by Tamar Myers
Sam gave me a pitying look and I wanted to slap him. “So, she’s really been filling your head, has she?”
“Look buster,” I said thrusting my chest forward in what I hoped was an aggressive move, “the poor woman has just lost her last relative—well, the last one who counts—so you can treat her with a little more respect.”
Sam blinked again. “Did something happen to Tommy Lee that I don’t know about?”
I felt like I was having a conversation with one of my children back when they were teenagers. Susan, in particular, was a master at non sequiturs.
“You make about as much sense as a girdle at a dessert bar,” I snapped.
“Just because Billy Ray was the boy she doted on, doesn’t make her suddenly childless.”
I dropped my arms and deflated my chest. Not that you could tell the difference in regards to the latter.
“What are you saying? That there’s another son?”
“Bingo. Her oldest. The meanest snake to slither this side of the Garden of Eden.”
He couldn’t possibly mean my ex-husband. “What did you say his name was?”
“Tommy Lee. I went to school with him—kindergarten through senior high. Our nickname for him was Tommy the Terrible. He made Genghis Khan seem like Miss Manners. We all hated him.”
His was such a preposterous tale that I may have snorted. “Next thing I know, you’ll be telling me she isn’t blind.”
“Oh, she’s blind, all right. But handicapped people are not necessarily above the law. To put them on a pedestal is its own form of prejudice. That woman is just as mean as her son.”
I stopped being a southern lady. “You’re crazy.”
“Did she tell you how she came to be blind?”
“She was born that way!”
“Right, like a calf is born with horns.”
“I don’t come from a one-horse town like Hernia. I don’t know what that means.”
“It’s means that Leona Teschel was blinded in an automobile wreck. One that she caused. She was driving drunk.”
“Come on!”
“Ask anybody. Ask my cousin, Magdalena.”
“You’re pathetic, dear. Dissing a blind woman who can’t even drive. All right, I’ll ask someone. I’ll ask all her church friends.”
“Her what? What church?”
“I don’t remember the name—except that it’s very long. It’s up by the turnpike.”
Sam’s laugh was as dry as cotton. “Ah, The First and Only True Church etc. Well, you go ahead and ask them. Ask them all about Leona Teschel. They’ll give you an earful.”
“You’re one of the m-meanest m-men I’ve ever m-met,” I stammered. Then I slammed the door to his shop so hard the display of Blue Lake French-style green beans collapsed, sending cans rolling down the narrow aisle.
14
According to Mushroom Man, I returned to the Roach Motel just seconds after my friends picked up their keys. Peggy was busy daubing fluorescent-blue eye shadow above peepers that were already too heavily painted. The woman refurbishes her face several times a day.
“Abby, where were you?” she demanded in a peeved voice.
I let an angry Dmitri out of the closet.
“Well, when I woke up from my nap I felt much better, so I decided to take a little drive. You know, soak in the ambiance of rural Pennsylvania—by daylight, that is.”
“Did you rent a car?”
“In a manner of speaking. Our motel manager let me use his. For a price, of course.”
Peggy put aside the eye shadow sponge and picked up the largest mascara tube I’d ever seen. There had been ads on TV for that brand lately. A man vaguely resembling Fabio, and dressed only in a leopard skin, comes on and advertises lashes so long and thick,” Tarzan could swing through the trees on them.” The claim is only slightly exaggerated. Ever since she’s been wearing that brand, Peggy looks like she has dead tarantulas glued to her lids.
“Where did you go?” she asked.
“Nowhere. I mean, I just sort of meandered. How was the sale?”
I had fully expected to be back at the Roach Motel before my friends returned. Now I had to explain my actions to them, as well as apologize to Dmitri. Deflection was my only hope.
Peggy set the monstrous tube down with a thunk. “The sale was a bust.”
“So, you didn’t buy anything?”
“Oh, I didn’t say that. Wynnell and C. J. have already agreed to rent a twelve-foot U-haul to bring the stuff back. C. J. claims she can drive one. Do you think she can?”
