"Are we talking about varnish or life in general?"
"Life as a whole," he answered.
"Who died and made you God?"
"Gert," he said.
A giggle started in the bottom of my heart and rose to escape out of my mouth in a guffaw. I could never stay mad at Billy Lee for a whole hour, so how could we ever have a real fight?
He grinned but didn't laugh. "Now, tell me what kind of furniture you want for your new bedroom."
"Gert was pretty high up on the ladder, wasn't she?"
That's when he chuckled. "One more step and she'd have been right up there with Saint Peter and the angels."
I laughed hard enough that the men working on the central air unit looked my way. I didn't even care. It had been years since I'd found anything so funny. Poor Trudy, bless her heart!
"What's so funny?" he asked.
"Saint Peter has his hands full with Gert, don't you imagine?"
"Probably so, but then, maybe she's got her hands full with Saint Peter. You going to answer me about that furniture?"
I wiped my eyes on the corner of my shirtsleeve. "I want a sleigh bed, queen-size. A dresser with a big mirror to match and a chest of drawers. Two nightstands, one for each side of the bed, and a thingamajig to put quilts inside."
He cocked his head to one side. "Quilts?"
"I've always loved quilts, so I'm decorating with them. I'll hit the antiques fairs and begin a collection, so I'll need a shelf thing to keep them in and one of those things that hangs on a wall to display one at a time and maybe even a quilt rack that holds six or eight to sit on the floor in the living room."
He nodded.
"Maybe next week we'll go find some of that kind of furniture. Or is it infringing on our friendship too much for you to go furniture shopping with me?" I asked.
He kept working. "Nothing can ever infringe on our friendship. It's solid."
"Are you sure about that? I'm not Gert" So our friendship was solid. I liked that idea.
"No, she died and made me God, remember? Come on, Trudy, if we're going to be friends, you've got to remember your place."
That brought on a whole new set of delicious giggles. I vowed to find something to laugh about every day for the rest of my life. I finally got my amusement under control, but a smile stayed with me most of the afternoon when I thought about Gert making a misstep and Saint Peter giving her soul to the devil. Bless Lucifer's little red heart, he'd have to keep Gert tied to his forked tail and make sure Lonnie was exiled to the back forty if he wanted to keep any kind of order in his fiery abode.
Several minutes later Billy Lee said, "When we get the doors done, I've got a surprise for you"
At noon everyone took a break, and Billy Lee and I stood our bare doors against the tree to dry. They looked pitiful, but he assured me they'd come to life with the stain we'd put on after lunch. We had sandwiches in the kitchen. Ham and cheese on rye bread with mayonnaise, Fritos, icy sweet tea, and the last of the cheesecake for dessert.
I pressed my fingers to the plate to gather up every last graham-cracker crumb. "If life was truly fair, cheesecake wouldn't have a fat gram or a calorie."
"Why do you worry about such things? You're perfect the way you are"
Well, knock me down with a sneeze, and beat me to death with a feather. Me, perfect? Was Billy Lee making a joke? I was thirty pounds overweight and looking forty in the eye.
"Thank you, but you are legally blind," I joked.
"We've had this conversation before. I can see perfectly. Evidently better than you can, because you're always putting yourself down. You are a wonderful person and a beautiful woman, Trudy"
I'm sure even my scalp was red from the full body blush. I couldn't remember the last time anyone had paid me a compliment. He would never know how much I'd treasure him from that moment forth.
He wiped down the cabinet top and hung the dishcloth on the edge of the drain board. "I promised you a surprise."
"I believe you did." I'd wondered about the surprise all morning and come up with dozens of ideas.
He led the way into the living room, back down the short hallway, and slung open the door into a storage room. He pulled a light cord and lit up the room, and I saw rows and rows of folded quilts arranged neatly on shelves-at least fifty, and the whole room smelled of dryer sheets instead of mothballs. I squealed and grabbed him in a bear hug. When I stepped back, he was grinning, and his ears were red.
