“What about medical bills?” Louise, focused on money, had visions of a huge stack of white paper impaled on a long nail. Across each sheet was a red rectangle with “Bill” in the middle. It wasn’t a vision, it was a waking nightmare.
“And then there will be the cost of the burial and the casket—you’ve got to be rich to die.” Louise paced faster.
“You could hang him on a gibbet.” Chester kept a straight face. “I could build one in a day.”
“Yeah, you could put the gibbet in front of Junior McGrail’s. I bet that would turn customers away.”
“Think of the dogs, though,” Chessy said deadpan.
“Will you two shut up.” Louise plopped on the sofa. “This is serious. It’s terrible.”
“Momma’s such a soft touch, she’ll take care of him no matter who he is. He can’t be our father. Hansford Hunsenmeir was a handsome man with a black handlebar moustache.”
“Except it wasn’t black, not really. It photographed black.”
“How do you know?”
“I remember him—sort of.” Louise sighed. “Mostly, I remember Momma crying.”
“Thirty-four years is a long time. I don’t think any of us would look like our photographs,” Pearlie observed.
“Why not? Celeste Chalfonte does,” Louise replied.
“She is the exception that proves the rule,” Paul said.
“Her hair turned silver—that’s about it.” Chester ran his hands through his own blond curls; his hairline was receding slightly. He didn’t like that one bit.
“Well, whoever he is, he insulted me before he even sat down at the table. He said, ‘You must be Louise.’ I said, ‘Yes,’ and then he says with that pathetic excuse for a moustache wiggling, ‘You must be forty now.’”
“Oh, Wheezer, for Christ’s sake, you are forty.”
“I am not. I most certainly am not and I don’t know why you insist upon such misinformation.”
“If I’m thirty-six, you’re forty.” Juts stood her ground.
“I am not forty! And as for you, he looked at you and wanted to know where your children were. I may be closer to forty than you are but at least I’m a mother!”
“Louise, calm down.”
She whirled on her husband. “Calm down? What would you do if some horrible man blew through the front door and said he was your father!”
Pearlie clasped his hands in front of him. “I would trust my mother to know her husband.”
“Whose side are you on?” Louise shrieked.
“Yours, honey, but if Cora Hunsenmeir says that fellow is Hansford, then he is.”
“How would she know? She hasn’t seen him for thirty-four years either.” Louise, anger ebbing because she knew Pearlie was telling the truth, sank into her seat.
“He’s right.” Julia bounced down next to her sister, who turned her shoulder away, still miffed for being fingered for forty.
“Juts, I think you are too easily swayed.”
“Ha.” Chessy laughed.
“Easily swayed or not, what are we going to do?”
Chester’s rich baritone surprised them. “We’re going to do what Cora wants.”
Tears glistened in Julia’s eyes. “But Chessy, I don’t want that nasty-looking man to be my father.”
“Me neither.” Louise put her arm around Julia’s shoulders, their spat instantly forgotten.
“Now, girls, we’ve got to make the best of it. Chess is right. This is up to your mother.”
“Momma can’t resist a stray. She’s got four cats—”
“Five,” Julia corrected.
“Five? When did she get five?”
“She found an abandoned kitten with a broken leg.”
“Well, you know what I’m saying. We’ve got to protect Mother from herself.” Louise sounded very mature when she said that.
“Well, practice your Christianity, then,” Pearlie told her.
A voice piped up from the top of the darkened stairs. “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
Louise shot up off the sofa, halting at the bottom of the stairs and clicking on the light. No one was at the top. “Mary, I know your voice.”
“She’s asleep,” Maizie called out.
“Shut up,” Mary whispered.
“Mary, I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“We know,” Juts called from the living room.
That made Chessy and Pearlie laugh and then the kids started giggling in Mary’s room where they’d hidden.
Louise’s pout dissolved into a chuckle. Then she threw her head back and roared.
“Mom,” Maizie called out, “I’m hungry.”
“It’s ten o’clock at night.”
“Hey, let’s have hot-fudge sundaes. I’ve got lots of peanuts at my house.” Juts would kill for ice cream.
