Maggie Sweet

by Judith Minthorn Stacy

  My friends and I had discussed ungrateful children hundreds of times, but I’d never served lunch while being talked about in my own house.

  At first I tried to defend myself, Steven, my mother, and all ungrateful children, etc., etc., but they ignored me like the wallpaper on the wall.

  When I couldn’t take it anymore, I stomped upstairs and splashed cold water on my face ’til I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have a stroke. Then I carried the hall phone into my bedroom and called Mary Price.

  “This is Mary Price ‘Got the Wedding Band Blues’ Bumbalough. I can’t come to the phone now but if you’ll leave your name…”

  Damn! The message machine. I hung up, wondering if “Wedding Band Blues” meant Mary Price had written a new song, or if she was fixing to leave Hoyt again.

  When I finally went back downstairs, Mama Dean and Mother Presson were still at it, having a wonderful time lapping up the other’s accounts of how “the children just don’t understand.”

  Mother Presson had even invited Mama Dean to stay for supper, without asking me, which I didn’t appreciate at all.

  When Steven finally turned up, he got his feelings hurt because while they usually hung on his every word, tonight they were so busy talking they ignored him. He only looked confused when I whispered, “Some friendships are built on the bones of the enemy.”

  And loneliness too, I thought later, when Steven locked himself up in the den and didn’t come out ’til I was in bed.

  It rained again on Thursday. Around eleven I was staring out the kitchen window and fixing chicken salad for Mother Presson’s lunch, when Steven slammed into the kitchen, drenched to the skin. He glared at me and said, “I’ve been sick all borning…then the car broke down on the way hombe so I had to walk a bile in the rain…oh, hell…I’m going to bed.”

  While he took a hot bath, I called Hootie’s Garage, laid out whiskey, lemon, honey, cold tablets, aspirin, vitamin C, and braced myself for the worst. Steven’s a real booger when he’s sick.

  A few minutes later, I carried the thermometer and a hot toddy upstairs. Steven was sitting on the side of the bed with only a towel around him. When he snapped, “Does it take an act of Congress to get an aspirin around here? A man could die waiting for an aspirin!,” I noticed he was getting a potbelly.

  Just then Mother Presson walked past the bedroom. Since I didn’t want her to hear Steven picking on me, I stuck the thermometer in his mouth so he’d have to hush.

  His temperature was 100.2 but I told him it was only 99. Anything over 99 is a sign to Steven he’s fading fast, which makes him even crabbier.

  “Are you just going to stand there? I’m freezing. Get me a blanket, the heating pad….”

  I got the blanket, the heating pad, his terry-cloth robe, fluffed his pillows, and tried to ignore his tone of voice. When I couldn’t ignore it anymore, I said, “Steven, I know you feel like pure crud, but it’s just a cold. Now get some rest.” Then I shut the bedroom door and went downstairs to finish Mother Presson’s lunch.

  After lunch, I washed two loads of laundry, carried a tray to Steven, tidied the kitchen, put the laundry away, made polite conversation with Mother Presson, carried another hot toddy upstairs, started supper, went back downstairs for the Vick’s, vaporizer, and vitamin C and carried them back upstairs.

  At two o’clock I remembered the girls. It was raining harder than ever and they’d be expecting to ride home with Steven. I threw on my slicker, waded out to my old secondhand car, and prayed it would start.

  The girls were just leaving the building when I pulled into the parking lot. Jill saw me and came running. Then I saw Amy, standing under a doorway, looking miserable. I didn’t think she’d seen me, so I tapped the horn and waved. Her face went tight, then she looked around carefully and came running, too.

  The radio was playing Helen Reddy’s “You and Me Against the World.” I turned up the volume. When the girls were little, we’d played that song hundreds of times while we snuggled in the rocking chair, waiting for Steven to come home. I’d nuzzle their sweet, moist necks, while they giggled and begged, “One more time, Mommy. Let’s sing it one more time.”

  I looked at my pretty, blond daughters. They’d be graduating in a few weeks. This might be the last time I’d pick them up at school. My eyes misted. Lord, how I’d miss them. What would I do without them?

  “Do you remember this song, girls?” There was a catch in my voice as I hummed along with the radio.

