Ready, Scrap, Shoot

by Joanna Campbell Slan

  So Edwina fell for a man in the service. With that in mind, the timeframe of photos of the couple made more sense to me.

  Peter’s birth occasioned another scrapbook. Formal photos were interspersed with candid shots. Evidently Peter had a sister, Elsa, a beautiful girl with the round face and almond eyes that signal Down syndrome. Elsa appeared briefly on pages, but around the age of five, she vanished.

  The thinnest album told Deanna’s life story. School pictures were the only formal photos here. When Deanna turned eleven, her grandparents bought her a Brownie camera for her birthday, or so the scrawl below a photo of Deanna with a lopsided cake explained. From that day on, boxy photos with white deckle edges dominated the pages of her album.

  I flipped through pictures of Deanna with her dog, a mixed breed of beagle and chow; Deanna fishing with Derrick; Deanna and her family standing proudly beside a young Derrick in uniform holding a medal; Deanna and her mother in their Easter finery; and Deanna with her father and brother standing over an eight-point buck.

  When I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer, I carefully stacked all the albums at the side of my bed. I fell asleep dreaming up layouts that featured four candid photos of Edwina, including the radiant picture of her as the May Day Queen. It would be a fitting, if ironic, tribute to what had clearly been the one great love of her life: CALA.

  Thirty-eight

  Wednesday, May 5

  Sheila woke me at six by rapping on my door. I stumbled out of bed and tried to remember where I was. I tripped over Gracie and apologized for stepping on her paw.

  “Yes?”

  “Today is National Take Your Mother to Work day.”

  “It is?”

  “Yes. Either you take your mother with you to work today or I will kill her.” Sheila leaned against my door jam and held her fluffy white bathrobe clutched closed. A tremor in one eyelid caused it to jump around weirdly. With a twitchy eye and no makeup, she sure didn’t look like the Sheila we all knew and feared.

  “What happened? What’d she do now?”

  She shook her head and walked into my room. “You don’t want to hear about it.”

  “Oh, yes, I do.”

  “She put Anya’s cat in the microwave.”

  “What!”

  “We had that vet appointment for Seymour’s six-month check up. I put the cat carrier on the kitchen counter. Anya and I went looking for Seymour. Your mother sang out, ‘I’ve got him,’ and by the time we made it into the kitchen, Lucia was stuffing Seymour into the microwave oven. She turned and told us, ‘That should make it easier for you to take him to the vet.’ Fortunately, Seymour is okay.”

  I groaned. The gray and white tabby had won all of our hearts. His tiny pink nose would tickle your ear as you sat watching TV. He and Gracie had become the best of buddies, and often Seymour slept curled up between the Great Dane’s big front paws.

  “She’s also been incredibly mean toward Anya. Picking on her. Finding fault with her hair, her nails, her clothes.”

  I sank down onto the bed and tried to fend off unhappy memories. Sheila joined me. “Was it like this for you when you were a kid?”

  “No cats were harmed during my childhood.”

  “She must have Alzheimer’s. Or another form of dementia. You need to get her medical records together, get her an appointment with a specialist, and have her diagnosed. Maybe there’s a program that can help.”

  “There is. Euthanasia.”

  “Right. Until then, we can’t leave her here alone. It’s too dangerous. I can’t babysit her. Today I meet with the floral designer to go over plans for how I want the tables decorated for our wedding dinner at the Ritz.”

  “Yes, of course.” I nodded. No use whining to Sheila that Amanda still refused to take my calls. I’d have to break through my sister’s wall of silence. I just wasn’t sure how.

  “I’m going to Edwina’s funeral. I can take her along. That should keep Mom occupied.”

  “Better keep your mom on a short leash. Lucia could get into plenty of mischief at the service. You’ll be there representing the store, and everyone from CALA will be attending. Your mother has to be on her best behavior.”

  Thirty-nine

  I set Mom to counting sheets of paper while I worked at our computer station scanning and enlarging the photos of Edwina Fitzgerald to display at the funeral. I also scanned Fitzgerald family photos and newspaper clippings for the memorial album. A few of them I color-corrected, and on one I repaired a small rip.

  “I knocked over my coffee,” Mom said.

  The strong smell of vanilla in the air surprised me. I swallowed hard and tried not to retch. I reached into my pocket and grabbed a Saltine. Chewing it settled my stomach.

  Sure enough, her floral polyester skirt bore a spreading stain from her vanilla latte. I hopped up from my work and raced to the work table. A stack of paper floated on a sea of brown java. I grabbed the top layer of paper and moved it, but the liquid ruined hundreds of sheets.

  I mopped up the mess and helped Mom blot her skirt. Luckily it was floral, so the coffee didn’t show.

  “Mom, remember how I asked you not to put your coffee on the table?”

  “Phoo,” she waved a hand at me. “That paper is fine. It’s still in one piece.”

  “Our customers won’t like the coffee stains. They want to buy paper in perfect condition.”

