“It must have been terrifying,” Gwen says, putting her hand over mine. I feel the cuff of her soft green sweater touch my wrist.
On the night of the accident I had told myself I couldn’t leave until I’d caught up on paperwork. It had been very late by the time I turned out the lights and locked the doors. Downtown had been practically deserted when I finally stepped outside into the cool, crisp night.
I had noticed a small group leave Coach’s Bar three blocks up. Their distant conversation and laughter had grown quieter as they passed between the buildings until I heard the small metallic claps of their car doors shutting. I was in the middle of the lane by then, crossing to my car parallel parked in front of the Good Morning Café. I saw a white Suburban barreling up the street toward me. I had been momentarily confused because the stoplight between us was red; I’d been careful to cross according to the rules.
I realized the SUV was coming too fast to stop.
I remember lifting my heavy briefcase higher as I turned to face the Suburban head on. I knew I had no time to react, that it would be as futile as trying to outrun a sunset, though somehow time also seemed to slow sickeningly, too.
I don’t think an impact like that can really be described with any success, certainly not by me. I only know that I’d give just about anything to erase the event so that I had never felt it, never experienced it. If I had been ten seconds later or earlier finishing my paperwork and crossing Main Street, I’d still be whole. Human bodies aren’t made to withstand that sort of crushing insanity.
I fell. The SUV kept going.
I had been able to use my right arm and leg to crawl over to the sidewalk. I pressed 911 into my phone, which had been spared. I don’t remember the conversation. I passed out before the ambulance arrived.
Siler was on duty that night and arrived in a squad car. Jones came to the scene as a volunteer fireman. Taylor was still a student at the university and didn’t get the news until they knew I’d pull through. I’m often thankful for the fact that he didn’t make the long drive home not knowing.
I had recognized the driver of the SUV. I had seen the face freeze with terror as the realization of what was about to happen hit, too late to stop or change course, but not too late to understand. I have never, not for a minute, doubted that it was an accident.
Accident: such a minor word sometimes. A child wets his pants, a jar of pickles falls and shatters on a clean kitchen floor, a guy slips and lands on his ass while his friends laugh.
Accident: such an utterly devastating word sometimes.
Gwen’s hazel eyes, so big when she’s worked up about something, are made more vibrant by her sweater today. I pull my attention from them to look at my mom. Sternly. I honestly don’t know if she’s aware of who the driver was, but I don’t think she’d tell if she knew. We protect each other in our family, and it was my choice to keep quiet. Still, this feels like dangerous territory.
I try to sound casual. “Well, I’m still here, alive and well, so it must not have been that bad. Hello, Mom.” I reach over and pat her hand.
“I’m so sorry I brought it up,” Gwen says, turning red.
Apparently my face must have betrayed some of my thoughts. I’m not nearly as good at keeping everything inside as I used to be. “It’s no problem,” I say.
She leans over and hugs me. It’s a bit of an awkward embrace from our seated positions, but I don’t mind.
“Thank you for last night, Smith. You were my hero, again. I don’t know how I’ll ever make it up to you,” she says in my ear.
I think I could just stay like this forever.
After a moment she sits up and takes a reluctant look at her watch. “Oh. My dad’s probably worried I’m not there yet. I’m glad I finally caught up with you! And I’ll see you later. Okay?”
She gives my arm a pat as she passes behind my chair. “Oops. Someone dropped something,” she says as she bends down and picks up Irene’s invitation from the floor.
I had thrown away the envelope and it’s just a single-sided piece of card stock. Gwen scans it.
“It’s yours, Smith, must’ve fallen from your pocket.” She hands it to me with a sad smile. She waves to my mom. We watch her walk out in her cowboy boots, which are woefully unsuited to Michigan winters.
My mom takes the invitation from my hand and reads it. There was never any pretense regarding privacy in our home growing up. If one of her boys received a letter, my mom had every right to read it. She used to search our pockets for cigarettes or joints, and I remember her actually frisking Siler as he left the house for months after finding a pint of whiskey in his jacket.
