by Tamar Myers
“Well, there was a lot of talk about tanks. They should be making more tanks than all that fancy other stuff. Tanks were quicker to make, and harder to trace.”
I smiled warmly. I’d had enough beer to do that. The woman was off her rocker—well, metaphorically speaking. Still, a lonely, loony source is better than none.
“Are you sure? About the tanks, I mean?”
“Of that I’m positive.” She waved her mostly empty bottle in the direction of Leona’s and then leaned over the arm of her rocker in my direction. “Say, you don’t think they’re terrorists, do you?”
I shrugged. “Nothing would surprise me, dear. From what I’ve heard, Leona Teschel could well be Saddam Hussein in drag.”
“No, no, not that kind of terrorists. I mean the kind that builds communes in Montana and then blows up their own people just to prove some silly point.”
I stared at her. “Did you hear something to make you think that?”
“Well, not in so many words, maybe. But just look at that house. Look at how big it is. They could have a whole cult in there right now and we wouldn’t know it.”
I nodded. My beer was almost done and I have a low tolerance for alcohol.
“And with all those towers and turrets, they could hold off the FBI with sharpshooters. Who knows, maybe they’re even digging escape tunnels that will lead to the mountains.”
“Cool.” Betty’s eyes glistened with newfound excitement. She no longer looked homesick.
“Of course I don’t know if I’d want to live right next door. I mean, your house could be right in the line of fire. And what if they miscalculate the tunnels, and one of them exits through the floor of your basement?”
“Would you like another beer?” Betty asked happily.
I will admit everything. One beer will give me a buzz; two beers will knock me on my butt. I had two and a half beers that afternoon.
There, I said it. Believe me, I am not proud of what I did. Even we Episcopalians will acknowledge that too much to drink is a sin—especially if, as a result, one behaves without dignity. And I, for one, knew better. If I had restricted myself to one beer back in college, I never would have ended up Mrs. Buford Timberlake. Of course, then I never would have given birth to Susan and Charlie, and might still be living with Mama. My point is that most storm clouds do indeed have silver linings, although it usually requires sobriety to see it.
The silver lining to my Rolling Rock cloud was that it loosened me up enough to impose on my hostess. That is to say, while I never drive while under the influence, I am not above conversing on the telephone, and I was suddenly in the mood to talk to Mama.
“May I please use your phone,” I slurred. “I promise to return it.”
Both Bettys frowned. “Long distance?” they asked in unison.
“Don’t worry, darlings, I have a calling card. It won’t cost you a thing.”
The Bettys sighed and put down their beers. Then they led me into the cool, dark interior of the house, where a rather handsome man sat glued to the TV. The Betty on the left introduced us. I was no longer keeping track of the Betty on the right, so I don’t remember what she was up to.
“What are you watching?” I asked.
“A ‘Green Acres’ marathon,” Ed Cole said. “They’re running forty-eight episodes back to back. That’s like twenty-four hours of pure heaven.”
Who knew that there were even that many episodes in the series? Certainly not me. Frankly, until then I had always found sitcoms that costarred pigs and Hungarian glamour gals to be a little boring.
“Have a seat,” Ed said.
Since it was easier to sit than to stand, I sat on the opposite end of the couch from Ed. The Betty on the left—although perhaps there was just one Betty by now—sat between us. There was to be no hanky-panky with the handsome Mr. Cole.
I have no idea how many shows we watched, but by the time I remembered the phone call, I had become fond of the little porker. Arnold the pig was growing on me too.
Fortunately by then I was sober enough to read the numbers on my calling card—well, the easy ones at any rate. My third try got me through.
“Mama? You’re home?”
“Of course not, dear. This is just a figment of your imagination.”
“It is?”
Mama is no slouch. “Abigail Louise Wiggins Timberlake. You’re drunk, aren’t you?”
“Of course not, Mama! I’m just a teensy-weensy little bit inoculated.”
“Against what. The bubonic plague?”
“I meant intoxicated—but I’m not even that. I only had two beers.”
The only sound was the familiar, and oh so comforting, click of Mama’s pearls against the receiver.
“Okay—and a half! Mama, aren’t you happy to hear from me?”
“I’m as happy as a flea at a dog show,” she said, but she didn’t sound it.
“Don’t feel bad, Mama, you’ll find your niche. Besides, Sister Mary Martha thought you were a hoot.”
“She did?” The hope in her voice was pitiful. It cut through me like a knife through grits.
“Have you considered taking some courses at Winthrop University? They might help take your mind off things.”
“Give it a rest, Abby. I’m not upset about leaving the convent. It was no big deal. It was my choice, after all.”
“It was?”
“Absolutely. Being a nun just isn’t any fun these days. They wouldn’t have even let me wear one of their habits to the mall. Now I ask you, Abby, what’s the point of being a nun if nobody knows you are one?”
I shrugged, but apparently Mama didn’t hear it.
“Well, I’ll tell you—nothing! I may as well volunteer my time at the Rock Hill High School cafeteria. At least then I’d get to wear my smock in public.”
“But are those smocks your shade of blue?” I asked gently. “Remember, you’re a spring. Come to think of it, I must be a spring too. Do you still have that book with the color charts?”
