Women's Intuition

by Lisa Samson

  We gazed out over the road, our eyes resting on the Gunpowder River, the tributary that fed Loch Raven.

  “So …” Flannery twisted her trunk in a little Chubby Checkers imitation, her silver bracelets jangling like the wind chimes on the front porch of the restaurant. “I saw your friend Marsha yesterday at work.” She jiggled her eyebrows up and down. “You have anything you want to tell me about?”

  Huh? I don’t remember mentioning Bradley’s reemergence to Marsha. Did I say something without realizing it? “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, a certain cardiac surgeon?”

  Whew. “Oh, Flannery! For heaven’s sake! There’s nothing to tell.”

  “That’s not what I hear.”

  Marsha Fortenbaugh will die. I mean double thumbs-up and “Darktown Strutters’ Ball” are one thing, but blabbing to Flannery? We’ll, she’s stepped on holy ground there.

  Johnny Josefowski does have beautiful hands though. I failed to realize it until that moment. I mean, those are beautiful hands for someone who looks like he gets paid by the piece.

  “Look, Flannery. He’s sat next to me in church a couple of times. He comes to the new study group if he’s not in surgery or doing rounds or whatever else men of his esteem and brilliance, men I have no business attaching any sort of hope to, do all day and all night because they’re so darned devoted to the good of humanity. If you didn’t work Sunday mornings and actually came to church with me once in a great while, you’d know that.”

  There, throw it back in her lap. Get off the defensive.

  “Come off it, Mom. My church meets Saturday night.”

  “All those electric guitars.”

  Flannery waved me away with the mild disgust I deserved. “Don’t try to change the subject. You’re lucky to have a daughter who likes to be in church even if it does meet on Saturday night.”

  “The pastor’s wife has blue hair and has a pierced eyebrow.”

  Good grief, did Leslie Summerville walk in and start speaking?

  “So, tell me more about Dr. J. I can’t believe you’ve had a crush on somebody and you didn’t tell me!”

  “I don’t have a crush on him, Flannery! I’m too old for crushes.”

  “No you’re not. You’ve been widowed since you were my age—”

  And after that my eardrums closed up shop. I just gazed at Flannery in amazement as I watched her lips, her voice failing to register anything but “Waa, waa-waa, waaaah,” like Charlie Brown’s teacher.

  My gosh! Divorced since Flannery’s age! The thought abraded me like a million grains of sea salt on a bedsore the size of a dinner plate. For the first time I examined her youth and enthusiasm in contrast to my own state and realized I’d felt this age since I was Flannery’s age. When Brad rode down that driveway, my youthfulness ran after him, screaming itself hoarse as it faded from my own view.

  I’ve been middle-aged for years.

  The waitress arrived, thank You, God, amid Flannery’s chitchat.

  “I’ll take the tomato soup Florentine, please,” I told her. A nice, bloody red soup. “And a tuna sandwich.”

  “I’ll have the salad sampler,” Flannery said. “Heavy on the tuna salad.”

  We smiled into each other’s eyes, my maternal heart swelling and puffing, purring and bursting with a love so suddenly overwhelming I wanted to reach over and hold her in my arms like the baby she used to be. That smiling, chubby bear cub with sprouts of light brown hair fountaining from her tender scalp.

  Loneliness, pain, the workaday world notwithstanding, we stood together in life, enjoying one another, one mother, one daughter.

  Wow, had it all been worth it.

  I breathed in and realized I deserved to feel relieved regarding Flannery. Worries never fade completely, of course, because motherhood never ends, but I’d completed the bulk of my work, and at least I’d succeeded at something in life. That’s how I know God’s grace really exists.

  I crawled between my mint-and-yellow-floral sheets that night and focused on Prisma’s stars.