“C. J. could probably fly the space shuttle if she put her mind to it. But I thought you said the sale was a bust.”
Peggy gave me a look of sympathy. “I was talking about men. They were all Amish, Mennonite, or whatever. They didn’t look at me twice.”
I bit my tongue. “So, what’s on the agenda for tonight?”
“Well, there’s this little place we passed on our way in this evening that looks interesting. We thought we’d give that a try. If you agree, of course.”
“What’s the catch?”
“None—well, the man at the front desk here said that this place hires only waiters. No waitresses.”
“I see. What kind of food?” Not that it made a difference. I was famished.
“Chinese.”
“Sold to the highest bidder,” I said and grabbed my purse.
I fancy myself a connoisseur of Chinese restaurants, although I have been told that coming from the Carolinas I wouldn’t know a good wonton from a bad kreplach, or vice versa. Still, I am savvy enough to know that your standard Chinese restaurant does not have an alpine motif, nor does it require its waiters to wear lederhosen. The Fondue Manchu was guilty on both counts.
We were seated at a table alongside a diorama of the Swiss Alps. I do believe it was considered the restaurant’s best table. At any rate, I meant to sit next to Wynnell, but I dawdled, spellbound by the dramatic rendition of the Matterhorn with a cluster of chalets at its base, and got stuck sitting next to Peggy. The woman has the table manners of your average teenage boy on a hunting trip. I prayed for a strong stomach—or lockjaw for Peggy.
Hans, our waiter, made several recommendations, which we ignored. Peggy ordered moo shu pork and Szechuan chicken with cashews, C. J. ordered sweet and sour shrimp, I asked for Hunan beef, extra hot, and Wynnell, who has always been a baby about trying new dishes, requested two orders of fried rice. Although Hans was friendly enough, he didn’t seem particularly charmed by Peggy’s flirtatious behavior. To the contrary, he seemed far more interested in the table behind us, which was occupied by men. I stood up, on the pretext of adjusting my skirt, and scanned the place. Except for us, all the customers were men.
“You’re not going to find a date here,” I said to Peggy.
Peggy craned her neck for another, closer look. “Shit! Can’t we go some place else?”
“Too late,” Wynnell said, as she dipped a shrimp cracker into plum sauce. “We already ordered.”
Peggy groaned her bitter disappointment.
“Personally, I rather like it, dear. We can have a nice peaceful dinner, without having to worry if there’s broccoli hanging from our teeth, or that we’re laughing too loud.”
The pair of tarantulas danced. “That’s easy for you to say, Abby. You’re about to dump the hunkiest man south of Baltimore.”
“Who says I am?”
“Oh, please, give me a break! Everybody knows you planned this trip just to tweak his nose.”
“Do they now?” I tried kicking Wynnell under the table for backup, but due to the fact that I am vertically challenged, I missed.
“Yes, they do. And I, for one, am beginning to doubt that you ever intended to buy anything. In fact, I’m not even convinced you had a headache this afternoon.”
I glared at Peggy. “I told you I got over my headache. What was I supposed to do? Just lie in bed all afternoon watching soap operas?”
“What did you
do?” Wynnell asked. Some friend.
“She rented a car and went wandering around the back roads by herself,” Peggy said.
C. J. gasped. “Never wander the back roads by yourself. My cousin Alvin did that once. Suddenly he found himself in this little town where everything looked familiar—the churches, the school, the houses, even some of the people. Then he saw this little boy who looked exactly like Alvin when he was about seven years old. Well—”
“Put a lid on it,” I said crossly. “I saw that on ‘Twilight Zone.’”
C. J. cast me a baleful look. “I swear, Abby, sometimes you’re just no fun at all.”
“I’m loads of fun, dear. I just happen to be tired and hungry.” I glanced at Peggy. “I’m also tired of Twenty Questions.”
“Hear, hear,” said Wynnell, better late than never.
I smiled encouragingly at her.
“Well, just because I didn’t stick to her like glue, Miss Redfern here gave me the third degree.”
