The Ladies' Room

by Carolyn Brown

  "Don't take much to make you happy, does it?" Billy Lee chuckled.

  "It's going to be a grand house when we get done"

  "I've wanted to do this for years, but Gert wouldn't have any part of it. She said she was too old to be in the middle of remodeling, and she'd grown to like her life the way it was."

  "I can see a vision of it finished, and you can too. It's plain as day in your eyes. Speaking of which, when did you stop wearing glasses? Did you get that new surgery?"

  "No, just contacts. The doctor says I'm not a candidate for the surgery, or I'd have it."

  "Not me. If I was nearsighted, I wouldn't have it."

  "Why not?" he asked.

  "If I was nearsighted, then I could choose what to see or not see"

  "Trust me, it doesn't work that way," he said. "If I don't have my contacts in, I stumble around like a drunk."

  My stomach growled loudly. I hadn't had food since breakfast, which was something new for me. I always had tea and cookies midmorning.

  "Sounds like you're about to starve," he said.

  "Let's go up to the SONIC and get some lunch before we clean the dust away and start to work for real."

  "Want to go over to the park across Pennington Creek to eat?"

  My stomach set up an unladylike howl. "I'd eat in the truck"

  "Truck's hot. We might catch a breeze in the park."

  I smiled, and it felt good. "I wouldn't waste a breeze"

  We ordered foot-long cheese Coneys with extra onions, Tater Tots, and one of those big drinks that hold a quart of Coke. While we waited for the waitress to bring our food, Daisy Black and her daughter pulled up beside us in a late-model Cadillac. From the passenger seat, Daisy looked at me as if I was something she had tracked in from a pig lot.

  She was the one who'd gone to church with Aunt Gert and had slept with Uncle Lonnie. But then, maybe she'd had a come-to-Jesus experience and repented of her sins. Jesus might instantly forgive her, but it was going to take me a while longer.

  "How you doin', Miz Daisy?" I asked.

  "I'm doin' just fine. I heard you moved into Gert's house and that you and Drew had a big argument on the porch this mornin'. It's not too late to undo what you're doin' and go on back to Drew."

  "No, thank you"

  "Think about it before you make a bad decision. How's your momma doin'? I been meanin' to get out to the nursing home to check on her, but I don't drive since I had my knee replaced."

  "Momma's fine. Some days are better than others, but that's the way of her illness. She gets things all confused at times," I said.

  "Well, when she's having a good day, you tell her that I asked about her, and I'll get on out there one of these days," Daisy said.

  "Momma always likes company."

  They brought out her milkshake. She and her daughter drove away.

  "She was one of Uncle Lonnie's women, one of the first ones. What gives her the right to give me advice?" I asked.

  "Age"

  I looked at him quizzically.

  He shrugged. "Old folks have seen more than we have. They know more."

  "Are you telling me to go back to Drew?"

  His eyebrows shot up. "I am not! You should have made this decision years ago"

  "I might have if someone had stepped up to the plate and told me what was going on. Why didn't you?"

  "Would you have believed me?"

  I had to think about that. By the time I had an answer, our food had arrived, and he was driving down Main Street. "No, I wouldn't have believed you, Billy Lee."

  "Who did you finally believe?"

  I got the giggles and told him about the ladies' room, and we were both laughing when he parked the truck beside a picnic table under a shade tree. He got out and hurried around the truck to open the door for me.

  "World is a strange place we live in," Billy Lee said as we laid our food out on the table.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. "You knew, didn't you? You knew that Uncle Lonnie cheated on Gert back in their younger days too"

  He cleared his throat. "Some things don't have to be written in a book down at the courthouse for everyone to know."

  "Such as how Lonnie and Drew were just alike?"

  "I ain't goin' there with you. I'll just say that what's past is past. Let it go, and get on with your life. You always were too good for Drew Williams" He changed the subject abruptly. "I'm glad to see you eatin'. I was afraid that episode this morning would ruin your appetite. Never did like a woman who didn't appreciate a good meal."