  As I pulled into traffic, a truck passed, splashing water on the windshield. I turned the wipers on high, hit the defrost button, and went on singing.

  It wasn’t ’til we passed the library that I noticed the girls weren’t singing; they weren’t even speaking.

  I stopped singing. “Sorry I was late…Daddy got sick…his car broke down…and Grandmother Presson…well, I just got busy…time went by…” I rattled on, filling up the silence.

  Amy sniffed.

  “Amy, are you sick? I asked.

  “I’m sick all right. Sick and tired,” she snapped.

  “Oh, shit, Amy! Don’t start," Jill said.

  “Start what?” I asked, stupidly.

  “Oh, just this car…the way you’re dressed. Why can’t you be like Mrs. Bloodworth?”

  I looked at the car’s worn upholstery, my faded jeans and T-shirt. While I was being mushy and sentimental, Amy wanted a mother who wore her hair in a chignon, clothes edged in silk ribbon, and who spoke in a plantation accent. I was stung.

  “Well excuse me, I didn’t have time to get the diamond tiara out of the vault,” I snapped.

  “Very funny,” she said.

  “God, Amy! Don’t do us any favors. You don’t have to ride with the peasants. You can always get out and walk,” Jill said.

  “What would be the point? I might as well ride now. Everyone’s already seen us.”

  “You turd!” Jill said.

  “Don’t you curse at me! Mother, did you hear what she called me?”

  My head pounded. The rain poured down. I couldn’t see. I hit the wipers again, clicked off the radio. “Watch your language, Jill. And, Amy Elizabeth, if you say another word, I’ll stop this car and you can walk.”

  “Yeah, right,” she said, sneering.

  Just then, a car came hydroplaning toward us. I swerved, barely missing it. No one said another word.

  By the time we got home, I was wet and shaking. But it wasn’t over yet. Steven met us at the door, glared at me through bloodshot eyes and roared, “What kind of house is this? We’re out of mouthwash.”

  “Steven, there’s a monsoon out there. You’ll have to gargle with salt water, at least until it stops,” I said, peeling off my soaked slicker.

  “Dammit, Maggie, I said I need mouthwash. Not one of your backwoods home remedies.”

  I was cold, wet, and tired. Steven stood over me, splotchy and red-faced with anger. The girls were fighting. A puddle was forming on the foyer rug. In the kitchen, a complicated half-cooked supper waited. After I cooked it, I’d make polite small talk with Mother Presson, referee the girls, wash the dishes, clean the rug, and run up and down the stairs for Steven until bedtime. And while I was doing everything, they’d all be lounging around the house sneering that I wasn’t doing any of it right.

  Something in me snapped.

  “You all must think I’m a magician. Well, I’m not. I’m a human being. I can’t produce miracles. I can’t even produce mouthwash. Why, if I was a magician, I swear I’d make you all disappear.”

  Everyone looked shocked. Mother Presson coughed politely in the next room, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care when Steven stomped upstairs in a huff, or when Amy said, “Why do you have to pick on Daddy? Can’t you see he’s sick?”

  I didn’t care when Jill, who’d been on my side, said, “Boy, you’re in a rotten mood.”

  I grabbed my slicker and slammed out the door.

  The rain was coming down in sheets now, but I didn’t care. I drove to
Eckerd’s, bought a pack of Marlboros, lit one, then drove straight to Mary Price’s. She wasn’t home. I drove around town for a while; I stopped at the Shirley’s Curl & Swirl. The shop was closed. I had fifty cents in my pocket, the car was almost out of gas, but I wasn’t going home.

  A few minutes later, I passed the high school and considered becoming a filthy old bag lady who lived in a big cardboard box right next to the school building. Every morning, when a certain dignified biology teacher or a stuck-up high school senior went by, I’d follow them, shouting, “Don’t you know me? It’s Maggie Sweet. I’m just having a little drinky from a slightly used bottle. Wouldn’t you all like one, too?” Then I’d cackle, while everyone in town watched them duck into the school building.

  I turned on the car radio. Elvis was singing “I’m Caught in a Trap.” Tears stung my eyes. I clicked off the radio, drove another block, and pulled into the hospital parking lot.

