Chimes from a Cracked Southern Belle

by Reinhardt, Susan

“I’m trying to forget him,” I said. “And I’m not bad with picking men. I made one mistake and you’re acting like all I do is troll for killers and losers. You’re the one who thought Bryce was Jesus himself.” I didn’t dare tell her I chose Bryce thinking he could help absolve me.

  “Don’t you talk to me like that. It’s blasphemy.”

  “Look,” I said, “you know this one; you tolerated him up to a point as I recall.” I walked out of the room, trying to help Miranda find her old ballerina costume, calming down her wails when the taffeta tore and the pink slippers were too small for her feet. I wiped her tears and shoved her on my back for a pony ride, the only soothing she’d have when self-placating was out of the question. She and I have spent a lot of time since the Murderous Rampage in this position. Wasn’t exactly helping my leg, but I could take the pain if it would ease hers.

  Jay was away at summer enrichment camp, taking courses in all kinds of fascinating subjects like Supermarket science, in which he has big plans to concoct experiments in a lab from Borax and vinegar, soda and macaroni. He was also participating in a class called “Inside Egypt” where they would “mummify” a chicken. “It’s not a live chicken,” the teacher assured me. “We buy them at the grocery store . . . in a pack.”

  I also signed him up for the Basics of Basketball, so he won’t end up an introvert with a pencil pouch and too much computer interest. He’s a good kid, not freaky like some of those Junior Einsteins, and I’m hoping his intelligence will taper off a bit, not morph into one of those off-the-chart geniuses like the Unabomber who act bizarre and never satisfied or mentally balanced. I try not to think of Ted Kaczynski, Ted Bundy, or any of an assortment of psycho geniuses named Ted.

  As it stands, Jay’s learning rate had slowed some, especially after the accident when he’d miss school and throw up every morning and want nothing but to be at the hospital with me. For eight straight days, he slept by my side, next to the tubes and wires, the monitors that sang to him like lullabies.

  I walked back into the kitchen to find Mama exactly where I’d left her, same expression. “What do you mean I’ve met him?” she squawked. “Who is this man I’ve already met?”

  I was still thinking about the kids, how they were adjusting to everything they’d been through. How true it was, that saying about the resilience of a child, and wondering why this miracle of resilience couldn’t apply to adults as readily.

  Miranda was twisting around on my back, my skin pinching from her movements, and I found a chair and released her, despite a mild protest on her part.

  “I’ll tell you right now Prudy, that there’s not a single boy from your old buzzard fleet I’d have in my house again.”

  “My house,” I corrected.

  “I decorated it,” she said. “Who is he? Tell me so I can run to Eckerd’s and check my blood pressure to see what this latest news is doing to my heart. Between you and the reverend and Amber and her troubles . . . did you know she called me and said the Chicken Man (that’s what we call her Fowl Franchised husband) hasn’t touched her in months? Listen to me, I should not be telling her business. There’s a verse in Proverbs that says—”

  “She already told me. I know all about the births scaring him. I’ve got her beat by nearly two years,” I said, thinking about the lack of sexual relations, even a warm hug and soft kiss from the opposite sex.

  “But she’s married,” Mama said, urging Miranda into another room. “Married women have certain rights.” Mama stood to take the boiling kettle off the stove, probably so she wouldn’t have to face me while talking about sex. She continued with the sex talk and tea preparations, her scrawny behind wasting to bone and skin in her black jeans. A thin woman, take note, should not wear black. It will make her appear withered, as if she’s been roasting on a gas grill for two days.

  “Rights? What rights?”

  “Prudy, you know what I’m talking about; you just want to challenge me.”

  “Don’t you think I have rights?” I was almost at the point, lust-wise, of putting a personal ad in the paper. “Wanted, DFHMWMOT (Disease Free Heterosexual Man With Majority Of Teeth) for three to four nights of fun. No attachments. No commitments.” But I would never do something like that. Not me. Not Prudence the Pure. I would dream about it and avoid thoughts of lust like the Baptists warned against, like my mother feared worst than the Devil, using as an example that divorced friend Carla Tisdale with the uncontrollable urges.