  I love my daughter so much, Lord. Thank you for giving her to me. What a lovely time we had at lunch. And supper tonight was so nice. Mother seemed … more settled than usual. When Prisma took me into her room tonight and showed me how well Days of Summer is doing under her care, I just cried. Daddy has so much to show for the life he lived. You can’t judge people by their cocktails and sour onions, can you, Lord? When I first came to You, I scorned Daddy’s society ways. But now … what have I got to show for anything? The house is gone. And I just keep hiding away in the gloom of St. Dominic’s or here at Greenway. I’m missing some kind of boat. I feel it in my heart, and I’m sorry, Lord. Show me what to do. Show me where I’m going wrong. Amen.

  If Jesus came down right now and sat on the end of my bed, He’d see me crying again, and He’d offer His sleeve, so I might lay my face on His forearm and let my tears soak into the white of His garment. It would be a river of tears. And the sleeve would never become heavy and sopping because no matter how many I cried, He could dry them with plenty of soft, dry comfort.

  Flannery

  TODAY WAS NOT A GOOD DAY. Man, it was so crowded at work, and there’s this girl Ashley, who works the register. She always gets things out of order. Latte breve decaf grande. It’s really hard to mark the cups, and she’s such a snot in the bargain. She’s so sullen and wears these shoes.

  The cool thing is, though, that I was in pretty good spirits because the day before, Saturday afternoon, Prisma and I drove out to Concorde Point Lighthouse and took pictures. She even let me take some pictures of her, which she’s never done before. Prisma has one of the most beautiful faces I’ve ever seen. Features you can’t quite get a handle on, nationality-wise, and then this glowing skin! And I’m going to do a painting of her for Christmas. But then, like, who wants a portrait of herself? It’s not like you’re going to hang your own picture on your own wall. Now if Mr. Percy were living, he’d have hung it right there in their little parlor, and she’d have hated it for years. She would have walked by it every day, shaken a finger at it, lifted her eyes, and said, “Jesus, I’m only keeping that up there for You because You said for us to think more highly of others than ourselves.”

  Maybe I’ll just keep it for myself then and enter it in a show or something. Maybe the Towsontowne Art Festival next spring.

  So we were standing there where the Susquehanna River meets the Chesapeake Bay, and the skipjack that sails out of there came in, so Prisma and I took a ride on it. The water was so beautiful, I have to say I was tempted to paint a watercolor, the Lord help me.

  A watercolor.

  Gag me.

  But the funny thing is, up comes that yuck guy that hangs out at Starbucks, the one with the Tommy jacket and the regular size pants. And all those earrings. And I’m sort of thinking “What’s a poophead like that doing on a skipjack?” But he walks right by me like he’s never taken a triple Red Eye from my hands in his life. He didn’t have the Tommy jacket on either, and he’d taken out all those earrings. Even that gag eyebrow one.

  I finally figured out he actually works on the boat, and he was very respectful to his employer and everything. Now, I’m all for people who like to express themselves and stuff, but seeing this guy looking normal was very alluring. He’s got a nice thick head of light brown hair that I’d never noticed before because of the little black weirdo hat he always has on, pulled down low on his brow like he’s planning on robbing Bank of America or something.

  So anyway, enough of that guy. But it’s kind of nice to find out that people you think are total yuck may not be complete gag.

  Prisma and I ended up having lunch at Fortino Brothers right in downtown Havre de Grace. White pizza loaded with fresh tomato slices, ricotta cheese, and broccoli. I don’t know what it is with that woman and Italian food! Guess she’s got an Italian ancestor as well. Then we walked around the antique stores and junk shops a little bit and she bought me a book about North Carol
ina.

  “That’s where I’m going to end up someday, Baby Girl.”

  “North Carolina?”

  “Yep. It’s where my roots are. Some of them at least. And I can run the foundation from there. Sinclair’s there too.”

  So I started making our plans for the Outer Banks lighthouses trip. She said she’d take a long weekend off before I go back to school. Four days with Prisma Percy is just what I need to bolster me up before I head to grad school with a bunch of overpuffed, egomaniacal artists who think what they’re doing is soooo original!

  Like Prisma and King Solomon say, “There’s nothing new under the sun.” And believe me, in my line of work, the sooner you learn that, the less angst you’ll have in the long run.