  Today Mother was working second shift. Maybe it was her break time. We could have coffee. I’d calm down.

  The hospital had been remodeled since the last time I’d been inside. Orange arrows led me from the lobby, down the corridor, past a fancy new gift shop, a waiting room filled with modern waiting-room furniture, plants, and paintings. The arrows led to another long hall, then stopped at the cafeteria entrance.

  The cafeteria was as dark and gloomy as ever. I was glad. It suited my mood. I got a cup of coffee, tossed two quarters into a Styrofoam cup near the register, and found a table in the darkest, gloomiest corner.

  Suddenly I was completely worn out. I lit another cigarette, took a sip of the strong, black coffee. Why had I come here? Did I think I’d have a friendly chat with Mother and everything would be all right? Why, she’d take one look at me and know something was wrong. The last thing I wanted her to know was that I’d slammed out of my house and didn’t want to go back.

  The cafeteria lights flicked on, kitchen workers called to each other as they wiped tables, filled sugar and salt shakers, carried pans of food to the steam tables. In a few minutes everyone on second shift would be lining up for supper.

  I stubbed out my cigarette, set my cup on a rack in the hall, and followed a set of blue arrows to the rest room.

  The rest room was new. There were mirrors that went up to the ceiling, then wrapped clear around the room.

  When I tried to leave the rest room, the mirrors got me so turned around, I couldn’t find the door. A woman came toward me. I stepped aside to let her pass. She stepped the same way and stood in front of me. Then she smiled a strained, nervous smile.

  She was one of those beaten-down, poor-me, hangdog types that made me want to shout, “Lord, woman, get a hold of yourself! Stop apologizing for being born!”

  That’s when it hit me. I’d been side-stepping my own reflection. That cowering, simpering, nothing-of-a-woman was me.

  Friday night, the last night of Mother Presson’s visit, we all sat down to supper together. Everyone’s voices were careful and polite, but I wasn’t really listening. My mind kept drifting back to the sad, tired woman in the hospital mirror.

  We were finishing the beef stroganoff when Steven jerked me back to reality by saying, “I’m sorry you have to leave, Mother. Can’t you stay with us another week?”

  He looked confused when I kicked him under the table. It wasn’t ’til Mother Presson said she was sorry but she had to leave that I took a deep breath and drifted off again.

  The next morning Jill and I fell all over each other carrying Mother Presson’s belongings to the car. At the last minute, when she was already buckled in the passenger seat, I ran back to the kitchen and got the bell out of the tea canister. But I waited ’til Steven actually turned the key in the ignition before I handed it to her.

  The car motor sputtered and died.

  Steven tried again. This time the engine roared into life, coughed as if it had bronchitis, and stopped dead. This time he smiled nervously and said, “I think the engine’s flooded.”

  We all waited in the driveway for what seemed like hours. Finally the car started.

  As they backed down the driveway, Mother Presson stuck her hand out the window and gave a Queen of England wave. It wasn’t until Steven braked the car that I realized she was motioning to me.

  When I got to the car, she smiled and patted my arm. “Now, Margaret, I’ll be back in six weeks for the girls’ graduation. Amy’s future is at stake and we’re running out of time.”

  A moment later they were gone.

  The girls and I stood blinking in the driveway for a full minute. Back inside, I felt like a sponge that had been wrung out once too often.

  The girls went upstairs to shower. Awhile later Amy, color-coordinated and neat as a pin, left the house to study with friends. Then Jill, dressed like Pocahontas and carrying a duffel bag, left for the flea market.

  I took two aspirins and went back to bed, but after tossing and turning for a half hour or so, gave up. I showered, scrubbed the tub, picked everyone’s soggy towels off the bathroom floor, then, on impulse, I dropped my towel and stood naked in front of the full-length mirror.

  Lordamercy! It was worse than I thought. My hair hung limp past my shoulders. There were circles as dark as bruises under my eyes. My legs were still good and the stretch marks on my breasts and stomach had faded to faint silvery lines, but when I turned sideways and sucked in my stomach, nothing moved. Also, my behind seemed lower than I remembered.