Mama snorted, which is most unlike her. “Honestly Abby, you can be so shallow at times. All this silly talk about colors, when my life has just fallen apart.”
“But you just said leaving the convent was no big deal.”
“I’m not talking about the damned convent,” Mama snapped. “I’m talking about me. I’ve been violated.”
20
I gasped. Surely I had not heard right.
“Mama, uh—were you raped?”
“What? No, I’ve been robbed,” Mama wailed.
I was sitting in the Cole kitchen on a cute little white chair with red tulips stenciled on the backrest. There were fluffy white curtains at the window with red tulips on them as well. There were red tulips on some of the counter tiles. Goodness gracious, the cabinet pulls were red plastic tulips. Come to think of it there were red tulips everywhere. Perhaps it was the inebriation, but I found it hard to imagine anything wrong in a world dominated by red tulips.
“Did you call the police?”
“Of course, dear. I’m a senior citizen, not an idiot.”
“What did the police say?”
“They said that whoever broke in seems to have used a key. Or else they were an expert at picking locks. There was no sign of forced entry.”
“Aha. Are you sure you were robbed?”
“Abigail!”
“What did they take, Mama? Not the triple-speed Crock-Pot I gave you for your birthday in 1976?”
Face it, Mama doesn’t own anything with which a self-respecting up-to-date robber would want to bother. No computers, no VCR, no CD player, no microwave, not even a toaster oven young enough to be carded. Mama’s only portable appliance with any street value is a black and white TV with bent rabbit ears. And forget about jewelry. Her pearls aside, except for the wedding ring Daddy gave her, Mama doesn’t own a thing that won’t turn green in a swimming pool.
“Crockpot?”
“Don’t worry, Mama, I’m sure your insurance policy wi
ll cover it. Even if it doesn’t—well, it was supposed to be a surprise for your next birthday, but I’m planning to give you a microwave oven. I know, I know, you’re worried about all those dangerous rays—but they’re really not, you know. Those six-legged amphibians they’re finding in Minnesota have nothing to do with microwaves. They’re the result of aspartame finding its way into the ground water.”
“What?”
“You know, Mama. The artificial sweetener. I read it in the National Deliverer. It seems those Minnesotans drink a lot of diet colas—”
The pearls clicked furiously. “I’ve been robbed, Abigail, and you want to talk about deformed frogs?”
I swallowed and fingered a plastic, red tulip place mat on the kitchen table. It wasn’t going to be easy talking her out of the delusion that she had been robbed. Perhaps it was her way of dealing with the loss of her convent dream, one disappointment displacing another.
“Mama, you need to make a list of everything that’s missing,” I said patiently.
“How can I, Abby, when there’s such a mess?”
“Mess?”
“Lord child, it looks like Hurricane Hugo decided on a second coming. I couldn’t find my shadow in this mess if it was pinned to me.”
My heart sank. I am enough of a realist to know that my children, like many of their contemporaries, will try and get away with as much as possible. This is a sad statement about both our society in general, and my success as a mother in particular. I know there is no good excuse for this, but if Buford had backed me in the discipline department, and if our marriage hadn’t gone on the skids, I might have succeeded in raising kids that made me proud.
But that was all water under the bridge now. The horse was out of the paddock and it didn’t much matter who opened the gate. There was no undoing anything anyway. Besides, it might well be that a wild party or two was mild in comparison with what they could be doing. Still, to trash their grandmother’s house after having been issued direct orders to stay away—that was really going beyond the pale.
“Are there beer cans lying about?” I asked, suddenly very sober and very tired.
“Excuse me!”
“Cigarette butts ground into the couch?”
“What do you think this is, Abby, a bar?”
“No, of course not. But it’s possible—well, you know how kids are nowadays.”
“I know,” Mama snapped. “I know exactly how you are.”
“Me? Mama, I have my own place to trash!”
“Jumping to conclusions again, aren’t we dear?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mama.” I truly didn’t. The Rolling Rock buzz was practically a distant memory, but my mother wasn’t making any more sense than usual.
“Susan and Charlie, right?”
“Ah, that. Well—”
“Susan told me all about it, dear. She didn’t leave a thing out. At least that couple used the guest bedroom and not mine.”
“She told you that?”
“Shame on you, Abby, for even thinking that your children would turn right around and disobey a direct order from you. You should have more faith in your kids.”
“Yes, ma’am.” There was no point arguing. “Mama, was it vandals? Did they break things?”
“Mercifully no—well, at least not much. They mostly just scattered things. Abby, my entire house looks just like your room when you were a teenager.”
“Mama!”
“Except that now there is no awful smell. I don’t keep dirty clothes wadded up in the closet.”
“That’s not fair—” I caught myself. “Mama, it sounds like the intruder was looking for something specific. You’ve got to try and think of what that might be.”
I swear I could feel the breeze generated by Mama’s sigh. “I told you, Abby—oh, my God—wait right there!”
What else was I to do? I mean, besides pull my hair and stamp my feet? Thank God for those red tulips. They were the only thing that kept me from going out of my head with worry. By the time Mama got back on the phone I had determined that the wallpaper border in the kitchen contained 142 red tulips and one yellow tulip.
