Nothing had changed since high school. I had lost him then, I was losing him now. There wasn’t a thing I could do to stop it.
I pulled over to the side of the road, had a good cry, rolled down the window, breathed a little.
Then it hit me: I was doing what I’d done back in school. I was giving him up, letting other people come between us. There wasn’t much else I could have done back then, but I wasn’t a helpless schoolgirl anymore. I understood his worry about his son, but when he’d talked about Brenda, I’d panicked. Jerry had warned me that it would be a mess. Now that it was getting messy, I’d stomped off.
He’d told me that I was the one with everything to lose, but what had it cost him when I’d canceled our plans at the last minute because of Jill or Mama Dean? How had he felt when I’d gone home to my family every night, lived a regular life, slept in my husband’s bed? What had gone through his mind while he’d waited alone at the farmhouse?
I thought about how small and stunted my life had been without him, how I’d spent most of it sleepwalking. Why was I barreling down the road, rushing back to that old, dead life when my real life was at the farmhouse?
So what if it was messy and scary and complicated? None of that mattered. All that mattered was that Jerry was the center of my life. Whatever happened, I’d always love him. When I thought about life without him I felt bleak and hopeless and filled with regret. I could lose him anyway, but if I didn’t go back, didn’t see this through, I’d have to live with those feelings forever, always wondering if it was my fault.
I took a deep breath and did the only thing I could do: I made a wide U-turn and barreled back up the road to the farmhouse.
He met me at the door. For a minute we just stood there. Then we fell into each other’s arms and held on tight.
“God,” he said. “When you drove down the driveway and never looked back, I thought it was over.”
“I panicked. When you said you’d call ‘if’ you could, I thought you didn’t want to…that you wanted it over. That going to Jacksonville meant…”
“How could you think that? I want to call you. But I don’t even know where I’ll be. I’ll be tied up with the lawyers, visiting Trey, trying to reason with Brenda—and I can only call you when your family’s not there.”
Once again my face burned with shame. “Oh, Lord. I’m sorry. I guess the trouble with me is I could never believe in my good luck.”
After that we didn’t talk anymore. We just held on to each other ’til it was time for him to go.
Chapter 19
All day Saturday, I brooded around the house, chain-smoked in the basement, and jumped out of my skin every time the phone rang.
Then Sunday I decided that full moon, half moon, or no moon at all, the girls’ graduation was still Friday. I put myself back on automatic pilot and went through the motions, my body in Poplar Grove, my head and heart in Jacksonville.
By Monday night the house was spotless. The freezer was loaded with pies, a chocolate sheet cake, green bean and broccoli casseroles, and containers of rice.
When Steven came home after one of his meetings, he took one look at all the food and muttered, “Dammit, Maggie. How much have you spent on this party?”
A few months ago this would have upset me something awful. But this time the oddest thing happened. I looked at him and I thought, who in the world are you? I don’t know you. We’d been together for nineteen years, but he didn’t seem to have anything to do with me. It was as if a stranger had accidentally taken a wrong turn and ended up in my kitchen.
This feeling hit me so hard, I had to look away so he wouldn’t see the shock on my face.
But he must have sensed something. Because after that he stayed in the den grading finals while I stayed in the rest of the house. At meals we’d eat without a word, like two strangers in a diner.
At least I didn’t have to worry about sex. I didn’t know what I’d do if he wanted sex.
All week I ran back and forth to the boardinghouse borrowing Mother and Mama Dean’s punch bowl and cups, extra folding chairs, and the good lace tablecloth. Mama Dean insisted on making a Harvey Wallbanger cake, which we really didn’t need. But I didn’t have the energy to argue.
Tuesday morning, on the way home from the boardinghouse, I stopped off at the Curl & Swirl to invite Shirley and her mother to the girls’ party.
The last person I expected to see at Shirley’s was Dreama Nims. I’d avoided her since she’d gossiped to Mama Dean—hoped to avoid her forever. But there she sat, big as life, with Shirley teasing her hair so high she’d need a step stool to touch it up.