  “Who cares about them?”

  I gave up. I came up with a new task for her, dividing beads into Ziploc bags. The beads came in large containers of one thousand, but scrapbookers never needed that many, so we parcel the beads into lots of twenty. At least Mom couldn’t ruin the beads.

  Margit showed up a few minutes before nine. “I brought strudel. Plum kuchen. I cut a big piece of the strudel and gave it to your mother.”

  “That’s very kind of you. Thanks so much. I couldn’t get her to eat any breakfast, although she did have coffee. Well, a little coffee at least.”

  “You are a lucky girl to have her with you.”

  I wanted to feel lucky. But I didn’t.

  “She and I will be going to Edwina Fitzgerald’s funeral today. I’ll need to leave at two-thirty. Clancy is coming in at noon to take my place.”

  “Good. My schedule is unangetastet.”

  “Right.” I had no idea what she was saying. I believe she was telling me that she was inflexible. Sure looked that way to me. Nothing in her stance said, “Hey, let’s roll with it.”

  “Um, we had a small accident this morning. My mother spilled her coffee on a pile of paper.”

  Margit pushed her glasses up on her nose. Today she wore a lilac polyester pantsuit with a cream blouse underneath. Although neat as a pin—and I’ve never understood how pins can be tidy or messy—she seemed frozen in time, as though she once had a vibrant life and it had since passed her by, leaving her with a dated haircut and a closet full of polyester. Sad to think how the polyester—in all its ugliness—would outlast all of us. That didn’t seem fair.

  “Accidents happen. Your mother helps out, ja? So this is not important.”

  “No, it’s not. However, you might want to deduct those from our inventory and reorder. I might be able to put it in the blender and use it for our handmade paper class. I’m not sure, but I’ll try.”

  Margit appraised me thoughtfully. “That is smart. Very smart.”

  I handed her a sheet of charges for the Fitzgerald photos. “I’ve divided the charges two ways. One set is for the album that CALA commissioned, so CALA would pay for those as part of the total cost of the album. The other set covers the enlargements for the funeral. We should charge the family for the enlargements, as per Deanna, the daughter-in-law.”

  “You are very thorough. Good. I see you also included the addresses fo
r billing. Very good.”

  I handed her another sheet. “Here are the supply costs for both sets. You’ll notice that I mounted the enlargements on foam core board and added easel backs so they would stand up. I can’t quite figure out how much glue I used, but I’ve included a mention of that since it is a supply that we provided. This way we can track our exact costs versus the income made from these special projects.”

  “Ja,” Margit adjusted her spectacles to peer through the bifocal lenses. “Is that important?”

  “If we aren’t making a profit on these special jobs either we need to charge more or quit doing them. It’s easy to have the cost of supplies sneak up on us.”

  Margit studied me over the frame of her glasses. “That is right. It is good you thought of that. You can really use the paper to make that other thing?”

  “I don’t see why not. All you do is take paper and fabric and blend it, pour the mix through a screen and dry it. I’ve been dying to offer a class in papermaking, and this might give me a good excuse.”

  That’s what I said, but I really felt like saying, “Hello! I’m not as dumb or worthless as you thought. I’m actually very responsible and resourceful.” But I didn’t. I didn’t need to prove myself to Margit. Dodie was the person who couldn’t see how much I cared about this business. And I was tired of trying to prove myself to her.

  Forty

  The hours trudged by. If everything went as planned, this evening I would pick a fight with my best friend’s brother.

  I tried hard not to think about it.

  Instead, I kept my hands busy. In a weird way, Mom helped because she needed constant attention. First she spilled two baggies of beads on the floor. I crawled around on my hands and knees trying to recover them, worrying that a customer would slip and fall. Next she locked herself in the bathroom. While she carried on, yelling and banging on the door, Margit handed me a paper clip to open the lock. Last, but not least, I caught Mom feeding Gracie big hunks of strudel.

  “Mom, Great Danes have very, very delicate digestive systems. She can’t have that.”

  “She likes it!”

  “Yes, she does. But she’ll get sick.”

  “Phooey.” Mom waved a dismissive hand at me.

  I tried another tack. “Mom, here’s the real reason: I want to eat more of the strudel. Don’t give it to the dog!”

  That worked. I made Mom another cup of coffee. She, Margit, and I took a long break and finished most of the plum kuchen. (I put aside a piece for Clancy.) Before Margit left, I extracted a promise from her to bring me a copy of the recipe. “My friend Bridget from Tai Chi shared it with me,” explained Margit. “Because her kuchen is the best.”

  “Tai Chi?” I said. “You do Tai Chi?”

  “Yes,” Margit smiled. “Is very good for the mind and the body. You must come try it some time with me.”

  I promised I would. Once again, at the stroke of noon, Margit hurried out of the store. That left Mom and me. I found a lot of small jobs to keep Mom busy. She continued to have one problem after another that kept me hopping.

