by Webb, Peggy
“I’ll take you, Jean, but not right now. I’m itching to write, and I’m very close to finishing a new proposal. I’ll pick you up around eleven. We’ll take Mama, too. Okay?”
I’d take Aunt Mary Quana, as well, but she’s gone back to Atlanta to settle her affairs and bring Uncle Larry’s ashes to Tupelo.
After I take care of Jefferson’s business and our breakfast, I write with a freedom I haven’t felt in a long time. My muse loves this spirit-filled house, this peaceful farm, these beautiful memories of almost being kissed under the magic light of Venus.
*
Jean and I are in the Jeep with her at the wheel, creeping down Highway 371 at forty miles an hour. She’s steady, she’s careful, she checks her rearview mirrors and doesn’t fiddle with the radio. Even when cars start lining up behind us and the driver of a red Ford pickup toots his horn, she plows sedately onward.
“At least I’ll never have to worry about you getting a speeding ticket,” I tell her.
“You’ve got that right.”
When the pickup truck roars past, horn blaring and driver shaking his fist, my normally well-behaved sister lifts her middle finger and shoots him the bird. Then she glances over at me and grins.
“Hormones,” she says. “Mine are on the rampage. There’s no telling what I’ll do next.”
“Well, just make sure the next driver you flip off doesn’t weigh two hundred and fifty pounds. I don’t think I could whip him in a road brawl.”
*
By noon we’re at the Ford Dealership which is owned by Lawton Wilson, an old friend of Mama’s. When he spots us getting her out of my Jeep, he comes outside to help and then leans over and kisses her hand.
“Victoria...light of my life…what can I do for you?”
“You can kiss my other hand, and then you can give my daughter Jean the best bargain in the showroom or else you can kiss my foot.”
Obviously he believes her because he gives Jean a deal on a maroon Explorer that all of us agree is rock-bottom. She wants me with her to sign the paperwork, and we go into Lawton’s small glassed-in office while Mama sits outside the door in a chrome and black leather chair. The wrap-around windows allow me a perfect view of the showroom, and when I see Mama moving slowly across the polished floor, leaning heavily on her walker, I start to race to her rescue. Bathroom, I’m thinking.
But I’m wrong. Her destination is on the other side of the showroom, shiny as Dorothy’s ruby red slippers and just as magical. At least to Mama. It’s the car of her dreams, a Thunderbrid convertible, white leather interior, designer hubcabs, chrome hood ornament poised for flight.
A young salesman in an earnest seersucker suit and a trustworthy navy tie hurries over. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but I can guess, because he opens the car door for Mama and helps her inside. She puts her hands on the wheel and sits there, smiling and nodding. Yes, I imagine her thinking. I can go to New York in a car like this.
By the time we finish with the paperwork, Mama is back in her chair, humming under her breath - probably some bawdy Broadway number - unaware that I’ve seen her wishful journey.
And all too soon it’s time for the part of this expedition I’ve been dreading: watching my sister get behind the wheel of a car and drive home alone. Mama quickly scotches that idea.
“I’m riding with Jean.”
Before I can protest, Jean says, “Mama, I don’t want to risk that.”
“Flitter. You’re fixing to be driving my grandbaby around. You can use me as a guinea pig.” With amazing upper body strength, she grabs the strap and hoists herself into the Explorer.
“Maggie,” she says, “shut this door and follow Jean. I’ve got to get home and pick out furniture. I’m moving into my private room tomorrow.”
Three days earlier than I expected. I wonder what Mama did to accomplish that. I hope it was something positive such as sweet-talking Belle Gardens’ administrator, but it might as easily have been a shouting match with her roommate over stolen chocolate.
I’ll never ask. Some things are best left unknown.
*
The fifteen-minute drive to Mooreville takes thirty. I can’t vouch for what’s going on in the other car – probably a lot of praying (Jean) and a good dose of tart advice (Mama). Whatever method they used to arrive safely, I’m grateful.
