The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder: A Novel

by Rebecca Wells

  That just about did me in. That night, when I was in bed, I couldn’t shake the image of dear little Sukey on the day I met her, dropping out of a tree to show me all her treasures.

  Then Sukey stopped answering her phone. And when I’d drop by after that, she was never home. Or else she didn’t come to the door.

  I didn’t hear from Sukey for months, so I was surprised when she called one night and asked me to come over for dinner with Ricky and Steve. I couldn’t imagine what we’d find there, and I was terrified.

  But when we arrived, we saw that the front steps of her porch were swept, and her flowers had been watered. She must have been watching for us from the window because she called out, “Come on in, y’all. You don’t need to knock.”

  Inside, Sukey’s place was spotless. The last time I’d been there it had been filthy, with dried food in plates lying around and every open container stuffed with cigarette butts. But now it had that good smell of lemon oil. There was a glass vase with fresh flowers, and the smells of cooking filled the air.

  I looked at our little Sukey, and her hair was shiny. In fact, it was combed and had a great little shape. Her face looked thin and drawn, but she’d done her best to put on makeup. She wasn’t wearing a high-fashion Sukey outfit, but her T-shirt and jeans were clean.

  She said, “Hey, y’all, why not sit down? Don’t be strangers. Let’s get to eating. I’ve got a loaf of French bread, and homemade lasagna, and anything you want to drink.”

  The word drink sent chills up my spine.

  Sukey had folded the cloth napkins on our plates into flowers, and her table was set simply, but with great care. She brought her pan of lasagna to the table with a cheery “Tah-dah!” She took a spatula and cut out pieces of lasagna to put on our plates, then she had us pass around a big salad she’d made in the hand-carved wooden bowl that her mother gave her when she moved to New Orleans. We filled our plates, but we were all so stunned that we could hardly eat.

  She said, “Pulleeease! I don’t have two heads. Stop looking at me like I’m crazy. I’d like to say grace.”

  Sukey closed her eyes, so we all closed our eyes. And I heard my little girlfriend say, “Thank you. Thank you God for this food. Thank you for my friends who have loved me and still love me. Thank you for the fact that through many people’s help I am sitting my little butt right here on this chair. Amen.”

  Then we started eating the lasagna and tearing big chunks of bread off. And as we ate, Sukey spoke. She tried to sound casual as she refilled our glasses of Coca-Cola and lemonade.

  She began by saying, “Y’all were right all along, and I know it.”

  “Sukey, what happened?” I asked.

  She paused. “Let me go ahead and spell it out. What happened is…I’ll start with my hair first, Calla. It didn’t look good, and neither did my face. I had bruises on it, right here.” And she pointed to underneath her eyes and to the whole right side of her face. “And here. And part of my hair was pulled out. That’s why I decided to cut it this short—me and Mia Farrow,” and she laughed.

  I looked at her and thought, How brave she is being right now.

  Sukey continued, “I woke up one morning in a motel room, and I didn’t know how I got there. I had been beaten up, and I saw that my wallet was gone. I didn’t know what part of town I was in, and when I stepped outside the door, the sun almost knocked me down, I was so hung over. Then I saw that I wasn’t even in New Orleans. I was somewhere out on the old highway.

  “I didn’t have any money. So I went to the front desk—the motel was so cheap that there were no phones in the rooms. A thin woman with blond hair whose roots were showing was working at the check-in place. You could see where she might have been pretty if she wasn’t so run-down. I could have imagined it, but she looked familiar.

  “I said, ‘Excuse me, ma’am.’ I could see her wince when she saw my face. ‘Um, could you please let me use your phone?’

  “She said, ‘Yes. Who you gonna call?’

  “I realized that I didn’t know. I couldn’t call Mama because she is in La Luna, and I was too ashamed to have her see me like that. I didn’t know if I could call y’all anymore, since I’d pushed you away and told you to get out of my life. So I told her, ‘I don’t know who to call. Where am I?’

