I feel like I do when Zane is looking for his stuffed squirrel—wanting to hurry and find the critter so I can be released from the frustration of its being lost.
The attendant ushers Miss Williams away from us, telling her that the missing glasses might be in her room.
“I want to get out of here.” Irvy’s right arm starts to sway with short, jerky movements.
Minnie uses her soothing voice. With fingers stroking her mother’s arm, she says, “You like it here, Mama. You like the liver and onions.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then you need to stay.”
Irvy’s eyes shut, she groans, and then, “Are they for lunch today?”
“Yes, liver and onions.”
Her mouth continues to move, more saliva along her chin.
Minnie wipes it with the tissue.
Irvy asks, “With banana puddin’?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Yella banana puddin’. ”
“Yes.”
After a measurable pause, Irvy says, “Not the brown kind.”
“You mean applesauce.”
“No, I want puddin’!”
“Yes, yes, I know.”
She twists in her wheelchair. “I . . . I . . . I . . .” Her fluffy slippers have come off her feet.
“There, now,” says Minnie.
Soon Minnie’s mom is asleep, her wrinkled mouth open like a banana slice.
The attendant named Dicey covers Irvy’s limbs with a faded pink quilt and then fits Irvy’s feet back into her slippers and snuggles them into the constraints of the wheelchair’s footholds.
Minnie tells Dicey that she guesses she won’t be feeding Mama today. Once, she woke her mother from a nap, and Irvy was so disoriented that Minnie vowed never to do that again. Dicey smiles and says, “We’ll take good care of Miss Irvy. Don’t you worry your head, now.”
When Minnie and I open the glass door to exit the home, the sunshine greets us with a blast of stifling heat. Normally, I’d feel bothered by the sudden humidity, especially after being in a building that was cool—but not now. I want to run, just to prove that I am agile enough to be free from the home’s gray walls and brown doors, a place congested with geriatric confinement. I flex my arms a few times and in the reflection of a parked Cadillac check my hair. Still black, coarse. There is no graying or balding. I take my brush from my purse, enjoying the way the bristles run down my strands, making my hair full of life. Being almost thirty isn’t bad at all today.
Inside Minnie’s car, I fasten my seat belt. As she backs the Intrepid out of the driveway, I recite my verb tenses. Leave, leaving, left. Go, going, gone. The home makes Zane afraid of germs. I just like to make sure my brain still works. I roll down the window and fill my lungs with pine mulch that is being spread around a nearby hotel’s grounds, the scent of turnip greens and boiled potatoes far behind.
“That wasn’t too bad, now was it?” Minnie heads south on Route 12.
“No.” Sorry, Mom, but I will not tell the whole truth right now.
As we continue toward the inlet bridge, I try to ignore the fact that she’s following a pickup much too closely. My palms begin to sweat. Before I can say a word, the truck stops, Minnie’s foot slams the brake, and we both lurch forward.
I gasp.
The truck makes a left turn; Minnie accelerates. “Why people can’t use their turn signals is beyond me.”
I find my breath as we pass a twenty-five-miles-per-hour speed limit sign.
Moments later, I see a tear making its way down my friend’s cheek.
“Minnie, she is so lucky to have you.” I let my words come out like a lullaby for a toddler who needs assurance that the world is safe.
She stares at a battered Buick with a Kentucky license plate in front of us. “Will you play the flute?”
We are now on the bridge, and I can see beaches dotted with people and lined with an array of billowy umbrellas and colorful chairs. Closer to us are clusters of fishermen with rods waiting for the perfect catch of the day.
“The flute?”
“At her funeral.”
I almost say that she should not think this way, that her mother is not going to die, that she’ll be giving piano lessons again in no time. But that’s not the truth, either.
“Yes,” I say and feel tears bite the backs of my eyes.
“ ‘Jesus Loves Me’ would be good.”
That’s one of the first songs Irvy taught Minnie on the piano.
I find my voice. “I can do that.”
“Thanks.” She sniffs twice, then, “No backing out.”
10
My dad started me on making lists, informing me that life goes smoother when you can read what you need to do.