  “She hits the singles bars every night,” Mama said for the umpteenth time, cutting off the gas stove. “Drinking her tequila like it was water and then taking men home and doing Lord knows what to their male parts.”

  “I’m not Carla, Mother.” She poured the hot tea in a ceramic pitcher to cool. “Don’t you think women have needs in the same way as a man?”

  She paused and her body tensed. “No,” she said. “I do not. A woman receives rights when she marries. Only then can she engage in the Biblical duties. Only after participating in these rights does she begin to feel the stirrings of needs. Watch the nature shows, pornographic as they are, and, by the way, since you got cable I’m insisting you block that nature channel from those innocent children. They certainly don’t need to see all that howling and humping. The monkey nightmare at the zoo was enough.”

  I couldn’t stop laughing at that memory, and Mama swatted me with a bag from Pier 1. “Why do you think all the female tigers and deers, the elephants, whatever animal they show . . . haven’t you noticed it’s the girl that’s always running away from the frisky male? She doesn’t want to participate in the whole mess. We only do it because of our duties.”

  “Duties?”

  “Enough, Prudy.”

  “DEE! It’s Dee and you always forget to call me that. Listen, Mama,” I said as gently as possible. “I’m almost 39. Amber’s 36. We’ve had lots and lots and lots of sex. You can give up the Virginity Preservation Campaign.”

  She turned on me and her chin zoomed into a full angular jut. It couldn’t have been pushed farther from her face.

  “Sex is something the man enjoys.”

  “You don’t like it?”

  “Heaven forbid, um, Dee. I do my duty. I’m going to leave if you can’t get your mind off these vulgarities. Who are you going out with? Go ahead and sock it to me. Then I’m out of here. I’m craving the coconut shrimp at Red Lobster.”

  I was, quite frankly, afraid to tell her. Then again, I should go for it. I’m a grown woman. What could she do? Make me stand in a corner? Write sentences, “I will not date old boyfriends who piss on lawns and cuss at Christmas?”

  “Croc Godfrey.”

  The chin unhinged itself from the jut position and fell completely to her protruding collarbones. One of her eyes twitched and spasmed. I hoped to God she wasn’t having that stroke she kept promising was her rightful and likely due. Please, God, let this settle in without stopping her heart or bursting an artery.

  “Croc Godfrey,” she seethed. “Now there’s a catch.” She had enough ax-sharp sarcasm in her voice to split wood. She snatched up her purse, her empty bags and marched out of the house, clomping as loud as she possibly could in her Bass loafers, having herself a 60-year-old hissy fit and not even ducking into Miranda’s room to tell her goodbye. “Well, I never,” she said. “I never.”

  She stopped at the stairs that would lead her outdoors and away from what she considered my Falling Down Life. “Is he going to come by and tinkle on your grass like he did mine? Where’d you dig him up? The local pool hall?”

  “Google. Google.com.” Took less than an hour to track him down, found him all the way in Nashville, Tennessee, and I rehooked him on my line as if more than 20 years passing by were nothing but a week or two. A tiny hole to darn in time. The homecoming King and Queen. Edward “Croc” Godfrey. Prudence Faith Millings.

&
nbsp; Wasn’t a thing much wrong with Croc Godfrey, and best I recall he was the most romantic man, well, boy back then, I’d ever dated. The only thing that booted him from favor was that whiz on Daddy’s fescue.

  “He’s had a very tragic time, Mama. He buried his poor wife after she died in a car accident.” I didn’t tell her Croc was driving or any of the other details.

  “Was he tanked up on the joy juice?” Mama asked, hands on her hips. This was one woman who didn’t miss a beat.

  “That is an un-Christian comment. An oil rig hit them and he was hurt, too, but not so bad. He was all torn up on the phone and his tragedy was twice as long ago as mine.”