Peggy colored, although to the unpracticed eye it might have been hard to tell. “I was worried,” she said, “I looked up and you and C. J. had taken off some place. I felt uncomfortable sitting there by myself.”
“I went to the bathroom, for crying out loud.”
C. J. shook her head. “No you didn’t.”
Wynnell’s mouth opened, closed, and opened again. “What?”
“You didn’t go to the bathroom, Wynnell. You said you were going to, but then a few minutes after you left, I decided I needed to use it myself.” She turned to me. “It wasn’t even a real bathroom, but an outhouse.” She faced Wynnell. “You weren’t there.”
Wynnell scowled and the hedgerows meshed. “You were following me?”
C. J. flinched at the accusation. As our junior member she is expected to step out of line more often than the rest of us, but—her colorful stories aside—our respect is very important to her.
“I wasn’t following you. I had a legitimate need. Besides, like I said, you weren’t even there. You were behind the barn talking to a tall man with a red beard.”
I raised my eyebrows, but wisely kept my mouth shut.
“Do tell, Wynnell,” Peggy said. “And don’t leave anything out. We want all the sordid details.”
Wynnell stiffened. She was the color of boiled rice.
“I would thank the two of you to mind your own business. Y’all are as nosy as a pack of hounds. You,” she said, turning to C. J., “get a life. And you, Peggy, might want to try thinking without your ovaries for a change!”
“Well!” C. J. said, mortally offended.
Peggy smiled, popped a shrimp cracker into her mouth, and commenced to chew loudly.
Hans saved the day by appearing with our dinner. He was one of those marvelously talented waiters who can stack hot dishes up the length of both arms without losing his smile or spilling as much as a drop of sauce. While he was busy placing the meal on the table, I rearranged some of little figures in the alpine diorama. The hausfrau with the watering can hit the ski slopes, and the ski-bunny with the wasp waist got to tend the miniature window boxes with the microscopic silk pansies. Turn about is fair play, after all.
The food was excellent, one of the best Chinese meals I’ve ever had. But I have a small stomach—at least smaller than Peggy’s, and I was finished long before the others. Given the fact that both Wynnell and C. J. had taken a stab at using chopsticks for the very first time, it promised to be one of the longest suppers in the history of the Fondue Manchu. Therefore I excused myself and found a phone in a back hallway near the rest rooms.
I don’t claim to be psychic, but upon occasion I have been known to have nagging feelings that something is amiss, and sure enough, upon investigation I discover that someone I love is on the brink of making a terrible mistake. But come to think of it, since I am the mother of two young adults, and the daughter of Mozella Wiggins—well, at any rate, the feeling was particularly strong that evening. I hoped mat it was only a reaction to an overdose of MSG.
I didn’t have a phone number for Mama, but the Episcopal Convent of the Good Hope is listed with directory assistance for Dayton. I called them first.
“Episcopal Convent of the Good Hope, Sister Mary Martha speaking,” a cheery voice said.
“Hello Sister Mary Martha with the cheery voice,” I said. “May I please speak to one of your new recruits? She’s my mother. I don’t know her convent name yet, but her street name is Mozella Wiggins.”
“Oh.” There was a long silence. “Just a minute, please.”
I heard the sound of someone picking up an extension.
“Mama?” I asked excitedly.
“This is Sister Agnes,” a second nun snapped. “Your mother is unavailable.”
My heart raced. “Is something wrong?”
“Wrong?” Sister Agnes barked. “Your mother’s always late to chapel and she whistles on the stairs.”
“Excuse me?”
“She doesn’t follow the rules.”
“Mama’s always marched to the beat of her own drum,” I said. “Anyway, how do you keep a wave upon the sand?”
“I’m afraid your mother has a problem with vanity.”
“Oh, no, not the pearls!”
“What pearls? Did you know that underneath her wimple she wears curlers in her hair?”
“At least they’re hidden, dear. I can’t stand it when women go shopping with a head full of curlers and can’t even be bothered to wear a scarf. Frankly, in Mama’s case, I don’t see that there’s a problem.”