  “And this lady said, ‘Where you are, girl, is in hell. I’ve seen people like you come and go out of here. I know that you’re in hell, and I’ll tell you what you need. You need Alcoholics Anonymous, and you need to go today. There ain’t no other road that will lead you out of this hell, sister.’

  “I said, ‘No, no, that’s not what I need! That’s for old guys lying in the alley, you know? With spit going down their lips.’

  “‘Well, look at you,’ she told me. ‘You got a busted-up eye, and bruises and blood on your face, and I can tell where spit was dripping out of your mouth while you were passed out.’

  “And I was thinking, How can this woman be so mean to me? I said, ‘I only asked to use your phone!’

  “‘Okay,’ she replied, ‘go ahead and use my phone. But you didn’t even know who to call. Do you know now?’

  “That’s when I broke down crying.

  “‘I’ll tell you what,’ the woman said. ‘I’ll drive you over to AA. I know where the meeting is, and I know it’s held on Wednesday nights. You go on back to your room—I’m not going to charge you anything—but I want you to clean up. I want you to take a shower and give me your clothes, I’ll throw them through the wash.’”

  The whole time Sukey was talking, I clutched my fork so tight that it left red marks on my fingers. I could not eat a bite, I just watched Sukey’s face as she told her story.

  Sukey went on. “So I cleaned up, laid down, and took a nap. When I woke up, I had had a dream of some fluttery little figures around me, just all around me, like they were butterflies.

  “I walked down to the office and told the woman, ‘I’m ready.’

  “She drove a big green Dodge that looked like an FBI car. It turns out we were down near Mandeville. She dropped me off at her church. And so I got out and I went downstairs. There, in the basement, was the AA meeting.”

  Then Sukey leaned closer to us. “Please go ahead and eat your lasagna. I’ve got some wine if you want it, but—ahhhh, I’m not sure I’m quite ready to serve wine in my house just yet. I haven’t gotten to that step yet.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Well, there’s twelve steps to Alcoholics Anonymous. I’ll explain them later.

  “Anyway, I got to the meeting, and I just sat down and listened to people tell their stories. One by one, they would stand up and say, ‘My name is Germaine, and I’m an alcoholic.’ And then the person would say what had been going on for the last week. Then someone else would stand up and say, ‘My name is Arlene, and I’m an alcoholic.’ They went around the room so everyone got to speak.

  “Nobody looked at me. Nobody waited for me to put out my cigarette. I puffed on it until it was right down to the filter. Then I stubbed it out, and I stood up. I said, ‘My name is Sukey, and I’m an alcoholic.’”

  I was in tears again. I got up from the table and went to give Sukey a hug.

  “Sukey,” I said, “nothing you’ve ever done in your life has made me more proud.”

  “Come on, don’t get all corny about this, for heaven’s sake! It’s not like I’m going to change the outfits I wear, y’all! I’m just going to try not to drink. One day at a time. Okay?”

  “Okay,” we said.

  “That sounds really good, Sukey,” Ricky said.

  “Sukey,” Steve said, “any help you need, just give a holler.”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  Sukey paused for a minute, and said, “Oh, there’s another thing I need to tell y’all. The real reason I got my Bunny ass fired was that I was showing up for my shifts drunk. I thought I was hiding it okay and that the Bunny Mother wouldn’t notice—it is a club, after all. They gave me a couple warnings, an
d some of my close friends there, Bunny Ginger and Bunny Lou, tried talking to me. Even Bunny Mother Trixie suggested that I get some counseling, but I just blew them off.”

  Then Sukey said, “Well, look at the bright side. Now I have a whole new social life. I can go to a meeting every night of the week if I want. Talk about being booked, huh? The only trouble is, I can’t date any of the guys. It’s just clear as the nose on my face that I shouldn’t try to hook up with anybody right now. It’s not a good idea to date, frankly, because for me, dating means drinking. And it has since I was fifteen years old.”

  I nodded my head and thought, Why didn’t I catch this sooner?

  It was like Sukey could read my mind when she said, “There is not a thing that any of you could have done to make me not drink. I did it myself.

  “And I want to tell you all that I’m sorry. I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m sorry for my drinking and the way it jeopardized our friendship. And I ask you please to forgive me.”