"They won't fall apart if you touch them," he said.
"Promise?"
"I promise. Gert pulled one out of here to show me once. Said her mother made it. We were talking about birdhouses, and she remembered the quilts."
I was so tickled, I wanted to take them all to the living room. "It's a gold mine."
"So it's a good surprise. You aren't disappointed."
"I could kiss you"
His eyes lit up. "Then I guess you really are tickled with them"
I settled on one and carried it to the living room, where I laid it out over the sofa. I sat in a rocking chair, afraid to blink. He brought another rocker across the floor and sat beside me. Sitting there beside my friend, gazing at a fan quilt with black hand-embroidered edging, I figured out a big life lesson. I had two choices. I could be bitter, or I could get on with life. Drew could drop dead or marry Charity tomorrow. Crystal could grow up or stick her head in the sand for twenty years. Those were their decisions. Mine had been made. I had a whole closetful of gorgeous quilts, two doors out under the shade tree, and a friend to share it all with. I wasn't going to be bitter.
"You've got your stash of quilts without going to the antiques stores, and they've got a history. What do you think of that?" he finally asked.
"Unworthy," I said.
He frowned. "What?"
"This morning I was wallowing around in a whining pity pool, feeling sorry for myself, and now I realize that I'm blessed, not cursed"
A brilliant smile replaced the frown. "I told you."
"That I'm not cursed?" I asked.
"That you are wise. You recognize that you are blessed. That makes you wise."
"It makes me a fool for wasting a single minute wading around in a pity pool."
"A fool keeps wading. A wise person gets out of it. You got out of it, Trudy," he said.
"Okay, point taken. Now, which one will I put on my bed?"
He shook his head. "That could take hours and hours to decide."
"I need a couple more of those shelf things to set in corners. These are not going to stay hidden away. I'm going to display every one of them in this house when it's finished. Quilts will be the new theme of my house. The past meets the future. And thank you, Billy Lee, for this wonderful surprise. I seem to be saying that more and more"
It was the first time I noticed that his smile was crooked, and it made him look a little bit like Harrison Ford.
"I've always been your friend, Trudy. We just took different paths that led us away from each other for a few years."
"Well, I'm glad we got back onto the right path."
"Me too," he said softly.
Together we folded the quilt back up, put it away, and headed upstairs to take paint off the woodwork on the landing. I was beginning to love my new life and all its surprises. Betsy and Marty didn't have a clue what they were missing.
That afternoon Alford finished sanding the floors in the two bedrooms and the stairs. He left with a promise to come back when we were ready for the floors to be varnished. Workmen were in the attic putting ductwork into the upstairs rooms and down in the basement to vent air to the first floor. I hadn't built up the courage to venture into the attic or the basement.
Molly and Joe, my great-grandparents, had moved into the house right after they married. Her father had passed on, and her mother gave them the place with the stipulation that she could live there until her death. So my great-great-grandmother Elizabeth lived there with Molly and Joe until she died. They raised a family
, and all those people with all their possessions over all that time, plus all those junk sales Gert had frequented-it all gave me the willies. Angels would hide in the back corner of Hades to keep from wading through the attic and the basement of this house. And I was no angel.
I was managing without Drew, and some days a whole hour or two passed when I didn't think about my former perfect shell of a life. Poor Trudy's big bubble butt was not pointed skyward anymore. I was existing quite well in my new world, working on a project that would net me a lovely home someday. I had Billy Lee right next door-my friend who could fight with me and still enjoy sitting and looking at a single quilt for half an hour. That night after a hard afternoon of work, I fell asleep with a smile on my face. Life was good when I counted my blessings.
Heavy knocking on the front door awoke me. I sat up so fast, it made me dizzy. A quick look at my new digital clock said it was eight thirty. Billy Lee and I had agreed to take the weekend off. So what was he doing waking me up on the only day of the week I could sleep in?