“Abby, it’s missing!”
“What a relief!”
“Abigail Louise—”
“What a relief that you’re all right. So, what’s missing?”
Click. Click. Click.
“Mama! Out with it.”
“Well, you were never supposed to know, Abby. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“But it’s okay to drive me crazy instead!” I screamed.
Betty stuck her head in the door but I waved her away.
“Remember I gave you that English tea service, dear?”
“It rings a faint bell.”
“You see, I bought a present for your brother Troy as well. Only, I forgot to mail it before I left.”
“So what’s so bad about that? It doesn’t hurt my feelings if you give your son presents. And you didn’t tell Toy about my gift, did you?”
“No.”
“So what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right? Just take the insurance check when it comes and buy him another gift.”
In the ensuing silence I counted eighteen red tulips on the dish towel wedged in the handle of the refrigerator door. No yellow tulips.
“I don’t know where to find a replacement,” Mama said softly.
“Try the yellow pages. Mama, there are oodles of pro shops in the area. How hard is it to find a putter?”
“I didn’t buy Toy a putter! I bought him a silver tea set.”
“What?”
“I don’t care what you say, Abby, your brother is going to settle down and get married some day. And when he does, he deserves to have nice things just like you.”
“What kind of silver tea set? It’s not like mine, is it?”
“Not that it’s your business, Abby, but how else do you think I was able to afford two English tea sets? By buying two identical ones, of course! You’d be proud of me if you knew what kind of deal I got.”
“I’d be stunned,” I said. I already was.
“Abby, promise me you won’t say a word about this to your brother.”
“My lips are sealed.” Toy and I haven’t had a real conversation since I told him I thought his Hollywood girlfriend, whose name is Bambi, bought her curves in a doctor’s office.
“Are you enjoying your tea set, dear? Of course you’re not. You’re off in Pennsylvania having yourself a nice little vacation. By the way, when will you be home?”
“That’s hard to say, Mama. I’m having a ball. Maybe in couple of days. Look, do me a big favor and stay at my house until I get back.”
“Whatever for?”
“Or stay with one of your friends. Louise is in town, isn’t she?”
“I’m not a baby, Abby. I was almost a nun.”
“Mama, what if you had been home when the burglar broke in? What if you had surprised him, and he or she had a gun? What if the burglar wasn’t really after the silver, but just happened to find it? What if it was you they wanted?”
“Okay, I get the point. I’ll stay over at your place. But I’ll bring my own towels. No offense, dear, but you really should use softener in the rinse cycle. Those little anti-static sheets you throw in the dryer with them isn’t enough. And did you ever turn your guest mattress like I suggested?”
“Not to worry, Mama. I went out and bought an automatic mattress turner. That thing should be spinning as we speak.”
“There’s no need to be sarcastic, dear.”
“Whatever you do, don’t change the wallpaper in the bathroom. I’m very fond of beige and ecru seashells on an aqua background.” To be honest, I hated that paper. It was in there when I bought the house, and I just hadn’t had time to do anything about it. Now, not only was I going to feel better with Mama staying at my house, but I was guaranteed to have a brand-new bathroom when I got back. Trust me, whatever she chose for a replacement wou
ld be a welcome change.
“Well, Abby, is that all you have to say? This call is costing you a pretty penny.”
“It’s my penny, Mama. And it isn’t all I have to say. I want to ask you a very important question.”
“Shoot, dear.” What a clever woman, trotting out her slang to disarm me.
“Do I have a twin sister?”
“Abby, have you been smoking pot again?”
“What?”
“Oh come off it, Abby. I found that joint under your mattress when you were in college.”
I slapped my free ear to make sure it was working. It was.
“What did you say?”
“That reefer. Isn’t that the other word for it?”
I haven’t been so shocked and embarrassed since that time my bikini top came off on the water slide at the church picnic.
“Mama!”
“Are you stoned again, or not?”
“It was just that one joint,” I wailed, “and I didn’t even inhale!”
“Then what’s all this nonsense about having a twin?”
I told her about Adrienne.
“If you saw the woman, you’d know what I mean. Except for that horrible hair of hers, we’re like two peas in a pod. You would tell me if it was true, wouldn’t you?
Mama didn’t just laugh, she howled. A church-going lady who still wears crinolines and can’t be parted from her pearls has no business braying like a banshee.
“Are you quite done?” I demanded after about five minutes, when the howls had subsided to mere whimpers punctuated by gusts of giggles.
“Almost,” Mama gasped.
“Mama, I’m hanging up if you don’t stop this minute. This call is costing me a pretty penny, remember? You said so yourself.”
The giggle gusts grew to be gales.
I did what I’d threatened to do and hung up.
Without asking the Coles’ permission, I dialed The Finer Things. There was no answer, not even the answering machine. I dialed the Rob-Bobs at home. Ditto. In desperation, I called the major.
“Hullo. Major Calloway’s Antique Gun Emporium here,” he said in his clipped British accent.
“Hang up on me, buster, and I’m calling the cops.”