Bed & Breakfast

by Lois Battle

  “I told you, Cam, we didn’t have to leave because of me.”

  Cam knew Reba meant it. “I just couldn’t ... I mean, the state I’m in ...”

  “Hey, I’m not on your case. You asked, I told you.”

  Cam finished off the milk, wiped her upper lip, and turned. “You’re right,” she said in a dull voice. “Leaving like that. Mama’s the one who’ll feel it most, and I wasn’t even mad at Mama. In fact, I had more loving feelings for her than I’ve had since I was a kid. The other morning, when I was in the house alone, I started to think about all she’s been through.”

  “So, she’ll forgive you,” Reba reassured, seeing her miserable expression. “She’s a mother.”

  “You mean that’s part of the job description? Because if it is I’m not going to be qualified. In fact, I’m not qualified personally, financially, or socially.”

  “But you’re still thinking about going ahead with it?”

  “I don’t know. Yesterday I thought absolutely. Today I’ve been ...” She shook her head. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this miserable. I just don’t know. ’Course, if I go through with it, Mama will have to deal with that too. Poor Mama. She’s always had to forgive everyone. I used to think that was so weak of her.”

  “Even when she forgave your father?” Seeing that would take a while to sink in, Reba went on, “Sometimes I think forgiveness is weak, you know, just a way of manipulating the wrongdoer so they’re in your debt. But I don’t think that’s the case with Josie. I think she’s just loving, maybe in a way that people like you and me can’t be.”

  “God, they were so mismatched,” Cam said. “Daddy off in the wild blue yonder, while Mama was worrying about school lunches. I always wanted to be like him. Always thought she was the one who brought him down. But lately I’ve started thinking, Mama could have made lots of men happy, but Daddy? He should never have gotten married. No woman could ever satisfy him. Ugh.” She shuddered. “Marriage is the pits.” She slumped down, folding her arms around her chest, leaning her head on the back of the seat, her chin thrust forward, her lips tight, her eyes mere slits as she stared through the windshield. Like a boxer with a glass jaw, Reba thought.

  “Listen, Cam, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. In fact, don’t feel bad. I know Josie will forgive you because I had a long talk with her this afternoon while you were sleeping.”

  Cam sat up. “You what?”

  “All right, so be pissed at me. She was worried about you so I told her—”

  “You told her!”

  “Not about the pregnancy, idiot. I just told her that you were having troubles at work and that you and Sam had broken up. I mean, the woman’s not stupid. She knew something was wrong and you weren’t telling her anything, so it seemed only fair to relieve her mind by giving her some of the facts.” Cam opened her mouth but didn’t say anything. “And don’t get on my case,” Reba warned, “because if you’d been in my place, you would’ve done the same thing. And once you think about it, I bet you’ll thank me.”

  Cam considered this. Though she didn’t like the idea of Reba and Josie talking about her, she had to admit that it gave her a sense of relief. In fact, she was downright grateful. “Okay, so you talked to her. I guess that was all right.”

  “And I also called information in Atlanta. Sam’s listed,” Reba said quickly.

  Cam’s eyes flashed. “Well, haven’t you been a busy little bee.”

  “And ...” Reba took a breath. “I talked to him.”

  “You what!”

  “So call me a buttinski! So tell me I’ve ruined our friendship!” Reba threw up her hands in exasperation. “So say you’ll never forgive me!”

  “Dammit, Reba, keep your hands on the wheel!”

  “Don’t worry about me. I only look like I’m out of control, whereas you look like you’re in control, but I know and you know you’re not.”

  Cam was seething. “So,” she got out, mimicking Reba’s voice, “ ‘I talked to Sam.’ When did you call Sam and what did you tell him?”

  “I called him when I went upstairs, ’cause I knew we’d be leaving. I told him we were at your mother’s and we’d be rolling into Atlanta sometime tomorrow.” A pause. “He sounded excited about it.” A longer pause. “So. Either you can call and tell him we’re not coming, or you can reach into that glove compartment and get out the maps to Atlanta. Now will you peel that Snickers bar for me?”

  PART Two

  Seventeen

  “HIGH OF FIFTY-THREE today and the weatherman says we’ll have clear skies throughout the holiday.” Mary Gebhardt shuffled the cards and turned to her sister-in-law, Esther, who was visiting from Cleveland and had been brought along to make a fourth for the game. “Sure beats last year. You wouldn’t have believed last year. It rained the whole damned holiday.”