“I’ve got peanuts,” Louise said.
“Mom—please.” Maizie’s request sounded so plaintively sweet.
“All right.”
Julia heated up the sauce, Paul scooped out the ice cream, and Mary set the table with Maizie’s help. Chester opened a fresh can of mixed nuts.
“I’m getting cheated.”
“Huh?” Paul turned to Chessy.
“My mixed nuts are just peanuts.”
“’Cause you’re living with a nutcase,” Louise pronounced. “She picks out everything but the peanuts. I hide my mixed nuts so she can’t find them.”
Chester, like an innocent, faced Julia Ellen. “Honey, do you do that?” He edged close behind her and nuzzled her neck. “I always thought I could count on you.”
“The only thing you can count on these days is your fingers.” Juts popped a huge Brazil nut in his mouth.
22
I thought he was dead.” She raised her voice. “He should be dead.”
Chester, surprised at his mother’s vehemence, neglected to hang his hat on the hat rack. This would be a short stay. He couldn’t stand his mother when she soured. He had realized years ago that he loved her but he didn’t like her.
Josephine continued, “I told you when you married that hellion she would never set foot in this house. No offspring of Hansford Hunsenmeir will ever walk through my door.” She caught her breath. “And now he’s back. You’d think he’d have sense enough to stay where he was.”
“Maybe he came home to die.”
“Fast, I hope.”
Chester had caught his mother off guard with the news. He knew she disliked the Hunsenmeirs, but this was more emotion than he’d witnessed since he announced his engagement.
“Mother, since I don’t know why you hate him I can be but so sympathetic.”
“All you need to know is he offended me. Your place is with me.”
“What did he do?”
“That’s none of your business!” she snapped.
“Whatever he did, why stay angry at Cora, Juts, and Louise?” he quite logically replied—a mistake.
“Because I feel like it! Cora Zepp threw herself at Hansford. It was disgusting.”
“That had to have been quite some time ago.” He rolled his hat brim between his thumb and forefinger.
“Not to me, it isn’t.”
“Mother”—he attempted to cajole her—“when I’m your age I hope my memory is as sharp as yours.”
“Memory is everything. It’s your whole life.”
“I guess, but haven’t you ever noticed how someone—Pop, say—remembers something one way and you remember it another?”
She stared at him with her steel-gray eyes. “Your father would forget his head if it wasn’t attached to his neck.”
As she had purposely missed the point, Chester’s mouth twitched in an involuntary smile. He put his hat back on. “I’m sorry I’ve upset you. I thought you ought to know before someone told you on the street.”
“Where are you going?” A flash of disquiet illuminated her face.
“Back to the store.” He opened the back door. “Bye, Mother.”
/>
“Chester.”
“What?”
“How did he look?”
“Uh—old. He can’t breathe too good.”
“I’ll bet Cora was shocked.”
“You might say that. He cried when he saw her.”
“I hope he chokes to death.”
“I’ll be seeing you.” Chessy shut the door behind him.
Josephine stared at the pretty tablecloth on the kitchen table, its scalloped edges embroidered in silk thread. A blue salt-and-pepper-shaker set, along with a sugar bowl, graced the middle.
She yanked at the edge of the tablecloth, sending the shakers and bowl crashing to the floor.
23
As months passed, neither Julia nor Louise would call Hansford Hunsenmeir “Father,” but they tried to be courteous. Slowly they began to see aspects of his character that had merit. For one thing, he didn’t tell them what to do.
So far he had offered no explanation for his thirty-four-year absence. Cora didn’t ask. He spoke little because breathing was difficult for him, although he perked up under Cora’s care.
The Curl ‘n’ Twirl was the place to congregate. Not that Juts or Louise could cut hair worth a damn, but Toots made up for that. What Juts and Louise could do was paint fingernails, gossip incessantly, and make people laugh. They even had a water fight while washing Lillian Yost’s hair, and Lillian, instead of fuming, filled a cup of water once her hair was done and dumped it on Julia’s head.