“Oh, there’s a problem, all right, but how do you solve a problem like Mozella?”
“How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?” I wailed.
“Simply put, your mother is not an asset to the abbey.”
Sister Mary Martha got back on the line. “Your mother makes me laugh,” she said, and giggled.
Sister Agnes snorted. “Last night she organized a slumber party. She even started a pillow fight.”
“We made smores,” Sister Mary Martha said. “They were delicious.”
“Please, let me speak to her,” I begged.
“Sorry,” Sister Agnes snapped. “Not until Mother Superior has decided what to do about her.”
I gasped. “You’re not going to punish her, are you?”
Sister Mary Martha giggled again. “Heavens no, but there is this widower in Kettering with seven children who needs a governess. Mother Superior thought your mother might like to give that job a try—just until she decides if being a nun is really what she wants. Say, does Mozella sing?”
“She can’t even carry a tune on a portable radio!”
Sister Mary Martha promised to use what little influence she had to return Mama to the arms of her own loving family.
Sister Agnes was more practical. “Are you married?” she had the audacity to ask.
“No,” I said warily.
“We could call it a trade—your mother for you.”
I told her I was engaged to be married. “But I have this friend named Peggy Redfern,” I said wickedly. “She’s not even engaged, and she’s ten years younger than I. You would get a lot more years of service out of her. She’s out of town right now, but I could give you her home number if you wish.”
The good sisters thanked me for the offer and promised to say a novena in honor of my upcoming nuptials. If I did indeed back out of marriage to Greg, I was going to owe them big time.
I called Mama’s house in Rock Hill on the off chance that one of my offspring would answer the phone. Of course, if somebody did pick up, their ass was going to be grass, as my kids are fond of saying. Needless to say, I was relieved when after twenty rings, no one picked up. It’s not that Mama is technologically challenged, but since Donna Reed didn’t have an answering machine, why should she?
It was time to disturb the Rob-Bobs at home.
“Speak!” Bob boomed, and I nearly dropped the receiver.
Take my word for it, even thou
gh Bob is a Yankee, he has much better manners than that. Something was definitely afoot.
“Bob, this is Abby. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he bellowed. “Nothing’s the hell wrong.”
“You and Rob have a fight, dear?”
“He says I’m smothering him. Do you think I am?”
“I think you give him the impression that you’re jealous, and Rob doesn’t do well with jealousy, dear. Anyway, you have nothing to be jealous of.”
He groaned. “But he has it all. A guy would have to be a fool not to want Rob.”
“Or straight,” I said. “You have to start trusting him. If you don’t hold him with open hands, he’ll fly away for sure.”
That was the same advice Mama gave me when my daughter Susan moved in with a man her first year of college. It was hard advice to follow, but I discovered that with your hands apart, it’s much easier to get them around someone’s neck. You can’t strangle with clenched fists, after all.
“I guess you have a point,” Bob said. He sounded about to cry.
“Speaking of the devil, where is Rob?”
“Didn’t you hear? Of course not, it just happened.”
“What?” It had better not be anything to do with my shop. With my kids basically on their own, and Mama requiring only intermittent care, the Den of Antiquity was what kept me going.
“Rob’s down in Pineville. You see, Purnell Purvis—”
My sigh of relief blew the snow right off the Matterhorn and on to Peggy’s plate. “Figures. Leave it to Rob to hobnob in a hospital. What’s he appraising for that grizzly bear now, copies of the crown jewels?”
“That grizzly bear is dead,” Bob said dryly. “Rob’s down there seeing what he can do to help Jimbo and Skeet. The boys are taking their father’s death very hard.”
I felt terrible, like I had just eaten a grizzly bear, maybe even a den full of grizzly bears.
“I’m sorry,” I said weakly.
Bob, bless his heart, took mercy on my humanity. “Nobody was fond of Purvis, not even Jimbo and Skeet. They were terrified of him. Rob’s there helping them make arrangements and sort things out—neither of them are very bright, you know—he’s there to give them comfort.”