Sugarland

by Joni Rodgers

  “Hey! There they are!” he waved his hat, then went back to pruning.

  “Where in the hell have you been, Melvin?” Neeva said in that offhand way she could pass off as joking if Mel challenged her.

  But Mel opened his arms to her.

  “Scenic route, Ma,” he said good-naturedly. “What’s for lunch?”

  Instead of walking into his hug, she put her hands out and took measure of his middle.

  “Good Lord,” she pursed, “I think you’d better have a glass of water and some celery sticks.”

  She’d gotten ribs, fried chicken, and broasted potatoes from Big Jimmy’s Bar & Bar-B-Q. Kit was relieved. Neeva’s home-cooked meals were blessedly infrequent. It was hard enough choking down take-out food at the grungy table where yesterday’s cornflakes were still cemented to the oilcloth with sugar grit and coffee drips. Ashtrays overflowed everywhere, and Kit cringed when Neeva set a full one right next to Mitzi’s plate.

  “I’ll sit here with Miss Millicent, if she doesn’t rnind.”

  “Go right ahead, Miss Neeva,” Mitzi said in grand tea party style, and they giggled and stuck their pinkies out and clicked their Kool-Aid cups together.

  “So,” Neeva said, “how’s the world of astrophysics, Melvin?”

  “It’s good, Ma,” Mel said, following Kit’s admonitions not to let his mother bait him.

  “Did your daddy ever tell you he was going to be an astrophysicist?” She leaned toward Cooper. “Always was saying, ‘Ma, you know what I wanna be? An astrophysicist!’ That’s what he always said.”

  “Daddy, what’s a nastro fizzist?” Mitzi asked.

  “An airplane mechanic with a brain,” Neeva told her, and Kit made a mental note to add “astrophysicist” to Cooper’s list of positive affirmations. “So are you still stuck working that graveyard shift, Melvin?”

  “I’m used to it,” he shrugged. “Lots of overtime. And it’s not so hot at night.”

  “Yeah, it doesn’t sound so hot.”

  “Mel’s a foreman now,” Kit interjected. “He just got a gigantic raise.”

  “Well, I hope he uses it to pay up his life insurance. Working all night. All that stress. Look at him. He’s a heart attack waiting to happen.”

  “Hey, Ma,” Mel said with his mouth full, “we just got these brand new Brazilias down at the hangar—”

  “Your brother’s doing real well this year,” Neeva said. “He moved into outside sales. Avionics.”

  “Great.” Mel rummaged in the chicken bucket and took two thighs.

  “You get into that end of the industry, and you’re pulling down some real money. And you can bet he doesn’t come home with grease up to his elbows anymore, either.”

  “Good for him.” Mel dished himself a helping of peas and passed them to Kit.

  “Wears a nice suit every day. He’s been flying all over the country. And just last month, he was down in Brazil. Next fall, he’s going to Paris, and I mean Paris, France—not Paris, Texas.” Neeva picked through the bucket of chicken, drew out two wings, and laid them on Mel’s plate. “Here. Now you can fly, too.”

  “Thanks, Ma.” Mel pushed peas onto his spoon and shoveled them up to his mouth.

  “Some peas, Otto?” Kit offered.

  “Huh?”

  “Peas?” she enunciated. “Some peas?”

  “Peas! Well, I don’t mind if I do.”

  “He doesn’t eat peas anymore,” Neeva said, taking the peas from Kit and dishing a helping onto her own plate. “His hands are so trembly shaky shaky trembly. By the time he gets the fork to his face, he’s got a mouthful of atmosphere.” Cooper and Mitzi giggled at that, so she went, “Shaky trembly trembly shaky!” and danced her fork up to her mouth, sprinkling peas across the table to make them laugh.

  “Eat your dinner, you two.” Kit spooned peas onto Otto’s plate and passed them back to Mel.

  “Would you care for some peas, Miss Millicent?” Neeva asked regally.

  “Oh, no thank you, dear,” Mitzi said. “I couldn’t possibly.”

  “What? No peas for the princess?”

  “No thank you,” Mitzi said, less playful when she sensed what was coming.

  “Five years old. You have to take five bites of everything.”

  “She doesn’t like peas, Ma,” Mel said.