Today’s to-do list has the words buy flowers on the top. I know just the kind I want to buy for Minnie. She’s always been fond of pink roses; there were vases of them at her wedding, and they were in her bridal bouquet.
Last night when I got up to go to the bathroom, wishing I hadn’t drunk three glasses of iced tea at dinner, I heard muffled weeping from Minnie’s bedroom. I paused at her door to listen. I considered knocking to see what was wrong, but the noise soon decreased. My desire to go back to a warm bed overruled.
This morning I woke with two thoughts on my mind. The first was that my article about Davis and his realty business is due on Selena’s desk by five today. The second was the reason Minnie was crying last night. Today is an anniversary that no one wants to have on his or her calendar. A year ago Lawrence died when an angry sea capsized his fishing boat.
When Minnie leaves for her shift at Over the Edge, she lets me know that this afternoon she’ll be at Sheerly’s. This is a job I got for my friend when she confided in me about her need for another part-time job in order to pay her part of the rent. Minnie isn’t licensed to cut hair, but she sweeps it up with the broom, makes hair appointments, collects payments, and orders hair care products. She says Sheerly is easy to work for and always sings or hums. “And the things I learn about everybody there,” she says in a hushed voice. “Sheerly’s clients love to share . . . a lot of stuff.” My guess is that being at Sheerly’s is like reality TV—much too revealing and always predictable.
After a lunch of ham sandwiches and chips, it’s evident that Zane and I need to get out of the duplex. Zane is irritated about something; I can tell by the way he bangs his trucks together. The large yellow Tonka continues to collide with the smaller one as Zane shouts, “Crash, boom, you are dead!” He spells dead, only he leaves out a letter and repeats, “You are d-a-d. Dead.”
The day is sunny with little humidity, a good one to run some errands. Minnie has remembered to leave his car seat for me. I take the boy with me to drop off an article at the Lighthouse Views office. When we get inside the office, Selena isn’t in. Bert tells me that she went to talk to the owner of some new health club. Cassidy says she’s lost two pounds and fourteen ounces since Monday. I congratulate her and then tell Zane, who has made his way into the men’s room, to hurry. He calls from inside the restroom, “I’ll only be a minute.”
When he appears at the door to the men’s room, I notice that the zipper on his shorts is undone. “Zane,” I say, “you need to zip up your fly.”
“Where’s a fly?” His eyes scan over my head.
“Your fly. That’s another word for zipper.”
He looks down and says, “I don’t see a fly,” but he does zip up the gap in his shorts. Then he burps, and when I tell him he needs to say excuse me, he only burps louder.
Under her breath, Cassidy asks me, “Who does he belong to?”
“I live with him.” I force a smile. “We have lots of fun.”
She looks alarmed. “Does he have a mother?”
“Yes, Cassidy. You know Minnie.”
She gives a tentative nod. Then she confesses that she’s so hungry she could eat five burgers from the Grille.
“Want me to order you takeout while I’m there?
” I ask.
“I wish. Gotta drink some water and maybe then the craving will go away.”
“What about mints?” I ask. Ropey went through a whole box of Life Savers when he was on a diet. “Will some of them help?”
“The sugar-free ones are allowed on my diet. But I ate them all yesterday.”
There are days that I’m grateful to be five-feet-ten with a high metabolism. “Good luck,” I tell her as Zane and I leave to drive to the restaurant.
Zane says, “Good luck. Be careful of germs.” He thinks this is a funny line and laughs all the way to the parking lot.
“I’m funny,” he tells me as I strap him into his car seat.
“You think?”
“Yeah.” His laugh reminds me of chimpanzees at the zoo.
I remember the day Minnie called to say she was pregnant. I was in my Charlotte apartment on Commonwealth Avenue, watching a car outside my window try to parallel park when my cell rang. Without any preliminaries, all I heard was, “I’m going to have a baby! I’m going to have a baby!” Minnie was on the verge of hyperventilating, she was so excited. “At last! I’d given up hope. Oh, Jackie, oh, Jackie, can you believe it?”