  Now, wasn't that a hoot? Drew thought I had a fat rear end, and Billy Lee wanted me to eat. I polished off every crumb of the hot dog, didn't leave a single Tater Tot in the paper bag, and kept at the Coke until the straw made slurping noises at the bottom of the cup.

  I saw the Disney movie Bambi when I was seven years old. It was the day before deer season opened in Oklahoma. When my dad began to clean his gun in preparation for the big hunt, I set up a howl. My father wiped away my tears and explained that the state game commission had a big refuge for deer and other animals. On that refuge those animals could never be shot, and we had such a place right there in Tishomingo. He promised to take me for a drive through it so I could see all the wild creatures. But outside that place, he said, if hunters didn't kill deer sometimes, there would be too many of them, and that made a problem with nature's balance.

  I wanted to believe him, but a little part of me always wondered which story was true. Bambi's tale of the evil man who killed his mother, or my father's? Thirty-three years later, the idea of deer hunting came to mind as I read through the divorce papers the sheriff had delivered to my house that morning. It was really quite simple. Drew got everything "in his possession," and I got everything in mine.

  I picked up the pen and signed my name at the bottom with a flourish.

  In his mind, he'd just bagged a trophy divorce.

  I laughed until my sides hurt. If he'd known what I was worth, he'd have been fighting me for half of my possessions!

  My mind went back to Bambi. If there were too many deer, then hunters were given the opportunity to shoot them. Cheating husbands were also a problem in the balance of nature, and there were far too many of them. Why couldn't there be open season on cheating husbands? Deceived wives could purchase a gun, take lessons, and receive a cheating-husband hunting license complete with a big red A label to tie to the man's zipper after the kill. Open season could be scheduled months in advance to give the husbands a fighting chance. They could hide in refuges or stay home and take their chances at being shot through the living room window as they watched Monday Night Football.

  The licenses would bring in tax revenue, and resorts could hire employees to cater to cheating husbands during the open season. The staff could put up a razor-wire-topped chain-link fence, guard it with attack dogs and ex-Navy SEALS, feed the husbands home-cooked food like their wives made, iron their clothing, charge them a fortune, and send them home when the season was over.

  As I carried the divorce papers out to the car to take back to Drew's office, I wondered how many women I could get to march with me in Washington, D.C., to lobby for just one day a year of open cheating-husband season.

  I spotted Aunt Gert's old adult tricycle in the garage. How much trouble could it be to ride four blocks to Main Street, three back east to his office, and then up to the nursing home to visit Momma?

  I was so happy, I forgot that every muscle in my body ached. Billy Lee and I had filled two galvanized buckets with soapy water and set about removing ten layers of wallpaper once we cleaned all the dirt from the floors. We'd thought it best to start at the top and work our way down, which seemed like a good idea at the time. I had stretched as high as I could, then I'd sat Indian style and bent every which way. No gym could have ever given my muscles such a workout.

  Someone had said that fat cells were like globs of bacon grease and had no feeling. Whoever said it had lied. Every fat cell seemed to have a senso
ry fiber attached to my eyelids, which sent out screaming signals when I opened them that morning.

  Standing up was agony. They should send criminals into Aunt Gert's house and make them strip wallpaper from daylight to dark. That would sure enough reform them.

  I figured a short cycle trip to Drew's office would work out the kinks and embarrass him even further. By the time I'd gone a block, though, my thighs were quivering, and the muddy water in the puddles left by a late-night rain began to look good. But I was on a mission, and, by golly, I would get it done, and I would not die! Because if I did, Drew would get all my money to spend on his teenage queens. I'd taught the alarm clock a lesson; the bike was next.

  Heat waves rose from the road, and the humidity was at least ninety percent. I felt like a turkey in the oven on Thanksgiving morning. Three blocks later, sweat poured down my neck and hit the dam made by the elastic of my bra. There it lay in salty glory, eating away at the fabric. Next week I'd have to make another trip to Durant to buy more bras.

