The Ladies Farm

by Viqui Litman

  “Somewhat. Mrs. Pumphries rescheduled. I think Mrs. Myerhoff got her to change her day so they could come together.”

  “Your customers scared of people dying?”

  “Either that or fat women who get hysterical over people dying.”

  “Well, that was probably pretty scary,” Della conceded.

  She listened to Rita nuzzling the black dog, pictured Rita’s slick black cap of hair against the dog’s neglected coat.

  “You need a good comb-out,” Rita was telling the animal in the tones she’d use to console a child. “You need a wash and a style.” Then her voice grew serious. “You all are going to buy out those kids, aren’t you?”

  “I guess.” Della roused herself, opened her eyes enough to squint toward the river. “If they’ll sell. If Barbara doesn’t outbid us.”

  “She wouldn’t do that, would she?” Rita had settled onto the grass.

  “You’re going to get eaten by ants,” Della warned. “Who knows what she’ll do?”

  “You think the kids know about Barbara owning half?”

  “Hugh Junior mentioned it when Kat talked to him. Evidently, Pauline was so upset, she called him about it.” Della closed her eyes again.

  “Did he sound surprised?”

  “Kat talked to him, I didn’t. And it doesn’t matter how he sounded. What matters is whether he’d sell to us before he sells to Barbara. And,” she anticipated Rita’s next question, “I have no idea whether he’ll do that or not. Or if she’d even offer.”

  “Why’s she here anyway?” Rita asked. “You really think she’s just so impressed with the way we live she can’t imagine living anywhere else?”

  Della weighed the possibilities and imagined herself confiding in a breezy, chatty way that the three women Barbara might most want to kill were living here. The potential efficiencies were astronomical. Instead, she shrugged. “Who knows?”

  Rita shifted gears. “Do you need any money?”

  Della stared at Rita. “Are you offering to lend it?”

  “Well, I’ve got some saved up!” Rita declared. “I’m not totally irresponsible.”

  Della stared, shook her head, then settled back in her chair and closed her eyes. “I don’t know. I’m thinking, if this works the way we plan, the kids’ll take back a mortgage and let us pay them out.”

  “And if Barbara sells out?”

  “Maybe the same. Who knows?” Della concentrated on sounding noncommittal. “Have you thought about buying in?”

  “It’s a little soon,” Rita said.

  “It’s a little soon for all of us.”

  “I just meant, you know, you and Kat have known each other all along, and you all were the ones who developed the thing. I just do hair.”

  “Well, think about it,” Della advised. “Kat and I have, and if you’re interested, this would be your chance. Especially if Barbara sells.”

  Della looked down to watch Rita and Flops getting comfortable together, Rita leaning against one leg of the chair, Flops lying down with her head on Rita’s thigh.

  “You’re both going to get bit,” Della said again.

  “You think Barbara’ll sell?” Rita ignored the perils of ant attacks. “Or that Kat’ll drive her out?”

  “Kat’s dug in. If the kids agree, and Kat and I buy Pauline’s share, I’m betting Barbara doesn’t last a month.” Della considered. Unless, she continued silently, she wants to finish off Kat and me. “Without Pauline here, why would she want to stay? She’s not close to any of us.”

  “I didn’t get the feeling she was that close to Pauline,” Rita observed.

  Della concentrated on keeping her eyes closed and her mouth shut. But she did wish someone would explain why Barbara would want to move in with the widow of the man with whom she once had sex. Even once, long ago. After all, Della thought, I wouldn’t move in with Barbara.

  Della sighed, which Rita must have heard as a response, because she continued her inventory. “And Kat doesn’t take to her at all. Barbara is a good cook, though.”

  Della didn’t want to discuss Barbara’s cooking, or her unrelenting cheerfulness about helping make up the rooms and running the laundry. “But she’s not much good at CPR,” Della countered.

  “I kind of doubt anyone could have saved Pauline,” Rita said. “You heard the doctor: It was a massive heart attack.”

  “Yeah.” Della kept her eyes closed.

  “So when are those kids coming … Melissa and Hugh Junior?”