I grabbed a ratty old robe of Gert's that had lost its buttons years before from the end of the bed, wrapped one side over the other, and plodded downstairs in my bare feet. Billy Lee had been there the day Gert's ancient alarm clock had startled me awake; evidently he didn't realize I'd have no qualms about taking the hammer to his head for the same thing. I unlocked the door and swung it open with a speech already on my mind that would scorch the hair out of Lucifer's ears.
It wasn't Billy Lee at all.
It was my daughter, Crystal.
"What are you doing here so early?" I asked bluntly.
"Good morning to you too," she said sarcastically.
"Come in. I'll put on a pot of coffee"
She followed me into the kitchen, where she pulled out a chair and slumped down into it, propping her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands and looking at me with disgust. "You look horrid."
I made coffee and rubbed my eyes. "You look like a breath of spring. You want me to cook you some breakfast? If not, I'm going to have cold cereal."
"Daddy took me to breakfast. I didn't come here to have a nice little mother/daughter breakfast and forgive you for tearing our family apart"
I laced my fingers together tightly to keep them from slapping fire into her cheeks. Physically she was a combination of three people. She had Drew's straight blond hair, my mother's clear blue eyes, and my short height. In attitude, she was often too danged much like Drew's sarcastic mother.
"Aren't you going to say anything?" she shouted.
I took two steps toward her, leaned forward until she was blurry, and whispered, "You will not speak to me like that ever again, Crystal. Either respect me, or get out. I haven't torn our family apart. Go ask your father about the divorce. He's got all the answers, not me"
Her voice instantly went back to normal. "Oh, come on, Mom. You had to have known about his affairs for years"
I went back to making coffee. "Sorry, doll. I didn't have a clue. If I had, I'd have left years ago."
She gave me one of those looks that I'd seen from her paternal grandmother many times. "I've known for years. How could you not have known? Besides, obviously he wasn't getting what he needed at home, or he wouldn't have strayed."
I gritted my teeth and poured Cheerios into a bowl. "Tell you what: when your new husband has a fling, you remember those words. And when you realize your worst nightmares and suspicions have become reality, you come on back here, and we'll talk again. There will come a day when you'll need a mother-trust me"
"Jonah and I are in love, and I'm never going to be your friend after what you did to our family," Crystal declared.
"Momma said to give a man everything he wanted and to make his life wonderful and he'd stay close to home. It didn't work with your father."
"Evidently you didn't work hard enough at it. Daddy says you're sleeping with Billy Lee Tucker. How long has that been going on? From Daddy to the town's oddball? That's awful." Her pert little nose wrinkled into a snarl.
"Billy Lee is my friend, and you will not call him names, Crystal. He's the only one who's stood beside me in this mess"
She threw her blond hair over her shoulder and pursed her lips. "Daddy says he caught the man in your bedroom, and I believe him."
"Believe what you want. Live the way you want. You are of age according to the laws of Oklahoma. You can even get married without my permission. You don't have to answer to me at all, do you?"
She stood up so fast that the chair almost went over backward. "I'm old enough to make my own choices."
I nearly smiled. "Likewise. I do not have to answer to you for any of my actions." I sat down at the table and started eating Cheerios. "Sure you don't want some breakfast?"
"I told you, I already ate. Has your mind gone along with your style and class?"
"Guess so. You got anything else to say?"
"Just that I'm ashamed of you"
She'd grow up someday and regret saying such mean things. Maybe I'd forgive her. Maybe I wouldn't. But I was sure that whichever way it shook out, the sun would come up, and the world would keep spinning on its axis.
"I'm sorry you feel that way. Did your father consult with you about Charity?"
She stuttered and stammered, but the words wouldn't form. Finally she slapped the table so hard, the milk in my cereal slopped out in big drops all over the plastic place mat.
"I don't have to listen to this," she said with clenched teeth.