  I parked the bike in front of his office in full view of Drew's secretary, Georgia. She was the only woman I was sure he'd never had a fling with. She wore her gray hair in a tight bun at the nape of her neck and always came to work in a no-nonsense suit, either navy blue or black, with a paler blue or a gray silk blouse to match.

  I stepped inside the cool office and almost swooned at the wonderful central air-conditioning. "Good morning, Georgia."

  She eyed me from the toes of my ratty sneakers up to the top of my sweaty, kinky hair. "What are you doing out in public looking like that?"

  I dropped the divorce papers onto her desk. There were a few smudges of sweat on the front page, but I'd signed all the lines that had had the little markers. "Bringing you this."

  Her eyes bugged out, and she gasped. "You signed that farce?"

  "Yep, I did. He keeps what is his, and I keep what is mine, and I take my maiden name back. Right?"

  She nodded. "But you are entitled to-"

  "I don't want his money. I took what I wanted out of our joint accounts last Friday. It doesn't compensate me for twenty years of infidelity, but it embarrassed him. Not as much as I was when I learned what he'd been up to for most of our married life, but it made me feel better. So here it is, signed and delivered. When is he sending you to file it?"

  "This afternoon"

  "The sooner the better. I am now officially a Matthews again. Off with the old, on with the new. Good-bye, Georgia."

  "Trudy, should you be riding that old tricycle on Main Street, dressing like..

  I finished the sentence for her. "Dressing like a woman who intends to go back home and apply stripper to baseboards all day or finish removing the last of the wallpaper from a bedroom wall? One who has a house to remodel? I don't reckon I need a Liz Claiborne or a Versace suit to do those jobs, do I?"

  "Is it true that you are already keeping company with Billy Lee Tucker?"

  I shot her one of Marty's patented "drop dead" looks. "I'll answer that when you supply me with the long list of names of the women you've sent flowers and expensive gifts to with Drew's name attached, the way you did for me on anniversaries and my birthdays."

  She was still sputtering when I walked out the door. Getting back onto that bike was no picnic, but a whole cheesecake waited at the Sooner Food's grocery store on the way back home as a reward. Thinking of the first bite helped, but I still groaned when I pushed the pedals to get started toward the nursing home.

  Mother was sitting in the lobby when I arrived. Lessie shook her head when I walked in the door. It wasn't a good day, and I'd so hoped it would be. I wanted to tell my mother about the divorce. I pulled up a folding chair, sat down, and patted Momma's hands. "Hi, Momma. How are you today?"

  She jerked her hands back and blinked several times as if trying to put my face in focus. "Who are you? I'm not your mother. You stink. You should have taken a bath before you came to my home"

  "Miz Clarice, this is Trudy, your daughter," Lessie said.

  She eyed me seriously. "My daughter doesn't stink, and she has long hair. She married a man named Lonnie-no, that's not right. Gert married Lonnie."

  I reached out and touched her shoulder. "I cut my hair, Momma"

  She shrugged me away. "I've only got one daughter. Her name is Crystal. She's going to college."

  "I see. Well, maybe I'll come back tomorrow."

  "You take a bath before you come back to my house. I'm going to my bedroom now to take a little nap. '

  She stood up and disappeared down the hallway toward her bedroom. Lessie laid a hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry. Tomorrow might be a good day. She's about due for one" She shook her head sympathetically. "You know, I used to clean your Aunt Gert's house. After Lonnie died, she hired me to work for her on Wednesdays. She never went into that room of his again. She'd hand me the key and tell me to lock up after I'd dusted it. Last year I had to give up my home and check into this place because of my ailments, but I remember Gert right well. She loved your momma"

  "What else do you remember about Aunt Gert?"

  Lessie smiled sweetly. "She was a fine woman in her day. Looked like a million dollars walking around town. Held her head up high and was always a lady. Then that fool of a man talked her into marrying up with him. A sad day that was. About twenty years ago she come down with the pneumonia and spent three weeks in the hospital. Next month after she went home, he died. She shut the door to his room and hired me to dust and vacuum every week while she was ailing. I just kept going even after she got well. We were pretty good friends. I wish I could've gone to her funeral, but I can't sit that long anymore in a hard pew with these old bones"

  I touched her arm. "I know she'd understand."