  “Friday. I thought you talked with them at the cemetery.”

  “Friday? No, Kat talked to them.”

  Della looked down at Rita’s head. “So where were you when I had to wrestle Barbara over to the car?”

  Rita tilted her head back to look up at Della. “I guess we were just in the crowd somewhere.” She grinned. “Out of earshot, thank the Lord.”

  Della considered sharing Barbara’s confession, but dismissed the chance. “I can’t believe you didn’t hear her moaning,” Della muttered.

  “Her what?”

  “Moaning. Moaning. You know: Oh, Pauline. I killed Pauline.” Della regarded Rita more carefully. “I can’t believe you didn’t hear her, everybody there heard her. Where were you?”

  Rita looked a little sheepish, and turned her attention to Flops. “Did you hear her, Flops?” she asked the dog, scratching her head. “Huh? Did you hear big, bad Barbara?”

  Give it up, Della told herself. “We’ve got to stop talking about her,” Della said, more to herself than to Rita. “She could be right behind us.”

  “Well, I didn’t say anything bad, you and Kat are the ones complaining. Actually, I like her.”

  “You won’t when you know her better. She’s just one of those stupid, hysterical women who can’t think of anyone except themselves. She couldn’t even grieve for Pauline without making it about herself.”

  “Well,” said Rita, “we all express grief in our own way.” The grin on her face said it all.

  “You were screwing, weren’t you? At the cemetery?” Della couldn’t believe she was asking, let alone that Rita was nodding that sheepish nod like a kid confessing to a particularly bad fart. “During the burial?”

  “I guess,” said Rita. “We weren’t really watching what was going on there.”

  “On someone’s grave?” Della couldn’t prevent her rising intonation.

  “Of course not! How tacky!”

  Della couldn’t believe the indignation, but Rita rushed right into the justifying details.

  “I just felt faint, and you saw how flat and plain that cemetery was, no benches or anything, and there were no chairs left. So Dave walked me over to the maintenance shed. And we went around back where it was shady. And I was leaning up against that shed, but Dave thought I should sit. So he takes off his coat—that’s his only suit, mind you—and puts it on the ground for me. So I sat down, and he sat down next to me and held me and, next thing I know, we’re just going at it.”

  “Weren’t you afraid someone would see you?”

  “Nah. All the crew was at the grave. And there wasn’t anything behind that shed except the fence and then the railroad tracks. And, you know something?” Rita cocked her head and looked up at Della.

  “I don’t think I know anything.”

  “It really did make me feel better. I mean, about Pauline and all. Like she was there, maybe, and was glad to see that life goes on.”

  “You felt she was there?”

  “Well, not there exactly, but like, if she was, she’d be glad.”

  “Glad you were fucking at her funeral?”

  “Oh, come off it. Are you telling me you never had sex anywhere but in your bed?”

  “I’m telling you I never had sex in a cemetery during my friend’s funeral.” She gave a laugh. “And I certainly never tried to justify it by saying my friend would like it.”

  Rita didn’t take offense, but she did press her point. “I didn’t say like it, exactly. I mean, I th
ink she’d be glad to know that someone cares about me.” Her girlish smile was too much for Della.

  “Cares about you? Cares about getting his, I would say. That choirboy!”

  “Now, you leave off Dave, he was just trying to make me feel better. He is an ex-husband, and he does know me pretty well.”

  Della laughed. “I’m sorry,” she said, but she kept laughing. “Oh, Rita!” She reached down toward her friend and put a hand on her shoulder. Just touching Rita started tears flowing, but she still didn’t stop laughing. “You’re right,” she said beneath her streaming tears. “Pauline would be glad for you. And for just the reason you said: that someone cares for you.” Hugh Jr. and Melissa had hated Sydon House because it had forced them out of the Fort Worth suburbs and turned them into hicks. Even though Pauline had driven them to school in Fort Worth every day, they resented the distance that stretched between their friends and themselves.

  “They treat us like servants,” Della recalled Pauline mimicking Melissa in her complaints about running a bed and breakfast. “They expect us to clean up after them!”