A big blackboard with lots of colored chalk in the wooden tray hung on one side of the wall. Paul had artistically lettered “Gossip Central” on top. Everyone could stop in and write what happened that day—things like Wheezie taking a drink out of the garden hose and getting a centipede in her mouth. Births, anniversaries, birthdays, and party dates were scribbled across the board as well as funny sayings.
Cora came in one day and wrote, “If you want a helping hand, it’s at the end of your arm.”
Louise, in a pious fit, would sometimes write down a biblical passage.
The kids gathered around because Mary and Maizie told them their mother would give them free Cokes. The Curl ‘n’ Twirl got more haircuts out of those free Cokes, which cost Louise and Juts a nickel apiece. Even the animals congregated there, thanks to the antics of Yoyo and Buster.
Older ladies continued to patronize Junior McGrail, who on Saturdays retaliated with a day of culture. That meant her son, who resembled a hairy ape, squatted in the storefront window playing the harp. It ran in the family because Junior’s brother played the harp too.
Celeste journeyed to Washington frequently and her first stop on her return was the Curl ‘n’ Twirl. She always brought Toots news of Rillma. Rillma and Celeste’s nephew, Francis, were ensconced in a small room in the State Department Building. Celeste figured her nephew was in some form of military intelligence but she didn’t know what. He didn’t volunteer much information and she didn’t press. She knew the Army and the Navy were quietly building up—one had only to drive past an Army base to see that—but the papers wrote very little about the buildup, which was, to her mind, an ominous sign.
Cora surmised that Celeste was having an affair in Washington, but she didn’t know with whom. Celeste never said a thing.
Ramelle returned in the fall but Celeste’s trips to Washington continued. Sometimes she took Ramelle with her. Cora figured sooner or later she’d find out what was going on.
The summer seemed unusual because of the squadrons of butterflies and the Orioles finishing at the bottom. Joe DiMaggio got a hit in fifty-six consecutive games, which electrified everyone, just as Whirlaway’s Triple Crown victory did, Eddie Arcaro up. The fall was unusual because of the large number of ring-necked pheasants. The cornfields were full of them.
As 1941 coasted toward winter, the Hunsenmeir sisters made a dent in their debt to Mr. Cadwalder. Extra Billy, a bit toned down—in front of Louise and Pearlie, anyway—continued to court Mary. Louise appeared somewhat mollified. Not that she didn’t hope for a suitable boy to appear, a match commensurate with her grandiose ideas of the future. She continued to pray to the Blessed Virgin Mother and to make occasional trips to Diddy Van Dusen, who was reportedly beginning to think she was the Blessed Virgin Mother.
Juts was the first one to unlock the shop door. She brewed some chicory coffee as a treat for the customers, piled up plates of cookies, cakes, and doughnuts, and wrote the date in red chalk—November 26, 1941—on Gossip Central. Since it was Wednesday she knew the shop would be wildly busy. Tomorrow was Thanksgiving and ladies wanted to look their best.
24
Mary’s eyes looked like round, red lizard eyes, the kind that let the lizard see in two directions at the same time. She collapsed in the middle barber’s chair at the Curl ‘n’ Twirl and cried even more.
The wild turkey, testimony to the taxidermist’s art, shared the front window with glazed pumpkins and squash. People waved as they walked by. The Closed sign hung in the window, as it was six-thirty. The day had been so busy that there hadn’t even been time for a coffee break. Maizie was out grocery shopping with her father, a good thing, because Louise, clean out of patience, would have knocked her flat if she’d opened her mouth during this latest set-to. It was going to be a wearisome Thanksgiving.
“I love him, Mother!” Mary sobbed anew.
Juts scrubbed out the washbowls as Louise swept the floor. Mary, immobilized by her misery, did nothing except be miserable, at which she excelled.
“Will you stop slobbering.” Wheezie thunked the back of the chair with the broom. “If I hear the word ‘love’ one more time I will cut out your tongue.”
Mary howled in anguish.
“Ah, Louise, don’t cut out her tongue. Just tape her mouth shut.” Juts’s hands sweated inside the heavy red rubber gloves. She was vain about her hands.