The car I was watching at the time was not as blessed. I saw it scrape the fender of another car, and then end up on the curb, its passenger door dented by a telephone pole.
Inside the Grille, I enjoy Buck’s comical banter with Betty Lynn as I sip my Diet Pepsi. Zane spins around on the barstool next to me.
“Do you know that Buck is an artist?” Betty Lynn asks me when she comes over after filling four glasses with sweet iced tea.
“He is?”
Before she heads off with her tray, Betty Lynn says, “He paints with acrylics. We might even put one of his pictures on the wall here, right, Buck?”
Suddenly, I realize Zane is not happy with his Mountain Dew, or as he calls it, “Mountain Doom.” He’s tossed the straw paper onto the floor and crumpled the straw with his fingers so that it resembles an earthworm in Sheerly’s garden.
With a bottom lip curved over the upper one, he sits with eyes closed. I hear the hissing in his throat rapidly make its way to his mouth. “I want . . . I want . . . I want a milkshake!”
“Zane.” I’m amazed that this little creature seated next to me on a barstool, his chin just above the counter, could own such a booming cry.
A man with dark hair and eyes that flash handsome is seated at the end of the counter near a New Orleans poster that has a shot of Bourbon Street. In a pleasant voice, he calls Buck over for a refill and orders a bacon cheeseburger. I hear this man asking if the burger can be well done.
Quietly, I say to Zane, “Drink your soda.” I smile, hoping somehow this gesture will make Zane behave.
“But I want a milkshake!”
“Zane, your inside voice. Please.”
“I do, I do, I do!”
I stare into my Pepsi. Maybe if I ignore him, his attitude will go away.
Buck strides over to us. “Hi, Zane.” His smile lights his whole face.
“I want a milkshake! Get me one.” Zane’s eyes are pits of fire. “Now!”
With calmness, I state, “Your mom said you couldn’t have one right now.”
“Why?” His throat has to hurt from yelling. My ears ache from listening. “Why?”
“Because she said so.” I have to do better on my child psychology.
“Zane,” says Buck, touching the child’s arm. When he has Zane’s attention, he continues. “Do you like boats? Big boats? Would you like to go on a ride?” Tenderness fills the man’s voice as he says, “Maybe one day we could take a picnic and ride on a boat.”
Fear hits the boy’s eyes like a tidal wave. “No!”
I want to stop Buck somehow as he continues with the boat theme. “Boats are fun, aren’t they?”
“No!” Zane wails. “No!”
Everyone in the restaurant is focused on this child, even the handsome man with the burger. I feel dozens of eyes staring at this scene we are making. I know they think that I’m the adult responsible for him; some may even think I’m his mother. They want me to make him shut up. I just want to sink into the floor.
Zane twitches on the stool and then slides off of it. “No!” He heads toward the dining area, the lights from the soles of his tennis shoes shooting off tiny beams.
I rush after Zane, stop him right before he collides with Betty Lynn. Betty Lynn doesn’t seem bothered by the commotion. She leans over toward my right ear and whispers, “Jackie, I want to introduce you—”
Grabbing Zane’s hand firmly as his squeals sound higher pitched than a swarm of seagulls that have found tasty prey, I tell Betty Lynn we are leaving. Now. Then I push open the front door, welcome the sunshine, and don’t look back.
Somehow we make it across the parking lot. “I want my daddy!” Zane yells as I open the passenger door for him and help him into his car seat. I fumble with the restraint around his waist. “I want to see him!”
Breathing deeply, I nod. Although I’m embarrassed by Zane’s outburst and wish Buck hadn’t continued talking to him about boats, I can’t blame Buck. He doesn’t realize that Zane hates any mention of boats. Buck has most likely forgotten that Zane’s father died on a fishing boat.
Once Zane is strapped in, I settle into the driver’s seat. A sigh escapes my lungs as I let relief bathe me. Although the truck is baking under an afternoon sun, it takes me a while to turn on the engine and the air-conditioner. Once I do, I take a long look at the little boy in his car seat beside me. Sweat beads dot his nose. Tears stain his glowing cheeks. I don’t know whether to scold him or pat his hand.