“Irene is your physical therapist?” she asks.
“Yup.”
“But why would you go out with her when you’re in love with Gwendolyn?” she asks, staring hard at me.
“You’ve been listening to your younger sons. They also believed the Lions would make it to the Super Bowl this year. How did that work out for them?”
“No, I’ve been watching you, Smith Walker.”
I change the subject to get the upper hand. “Why were you talking about the accident, Mom?”
She fidgets with her bracelet. Her hands are age spotted and thin-skinned. She’s gotten smaller and frailer over the years, and her hair has grown white. She looks suddenly very old to me, and I have a pang of fear that life is going by too fast. I’m afraid not only of her mortality, but mine as well.
“Gwendolyn said I must have been terrified when you got hurt, and so relieved when you came out of it okay. So I told her about it from my perspective.”
“Gwen describes this sorry wreckage as ‘coming out of it okay?’” I ask, meaning for it to be self-effacing, meaning to laugh a little.
My mom leans in and waits for me to look up. “Yes. And apparently this Irene woman would agree with her.”
“Yes, Mom, I have to beat the women away. That’s the real reason I use a cane.”
She clutches my hand with a surprisingly strong grip.
“Life is short. Isn’t it?” she asks.
I look at my aging mom, and think of my dad, a good and kind man who died much too young. “Yes, it is. So?”
“So live.”
Chapter Eighteen
Armand
Stuart Bolder wears his shiner like a merit badge and smiles like he’s as innocent as a Girl Scout, but I’m not buying any of that man’s cookies! I’m only watching him because my agent Josie called and said to turn on my TV and tune in to WJKS. I wish I hadn’t, but then again, I can’t turn away.
Stuart’s got his best suit on and he’s standing in the sunshine in front of the Grand Dame like he thinks he deserves to be there.
“What a night I had last night, folks! All you WJKS viewers out there know that it has been a spectacular fall from grace for Gwendolyn Golden. She had achieved moderate name recognition as a lifestyle guru when she lived with Armand Leopold in this So Perfect house on Third Street here in Scenic.
“Since then she was revealed to be nothing more than a fake with a penchant for setting kitchen fires. But now it seems as if the public is more interested in her than ever! Her erratic behavior last night during an interview conducted in her modest Riveredge, Michigan home has many wondering if she’s lost more than her cushy So Perfect gig. Many are wondering if Gwendolyn Golden has lost her mind!”
I turn down the volume because I just can’t listen to Stuart Bolder anymore. I’m ashamed I ever sat next to him on the sofa and made fun of Gwendolyn.
The small house that had been dolled up like a mini Grand Dame by my mini-me fills the screen. It’s just a sad and empty bucket with all my savant’s pretty things poured out. It calls to mind a newly-shaved head. The crooked picture hangers on the empty walls look like nasty little nicks and cuts.
I see they brought in lights for the interview, but they’re as uneven as a teeter totter with my mama on one side and just about anyone else on the ot
her. Stuart looks like he’s taken some pointers from Barbara Walters; he’s lit so softly he may as well be an angel. But when the camera pans the room, it looks bright and cold enough for surgery. They show Gwendolyn and I can’t help but gasp. It looks like she’s there for an interrogation.
I wouldn’t have recognized her without the context, and that’s really saying something, since I’ve seen her first thing in the morning about a thousand times. I could have flipped right past this channel and never guessed the washed-out woman sitting in an old wooden chair was my So Perfect partner.
Gwendolyn’s eyes are at their slow loris-est. She looks genuinely ill in the harsh light. Much, much too thin. Don’t even get me started on the hair!
A little montage like the ones news channels toss together for each crisis, as if they’re really all the same anyway, from the human interest FIREMAN RESCUES OLD WOMAN’S CAT FROM TREE, to the grizzly train crash WILL COMMUTING EVER BE THE SAME?, to the soul-crushing mass shooting that’ll make you cry your guts out TRAGEDY STRIKES AGAIN, IS YOUR TOWN NEXT?