  Grandy took us all out to eat tonight, except for Mom, naturally, which was pure, medieval torture because I’m always extra conscious of my manners around her. We went to Tio Pepe’s, and everybody had a good meal but me, so I excused myself from the group before dessert and headed up to Mick O’Shea’s for some bangers and mash. It was Irish folk music night or something, and this guy that played the uilleann pipes and the tin whistle asked me if I’d like to take a walk up to the monument on his break, so I went. He really is Irish and has that accent like Liam Neeson’s. He’s a really nice guy and sort of cute, but I couldn’t help but compare his face to Tommy Boy’s face, who, by the way, came into Starbucks today and totally ignored me.

  Maybe I should dye my hair blond? Grandy loves it dark because she used to be a brunette, but I’ve got this feeling that Tommy Boy likes blondes. See, he was kind of smiling sideways at that Ashley girl, and she’s a blonde, and a real blonde too.

  She’s definitely Puce.

  And Tommy Boy? Don’t ask me why I feel this way, but he’s Golden Orange, like the middle tone of a sunset. My favorite color.

  Not that he deserves to be a pretty color like that. No way.

  He deserves to be Taupe.

  I started looking through Mom’s circus postcard collection last night before bed. She started the collection out with postcards of circus setups. Wagon trains. Circus trains. Tent raisings with the big elephants working hard.

  I got to the animal acts next. Charley the Elephant balancing on a post. El Google, the twenty-five-hundred-pound seal.

  Then there’s these Clown Girls stuck right in the middle of the page, on top of the cellophane. Really freaky ladies standing next to a clown. What is up with that?

  PRISMA

  HONEST TO PETE, I DON’T KNOW what’s gotten into the women on Greenway! All three of these Summerville girls have gone completely haywire. Mrs. Summerville making moon eyes at some man young enough to be her son who looks, and I tell you the truth, like somebody took my old brown leather pocketbook and stuck features on it. She still has no idea I know about that man Jake. Not that he’s all bad, because Baby Girl says he’s been working out there on that same farm in the valley his entire life. And you know I’m all for someone sticking with their job. But Baby Girl and I spied out there just a few days ago. I know, I know. We both have better things to do. But what’s more important than looking out after your own?

  We left the house on the pretense of going to the Triple A for a map and lodging book for North Carolina. And we did get our maps, just by way of Dulaney Valley.

  So she climbed out of my old Duster and went up to the fence where this man was doing something with a horse and a rope, not that a city girl like me would know his true intentions regarding that poor beast who deserved to be running up some rocky slope with bushes sticking out behind big boulders and all. And she leaned her arms on the top rail, real Carole Lombard–like, and watched. Meanwhile, I sat in the car trying to appear as normal as an old, toffee-colored woman like me can in a gold ’74 Duster in Dulaney Valley. The man never noticed her, but some other equestrian sort walks over and strikes up a friendly conversation. He asked what she was doing there, and she said something and pointed to the car, and he nodded, and I waved self-consciously, although by the time my hand was raised in a true gesture he’d already turned around.

  So I just scratched my head instead.

  Baby Girl ran back to the car and said, “Hand me my camera quick, Prisma. I told him I was an art student and I wanted to take some pictures for drawing horse anatomy, and he said fine!”

  So I did that, handing her the heavy old Nikkormat, same year as my Duster, she bought at a pawnshop a few days ago.

  “Prisma, remind me to draw a horse picture when we get home so I can make sure I didn’t lie!”

  So Baby Girl took pictures, and now they’re sitting at the developers waiting for pickup by none other than yours truly because, I tell you, these women around here have gone crazy! All of them interested in a man, and none of them admitting it. It’s the truth. So my baby is going away to Ocean City for three days with some old high-school friends, and Mrs. Summerville decides to throw on the mantle of the overly concerned.

  Last night at the supper table when I was scooping out the ice cream—caramel turtle fudge—and Baby Girl was pouring on the hot fudge, Mrs. Summerville officiated from her throne at the foot of the dining room table declaring all sorts of worrisome things about Ocean City like the yearly serial killers’ convention met there in July, and wouldn’t Flannery rather go up to Maine, or even down to Boca Raton?