  “It surely did,” Peatsy remembered, rearranging the cardigan of her magenta twin set. “And there I was with tubes jabbed into me like banderillas stuck into a bull. Lord, what a time.” She gathered up her cards, fanned them in front of her face with her usual geishalike coyness and turned to look at Josie, who was coming from the kitchen to the sun porch with a coffee carafe in one hand and a teapot in the other. “Josie, come sit. I can’t hardly win if my partner’s not paying attention.”

  “For dessert,” Josie offered, “I have rum balls, pecan sandies, or Pomona. Do you have a sweet tooth, Esther?”

  Esther, whose size suggested that she probably did, asked, “What’s Pomona?”

  “It’s mixed fruit and nuts, sort of like an old-fashioned sugarplum,” Peatsy told her. “Takes about half a day to make so nobody but Josie bothers to fix it anymore.”

  “I’d love some,” Mary sighed, reaching into her purse for her packet of Nicorette gum, “but since I’ve quit smoking I’ve gained at least ten pounds.”

  “Oh, Mary.” Peatsy shook her head. “First you slapped those nicotine patches all over your body, and you were allergic to them and swelled up like a poisoned pup, and now you’re chompin’ on this drug gum that’s going to yank out your fillings. If you weren’t such a hardheaded Yankee, you’d know you’re too old to reform.”

  “My doctor told me . . .”

  “And a year ago my doctor gave me a few days to live, then,” Peatsy laughed, “when he saw how much money he was making, he decided to stretch it out a little longer. What do doctors know?”

  “Oh, Peatsy, you’re so cynical,” Mary admonished her. “You can’t say you didn’t get the best medical care. Those doctors saved your life.”

  “Sure I got the best medical care. But how’s somebody I’ve just met gonna know more about my body than I’ve been able to figure out in ...” Able to face all harsh realities except her actual age, Peatsy stopped short, then added, “... in a lifetime. Josie, will you sit down! You see, Esther, Josie spent most of her life waiting hand and foot on her husband and children, and when they were out of the way she couldn’t get out of the habit, so she opened a bed-and-breakfast.”

  “The main reason I started taking in paying guests,” Josie explained, “was because I didn’t want to give up the house and I needed the money.” She knew most people, Peatsy included, would tell you about their sex lives before they’d tell you about their finances, and there had been a time when she’d have been embarrassed to admit she was having money troubles. But lately she’d become much less hesitant about speaking the truth on any and all subjects. “I’d built up quite a good clientele,” she told Esther, “but so much has happened in the last year that I’ve had to turn down most of my guests, and I don’t know if I have the energy to start it up again.”

  Mary nodded. “This last year has been an awful roller coaster ride for you, Josie.”

  “Like Days of Our Lives on fast forward,” Peatsy put in.

  “Josie’s mother died right after New Years,” Mary told Esther. “Then ...”

  “Oh, let’s not get into all that,” Peatsy insisted.

  “
I’m sorry to hear you lost your mother,” Esther said to Josie.

  “She didn’t lose her,” Peatsy corrected. “I hate it when people say you ‘lost’ someone—like they were a package you misplaced or something. Mawmaw died. And it was a blessed relief.”

  “It was a blessed release,” Josie said, trying to smooth things over. “My mother was very old and we’d been expecting her to go for a long time.”

  “Still ...” Esther began. Afraid that any conventional expressions of condolence would bring about another outburst from Peatsy, she smiled and looked around. “You certainly do have a beautiful house and garden here, Josie. I can see where you’d attract a lot of guests.”

  “Why, thank you,” Josie said. “I confess I am proud of it, but it’s way too big for a single person.”

  Peatsy raised her eyebrows. “Single person? Dozier’s here ’most every time I come around.”

  “Yes, he is,” Josie said blithely. “More coffee, Esther?”

  “And I predict you’ll start up with the paying guests again,” Peatsy said, “ ’cause you’ll never get out of the habit of waiting on other people.”

  “It’s not just a habit,” Josie told her, “or, if it is, it’s a habit I choose to continue.” Since serving people was so alien to Peatsy’s nature, Josie didn’t expect her to understand the special satisfaction she found in doing it.

  “Josie, sit!” Peatsy ordered again. “I can’t spend all afternoon lolling around here trying to extort pin money from you girls. I’ve got things to do, places to go, people to meet. Waring . . . that’s my son, my only child,” she informed Esther, “Waring, and his friend, Alonzo, have already arrived and they’re expecting guests from D.C.—some couple in the antique business. I guess they’ll all be scampering around my house asking cute, cryptic questions, trying to figure out what they can sell once I’ve croaked.”