Even after Jean parks the Explorer and helps Mama inside, I sit in my Jeep under the magnolia tree, taking deep breaths and telling myself that this is the hardest letting go I’ll have to do, watching my sister cast aside her dependence and brave the highways alone. Well, not alone. Even worse. Carrying my niece or nephew. And Mama.
When I finally go inside I realize the fallacy of my thinking, for Mama is clumping through the house on her walker saying, “I’ll take my recliner and my bed and my collections but I don’t care what happens to that old oak rocking chair. I never did like it,” while Jean follows along behind taking notes.
Seeing me in the doorway, careful-faced and still, Mama says, “Maggie, do you think you can hang my Japanese fans in my room at Belle Gardens?”
I don’t know what I say, but whatever it is satisfies Mama because now she’s in the bedroom going through her jewelry box, telling Jean what she wants to pack for Belle Gardens and what she plan to save for her granddaughter.
“Mama, we don’t know the gender yet.”
“Well, I do. And I want her to have this pearl necklace. It’s real. Write that down, Jean.”
I know these are merely possessions, insignificant, really, when you think about life and our fragile hold on it and what our time here on earth means. But I can’t bear to watch Mama picking what she will take and what she will leave behind. I can’t bear the thought of walking into her bedroom, devoid of its cherry four poster and the eighty-five Japanese fans on the wall.
Why that vision is more painful than walking in and seeing it empty of Mama, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the finality of this act that won’t let me stand upright, that makes me hurry into the kitchen and sit on a straight-backed chair holding Mama’s faded apron in my lap.
All these months I’ve kept her things exactly in place, waiting for the day when she will come home again.
She still might, is what I tell myself, but Truth is whispering in my ear. I close my eyes and say please. Maybe it’s a prayer, maybe it’s hope. Maybe they’re the same.
______________
Chapter Nineteen
______________
“Good morning from WTUP. We’re broadcasting from Coley Road where we’re predicting the biggest furniture market Tupelo has ever had and plenty of sunshine to keep everybody happy.”
Rainman
Here I am on Highway 371, driving behind a caravan that feels like a funeral procession, the death of a spirited, Mama-directed era. There’s a big void in me. And right now I can’t think of how I’ll fill it.
Up ahead, Mama’s sitting upright in the passenger seat of Jean’s new car, beginning the last leg of her journey - back-seat driving, I’m sure - while my sister carefully follows the lead car of this caravan. Walter’s in front, pulling a U-Haul with the furniture Mama’s taking to Belle Gardens.
She spent the night at Jean’s even though it was the first time Walter had been home in weeks. I think Jean deliberately planned it so she wouldn’t be alone with her husband. He looked strained and fatigued this morning, and Jean looked….I don’t know….triumphant somehow, as if there’s something growing in her besides a baby. Courage and determination and some of Mama’s piss-and-vinegar sass.
Well, maybe I have some of that myself. Although I’m living out of suitcases and boxes, and the only dog in my life is poor Jefferson, who can’t decide whether to go completely bald in his old age or learn to cope and hang onto his hair, I’ve come a long way since I raced down this highway to Mama’s rescue. My sister’s driving (my doing) and pregnant (I claim no credit!) and I have a lucrative job and a delicious male friend.
The mere
thought of Joe makes me tingle. I wish I had kissed him when he took the turquoise combs from my hair. Maybe reclaiming my sexuality would have put me one step closer to being on the stage in my own life. Or smack dab in the center.
But, look on the bright side – at least I’m no longer playing a bit part. If I had three hands, I’d reach over and pat myself on the back.
Belle Gardens comes into view, but I don’t think about endings. Instead I unload eighty-five Japanese fans from the back of my Jeep and go inside to start hanging them in Mama’s new private quarters.
“I’m going to have the best-looking room here,” she says. “Everybody’s going to be green with envy…Not there Maggie…to the left. And wait till Laura Kate and Annie see it. They’re going to wish they were here.”