“Hey, Maggie Sweet,” she said. “I was just telling Shirley about the reunion. Looks to me like everyone and their sister will be there. Do you remember Ruby Poteet and Earline Sikes? They’re grandmothers! Do you believe it? Thirty-eight years old and already grandmothers.”
“That makes me feel old, old, old,” Shirley said.
“Hmm,” was all I could manage.
“Well, they are mighty young for grandmothers. But they were mighty young mothers, too. They got married in the eleventh grade. Had to, you know,” Dreama said.
“That was over twenty years ago, Dreama. I guess they’ve paid their debt to society by now,” I muttered.
Dreama was watching herself so closely in the mirror that I wondered if she’d heard me. She glared at Shirley and said, “I told you, I want it fuller. I’ve got a big week planned, what with Dreama, Junior graduating and all, and I don’t want it going flat on me. Use plenty of that hair spritz.”
Shirley clenched her jaw, and kept teasing and spraying. The radio was playing “Love Will Turn You Around.”
Dreama frowned in the mirror, turning her head this way and that. Finally, she said, “What were you saying, Maggie Sweet?”
I bit my tongue. “Nothing. Not a thing in this world.”
“I heard you say something. Something about paying a debt to society….”
“I just think after twenty-odd years of good behavior, they shouldn’t still have to go through life being called Ruby and Earline Hadtoyouknow!” I’d planned to stay calm, but suddenly I was all worked up.
Shirley looked at me.
Dreama frowned at her reflection. “I told you more hair spray. And not that cheap old kind, neither!”
Shirley looked like she was getting a migraine.
Dreama glared into the mirror until she was satisfied Shirley wasn’t using the “cheap old kind.” Then she leaned back and said, “I don’t know what you’re getting so upset about, Maggie Sweet.”
I sighed. “Let’s just drop it, Dreama. All I meant was Ruby and Earline could have spent their whole lives being Mother Teresa and you’d still want their tombstones to say: ‘Here Lies Mother Teresa—Humanitarian—Angel of Mercy—Patron Saint of the Poor—’course she had to, you know.’ Like had to was the only thing they did in their lives that mattered.”
Dreama looked at me. “Well, Maggie Sweet, that’s the craziest thing I ever heard. Everyone knows Ruby and Earline aren’t a thing in this world like Mother Teresa. Why, they aren’t even Catholic.”
Then she turned back toward the mirror. “By all rights, I didn’t have to invite them to the reunion. I mean, they did drop out of school in eleventh grade, what with having to and all. But I told myself, Dreama, it’s your Christian duty to let bygones be bygone, to forgive even if you can’t forget.”
“That’s very generous of you, I’m sure, Dreama,” Shirley said.
“Well, s-o-m-e-b-o-d-y has to make the effort,” Dreama said piously. Then she looked in the mirror. “Shirley! For heaven’s sake! My hair’s already flat as a flitter! How many times do I have to tell you? I want more teasing and more spray!”
For a second Shirley just stood there. Then she picked up two cans of spritz and aimed them directly at Dreama.
“You want more spray! Well, you’ve got it!” She said, spraying ’til Dreama disappeared in a smog of spritz.
When the mist finally cleared, Dreama’s face was Pepto-Bismol pink. She whipped off the plastic cape, flung it to the floor, and got out of the chair. “For goodness sake, Shirley, you don’t have to drown me. I’ve only kept coming here ’cause I felt sorry for you. But if that’s all the thanks I get, I’ll be switching to the Beauty Box immediately!”
Shirley stood there with her hands on her hips. “That’s the Beauty Box’s problem. They’ll be getting a sympathy card from me immediately.”
Dreama, who had started toward the door, stopped, spun around, and narrowed her eyes. “I’ll be calling my attorney, Shirley. That was nothing but pure-T assault. And Maggie Sweet, I’m so sorry Jerry went back to Jacksonville before the reunion. ’Course if I’m not badly mistaken you all have been having your own private reunion for months.”
