? Perhaps you all need to use the ladies and gentleman’s room?”

  Finally.

  While we waited for Charles, Marjorie took us inside the Winnebago and showed us her Forever Christmas collection, little glass snowy houses and groups of glass carolers with earmuffs or top hats, and glass children kneeling under glass Christmas trees. The statues were stuck to every flat surface with duct tape so that they wouldn’t slide around during those tight curves. She showed us the Christmas outfits she was making for Justine and David—red plaid dress with green bric-a-brac trim for Justine, green plaid vest with red bric-a-brac trim for David. I wasn’t sure who to hurt for—well-intentioned grandmother, embarrassed grandchildren, or the store that still sold bric-a-brac.

  Frescas were offered all around, and we saw pictures of Marjorie and Frank’s trip to John Day Fossil Beds in Oregon. After all the time we had waited for the moment, it was hard to believe that it was really Charles Whitney finally driving up that road. In preparation for Lillian and her wheelchair, he had recently purchased a van; the registration was still just a numbered piece of paper in the back window. The minister, Chuck Lindley, sat in the passenger’s seat, and when he emerged holding the orange gasoline jug, we discovered that he’d been pulled straight from painting his house; his overalls were paint-splattered, and a quick hand washing had left moons of blue under his fingernails.

  Lillian held her hand to her heart when Charles stepped from the car. He wore a denim shirt and a tie, not his usual attire, I guessed, since the top button of the shirt was undone, as if he could no longer stand the strangling. His captain’s beard was paper white and trimmed, his eyes pure beams of joy, sun glints. He greeted my mother, then clasped his hands together and just looked at Lillian for a while with the sweet delight and moment of reverence you feel when you’ve awoken to a snowfall. Then he went to her, knelt down. Took her hands, which were trembling. And then the great man, author of eleven books, masterpieces like White Rain and Hawk’s Daughters and a collection of poetry of distinction, and two-time national Book Award winner, laid his cheek down upon the knees of the woman he loved, who was now nineteen and thirty and eighty-two and every age in between. In front of us played the story of a woman and a man, the most simple and most complex story that exists, and she set her hand on his head with the gentleness of a blessing.

  It was a beautiful wedding, a radiant wedding. The groom’s voice shook, the minister held his Bible away from his paint-splattered overalls. When Charles bent down to kiss Lillian, we all heard him as he whispered only one word. Grateful. Lillian’s face was glowing. Harold cleared his throat again and again to keep from crying. Afterward Marjorie got a frozen Sara Lee cheesecake from her kitchen and put a glass couple in glass earmuffs on the top, and we toasted Charles and Lillian with our Fresca cans. The hot wind from a passing semi-truck made my mother’s hair spin around and catch in her mouth. Chip Jr. caught it all on film.

  Behind Charles and Lillian was the backdrop of the ocean, blue and white and both turbulent and serene. The perfect setting for a wedding. Better than a church, even. Because what is more like love than the ocean? You can play in it, drown in it. It can be clear and bright enough to hurt your eyes, or covered in fog; hidden behind a curve of road, and then suddenly there in full glory. Its waves come like breaths, in and out, in and out, body stretched to forever in its possibilities, and yet its heart lies deep, not fully knowable, inconceivably majestic.

  “That dog,” Chip Jr. said. “I can’t help but think of him.”

  “What dog?”

  “The one that was thrown across the room when he chewed through the electrical cord. Frank and Marjorie’s dog.”

  “They stuffed him,” Harold said.

  “Don’t be morbid,” Peach said.

  “I’m not the one that stuffed him,” Harold said.