There must be canned software to plug the new title in. In this case it says, GWENDOLYN GOLDEN: RICHES TO RAGS. They probably select from three or four music tracks with names like “heartwarming,” “tragic,” “outrageous,” and “titillating,” before they cram video snippets into place.
Gwendolyn’s journey from beloved to bedraggled, beginning with her looking gorgeous (thanks to me) in a So Perfect cooking segment, a few seconds of her rushing with her head down behind old Chanel sunglasses into a cab at a Michigan airport, and a depressing scene of her looking like something the cat wouldn’t bother dragging into her new house.
Josie calls again right after I turn it off. She and I are in synch.
“Did you see?” she asks.
“I saw enough.”
“You could spend all day doing interviews if you like. We have lots of offers, starting with WJKS,” Josie says.
I imagine the cute wardrobe guy, and getting gussied up. Then I think of Gwendolyn all sad and sorry in that empty house. I don’t want to be on top if it means she’s on the bottom. “No thanks.”
“I agree,” Josie says decisively. “We’re in synch on that.”
See?
“I sent you an email with a link to Gwendolyn’s local paper. Read it first, then read the message I forwarded from Trey. Then talk it over with Gwendolyn if you like. Then call me.”
I make her repeat her list so I can write it down and do it all. I love Josie’s no-nonsense tone. I feel like she’s Charlie and I’m an angel. I check my list, go to my laptop, and click on the email link to today’s Riveredge Daily online.
“According to trusted sources, Gwendolyn Golden only agreed to yesterday’s interview taping in order to avoid being slapped with a lawsuit from So Perfect. So Perfect also promised to release Ms. Golden’s stock options if she participated in the interview conducted by Stuart Bolder of WJKS North Carolina. The interview began in Ms. Golden’s new home in the Hidden Pines subdivision here in Riveredge.
So Perfect has not released her options, and they have indeed filed suit against her. For good measure, So Perfect, as well as Stuart Bolder, have stated they intend to file suit against local realtor and philanthropist Smith Walker. Sources allege Walker assaulted the interviewer, and, along with his brother Taylor Walker, forcibly evicted the interview crew from Gwendolyn Golden’s home.”
I look at my list and click on the message Josie forwarded from Trey. I don’t know what to think. I decide I’d better call and talk it over with Gwendolyn.
“Hi Armand,” she says.
My heart sinks because I think she might be crying. I don’t want to picture Gwendolyn any uglier than she looked on the bits they salvaged from last night’s taping. I really don’t want to put a red nose on that image!
“Tell me all about it,” I coax.
“So you can tell the rest of the world? No thanks.”
Well, Snap! She’s making me work for it.
“Okay, I admit I was a horse’s rear last time, but today I could do twenty interviews and I’m turning them all down. I don’t want to hurt you, kid.”
“Thanks,” she whispers.
I’d rather have her swearing up a storm like she usually does, instead of simmering in a sad little stew. I try to pull her out of it quick.
“So explain to me how the interview ended. That Scar Face guy came in and rescued you? Like Beast saving Beauty from the wolves?” I love that movie.
Gwen doesn’t answer me so I try another way.
“So the guy’s name is Smith, right? Tell me about him.”
“He’s a good friend.”
“You said the two of you dated when you were kids. Was he in love with you back then?”
“I didn’t think so.”
“I bet he was. He obviously is now. My goodness is he a scary-looking character. But he’s being sued for you, after all, so be kind.”
She doesn’t laugh, even a bit.
“What do you mean he’s being sued?”
“I read about it in your local paper. If you’re never going to read the news or watch TV, you should at least Google yourself once in a while to see how you’re doing.” I honestly don’t know how she survives without a staff.
“What exactly did the newspaper say?”