  Lessie shook her head. "I don't know about that. Gert was outspoken"

  "Well, I was there, and the church was full to the limit. Every good recipe she ever used was at the dinner, and. . " I paused.

  "And most folks was just glad she was gone, right?"

  I nodded honestly.

  "Billy Lee Tucker was sad," I whispered.

  "Oh, that boy would miss her, all right. He was the child she never had. They was a good pair. I like Billy Lee. Most folks, they don't understand him. He's not strange. He just ..." It was her turn to pause.

  "He just doesn't care what other people think," I said.

  "You got that right, girl. We'd all be better off if we had a bit of Billy Lee in us. You go on now, and I'll see to it your momma is in the right room. It makes me feel useful to have someone to take care of. Body needs to feel useful. If they don't, they soon wither up and die."

  I hugged her and went back out into the heat. I stopped at the grocery store on the corner of Main and Byrd Streets and purchased a Sara Lee cheesecake, a pound of bologna, a gallon of milk, and a loaf of bread. It all fit very well in the basket of the bike from hell. Then I pushed off toward the middle school, a block off Main and half a block from the grocery store. ---- -- - - -- - - - - - -

  When Momma was in school back in the sixties, the middle school was the high school. I stopped pedaling and walked the tricycle over to a big tree in front of the building. I sat down beneath the tree and tried to imagine my parents when they were young and in high school. Instead of seeing them laughing and talking during lunch, though, I had a vision of Billy Lee come to mind.

  It was graduation night, and he wore a red robe. For the first time he looked like all the rest of his classmates, until I looked down and saw the legs of his striped overalls. He'd delivered the valedictorian speech that night, but we'd been too excited about getting out of school to listen to him. If I could go back, I think I would have paid attention to what he had to say.

  It was either get back on the bike or walk, so I hefted myself up and set off toward home. It would have been so much easier to go back down to Drew's office, snatch that divorce decree out of Georgia's little paws, and rip it to shreds than to ride that stupid tricycle home, but I couldn't do it. I would
n't live with a man I couldn't trust.

  Someone should have been waiting with a brass band, a medal on a ribbon, or at least a round of applause when I parked the three-wheeled monster in the front yard. I had conquered it. I'd lived. I would never get on it again. I'd learned my lesson, and I still might take the hammer to it before nightfall.

  All I got was Billy Lee leaning against a porch post with a silly grin on his face.

  "You a glutton for punishment? I figured you'd be moaning about sore muscles this morning," he said.

  "I didn't know how far it would feel to bike to town or to the nursing home, or I would have taken the car," I huffed.

  "Had a little fit and decided to humiliate Drew, did you?"

  He knew me too well after only a few days. How had that happened?

  "The divorce papers have been signed and delivered. It's up to the court to put the seal on it. I brought bologna and cheesecake, so we won't have to go out for lunch. Thought I'd throw a roast into the Crock-Pot for supper tonight. Are the window people on the way?" I changed the subject.

  "They'll be here in thirty minutes to start work. It'll take them three or four days to finish. The electrician is coming by this afternoon to give you an estimate." He carried the two bags of groceries into the house for me.

  "I don't care about an estimate. I want this place rewired so we can put in central heat and air, and we need plugs in every single wall. I don't care what it costs," I said.

  We? My conscience picked up on that word so fast, it made my head swim.

  He leaned on the doorjamb into the kitchen. "You ready to start removing paint?"

  "I am" I lied so well, I almost convinced myself.

  We climbed the stairs, each carrying a bucket filled with putty knives, a can of paint remover, and sandpaper.

  "I'm really surprised you aren't sore," he said.

  "Who says I'm not?" I asked.

  "Well, at least you aren't a whiner." His tone held respect.