"You know the way to the door, honey. This is my house. From now on I do what I want, and no one sends me on any kind of a guilt trip. Not even you, as much as I love you"
Her sweet little world had shattered into pieces, and she couldn't force me to put it back together again. "You're not my mother. She wouldn't say those things to me"
"Oh, I'm your mother, all right. And I should've been more like this the whole time you were growing up. It would have been a much better role model than who I was in those days. I should have confronted my doubts instead of burying them. I'm going to get dressed and go out to the nursing home to see your grandmother. Want to go with me?"
"Not on your life. I'm not going anywhere with you. If it were possible, I'd file for a divorce from you."
"Someday you'll grow up. Until then have a wonderful life and know that I love you" Surprisingly enough, I wasn't crying. I couldn't begin to imagine having this conversation before the ladies' room day without shedding enough tears to flood the Pacific.
"I might love you back if you'd give up this crazy lifestyle and go back home to Daddy." Her voice had turned into whining.
"Did he send you here to ask me that?"
"He hoped I could talk sense to you. He misses you. I guess he was wrong." She raised her tone a few octaves as she started toward the door.
If she was waiting for me to break into tears and throw myself at her feet, she'd better get ready to grow roots down through the floor, the basement, and even deeper, because I didn't care if Drew missed me.
"Guess you never know how much you like the water until the well runs dry, and if I can't have your love unconditionally, then I'll just have to do without it until you grow up. Drive safely," I said.
She slammed the door so hard, it rattled the pictures on the wall. I poured myself a cup of coffee and carried it upstairs without a tear and without looking back. Both of which surprised me.
The next morning I started to put on the yellow dress to wear to church, but I remembered that Momma had said I looked good in red when I'd visited her in the nursing home the day before. Even though I'd worn the red dress to church the week before, I put it on again. This could easily be my new look: a straight dress that didn't bind me up in the middle, a jacket to cover a multitude of eating sins, and simple shoes with no panty hose. Oh, yes, this was my style, and red was my new signature color.
There was one parking space left on the east side of the church, and I had two minutes to get inside before the service be
gan. With any luck Marty and Betsy would not be sitting in my pew for the second week in a row.
Guess who didn't have any luck that morning?
Betsy and Marty were already seated, and their mourning season was clearly over. Betsy wore a yellow dress at least two sizes too small. She kept tugging on the skirt hem to keep her thighs covered. Marty's skintight purple top was so low that she kept pulling at it to keep a disaster from happening right there in church. I could picture Aunt Gert's eyebrows drawn down and her mouth set in a firm line, the look that she always had just before she crawled up on an imaginary soapbox and commenced to lecturing one of us girls. The words an abomination unto the Lord came to my mind as I settled into the pew with them.
"Good morning, Trudy. Didn't you wear that dress last week?" Marty asked.
"Yes, I did."
"No hose?" Betsy looked at my feet.
"That's right."
My smile and cockiness faded when Drew slid into the pew beside me. He stared at my toenails, which had been painted the night before-bright red to match the shoes. He then scanned the abominable goods all the way up to my ultrashort, kinky, curly, dark hair.
"You look horrible." He spit the words out as if they tasted bad in his mouth.
"Thank you," I whispered.
"I haven't filed the papers yet. I'm giving you one more chance"
"I thought I had used up all my chances when I didn't march my `fat rear end' out to the car last weekend." I didn't whisper, and several people sitting in the pew in front of us turned to stare.
"You are making a fool of yourself." His tone was colder than an iceberg.
"File the papers. I'm not changing, and I sure don't want to be married to you anymore"
"I will tomorrow morning. Then I'm sending someone to pick up my car." He spoke in low tones, but they were as bitter as gall.
"You gave me that car for my birthday," I argued. My mind had a will of its own, and it was not bashful and did not stutter.
"The papers say that what is mine is mine and what's yours is yours. The Impala is in my name. I'll send someone to get it first thing in the morning."
The Ladies' Room Page 9