  She looked back at me first, and tears were in both our eyes as Sukey watched me, waiting, her eyes pleading. And I said, “Oh, Sukey, of course I forgive you.” I reached out to hold her hand. We sat there while the boys waited and the lasagna got cold, and together we cried. We held hands like we hadn’t since we were girls walking the paths of La Luna, skipping and singing. I thought, Oh, speak your thoughts to Sukey, and so I did.

  “Oh, Suke,” I said. “Now we can skip together again. And we can play.”

  She said, “Yes.”

  And I said, “I forgive you,” again.

  She reached down to her napkin and blew her nose. “Excuse me, everybody.” Then she turned to Ricky and said, “I’m sorry, Ricky.”

  “Oh, Sukey, baby, of course I forgive you.”

  As she turned to Steve, he was already nodding, and said, “Yes.”

  Then we all looked at her, and as a group we all said, “Yes, Sukey. Yes.”

  Sukey laughed through her tears, and said, “Okay, y’all. Let’s eat. I labored over this lasagna. And y’all know that I only cook once in a blue moon.”

  Then Steve asked her, “So what are you going to do for money, Suke?”

  “I haven’t gotten that quite figured out. I’ve still got a little to live on, probably a couple months, maybe three if I watch it. And I’ve been looking for a job. I interviewed for a position at Maison Blanche. There’s an opening in the women’s shoe department. I also interviewed for a waitress job at Howard Johnson’s. Whichever job I get, I’ll take.”

  As we congratulated her, she revealed her long-term plan.

  “I’m also planning to go back to school. I want to become a substance abuse counselor. It’s going to take me a while because I need to get further along in AA. But they say that nobody makes a better counselor than somebody who’s been through a long period of abusing alcohol or drugs themselves. So I figured, that’s the job for me. If I can help somebody—some little girl from some small town like La Luna—from drinking and carrying on too much, then I’ll be doing a good thing.

  “Besides, I just like the way it sounds: ‘Sukey, the Counselor.’ I think we should put it in big blue Christmas lights. And then when people come for counseling I’ll be dressed to the nines. I can get new outfits that simply scream ‘Sukey the Counselor!’” She was laughing, and so were we. A laughter of relief.

  So it was the four of us, together again. And it quickly became the five of us, as Sweet was coming up almost every weekend now. He’d say, “If I’m on land, I’m coming to see you.” It was amazing how quickly and easily he had become a part of our group and a part of my life.

  Sweet told me, “Now, instead of me trying to cheer up the riggers when we go out, it’s the other way around. You were right: a week on the water seems like eternity when you’re missing someone you love. And I love you, Calla, and all that love comes with me when I’m away. When I’m in my boat, when I’m out to sea, you are in my heart. I hate being away from you, but even when I am, it’s like we are together. I hope I’m not jumping too far ahead with this thing.”

  I looked at him. “No.” I smiled. “You’re jumping just far enough.”

  Chapter 28

  1975

  There was a spot uptown where Sweet and I loved to walk when he was in town. Between the river levee and the river itself, there was a crescent-shaped plot of land with no trees or buildings on it, called “the Butterfly.” Most of it was covered with playing fields for intramural sports. There was also a dock for excursion boats bringing passengers to the zoo. The shape of the pavilion on that dock gave that land its name.

  Sweet and I both loved the Mississippi, and we went to the Butterfly because the river makes a crescent bend there, so it’s a dramatic place to watch ships go by. You can sit in one spot and watch a ship for more than three-quarters of a mile as it turns with the river.

  One day, after we’d been dating six months, Sweet said, “Calla, how about we take the excursion boat today?”

  Though it was winter, it was a beautiful day, so I said, “All right, honey.”

  We got on the boat, and when we were out in the river, Sweet pulled out a little pair of binoculars, which he handed to me. Then he started pointing out ships and barges, telling me what they were carrying and where they came from. Then he said, “Oh, look at those two tugboats.”

  I did, and I saw the cutest thing. One of the tugboats had a banner along its side reading, “Will You Mary Me?”