  Josie said, “Peatsy, that’s not fair. Waring has never given any indication that he’s—”

  “Of course he hasn’t given any indication,” Peatsy said indignantly. “After all, I brought him up to be a gentleman. But it’s only natural for him to wonder about the division of the spoils. I know I did when my elders and betters were about to shuffle off this mortal coil. And it’s only natural for those who are about to exit to want to hold on to the final trump card. I don’t mind Waring pawing the chiffonniers and hefting the silver. He’s going to get everything in the house. What he doesn’t know”—she rearranged the cards—“is that I’ve left everything except the furnishings to the United Negro College Fund.”

  Mary was incredulous. “You have?”

  “Maybe I have, and maybe I haven’t.” Peatsy put on her Mona Lisa smile. “You all will just have to wait and see.”

  “Peatsy, you were born a tease and you’ll die a tease,” Josie chastised her. She suspected Peatsy was just tweaking Esther and Mary because they were Yankees; then again, even after a lifetime of association, it was impossible to guess what Peatsy might do.

  “But don’t you worry, Josie,” Peatsy drawled, her eyes twinkling over the top of her hand. “I’m leaving you that silver tea service you’ve always admired, and also that bronze statue you’re so fond of. Never did understand why you love that statue so. Can’t imagine why you’d identify with a bare-breasted girl carrying a torch.”

  “Imagining what other people feel has never been your strong suit,” Josie said lightly.

  Esther, not being able to determine what was serious and what was a joke, said, “I think I will try a piece of that . . . Pomona, is it? And maybe just one rum ball.”

  “You can’t have just one ball. Balls come in pairs.” Peatsy laughed. “Hey, have you heard the joke about Marilyn Monroe after she married Arthur Miller?” None had. “Miller, of course, was a Jew, and Miller’s mother served matzoh ball soup, and Marilyn said, ‘Matzoh ball soup! I’ve never had it before. What do you do with the rest of the matzoh?’ ”

  “Peatsy!” Mary pretended to be shocked.

  “Oh, come on, Mary. It’s a little late in life to be pretending we can’t tell the difference between a jock strap and a slingshot. And talking about sex . . .”

  “Were we?” Esther asked, shy but titillated.

  “A couple of weeks ago this little grandniece of mine came to see me because she’s planning to get married. We talked about her wedding plans and all, because you know and I know that staging a wedding is pretty much akin to mounting a Broadway production—but after I’d wet her down with a couple of bourbons she asked me”—Peatsy shook her head—“she asked me about orgasms. Would you believe it? I figured girls of her generation would know. But then I pulled back and thought, why should they? I mean, they’ve got their sex-education classes and they’re always yammering about it on TV, but it’s not something you learn about in a class or the TV, now is it? Turns out she was ignorant as a boiled egg. She’s gone to bed with him a few times but she didn’t feel anything like she thought she would. But she’s still crazy to marry him. Besides, the invitations have already gone out. So I told her, ‘Darlin’, maybe you’ll feel it and maybe you won’t, but if you don’t, just roll your eyes back in your head and act like you’re havin’ a little asthma attack.’ ‘But,’ she says, all indignant, ‘that would be dishonest.’ ‘Get real,’ I told her—that’s what they say these days—‘Get real.’ ‘Fakin’ it is one of the few advantages a woman has. ’Cause a man can’t hardly bear to think he can’t satisfy a woman—though most never care enough to learn how to do it, and the few who do can make your life hell.’ ”

  Josie laughed. If anyone had thought that Peatsy’s brush with death was going to reform or soften her, or, as Mary put it, “put her in touch with her spiritual side,” they’d been sadly disappointed. As soon as she’d recovered, Peatsy had made some changes in her life: she’d gone, with Waring and Alonzo in tow, on a trip to Paris. Upon returning home, she’d had her house painted and her living room furniture reupholstered and she’d bought a little dog—a miniature purebred something-or-other she’d christened Scarlett, who, true to her namesake, trotted about with eyes bright and well-groomed tail wagging but refused to be housebroken. (Josie had finally had to ask Peatsy not to bring the animal with her because it piddled on her carpets, and Peatsy had not taken too kindly to the request.) Peatsy now went to the beauty parlor not once, but twice, a week. And she was planning another trip, to London for the new theater season. Other than that . . .