“Aunt Julia, I thought you were on my side.” Mary’s nose dripped along with her eyes.
“I am on your side, Mary. That’s why I have to agree with your mother—fifteen is too young to marry. You can marry Billy later.”
“When? She’ll do anything to break us up.” This was followed by a moan that could wake the dead.
“He has no prospects, no blood, no—nothing.” Louise swatted with the broom again.
“You don’t know him, Momma.”
“I don’t want to know him. You’ve let a handsome face turn your head. Marriage is more than that.” She paused, leaning on her broom. “What a pity Ramelle didn’t have a boy instead of a girl. That would be a match made in heaven.”
“All you care about is money.”
“Exactly,” Wheezie spat right back at her. “And when you grow up and have to pay your own bills it will finally sink into your thick head that I’m trying to do the best for you. A poor husband is not happiness, believe me. That love stuff wears off after a while and you’d better have more than that or you’re just another dumb woman who followed a dumb man!”
“I hate you!” Mary jumped off the chair and ran for the door.
“Mary,” Julia called after her, “come on back here. You two are like banty roosters. There’s got to be some middle ground.”
“Not with her,” Mary half squealed.
Louise bellowed back, “Listen here, little girl, if you think you can marry behind my back I can get it annulled in a heartbeat, so put that in your pipe and smoke it.”
“You don’t understand. You just don’t understand.” Mary blubbered again.
“Sit down, both of you. I’m tired of this wrangling. For Christ’s sake, you’re giving me a headache.” Juts pointed at the two chairs on the ends. She stood in front of the middle chair, her back to the counter and the mirrors. “Now, here’s how I see it and I want you both to keep your big traps shut.” She pointed at Mary. “You are fifteen years old. You can’t do a thing about your age.”
Mary butted in, “Why not, Mom does.”
“You little—” Louise leapt up to go over and sm
ack her but Juts pushed her back in her seat.
“That’s enough out of both of you. I mean it.” They settled back down like ruffled hens in their broody boxes as Juts continued. “Mary, Extra Billy will still be here when you turn sixteen in January. What’s the rush? You can marry him when you graduate from high school.”
“Julia Ellen!” Louise bellowed. “Have you lost your mind?”
“No, I have not. Louise, she’s in love. She’s going to marry this kid whether you like it or not. Now, she can either run away and scare the bejesus out of all of us or we can make the best of it and have a decent wedding here at home with enough time to plan it. She skipped a grade, so come June she’s out of high school and on her own.”
“You’re telling me to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” Louise shouted, the veins standing out on her neck.
“Mother!” Mary objected to being called a sow’s ear, although that wasn’t what her mother was saying, exactly.
“I am telling you to accept the inevitable. Hell, Louise, it might even be a good marriage.”
“Don’t make me laugh.” Louise slammed her fist on the arm of the barber’s chair.
“Will you be laughing when an out-of-wedlock baby appears?” Juts pointed a finger at her sister.
“What? What!” Louise shot out of the chair to stick her face in Mary’s face. “Are you—?”
“No!”
“Don’t you lie to me, you hussy.”
“I am not lying to you.” Mary wanted to smack her mother, but since she was pregnant her voice betrayed her.
“Julia, is she lying to me?”
Juts shrugged eloquently. She really didn’t know, but she suspected as much.
“I don’t want to be a grandmother,” Louise wailed. “I’m not old enough to be a grandmother.”
“All right, then, we’ll pass you off as Mary’s sister—her much-older sister,” Julia sarcastically replied.
“Will you shut up!” Louise, nostrils flaring, wheeled on Juts. “You’ve been feeding Mary this pap about love and sharing with a man and oh I could just puke. You don’t share with men, Mary. You don’t even think about it, my dear daughter—you tell men what to do. You organize their lives for them. You grab the paycheck out of their hand before they can spend it. You say what they want to hear. You let them think your ideas are their ideas. It’s a lot of work running a man but you have to do it because they are so goddamned dumb!” She shocked herself by using the word “goddamned.”
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