  That woman is out of touch! Imagine a group of youngsters heading to either of those places. But Baby Girl just kissed her cheek and said something like, “Grandy, you crack me up!”

  So I’m left to pick up the film! Now what will Mrs. Summerville say if she discovers a roll of pictures of that man she’s making a fool of herself over? That’s something I don’t want to think about. Asil suggested we hide them outside in the greenhouse or upstairs in his rooms over the garage, but it’s too risky. The glove box of the Duster seems up to the task because Leslie Strawbridge Summerville wouldn’t be caught dead in my car.

  She goes riding almost every weekday now. Baking in that sun, even with those gaucho hats she wears, is a foolproof recipe for wrinkling that “magnolia skin” down to a walnut. Ha! If I weren’t a Christian woman, that thought might be enjoyable. Oh well, I’ve got to be truthful; it already is enjoyable.

  This one crept up on me, you know. Didn’t see it coming at all. And a cowboy type at that. Where will this one end? The Lord only knows!

  Let’s just pray he never asks her out on a date, because, honest to Pete, if that happens, I may roll my eyes so far back into my head they’ll never come down again.

  That boy from our boat trip asked out Baby Girl. He still frequents Starbucks regularly and has always ignored her until yesterday. Then up out of the blue he saunters over and says, “How about dinner and a movie?”

  “Miss Prisma,” she told me later, “he just didn’t seem like the dinner and a movie type to me at all.”

  “What type is he then?”

  “Paintball and a big bucket of fries.”

  That child.

  Today I am thankful for my son’s fine marriage to Caprice. Poor baby is throwing up something awful with this pregnancy. I’m thankful for a cast-iron stomach and the spicy ribs I made Lark and me tonight! I’ll get some color back in those cheeks yet. I hit the right chemical stock on the Dow Jones this month, and the tomatoes I found down at Lexington Market this afternoon … picture perfect! Got a card from my cousin in Chicago. Says the family out there is fine. They’re the Italian branch. Praise God for family.

  Lark

  “HELLO?”

  “Is this that prayer line?”

  “Yes. Can I help you?”

  “I called about a year ago. Cancer.”

  Oh man. I could kick myself! My record book burned down with the house.

  “Do you remember me?” the female voice asked.

  “I’m sorry. All my records were destroyed in a fire a last month.”

  “Yeah, I guess you get a lot of calls, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do.”
<
br />   “Do you want me to refresh your memory?”

  “Please.”

  I adjusted my headset, sat down on the couch in my den, and rested my heels on the coffee table. It wasn’t hard to remember her case as she went on about breast cancer and the fears of leaving three kids behind. Our personalities clicked last year, and we ended up talking about all sorts of things.

  “I wanted you to know I made it through.”

  “Wonderful! I wondered so many times what happened.”

  “Yep. After I called you, it gave me the guts to ask my family and my friends to pray too.”

  “That’s really good news. Do you have anything else you want me to pray for?”

  “Do you pray for the littler things too?”

  “Absolutely. I’ve prayed for warts before.”

  She laughed. “No kidding?”

  “I kid you not.”

  “Wow. This a great thing you’re doing.”

  “Call anytime. It’s why I’m here.”

  “Okay. Well, if you could remember my daughter’s spelling test tomorrow, I’d appreciate it. She’s a little slow, it seems. Nothing major. Just has to work for it.”

  I sent up a prayer right away. “You know, some people just take longer to bloom than others.”

  “That’s the truth. But prayer never hurts, right?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Do you have kids?”

  “A daughter.”

  “Will you tell me a little bit about her?”

  Flannery

  GET THIS! GAG GUY’S NAME IS QUIGLEY SMITH!

  Quigley Smith!

  I almost wet my pants when he tells me.

  More surprising is the fact that I didn’t even know his name when I accepted his invitation to dinner! He comes up to the bar at Starbucks as I finish my shift, looking freshly showered and shaved and smelling like Old Spice. Hey, the guy does work on a ship. He gives me this sort of lopsided grin. “I’m sorry, but I never quite got your name.”