After that everything went crazy. Shirley picked up both cans of spritz and ran full tilt toward Dreama spritzing away for all she was worth. For a second Dreama just stood there, her mouth wide open. Then her eyes went big and she took off through the parking lot like a scalded dog.
Shirley and I watched out the window for a minute. Then Shirley brushed off her hands like she’d done a good day’s work. “I’ve been wanting to do that for years,” she said.
“For a minute, I thought we’d have to do CPR,” I said, nervously.
“Guess I went a little crazy. But I’m not sorry.”
“I know. Half of me wants to sing the ‘Hallelujah Chorus,’ but the other half wants to curl up on the floor and squall,” I said.
“We’ve all been licking her boots for years, scared to death that she’d ruin us with her mean mouth. Well, I’ve had it. If she wants to ruin us, she’ll just have to ruin away,” Shirley said.
I thought about Jerry and what Dreama had said, but the room started spinning and I had to sit down.
Shirley poured two glasses of iced tea and handed me one. “I know it’s scary, but the more I think about it, you know, being ruint, totally deep-down, through-and-through ruint could be kind of freeing. I’ve swallowed my pride—tiptoed around Dreama for years and despised myself for trying to stay on her good side. The truth is she don’t have a good side. Sooner or later I’d have crossed her. Call me crazy, but I figure I just got it over with.”
“Oh, Lord. I wish I could see it that way,” I said, feeling depressed.
“Well, poor Ruby and Earline never crossed her and it didn’t slow her down a heartbeat. Toting up people’s sins is what she does. It was only a matter of time before she got around to us anyway. Do you remember Nicole Bennett?”
“Sure. Nicole graduated with me. She was Poplar Grove’s answer to Joan Collins,” I said.
“Wait’ll I tell you what Dreama said about Nicole. Said Nicole was, uh, a Lebanese.”
“That’s silly. Nicole’s Scotch-Irish like everybody else in town.”
“That’s what I said. But Dreama said, “Shirley, you just don’t get it. Nicole’s a Lebanese. You know. One of those women who, uh, like other women.”
“For goodness sake, Shirley. What did you say?”
“I told her I didn’t believe it. But she said, ‘when I called Nicole about the reunion she said she’d be bringing a friend. A woman friend. Asked me to make motel reservations for them. Motel reservations, mind you. Why, if she wasn’t that way, why wouldn’t she stay with her mama like everyone else?’”
“She decided all that over a motel reservation?”
“Yep. So I said, ‘now Dreama, that’s simply not true. Even when Nicole was a girl she ordered all her clothes from Frederick’s of Hollywood. I mean, if she was that way, she’d have ordered them from Field and Stream or something’. It was all I could think of to joke her out of it.”
“She’s too stupid to understand sarcasm,” I said.
“Yep. I might as well have saved my breath to dry my nail polish. She said, ‘Shirley, I can’t believe that you could be that naive. Don’t you ever watch Phil Donahue or anything? Why, clothes from Frederick’s of Hollywood don’t mean a thing.’”
“Her mind’s getting smaller and meaner every day,” I said.
“It’s so small now, I keep expecting it to roll out her ear. But that’s what I’m saying. Nicole never crossed Dreama. Why, the poor woman lives out of state. Dreama just likes to ruin people because she can.”
Shirley leaned back in her chair. “I keep thinking about that poor old Bucky Nims. I mean, can you imagine living with Dreama? From morning ’til night all he hears is ‘Bucky Nims, were you born in a barn? All you do is sit around and nasty up the place. Bucky, you’ll never amount to a hill of beans. Bucky Nims, don’t you dare talk back to my child….’”
“I know. And Bucky is so good-hearted. I could never figure out why he married her in the first place.”
“She picked him out and he was too nice to hurt her feelings. Next thing he knew his fate was sealed,” she said.
“He’d niced himself to death.”
“Yep. You saying that reminds me of this book I read. This man kept saying that he’d killed himself at age nineteen. He hadn’t really killed himself, of course. He’d just married at nineteen and the marriage wasn’t going so good. The whole time I was reading that book, I kept thinking about Bucky being that man. Bucky Nims killed himself the day he married Dreama. Maybe if he’d gone a little crazy—gone and ruint himself, he’d be alive today.”