  Pauline’s decision to stay on at the Ladies Farm after Hugh’s death had stunned them, Pauline once told her, but Della thought the kids had come to some understanding of it. Della was sure that Melissa and Hugh Jr. couldn’t imagine their mother any other place, any more than she or Kat could.

  Hugh Jr. brought his wife, Carrie, with him, and Melissa had her two boys, whose names Della forgot but who were captivated by Nancy’s offer to take them down to the river. “I’ll use the rowboat,” she promised, then disappeared with them.

  They started in the office, with Kat handing over Pauline’s ledgers, as well as the printout of the financials for the Ladies Farm.

  “We’ll have to do an audit,” Hugh Jr. said as he accepted the binder Kat had assembled.

  “You should,” Kat agreed. She glanced at Della. “Particularly because we’d like you to set a price on the place.”

  Hugh Jr. smiled. “Our thoughts exactly.” He motioned to Melissa and Carrie, who sat on either side of him on the sagging sofa. Barbara occupied the typist’s chair and Kat the straight-back one next to Pauline’s desk. Rather than take Pauline’s chair, Rita and Della had chosen to stand, leaning against the door jamb for support.

  “What about you, Aunt Barbara?” Melissa asked.

  Della held her breath.

  The color rose in Barbara’s face. “Me?” She seemed startled that they had noticed her. “Well, I want to stay on, of course. That is,” she glanced quickly at Della, “if I’m still welcome.”

  Della saw Kat start to reply, but Melissa spoke—gushed—first. “Well, I know that’s what mother wanted, Aunt Barbara. You belong here.”

  Hugh Jr. cleared his throat. “I guess what we were interested in, actually, is more the business aspect of this.” He smiled gently at Barbara. “You understand. As executor, in an official capacity, I have a responsibility to the estate. So the real question is, were you interested in purchasing the remaining interest in this property? The real estate?”

  “Purchase the remaining—” Her forehead furrowed and her lips pursed with the thought.

  That little bastard! Della thought. He wants her to bid up the price! She caught Kat’s warning glance and bit back her anger. We should have talked to Barbara first, she admonished herself.

  Barbara finally figured it out and shook her head slowly, enabling Della to release a long, slow breath. Tears filled Barbara’s eyes. “Your mother was such a wonderful woman. I’m sure she wanted these ladies to have the rest of the farm.” She turned back to Della. “Just being allowed to live here brings me more happiness than I could ever have hoped for now.”

  Della smiled wanly. She means happiness from irritating Kat and me to death.

  Hugh Jr. was talking about appraisals and letters of appointment, and Kat was making notes and nodding as if her future were not at stake.

  “Well,” Kat concluded briskly. “We’ll get together after you’ve had time to look at the books. Let’s take a look at your mother’s things.”

  They all tromped upstairs, Kat hanging back to grab Della by the arm. “What the hell’s the matter with you?” she whispered fiercely under the sound of feet clumping on the uncarpeted stairs.

  Della shook her head. “I’m imagining you running her off.”

  “Get a grip,” came the instruction. “Lose that loopy grin and stay with her and make sure she doesn’t change her mind.” Kat gave Della a little push up the stairs.

  They crowded into Pauline’s room, the only suite in the old part of the house, with a small sitting room and windows to the east, next to the bedroom that overlooked the street. These rooms in the older part of the house were small, and there was no bath in the bedroom. The ladies of the Ladies Farm shared two baths down the hall in the new part, where the walls were thin, the rooms were commodious, and every window looked out over the Nolan.

  Della stood in the center of the room with the others, looking at the executive-stripe wall covering that Pauline had designed in the eighties and never replaced. Finally, Carrie approached the mahogany wardrobe as if to open it, then veered at the last minute to the small bookcase. “Look,” she said, leaning over, “these are all books your mother covered in fabric.”

  “Journals,” said Hugh Jr., following her. He turned to Kat. “We brought some cartons.…”

  Kat nodded. “Let us go get them for you. We’ve been saving them, too.” With that they dispersed: Kat, Rita, Barbara, and Della hurrying downstairs to get boxes from Hugh’s van, while Hugh Jr., Carrie, and Melissa began sorting through Pauline’s things.