  “My boys always cleaned their plates. I saw to that.”

  Kit tried hard to swallow a mouthful of crispy coating.

  See Mel. See Mommy.

  “They learned early on that you eat what’s on the table or you go hungry.”

  “Mommy, I’m full!” Mitzi whined.

  “You’re excused, sweetie,” Kit told her, concealing the untouched food on her plate with a crumpled napkin. “Why don’t you run outside and play?”

  Mitzi can run.

  “Millicent Millicent, she’s had her fillicent,” Neeva made Mitzi giggle again and then shook her head. “Where on earth did you kids come up with that moniker?”

  Run, Mitzi, run.

  “I got it because of my great-great grandma, Millicent Jane Nolan, a true daughter of Texas,” Mitzi recited for the millionth time.

  “I’ve always thought it was cruel to give a child an unusual name.”

  “Mitzi,” said Mel, “Mommy said you’re excused.”

  “You’re setting them up to get teased unmercifully.”

  “What’s a mersa flea, Daddy?”

  “And nobody ever knows how to spell it.”

  “Why don’t you go outside and swing now?” Kit dipped her napkin in her water glass and scrubbed at the red Kool-Aid stain in the corner of Mitzi’s mouth.

  “She’ll go through life always having to spell it out twice.”

  “Mitzi, M-I-T-Z-I, Mitzi!” Mitzi spelled.

  “Ah ha! Very good, Miss Millicent,” Neeva complimented, and they clicked their Kool-Aid again. “I’ve always thought you should call her ‘Millie’ for short. Call her ‘Mitzi’ and people are going to think she’s Jewish.”

  “Mitzi Gaynor was a movie star. In South Pacific,” Mitzi recited again. “Is she Jewish, Mama?”

  “I don’t know, sweetie, but there’s nothing wrong with being Jewish.”

  “No, sweetie,” Neeva mimicked, “we’re all one big, happy, politically sanitized, ethnically balanced, and gender inclusive family. Just like on public television. Now that we’ve heard from the B’nai B’rith, would anyone care for coffee?”

  Mel cleared his throat. “So... ummm... what’s Butchy up to these days?”

  “Butchy!” Otto came to life for a moment. It always startled Kit when he did that. “Say now, he’s pulling down some real money these days.”

  “OTTO!” Neeva shouted, theoretically because Otto was getting deaf. “DON’T TALK WITH YOUR MOUTH FULL. IT’S REVOLTING!”

  “Yeah, he’s pulling down some real money, all right.”

  “I ALREADY TOLD THEM THAT, OTTO,” shouted Neeva. “ARE YOU PART OF THE CONVERSATION OR NOT? He’s not even part of the conversation. We might as well have dinner with a lamppost.”

  “HOW’S THE FISHING THIS YEAR, POP?” Mel shouted.

  “Say now,” Otto’s face lit up, but Neeva cut him off.

  “Oh, he doesn’t know anything about fishing around here anymore. He doesn’t go anywhere. Just sits there on the porch glider. Creak creak creak. I don’t know who needs the WD-40, him or the glider. Creak creak creak.”

  “HEY MA, I GOT—” Mel realized he was still shouting and lowered his voice. “I got the Falcon running last weekend.”

  “Oh my God, are you still tinkering with that scrap heap?”

  “You oughta see it, Ma. Me and this guy from the hangar, we did the royal blue finish last month. Feels like silk. You gotta see it. I was gonna drive it down here this weekend, but— well, as soon as I get the transmission rebuilt, I’m gonna drive it down.” He nodded and wiped his hands on his cutoffs. “This car is so sharp, Ma. It’s so sharp it could cut diamonds.”

  “We
ll, I don’t have any diamonds that need cutting just now, but thank you for thinking of us.” Neeva dished potatoes from a carton onto Mel’s plate and poured brown gravy over them. “I guess if you kids came down here more than twice a year, there’d be some kind of cataclysm.”

  “Well, we’re pretty busy these days,” Mel explained too thoroughly to ring true. “Cooper’s got soccer and Scouts, and Mitzi has ballet and ... Kit’s been putting in a lot of extra hours.”

  Kit felt Big Jimmy’s fried chicken decomposing in her stomach.