  I wondered if Steven had noticed the changes in me. Then I remembered his potbelly. I’d never noticed his stomach at all until it was a full-fledged potbelly.

  I stared for a while, wondering if potbellies and stretch marks had as much to do with keeping couples faithful as church vows and children. It’s easier to show a tired old body to a tired old husband than to risk yourself with someone new.

  How did a new man feel about stretch marks put there by another man’s children?

  Was there time for plastic surgery before the reunion?

  Did movie stars who went from affair to affair and marriage to marriage worry about such things?

  Why was I even thinking about such things?

  I got dressed and went out back to the glider to brood.

  Ten minutes later, I was back in the bathroom with a copy of Southern Hairdo and the hair-cutting shears. I cut, moussed, and dried my hair into a style Mama Dean called “boiled and hung upside down to dry.”

  In the bedroom, I rummaged through the dresser drawers, found the snug jeans, purple T-shirt, and big earrings Jill had given me for Christmas. I put them on, then painted up a little.

  A few minutes later, I picked up the car keys and headed out the door.

  Chapter 8

  All the way to Mary Price’s, I grinned and patted my moussed curls. I felt sassy and reckless. I wanted to laugh out loud. For years Mary Price had shocked and surprised me. Now it was my turn.

  Her Silverado was parked in the driveway, along with Hoyt’s faded Econoline van and a pickup with out-of-state license plates.

  Through the screen I could see Mary Price, Hoyt, and another man having coffee at the kitchen table. I knocked on the door, then let myself in. Mary Price bolted from her chair when she saw me. “I tried to call you,” she whispered, coming toward me.

  I barely heard her. My gaze was glued to the man sitting at the table. He had dark hair, long, lanky legs, and the bluest eyes in the world. It couldn’t be! It wasn’t possible! I hadn’t laid eyes on him since high school. How on earth had he got here? It was the wrong time, the wrong place.

  “Jerry?”

  “Maggie Sweet, is that you?

  “Lordhavemercy.”

  “Godamighty.”

  He stood, looked confused, then happy, then embarrassed.

  “I was just passing. I’m in a hurry. I need to get home…”

  “Don’t run off yet, Maggie. Have some coffee,” Hoyt said, looking at Jerry and me, me and Jerry.

  I gave up. We stood staring
at each other. He was smiling. He took my hand. I wanted to fling my arms around him, wanted to say, I’ve been waiting for this moment all my life.

  “It’s good to see you, Maggie. You look great.”

  I touched my hair, thought about my morning makeover. Now I was sweating. I probably looked awful. “Thanks. So do you.”

  I stared at him, couldn’t take my eyes off him. He was more beautiful than I remembered. His hair was short and neat, just beginning to gray. There were crinkly lines around his eyes. Eyes that still had the power to dazzle me. I got lost in his eyes.

  My legs were shaking. I sat down.

  “I really did try to call you,” Mary Price mumbled.

  I thought about the note taped to the phone the night I’d stomped out of the house. I’d been too tired to call her back, too depressed by that sad woman in the mirror. But I should have known her call was important. Mary Price never called or came near me when Mother Presson visited.

  There was a pause that seemed to last hours, but was probably only seconds.

  “Well, well, if it isn’t old home week,” Hoyt said, too heartily.

  I looked at Jerry’s tanned arms: the hair that grew on them was spun gold. I looked at his hands. No wedding ring. I looked away.

  “Jerry’s come home,” Mary Price said. “Got his retirement money from the Navy on Tuesday and by Thursday he’d bought back his old family home place.”

  It was Jerry uptown the day of Mama Dean’s doctor appointment. He’d been here this whole time.

  “Yep. Put his money in his jeans and came on home. Right, old buddy?” Hoyt said.

  Jerry grinned at me. “There’s a lot to be said for home. After Brenda and I split, I figured I’d stay in Jacksonville to be near my son, Trey. But when he joined the Navy there didn’t seem to be any reason to stick around. And I’d been thinking about home, must have thought about it a million times.”

  Oh, Lord, he was divorced and back in Poplar Grove for good.

  He grinned at me. “I’ve been uptown a few times and I haven’t seen it yet. Weren’t you going to have a beauty shop…Styles by Maggie or something?”