  “Leave them,” Kat said on the stairs, after the third trip. She checked her watch. “We’ll fix lunch for them in the kitchen after the guests have eaten.”

  From the river, they could hear an occasional raised voice, and Della supposed Nancy was helping Melissa’s boys spot fish. “We need to make up rooms,” Della said. “Since Nancy managed to snag river duty.”

  “I’ll get the rooms,” Barbara said, and the others jumped. Kat looked hard at Della, and Della gulped. “There’s no need for you to do all that by yourself,” Della said. “We can do them together.”

  Della’s offer did not surprise Barbara. No one at the Ladies Farm trusted her competence, and Barbara reminded herself once again to give them all more time. She followed Della to the second-floor utility room and helped her move the cart into the hallway. “I’ll start the bath,” Della said. Barbara nodded agreement and, letting the cart pass, pulled the vacuum cleaner from its corner, and followed.

  The ladies had a system: One person hit the bathroom while the other did the beds and straightened the room. Nancy had explained it the day after Pauline died, when everything was still in an uproar and no one seemed to remember that there was a business to run. The straightener, Nancy had shown Barbara, always finished first and went on to the next room, where she started the bathroom and the other eventually came in and did the beds.

  In the first room, occupied by a married couple on a trek out to California, Barbara and Della worked steadily and with little conversation, but Barbara’s mind was shrieking questions. Everything had changed now. Now it was Della and Kat who controlled her future. Maybe she should just tell them, Barbara thought, stripping the sheets from the king-size mattress and bundling them into the sack that hung from the cart handle. But what would she say?

  How could she explain that she had no interest in buying the Ladies Farm, that she just needed a place to live? Maybe she should just buy the place and let Kat and Della keep their money. They’d get it back eventually. But they’d hate me, Barbara fretted, dropping a pillow into a pillowcase and smoothing it down at the head of the bed. And I want to live with them.

  Barbara switched on the vacuum cleaner, which roared over the sloshing sounds Della was making in the bathroom. The way Barbara remembered it, Della’s lack of cleaning skills had been an ongoing joke, and it was odd to thi
nk of her swabbing toilets and scrubbing bath tile. Barbara herself got a lot of satisfaction from cleaning things. Clearing the carpet of lint and litter as she ran the vacuum cleaner over it gave her a sense of accomplishment. I guess, she thought, Della had a lot of career accomplishments. She didn’t need to clean.

  There were five guests: the married couple, two women in a double, and one woman in the single. The new crafts teacher had them out in the barn painting flower pots. The teacher had agreed to hold the pots for the married couple, who would pick them up on their return trip home to Baton Rouge.

  After she finished vacuuming the third room, the single (which could actually sleep two since it had a double bed, but only a small dresser and a stall shower), Barbara stepped into the bathroom to see how Della was doing. “I’ll get the commode,” she said.

  “Be my guest,” replied Della, who was working at the shower stall. Nancy, who sometimes cleaned all six rooms herself, missed a lot, and the ladies made it a point of pride to correct her deficiencies on the days they did the cleaning.

  Barbara squirted cleaner into the bowl and reached for the longhandled brush. “I’m sorry I made a spectacle of myself at the funeral.”

  “What?” Della looked up from where she was bent over the floor of the shower stall. Her yellow-gloved hand held the soapy sponge in midair.

  “I said, I’m sorry I made a spectacle at the funeral.”

  “Forget it,” Della said, dipping her sponge in the running water and rinsing off the newly scrubbed stall.

  “I don’t know what came over me,” Barbara said, still facing the commode. She swished the brush around the bowl and squinted into it to make sure it was getting clean. Then she turned to look at Della. “I’ve never talked about it, but suddenly, right then, I had to tell someone.” Della’s back was still to her, but the sponge had stopped moving. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate … how grateful I am …”

  “Look,” said Della, standing abruptly and turning the faucet knobs off with a jerk, “It’s okay. I understand. And, I promise you I won’t tell anyone.” Barbara noticed that Della, as she finished speaking, put her hand to the small of her back and grimaced a little.