  “Marnie’s not working anymore,” Neeva said, “with Butchy doing so well, there really isn’t any need.”

  “Mom’s not working anymore, either,” Cooper piped up. “She got fired!”

  “Cooper,” Kit and Mel hissed in unison.

  Kit felt Neeva turn on her like a T-Rex detecting prey in motion.

  “Whaaaaat? What’s this? You got fired? From that silly little Norwegian gift shop? Now, how did you go and get yourself fired by some silly Scandinavian herring choker?”

  Kit met Neeva’s eyes, and there was an odd silence around the table.

  The longer they looked at each other, the more certain Kit became that Neeva knew.

  She knew everything.

  Somehow, with her sharp-tongued, cancer-mother witchcraft, she looked right into Kit’s soul and saw exactly what had happened.

  “Well.” Neeva placed a cigarette between her lips and flashed the lighter in front of her face. “I’ve always thought immigrants had a lot of nerve. Sure. Come to this country and put honest Americans out of work.”

  Kit had never heard Neeva speak gently like that. Like a mommy. It gave her the creeps.

  “Okay ... well. If everyone’s finished—” Kit stood unsteadily, wanting to either throw her children in the car and head back to Houston or just plunge a steak knife into her heart and get it over with. Gathering plates and cups in a clumsy stack, she stumbled toward the kitchen.

  “Do you know what I’m making up in my sewing room, Miss Millie?” Neeva said. “I’m making a little brown-eyed baby doll for a certain little brown-eyed girl I know.”

  “Me! Me!” Mitzi clapped.

  “Tell your mommy to stop fussing with things, and we’ll go see it.”

  “Mommy, stop fussing!” Mitzi commanded.

  “You two go ahead,” Kit said. “I’ll just clear up a little.”

  “Just give it a lick and a promise,” Neeva waved her hand over the greasy chicken buckets and wadded napkins. “We just need a little space to set the cake out. Now,” she took Mitzi by the hand and started up the steps to the attic, where she was spending her retirement years piecing intricately patterned quilts with the same obsessive-compulsive precision that had made her a good mechanic in her day. “What color do you think this baby’s dress should be?”

  Mitzi discussed the possibilities in an animated way that charmed Neeva into relative docility for the rest of the afternoon.

  Mel and Otto retired to the living room to finish their coffee, and Kit cleared the table. The dishwasher smelled dank, so she piled the plates on the counter and began running hot water. She flipped the garbage disposal on. Scraping Mitzi’s potatoes and peas into the reverberating hollow, she felt an almost irresistible urge to stick her hand in after them.

  “Any more coffee in here?”

  Mel’s voice over her shoulder startled her, and Mitzi’s plate clattered in the sink.

  “Oh. No, but I could make some,” she added, thinking it wouldn’t take an astrophysicist to see that she was hoping he’d volunteer to do it himself. Not because of the effort it would take, only so there would be a reason for him to hang out with her a little while.

  “Okay.” Mel looked around the room, but didn’t see any reason to stay. “I guess I’ll have some when it’s ready.”

  “Okay.”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “Oh, no. No problem.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “Sure,” Kit nodded. “No problem.”

  He went back to the living room, and Kit turned back to the dishes.

  When she was finished washing and drying, she wiped down all the cupboards, scoured the graying sink, and damp-mopped the thickened linoleum. She took a disposable table cover, plastic forks, and decorative paper plates they’d bought on the way down and spread them out in a fancy way with a fan of paper napkins, leaving a large space at the center of the table for the anniversary cake, and seizing the opportunity to surreptitiously scrub the stained sideboard and wipe the sticky chair backs.

  When she was finished, she crept to the bottom of the stairs and sat down with her feet braced against the railing, feeling weary, fingers wrinkled from the dishwater, wishing she was flying down the beach in her old yellow Mustang or anywhere with Ander’s arms around her. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to think about him for a moment, but not too much, because she knew she’d have to live off that one encounter for the rest of her life, and she didn’t want it ever to lose the potent wave of supple feeling it was giving her now.

  Smoke wafted and curled from the sewing room at the top of the stairs. Neeva was trying to teach Mitzi to sew on buttons, but Mitzi was busy sorting spools of thread, poking through the button box, begging for her favorite story.