  I told Sweet, “Oh, look at that poor guy! He misspelled ‘Marry.’ Either that, or the girl he’s asking is named Mary, in which case—”

  Sweet grabbed the binoculars from me, pressed them to his eyes, and said, “Damnit, Jimbo!” He gave me back the binoculars, and I looked out at the tug again and laughed. When I looked back at him, Sweet was down on one knee, with one hand over his heart and the other holding a little green velvet ring box.

  Time stood still as I struggled to understand what I was seeing. Then it sunk in, and I started laughing my head off again. I couldn’t help myself and I couldn’t stop, much as I hated to ruin the moment for Sweet. He looked confused and maybe even hurt, but then he broke out laughing too. Everyone around us on the boat started clapping and hollering. Finally I caught my breath long enough to say, “Yes, my Sweet! I do, I do!”

  One lovely evening a few weeks later, we’d just finished a supper of red snapper and salad, and we were sitting on the sofa together.

  I said, “Sweet, I’m a little nervous to say this out loud, but I have this—it’s not a plan, it’s a dream, really. After I’ve had enough training, and after I feel like my hands really can handle almost anything that would come up in the beauty business, I want to go back to La Luna. M’Dear always said if I wanted to come back, I could transform her little Crowning Glory into whatever I want, and I have ideas. I want to invite people who have the hardest hair to come to me, and I’ll repair it. And I want people to know that they can come to me. I won’t just give them a wash, rinse, and a curl, but I’ll touch their heads and I’ll take from them and give something back.

  “I want to do this soon, probably about the time I’m thirty. I don’t want to wait until I’m too old. But I want to do this in La Luna. See, I don’t want to live in New Orleans forever. Much as I love it here, La Luna is my home.”

  Sweet looked at me straight in the eyes and said, “I’ll have to think about this. I’ll have to think about living in such a small town so far away from the Gulf of Mexico, and how in the world I could keep making a living with my boat.”

  Sweet frowned just a little and continued, “There’s something else about marriage I’ve wanted to talk to you about.”

  I braced myself for something frightening that I had never guessed at.

  “You learn a lot about women when you listen to your sisters,” he said. “And I think it’s plain silly in this day and age for a woman to have to take her husband’s last name when they get married. I don’t want to be held responsible for ruining a
great name like Calla Lily Ponder.”

  Then he sat back, smiling a big smile, and said, “You know, it’s exciting to imagine starting a new career. Working on the water doesn’t get any easier as you age. La Luna. Okay. From what I’ve seen of that town, I could live there.

  “I don’t want to live in this rat city forever, either. It’s a good place to be for a while, but it’s a tough city. And I sure don’t want to raise my children here.”

  Just the sound of him saying “my children” along with “yes” to La Luna! Happiness flooded through me.

  “So you wouldn’t mind?”

  “No, I’d love it. And I know how I could make a living.”

  “How?”

  He said, “I’ve got two good buddies who already do something like this. They live in Slidell, and they have themselves a situation which I know I could set up in La Luna. They’re union fellows who spend two weeks at home and two weeks piloting boats owned by different companies who contract with the oil companies. I wouldn’t have to own my own boat.”

  I said, “But two weeks away?”

  He said, “Well, depending on how much money we wanted to make, I could make it one week away and three at home. I could even take a whole month off once in a while if I wanted to.”

  I couldn’t stop smiling for days.

  You’d think after that, we’d get married in La Luna. But after much discussion, we decided to have the wedding in New Orleans. Since Sweet’s family was in Donaldsonville, just a ways up on the Mississippi, and mine was farther up on the La Luna, we figured we’d sort of meet in the middle.

  Father Gerard agreed to come down from La Luna to perform the ceremony. He’d been our priest in La Luna for five or six years. I’ve always loved Father Gerard. We used to call him “the bicycling priest” because he rode all over the parish on his bike. When Sweet and I went back home for our first pre-Cana counseling session, imagine my surprise when Father Gerard said, “Sweet Chalon! Are you one of the Chalons from Donaldsonville?”