  “That’s a shame, and a sad story, but doesn’t redeem him and give you rights to put us through that romance again,” she said. “My heart is not going to beat much longer if you and Amber don’t straighten out. I thought when I had kids that after they turned 18, I was in for a free ride and some peace and quiet. Y’all are giving me more fits now than when you were youngsters.”

  It’s my belief we all bear scars if we live long enough. His were inside; mine were inside, outside and up and down, striping me like exclamation marks of horror. Seems he’d be good for me and likewise, me for him. He had a son, about a year or two older than Jay.

  “My son likes motorcycles and guitars,” he said, after I’d given him my number and he called, that pure voice not tinged by time. “I can’t believe you found me. I’ve thought of you so many times. You have no idea. Tell me about your kids.”

  I lied and told him Miranda was a typical girl, leaving out the fact she has gone from simply carrying grandma purses to wanting to wear that style of clothing, and that Jay liked to play basketball and was all the time outdoors getting into something. I didn’t say that in order to lure Jay from his room or the computer, I had to bribe him with science books and promises of dissections. Croc and I enjoyed a nice conversation, an hour long almost.

  “I’d really love to see you again, Prudy,” were the magic words that have set off something that could lead to . . . well . . . anything. “I kept up with you. I know all about what you’ve been through and am so sorry, sweet girl. Do you want to talk about it? I’m a good listener. Better than back in high school.” He laughed and it was good to know mirth could still exist where tragedy tried to inhabit.

  “Maybe one day. Oh, I’m going by Dee now, but I’ll let you call me Prudy. Just nobody else. Anyway, I don’t remember a lot of the incident. I mean, all the doctors and nut specialists say that until I can accept and remember the full brunt of it, I’m going to go insane or explode or something one day. I’m hoping otherwise . . . you know . . . that if I just keep forgetting it, maybe it will melt into a little black puddle like the witch in The Wizard of Oz.”

  I told my mother none of this conversation but allowed her to remain stuck in time like a broken record, focusing way too hard on a poor teenage boy’s misstepping youth.

  “Croc Godfrey,” my mother repeated, hissed out as if naming the return of some vile bug or spreading pestilence. “I’ll bet he hasn’t amounted to much.”

  “What’s much, Mother? Is it becoming a doctor, like Peter Jeter, and doing whatever he’s done to turn his giblet wife into a jumpy squirrel? Is it being a preacher, then going mad in the church passenger van and nearly killing his wife?”

  She didn’t blink an eye, standing on my sidewalk as if dazed and zapped by a stun gun.

  “Why does a career have to define a person, and if it did, then what am I? A barely-above-minimum-wage butt wiper and hand holder? A non-pensioned woman with a B.S. in psychology and no real job or future? Did you know I can barely pay my rent next month? It’s due in a week, and I had to feed the kids and buy them summer clothes and lay down camp tuitions. I guess I’ll offer my body up to one of the richer toothless men at the nursing home for cold hard cash.” The words came out mean, and as soon as I said them, I felt pains of regret. My mother was only trying to help, in her own way.

  Suddenly she sprang to life—from her wilted state after the Croc news. “That’s enough from you. We helped pay for those camps, Miss Priss. All I get is total disrespect after all I’ve done for you. I’m leaving. When you can be a decent Christian, call me. Otherwise, find another mother.”

  I watched her get into the car and leave and felt a twinge of guilt. In a sense, though, it’s long overdue she let me try to make it on my own without her acting as if she were a set of crutches from a medical supply closet.

  “We’re not making that rent payment for you,” she yelled. “You can just take yourself to a women’s homeless shelter and leave the kids with us. You’ve had plenty of time to find more work.”

  ***

  At night I always climbed into bed with each of my children, no matter how tired I was or how late the hour, first brushing my teeth, washing my face with Dove and slathering on Oil of Olay, wiping the smells of Top of the Hill from my skin.

  With Miranda, we’d read a story from her favorite fairytale book, then make one up, silly tales that gave her giggle fits. With Jay, I lay in bed with him closely, our feet entwined as if we shared something that required touch to process. I felt his soft skin beginning to roughen at the elbows and knees, his feet hard from wearing sandals and going barefoot, his skin warm, almost hot and dry. I’d help him read the big words in Harry Potter books, answer the questions about his father that were never directly asked but spoken in the way he still clung to me, even at 7, even with his advanced brain.