  Kit went back to the kitchen and made frozen fruit punch in the crystal punch set she and Mel had gotten as a wedding gift. When she returned to the stairwell, Neeva was already past the part where Psyche was spirited away to her lover’s private castle.

  “My other grandma says Arrows, not Cupid,” Mitzi corrected Neeva’s version.

  “Well, I go by Bulfinch,” Neeva informed her. “I can’t be responsible for what sources other grandmas are turning to.”

  “And she said he only came home at nighttime.”

  “That’s right. Hand me the scissors there, Midget.”

  “If it was dark, how did she know it was him?”

  “By his—because— She recognized his voice, I suppose. Didn’t your mommy teach you to hand someone scissors handle first?”

  “Grandma, don’t you think that would be stupid if the husband only came around in the dark? ‘Cause he would have to mow the lawn in the dark. Or else make her do it in the daytime.”

  “Well, that’s true, Miss Millicent, and Psyche wasn’t the last girl to figure that out just a little too late,” Neeva said, biting off the thread as she spoke. “Anyway, that was the arrangement. But Psyche was a very bad girl.”

  “My other grandma says Psyche was a very brave girl.”

  “Well, she was a bad girl. She disobeyed the rules. She just had to take a peek. So she sneaked up on him while he was sleeping, and she opened her lantern just a crack...”

  “And he was beautiful to see, wasn’t he, Grandma? And she wanted to give him a little kiss.” That made Mitzi giggle.

  “Yes, Miss Millie,” Neeva sighed, “but a drop of oil from the lantern burned him, and he woke up and flew away.”

  “That part is silly,” Mitzi giggled again. “Husbands can’t fly.”

  “Well, most husbands are too fat and old. But Cupid had wings. Oops! Don’t touch the quilts, Miss Millie. Those are just for looking at.” Kit heard the clap of Neeva’s hands on her lap. “Well. Time for Rush Limbaugh.”

  The radio clicked and hummed for a moment, then cleared into the complaining telephone voice of a disgruntled dittohead.

  Kit stood and stretched and went to the living room, where Otto had turned the TV up to blasting—a blessing, because Mel had eaten way too much and was breaking wind like a bullhorn.

  “Mel?” Kit suggested as gently as possible, “Maybe you should go for a walk or something.”

  “HEY, POP!” Mel shouted. “WANNA WALK DOWN TO THE STORE? I’M GONNA GO GET SOME ROLAIDS OR SOMETHING.”

  “Nah,” Otto waved him off, “I don’t need Rolaids.”

  Mel shrugged and sat down in the recliner with a loud snark that Kit wanted to believe was the
leather squawking.

  “Hey, Coop!” Otto clicked the TV off. “Why don’t you and me head down to the store and get a Snickers bar?”

  “All right!” Cooper would agree to anything if you covered it with chocolate. “Are you coming, Dad?”

  “Nah, he don’t need a candy bar,” Otto said. “Look at ‘im! He’s bigger’n the house.”

  As the screen door banged behind them, Kit knelt in front of the recliner and put her arms around Mel’s waist.

  “Geez,” he breathed unsteadily.

  “You’re doin’ good, honey,” she said, cuddling him like Cooper. “You’re doin’ great.”

  “You, too.”

  He stroked the back of her head, and she turned her face inward to kiss his palm.

  “We’ll leave first thing in the morning,” he said. “We’ll take the kids over to the beach at Matagorda, okay?”

  “Yeah,” she murmured into his wide hand. “We’ll do that, honey. That’s a great idea.”

  Mel let loose a prodigious fart.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Had to be said.”

  There were ducks in Mother Daubert’s kitchen now, marching in little yellow rows, stencilled with a blue-and-white checkered border above the chair rail, beaks angled open, miming happy quacks above the drone of the dishwasher.

  “What happened to the cows?” Kiki asked.

  “Oh, Daddy didn’t care for them, so I had it redone again.”

  Mother Daubert tied an apron over the beaded front of a western style jumpsuit that provided the perfect pedestal for her arid Tammy Wynette hairdo. She moved along the counter, adjusting the canisters and can opener and ceramic duck cookie jar in a perfect line, so the shadows just barely touched the imported tile backsplash.