“He’s going to be sued. And his brother, I think. And you are, too.”
“I know I am. I didn’t know Smith was. God damn it! He probably hates me.”
I cringe and wait for the Lord to smite her like I always do when she cusses over the line. But he doesn’t. To tell you the truth, I’m beginning to suspect He’s not the best listener.
“I don’t have any money and I don’t want Smith dragged through any more crap for me. What am I going to do?” She sounds desperate.
“Well, did you happen to read your email from Trey?”
“No. How could that help?”
“I have my own copy right here, so let me go ahead and read it to you. The heading is pretty catchy: ‘TO AVOID BEING SUED FOR BREACH OF CONTRACT.’”
“I’m already being sued. What more can he do to me?”
“Let’s see. ‘Armand Leopold and Gwendolyn Golden are both required to appear for an interview, to be conducted at the So Perfect show house on March 6. If you both comply, So Perfect will release your remaining company stock holdings immediately following the interview, and will drop all pending lawsuits against Gwendolyn Golden associated with the Riveredge incident.’”
Gwendolyn is so quiet, I’m not sure she’s still there.
“Yoo-hoo?” I ask.
“I feel like this is a nightmare and maybe I’ll wake up.”
“You and me and the Grand Dame back together again? You call that a nightmare?”
“This might be one long party for you, Armand, but my friend is in trouble just because he stood up for me…” she doesn’t finish. It sounds like she’s crying again.
I try to be the voice of reason. “Listen Gwendolyn, if you’ll do this I promise to hold your hand. I’ll make sure you look at least as good as I do, or we’ll take cyanide pills right afterward.”
Again with the not laughing. I’m afraid the poor kid has starved the laugh cells right out of her body.
“Yoo-hoo?”
“I don’t trust Trey. If I believed the lawsuit against Smith would be dropped, then I’d do it. I’d have to.”
“Smith and his brother are both being sued, kid. Not just from So Perfect, but Stuart Bolder also got in on the act.”
“What?”
“Don’t worry. Josie’s entertainment attorney can fix everything, I bet. If I can get all the lawsuits dropped, will you do the interview?”
“If you got it in writing, then I’d have to. But it would have to be the last time, ever.”
Alrighty then, my mind is racing right along. First things first: how to make Gwendolyn presentable in one sho
rt week?
“Is there a good spa in town?” I ask.
“So I can look nice as I’m led to slaughter?”
“We’re not going to settle for nice. You’ll look gorgeous, and we’ll go down together if it comes to that. I’ll find out where you need to go and make all your appointments for you. Just please remember to eat this week! I’m calling my agent to get everything in writing.”
Is it so bad to admit that I still want my mother to accept me? I think I must have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Battered Woman Syndrome, and Lost Cause Syndrome all rolled into one. Why do I care, when I know in my heart that the woman is just plain crazy?
Because she’s still my mama.
She has called several times today but I haven’t answered. I make myself pick up when she calls again.
“Hello, ma’am.”
“Gladdy Prinster showed me your wife on TV. On YouTube.”
“Gladdy Prinster again?”
“She just got elected leader of our prayer circle.”
I picture it. I try to put it back out of my mind.
“How are things?” I ask, though I know there’s never been much in my mama’s life besides church. Except now evidently YouTube.
“Fine. We were talking in circle about what it’s like to be on television. One person said she thought sometimes mothers would be in an audience, if her child was on a show.”
“Gladdy Prinster?”
“I believe so.”
“She said that, did she? Well, would you like to come to a big interview I’m going to do a week from tomorrow?” I don’t know why I ask, but I do.
“Someone said that if a mother was to go to a show that her child was on, her child would send a ticket and get her a nice hotel.”
“Gladdy Prinster might be right about that,” I say.
“She’s right about everything.”
I know that isn’t true, but I also know there’s no sense arguing the point with my mama.
“I better go now, ma’am, I see my agent is trying to call me.”
“Oh! You better answer.”
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