“My daddy bought me milkshakes.”
I think back to Minnie and Lawrence’s wedding, which was held at Hatteras Christian Assembly Church. Lawrence made sure all the guests were taken care of. “Now go back for more wedding cake, Ms. Sheerly,” he told my aunt a number of times. “We are celebrating today without any diets!” To which Sheerly had obliged and loaded another slice of the chocolate cream cake with the tiny toy bride and groom on the top tier. When she and her friends later sang love songs to the blissful couple, there were flecks of chocolate on her peach suit.
I have happy memories from that day, and I’m glad Zane has happy memories of milkshakes.
I lean back in my seat, grateful for the semi-cool air blowing through the vents. “I miss your daddy, too.”
Zane glares at me as his arms cross his chest. “You didn’t know him.”
“I did.”
“Then what was his favorite color?” He squints.
My memory takes me to a green tie Lawrence often wore to church on Sunday. “Green.” I make my voice soft. “Like your eyes.”
“He liked yellow.”
I have no memory of Zane’s father favoring this color, but I say, “Yes, of course. Yellow was a color he liked a lot.”
“The bestest?”
I nod. “The bestest.”
Zane wipes the back of his hand over his nose and sniffs. “Okay, I guess you did know him, then.”
I reach over and pat Zane’s dry hand. As my fingers touch his skin, he grabs my thumb. Our eyes lock, and I do what I never thought I would.
I hug this fretful, sad child.
He lets me. The next thing I know, his arms have lifted and his hands circle my head, fluffing my hair just like he does to the fur of his stuffed squirrel, Popacorn.
The drive home is silent except for the rumble of my truck’s tires over the narrow road, the air-conditioning wheezing through the vents, and the sound of Zane sucking his thumb.
11
When my mother calls, Zane has fallen asleep on the living room floor, breathing softly. His head rests against Popacorn’s dirty fur, fingers clutching one of the stuffed paws. His mouth curves under a button nose, and his eyelids are like rose petals—delicate and velvet. If you didn’t know any differently, you could think this little boy was an angel.
Passing him,
I make my way upstairs with light steps, talking in a low tone to my mother until I get into my bedroom and close the door. “Mom, how did you put up with Ron and me?” I blurt.
She laughs. “I think to myself, they are adults, they are on their own.”
“No, when we were Zane’s age.”
“Zane.” My mother says his name like it’s a virus. “What he doing? Bad boy again?”
“Just answer, please.” I rub my temple, hoping to alleviate the pain.
“I give you lots of timeouts in bear chair. You remember?”
I do remember that chair, always placed in the corner of the den in our house in Nags Head. I hated being sent to it, but I knew that when Mom said I must go, there was no point in disobeying. Ron, on the other hand, was able to miss many deserved sessions in that chair. He was sneaky, rarely got caught. He never stood in front of Mom, telling her he wanted a chocolate cookie right now, right this very minute, or he was going to run away to Mexico.
“Zane is driving you crazy? What he done now?” My mother’s escalating voice doesn’t soothe my headache.
“Well. . . .” I wonder where to start.
“Where is his mother?”
“Minnie works a lot.”
“She needs to stop work and grow up with her child.”
“She needs money.”
“Where is her father? Grandparents? Why they not help? Grandparents are supposed to help out.”
Minnie’s father hasn’t been part of her life since she was sixteen. As Sheerly tells her customers, one day this man “literally up and left.”
“She has no living grandparents,” I say to my mother.
“Oh, what happened to Minnie grandparents?”
“They died.”
“Died?”
“Mom, they were old. Irvy is seventy-four years old now.” I picture Irvy taking a nap in her wheelchair, her knees covered by the crocheted blanket, her arms weak and flat against her sides.
“Hard to believe so much time go by so quickly.”
I sigh. Mom and Dad used to live here in Nags Head, but since they moved back to Charlotte when Dad took an accounting position with a small firm, they’ve lost touch with those of us who still wake each day to the coastal sun.
Hatteras Girl (Heart of Carolina Book #3) Page 6