  Josie held the carafe over Peatsy’s cup and asked, “More coffee?”

  “No. Would you have the makings of a vodka tonic?”

  “I’ll check.”

  “I know it’s a summer drink,” Peatsy called after her, as Josie started into the kitchen, “but who knows if I’ll be here next summer? So if you have the makings . . .”

  Josie put the carafe and teapot on the sink, filled a glass with ice, cut a wedge of lemon, and started into the dining-room liquor cabinet, but paused as she heard Mary’s voice saying, “Yes, almost a year to the day. Right here where we’re sitting now. We were in the middle of a rubber and Peatsy just collapsed, flung herself right across the table . . .” Josie moved to the window that overlooked the sun porch, standing where she could see but not be seen, as Mary continued, “I’ll never forget the look on Edna’s face and the sound of all the coins hitting the floor. Edna grabbed Peatsy’s feet and I grabbed her shoulders—or maybe it was the other way’round—in any event”—Mary started to giggle—“we struggled into the living room to lay her on the couch, arguing about whether we should move her, frightened we were going to drop her.”

  Peatsy laughed too. “I bet you did drop me and you just never admitted it.”

  “Almost,” Mary agreed. “I remember thinking you were like fine bone china and if we dropped you, you’d shatter. But Josie was marvelous. It was almost as if she were clairvoyant. She was on the phone to 911 before we even got Peatsy off the sun porch. Then Edna started fussing at me about smoking and I was on the verge o
f tears and Josie was trying to calm us down and then the emergency rescue people came in and Edna . . .” Mary stopped laughing and chewed reflectively on her gum. “Oh, poor Edna. I mean, who would have thought that you . . .”

  “Mmmm. Who would’ve thought that I’d pull through and Edna would be gone inside a couple of months. February, wasn’t it?”

  Mary nodded. “Mid-February. I remember because Cam got married in Atlanta on Valentine’s Day, and Dozier had to call Josie and tell her to come home.”

  Josie stepped back from the window. What a time it had been! She really had felt as though she’d been strapped into a roller coaster. She had no sooner lain Mawmaw to rest than she’d got a call from Cam confessing that the real reason she hadn’t attended the funeral was not, as she’d originally said, because she was stricken with a virus but because she was six weeks pregnant, had breakthrough bleeding, and been ordered to bed by her gynecologist. Josie had barely had time to recover from that news when Cam had told her that she’d quit her job, was leaving New York for Atlanta, and that she and Sam planned to be married on Valentine’s Day (“Sam’s idea. He’s a hopeless romantic”). They wanted Josie to be present (“When I say ‘immediate family’ I mean immediate. Just you.”).

  Sam had picked Josie up at the airport, striding toward her as though he already knew her, planting a kiss on her cheek, and getting right to the nub of it by saying, “Thank God you’re here. Cam’s a wreck.” She intuited that Sam was, by nature, as reticent as she, but circumstances pushed both of them into an uncharacteristic openness. On the drive to his apartment, he’d talked about Cam—laconically, and certainly not uncritically, but with such affection and humor that she knew he loved her difficult daughter almost as much as she did. She expressed fears to him that she’d withheld from Cam, but he assured her they had a doctor who specialized in late-life pregnancies and he, Sam, planned to pamper her throughout.

  After depositing her in his apartment—an expensive, prefur-nished bachelor high-rise that would have been bare as an executive office had it not been crammed with boxes of Cam’s belongings, which Reba and her friend, Cheryl, had been good enough to cart down from New York in a large U-Haul—Sam kissed both Josie and Cam good-bye and went back to work. Cam, strained and listless, but obviously happy to see her, suggested they go shopping. Cam still hadn’t found a suitable wedding outfit and she and Josie’d shopped for hours. Josie, remembering the disappointment of her own wedding costume, had suggested something flowing and full-length, but Cam, neurotically concerned that she might be “showing,” had rejected anything festive. (“If I’m a blushing bride, I’m blushing for all the wrong reasons.”) Finally, they’d selected a pale yellow silk suit with a tailored, hip-length jacket and slim skirt. Reba and Cheryl, who met them for afternoon tea, presented Cam with a set of lipstick-red underwear. “You’ve already got something old—your birth certificate—and something new—your new life in Atlanta—and something borrowed—I can’t imagine you’ll ever do anything more than borrow respectability—and you’ve had enough blues—the blues are all over for you, so red,” Reba’d explained.