  We were heading home. We’d said good-bye to Frank and Marjorie and had gone back briefly to Charles’s house, a shingled cottage with stepping stones making a path to the door, and a back deck that looked over the sea. I didn’t mind leaving Lillian in Carmel. The houses there were out of a fairy tale, lacking only the thatched roofs, and the salty clean air was wet and fresh. Charles had a birdhouse hanging in his tree, and tomato plants and a dish of milk for the neighbor’s cat. Inside he had a round teapot and a violet plant by the kitchen sink, roomy wood floors, and enough books to make it feel like a wise, warm place. We didn’t stay long, even though I wanted to. We agreed on the drive there that we wouldn’t. We kissed and hugged Lillian good-bye and promised to call the next day. Delores and Nadine would soon be there, and Chuck Lindley would stay for support. Charles’s attorney would be arriving any minute, as would his daughter. This drama, Mom said, was not ours, and we believed, really believed, that all was well. Harold pouted for a while after we were back in the car. He wanted to see the look on Delores’s face when Lillian lifted up her hand to show her the ring they’d temporarily borrowed from Chuck Lindley’s wife’s jewelry box.

  “How do you know they stuffed him?”

  “I saw him. When Frank showed me his golf trophy after the wedding. The dog was in their bedroom. If you could call it a bedroom.”

  “More like a bed cubby,” Miz June said.

  “Did they duct tape him down so he didn’t slide around?” my mother said, and laughed. She cracked herself up.

  “No, but they should have. He was on his side with his legs sticking out when we went in, and Frank had to set him upright again. He knocked the dog over when he opened the door.”

  “So he was electrocuted,” Chip Jr. said. “By Christmas lights.”

  Mom busted up. Relief that our mission was accomplished had
her in a good mood.

  “It’s not funny,” Chip Jr. said.

  Miz June stuck her arms out stiffly and opened her eyes wide, frozen-dog-style.

  “Nah, he wasn’t electrocuted. He must have survived that. Frank told me that he died of old age.”

  We all got quiet on that one. Mom had been right. The old people had grown on me in ways I couldn’t explain. The feeling in my stomach that grew right then, hollow dread, gnawing sadness, made me realize that I loved those Casserole Queens.

  DOG WORKS MIRACLES, the sign said when we came home. And for a while that felt true. Our kitchen was fixed, coated with fresh paint, and Poe had become a near gentleman, aside from his one lapse of peeing on the floor from excitement when he first saw us. Four days after we returned home, we had a wedding reception at Miz June’s for Lillian and Charles, even though the honorary guests, who were still in Carmel, were absent.

  “Try these,” Mrs. Wong said. “Longevity noodles. It is bad luck to cut a strand, as the noodle indicates long life.” She insisted on being in charge of the food. She had gone over early that morning with her own grocery bags, and rooted around in Miz June’s well-stocked cupboards for the rest of the ingredients. You could live for weeks after a nuclear war with the stuff in Miz June’s cupboards and the overflow onto the shelves in her garage. She’d lived through the depression, Mom explained. That’s why you could build a fortress with the amount of canned goods she had.

  The table was filled with Mrs. Wong’s foods. Red cooked chicken, red for the color of happiness. A whole fish, with buggy eyes, which made Anna Bee shiver. Buns with lotus seeds, indicating many children, though I thought we could have skipped those for Lillian and Charles. Chip Jr. had brought the pictures from the trip and hung them around Miz June’s house. Images from our adventure—Lillian waving, parked next to the newspaper box outside Denny’s; a field of orange trees; the eagle with the red scarf; Mom’s eyes peering over a fan of playing cards—were stuck along the walls and other various places. A row of three heads shot from the back, Miz June’s, then Mom’s, then Harold’s, our view the whole trip, dangled on the stair rail. A nice shot of the Mylar frog hung on one of Miz June’s fringe lampshades. The photo of Harold, caught in reflection at the scenic lookout, was stuck on the toilet bowl. In it, he looked caught in one of those honest and unadorned moments, like when you’ve just woken up, or have come in from the cold after raking leaves. Halfway through the party I noticed that the photo had disappeared, snatched, I first guessed, by Harold himself, as it was a particularly handsome shot, though later I discovered the corner of it peeking from the open zipper of Peach’s purse.