Sitting her swollen feet propped up, yellow shirt bagging over thin arms and sunken chest, and collapsing blue veins crisscrossing her hands, Mama makes you think she’s lucky.
See, my angels whisper. See.
“Maggie, can you help me outside for a minute?” Walter’s standing in the doorway with sagging shoulders and bags under his eyes. Not the face and posture of a man happy to be home.
Under the guise of unloading an end table from the U-Haul, he says, “Do you know what’s wrong with Jean?”
“You need to ask her.”
“She’s barely speaking to me, much less anything else. I need your help, Maggie.”
“All I know is, she’s anxious for you to be home. Because of the baby.”
“That’s what’s scaring me to death. We’re too old for this. Do you know the percentage of miscarriages for people in our age bracket?”
“Don’t think like that.”
“I can’t help myself. I keep thinking this is not real, something’s going to happen. I mean…Jean’s already talking about the best kindergartens and colleges, for Pete’s sake, but I can’t let myself start believing I’m going to be a father because too much could go wrong between now and February.”
“You need to say that to Jean.”
“How?”
There he stands - intelligent, successful, big-hearted, and helpless - a giant of a man who has always protected Jean from every harm, brought low by the thought that he can’t control events, that nature and fate and the gods of the universe have a plan of their own, a design that might be imperfect.
What he needs is a sister to hold his hand, a friend to say everything’s going to be all right and a mother to tell him to buck up. He even needs a weatherman on the radio to predict lots of sunshine’s coming his way. What he gets is a big hug from his sister-in-law.
“Tell her exactly the way you told me, Walter, and I can guarantee you that everything’s going to be all right.”
“You think?”
“I know.”
What do you know? I sound just like Mama. When I go back inside to resume hanging fans, I notice that the biggest rosebush outside Mama’s window is yellow. Like sunshine.
*
When I get home, I walk through the echoing house. It’s too quiet here. Even when I turn on the radio and hear Rainman’s voice, I still feel as if I’m alone in the middle of a desert.
This is dangerous thinking. I try to perk up my spirits with a long bubble bath, a nice purple caftan that swings around my bare ankles, a spritz of Jungle Gardenia that makes me feel like a sultry woman. I brush my teeth with Closeup. Mouthwash added. Fresh breath guaranteed. In case somebody wonderful wants to kiss you. In case somebody wonderful even knows you’re alive.
Jefferson trots behind me to Mama’s mostly empty bedroom where I settle into the rocking chair she hates, pick up the phone and call Belle Gardens.
“Mama…is everything okay? How’re you feeling?”
“Don’t you have anything better to do? Like watch Golden Girl reruns? I’ve got company here.”
“Male or female?”
“None of your business.”
“Mama…I’m coming right over.”
She giggles. “I had you going there for a minute, didn’t I?”
“You always do.”
I put down the phone, stare at it, wait for it to ring. I don’t know if my sister’s silence is good news or bad. Good, I’m hoping, because Jean always calls me when something goes wrong.
Or, she used to. My entire landscape’s changing, and I haven’t learned how to decipher the map.
I take Jefferson outside and stand a while on the front porch watching the stars. Venus looks like she’s hanging from the lowest point of a silver crescent moon. I love it when that happens. This letting go feeling inside me doesn’t hurt as much.
When I sit on the porch swing, Jefferson plops beside me and I tuck my bare feet against his soft, warm fur to watch the best show in town. But it would be twice as good shared.
Suddenly I feel like a traveler coming to a big fork in the road. I can take the paved, well-known highway or I can veer to the left onto an unfamiliar winding road, destination unknown. Veering to the left, I reach into my pocket for my cell phone.
“Joe, I moved most of Mama’s furniture into her private room today, and I don’t want to be by myself.”
“You don’t have to, Maggie. I’ll be right over.”
I wait for him on the front porch, still barefoot. When he hugs me, we’re both vividly aware that I’m naked beneath my caftan.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“Yes. But better with you here.”