When I got home, I was lower than low. I thought about Jerry not calling, about Dreama plotting to ruin my life. When I remembered that Mother Presson was coming Thursday for the l-o-n-g graduation weekend, I got so depressed, I went down to the basement and chain-smoked ’til supper time.
Wednesday morning, I was sitting at the kitchen table, going over the party menu for the hundredth time and trying not to think about everything, when the telephone rang.
“You alone?” Jerry asked.
“Oh, Lord, I’ve been crazy to talk to you. I started to call the farmhouse a dozen times, then remembered…Where are you?”
“I’m nowhere. A pay phone off base. I saw Trey.”
“How’s he doing?” I wondered if he’d also seen Brenda, but was afraid to ask.
“Shutdown, bummed-out. I expected it, but it made me feel—”
“—Awful.”
“Yeah.”
“What about…everything else?”
“Bad.”
“Bad?”
“Worse than bad.”
“It couldn’t get any worse?”
“Trust me. It gets worse. Do you want to know?”
“I want to know.”
“She’s giving me all kinds of flak.”
“Is the court date still Friday?”
“She’s talking about postponing. I think she’s bluffing, probably holding out for more money. Who knows? I could never figure her out. She thinks and talks in a foreign language. I’ll call you Friday.”
“Oh, Lord. You can’t. I’ll have a house full of people—the girls’ party….”
“Oh yeah, graduation…I forgot.”
I could hear the pay phone’s hum, traffic whizzing past. Jerry’s voice was slipping away. I had this crazy feeling that he was slipping away, too.
“What happens now?” I asked, my voice snagging.
He sucked in his breath. “I can’t think straight. This whole mess has my head spinning.”
I took a deep breath. “Are we a mess?” I wanted him to say that everything was going to be all right—to lie if he had to.
“We figured it’d be over by Friday. I’d be free, you could tell them. But we’re still flying blind with our fingers crossed. Yeah. I guess you’d have to say we’re a mess.”
The operator interrupted, “Your three minutes are up, sir. Please deposit—”
“Oh no!” I wailed.
“Damn. I gotta go, Maggie. I’m out of change.”
Once again I felt him slipping away. We hadn’t said anything. Not really. Why hadn’t he said I love you?
Why hadn’t I? I wanted to throw my head back and howl.
“Wait a minute, operator…Maggie, are you still there?”
“Still here,” I cried.
“Listen, honey, we’ll get past this. It’ll be all right. It’s gotta be all right….”
I sat there for a long time, listening to the line hum, before I hung up. I was still staring out the kitchen window when Mary Price came to the back door.
She’d been busy for weeks, so we hadn’t seen each other, even though we’d talked on the phone almost every day. She’d talked about Palomino Joe’s, new songs she was trying out, her costumes. I’d talked about Shirley’s closing, the graduation party—everything but Jerry. It felt too private, too important to talk about, even with Mary Price. Besides, I was afraid if I told her about us, she’d think I was a heathen.
Her first words, when she came in the door, were, “Lord, Maggie. You look like you’ve been drug through hell backward!”
I got busy pouring tea, slicing lemons, not trusting myself to speak.
But the minute I sat down, she drilled me with her eyes and said, “I hear the old boyfriend went to Jacksonville.”
Suddenly fat, salty tears were running down my face, soaking the front of my T-shirt and plopping onto the table.
“Jumping Jesus! I was afraid of that. You love him, don’t you?”
I nodded, but the tears were coming too fast to say anything. I never knew there could be so many tears.
“Oh, Lord, Maggie, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know love would make you so miserable.”
“I didn’t know I could feel like this. Didn’t know I could have such feelings. One minute my eyes are welling up from pure gratitude for being alive. Then I’m bawling because he’s gone—maybe forever. Oh, Mary Price, I don’t know what’s going to happen. Maybe it was just five minutes of wonder for a lifetime of pain. And everyone will hate me.”
Maggie Sweet Page 13