  One might qualify as the smartest kid on earth, but the need for a father’s love is as basic and natural as that for food. I knew he ached; I knew there was constant wind blowing cold in his heart where the hole from loss never closed.

  Maybe Croc also slipped under his child’s Star Wars or Spiderman sheets, felt the stumped toes and sharp toenails and read his son stories or smelled the sun-dried sweetness of childhood as it gave way, almost overnight, to the saddle smell and musk of older boys who played hard and ran faster, as fast as they could on legs that try to chase away demons. His son was only five or six when he lost his mother. So maybe he was okay.

  As I pondered these things, I heard a loud car engine and turned to see Mama had come back from the end of my road and was heading straight for my house. She screeched to a halt.

  “I am simply not through with this conversation, Prudy,” she said, exiting her Town Car, one long leg at a time. “There are plenty of fish in the sea and many of them have a full set of scales.”

  “You should be happy with his last name,” I yelled as she slammed the car door and marched toward me. “Godfrey. It’s got the word ‘God’ right there in the first part of it. That ought to count for something.” She was stepping into the shady side of my yard, bumping her leg on the rim of the blue plastic swimming pool filled with leaves and dead bugs and uttering, “Drat” and “Dad-burnit” and all sorts of 60s sitcom “cuss” words.

  “At least he’s not in prison,” I hollered. I hated it when we fought, especially after she’d just spent hundreds of dollars on the betterment of what she calls my “poor little rental unit.” One step above a trailer, she often said.

  “This is a mistake,” she said. “You’re a stubborn woman. The only good thing about you being stubborn is it’s the very reason in the medical world you didn’t up and die. You’re the only woman who could have lived through getting run over and stabbed to death.”

  “Mama, stop!” I hated hearing about the incident at BI-LO and she knew it. “I’m not dead.”

  She turned around and shook her ass in a deliberate, “kiss-my-butt” motion, opened her car door, and all but jumped into the driver’s seat, cranking the engine. Only one part of her was visible, a single finger, the middle one, rising up in a streak of sunlight that had shot through the leaves of the maples that line our street. That one finger soared proudly with i
ts French-manicured nail. This was a new sign. A very bad sign of what she thought of me and the recycling of Mr. Croc Godfrey.

  “Decent Baptists don’t shoot birds,” I yelled, but by then, all I saw were taillights at the stop sign.

  Chapter Eleven

  Wake up, Miss Dee: A wise child accepts a parent’s discipline; a young mocker refuses to listen. Proverbs 13:1

  Mama’s Moral: I heard about you becoming a maid. Aunt Weepie told me. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that except I cannot tell my bridge biddies my college-educated daughter is cleaning other people’s poop all over town. First at Top of the Hill and now at the radio station. Couldn’t you have found something else? Oh, well. Bye.

  On Monday, I took a personal day off at Top of the Hill to record some shows at the station, even though Theresa told me Annie Sue was crying and having fits because I wasn’t going to be there to do her hair in Bo Derek braids.

  “She’s watched that movie ‘10’ a hundred times and is purely having a conniption to look like her. Even told me, ‘I got Bo’s body, now all I need’s her hair,’” Theresa hee-hawed.

  “Tell her she’ll look just like Bo on Tuesday,” I said, settling the matter before my debut recording session. I could do this. I had to do this. Be funny. Be smart. Tell every mother it’s okay if her kid wants to eat nothing but Lunchables, as long as she puts a few raw carrots on the plate.

  Chuck was ready to go when I arrived at the station, a sheaf of notes in my hand and my nerves calmed with green tea and dark chocolates, drugs of choice when beer or wine aren’t on the menu.

  After recording four shows in a matter of two hours, it was over. I felt as if I were a day-old balloon in need of inflation, but that I’d done well and this show just might work.