He still has his arms around me, and I hold on to him and breathe, simply breathe. Cocooned, safe, I lean into him and feel how his body welcomes me. This is no polite, obligatory embrace, but one where you know the giver understands your need.
Right now, my greatest need is for comfort, and Joe gives just that until I make the first move to break contact.
“I have something for you, Maggie. Wait here.”
He bounds down the front-porch steps, and comes back with a rocking chair, hand-carved roses on the handles.
“I thought you might be needing this.”
“How wonderful.” I sit down and put the chair in motion. “It’s exquisite. All I need now is a four-layer chocolate cake and somebody to massage my feet, and I’d be in heaven.”
“I can’t do anything about the cake, but I think I can take care of the rest.”
He pulls a wrought-iron chair opposite me, puts my feet in his lap and, one by one, massages my toes. By the time he’s working on the balls of my feet, I feel every nerve in my body, every bone, every ounce of blood pulsing at my temples and singing through my veins.
Moonlight and starlight wash over us, and the brief flicker of a firefly lights the darkness. I don’t know how long we sit there, his hands sending all kinds of signals through the soles of my feet. I don’t wear a watch because I like to think that I control my time and not two little mechanical hands ticking off miniscule numbers I can no longer read without glasses.
“Maggie, I have the day off tomorrow. Will you go with me to Pontotoc to an estate sale?”
Rusted out lawn chairs and battered up suitcases and old, musty clothes smelling of moth balls and neglect. Used tires against a tree, weeds in the roses and a rope swing, sad and raveling. Heat and mosquitoes and the microphone turned too loud so there’s no escaping the grating, insistent voice of the auctioneer.
Funky and fun, I’m thinking and I say yes.
“Great.” He stands up, kisses my cheek. “I’ll pick you up around ten.”
When he flashes his pickup lights at me, I wave, still in the rocking chair. I may not be able to get out until next Tuesday. I’m jelly-legged and flushed, wide-awake all over and ready to explode. But in a good way, a very good way.
*
I put on my hopeful yellow sundress, pluck a gardenia and tuck it in my hair. Then I worry that I’ve gone over the top, that I look like somebody expecting too much. Joe arrives in a Mustang convertible, vintage, and I’m glad I’m wearing yellow, glad that the scent of gardenia follows me when I
move.
“Hmmm. You smell nice,” he says, a man who notices such things. “Do you mind the top down?”
“Not at all.” My flower is securely pinned, and even if it blows off, I like the idea of being a woman who leaves gardenias in her wake.
The Victorian house is on the south side of Pontotoc, with lots of shade and an apple orchard so old it looks as if Johnny Appleseed planted it. Joe takes a handmade quilt out of his trunk and stakes out a place for us under the shade of a blackjack oak.
The crowd buzzes with excitement as floor lamps and marble-topped tables and crystal vases are trotted out one by one and sold to the highest bidder. Is this what happens when you die, when you move on to another place? Strangers pawing over your possessions?
Melancholy catches me high under the ribs, and for a moment I can barely breathe.
“Maggie?” Joe touches my face, sees my tumult. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think how closely this would hit home. We’ll leave.”
“No…wait.”
The auctioneer is hawking books now. A little girl with a sun-streaked ponytail and gap-toothed smile walks by, clutching an armful of Nancy Drew mysteries as if they’re King Tut’s treasures. “Can I read them now, Mommy? Can I?”
“I’m fine.” I say this to Joe and mean it. This is not a one-note life we’re living. I know I can bear the pain; now I must learn to embrace the pleasures.
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely. Maybe we’ll discover something wonderful.”
Joe spreads the quilt for us to sit on, then bids on a leather-bound copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets. The hubbub of the crowd vanishes as he opens the yellow pages and reads Sonnet 29, which ends: “For the sweet love remember’d such wealth brings/That then I scorn to change my state of with kings.”
I close my eyes and fall into his deep voice. When I open them, he’s smiling.