  Between crises, I dialed Amanda’s number. Clancy clocked in and saw what I was doing. “Why don’t you text-message your sister?”

  Duh. Why hadn’t I thought of that?

  I text-messaged Amanda about Mom putting Seymour in the microwave and added: “I think we need a medical opinion of her mental state. Please advise who her local doctor is. I need Mom’s records.”

  A few minutes later, my phone vibrated in my pocket. The screen said: “Will call you later.”

  Progress!

  Bridget’s german plum kuchen with streusel

  Plum Kuchen

  1½ C. flour

  1 tsp. baking powder

  ¾ stick butter

  ¾ C. sugar

  1 egg

  2–3 lb. Italian plums, halved

  Sugar and cinnamon to taste

  (1 T. sugar and ½ tsp. cinnamon)

  Grease a springform pan and heat oven to 350° F. Sift flour and baking powder, set aside.

  Cream butter and sugar, add egg and mix. Add the sifted flour with baking powder and mix until well combined.

  Pour into greased pan and top with plums. Sprinkle with combined sugar/cinnamon, top everything with streusel.

  Bake at 350° F for 1–1½ hours.

  Streusel

  ½ stick butter

  ¼ C. sugar

  ½ C. flour

  Mix together till crumbly.

  Note: If plums are omitted, add cinnamon to streusel.

  Forty-one

  I introduced myself and my mother to Mr. Berry, the funeral director at Killian and Berry. He led us to the viewing area, a large room set up with rows and rows of chairs.

  “An open casket,” said Mom loudly. “That’s positively barbaric.”

  “Shhh,” I warned her.

  A walnut coffin with shining brass handles took pride of place on a raised platform. Floral tributes covered most of the stage, forcing me to rearrange the sprays carefully so the photos would show.

  Mom walked right up to the casket where Edwina’s craggy profile rose from the snow white fabric like Mount Rushmore. I moved quickly, swallowing hard because the scent of lilies nearly overpowered me. Or maybe it was the sickening sweet fragrance of formaldehyde.

  I struggled not to retch.

  My mother viewed the body in the casket and offered a steady stream of yakking. “Look at her lying there! She’s just a big piece of dead meat.”

  “Please keep your voice down,” I cautioned Mom, tugging at her arm. “That’s not nice.”

  A couple dressed in black took their seats. Another woman in navy wandered along the aisles, searching for the perfect spot.

  “When I’m dead, I want you to be absolutely positive I’m dead and then close the coffin lid tight. I don’t want people parading around and staring at me. Making comments on how I look. When I can’t defend myself. That’s awful.”

  “Mom, shhhhh. Someone might overhear.” Outside the door footsteps echoed and a murmur of voices began to swell. The door opened and a clutch of folks dressed like blackbirds straggled in.

  “Was she that ugly in real life?” Mom asked Mr. Berry.

  “Ma’am,” said the unamused funeral director. “You don’t know what we had to work with.”

  “This is how she looked in real life.” I pointed to the enlarged photo of Edwina.

  “Not much to recommend her. Was she rich? Must have been, because she sure wasn’t much to look at.”

  “Um, have you seen a woman named Lane Carlée?” I asked Mr. Berry.

  “No, why?”

  “I have this album that she wanted to display,” I said as I held up the Edwina Fitzgerald memorial book. I really needed to do more work on it, but since I’d promised Lane I’d bring it, I’d kept my word. It didn’t have nearly enough pages to suit me, but at least it was a start.

  “I strongly discourage that,” said Mr. Berry. “As you can see, we have a plethora of floral tributes. We’re expecting a large crowd. If mourners congregate up front, it would be problematic.”

  Not for Edwina, I thought. She’s past all this.

  “If Ms. Carlée has a problem with me because the book isn’t on display, will you tell her what you just told me?” I asked.

  “Of course,” said Mr. Berry.

  I tucked the album into a large shoulder bag and ushered Mom to a seat at the rear of the room as more and more mourners trickled in. The crowd grew, the doors opened, and in came Derrick Roper pushing Peter in a wheelchair. Deanna walked behind them, holding tightly to the arm of a young woman I recognized from the photos as Peyton, their daughter.

  “Why didn’t that dead woman get a fa
celift? That’s what I want to know,” Mom’s whisper carried. “She’s got more skin than one of those Shar Pei dogs.”

  People turned to stare.

  “Let’s go outside. I bet they have refreshments in the hall.” I tugged Mom by the arm.

  “I’m fine. In fact, all that strudel is giving me gas.”

  I could tell. So could the people near us. I noticed a few of them fanning themselves frantically.

  “Mom, let’s go outside and mingle.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?”

  Forty-two

  “Of course, everyone noticed my talent. And my good looks. People assumed I was a beauty pageant winner.” Mom backed two unsuspecting mourners into a corner. Both women were either (a) fascinated or (b) too stunned to walk away. As she talked, Mom waved a half-eaten cookie she’d swiped from the next funeral over. Masticated crumbs fell out of her mouth and rolled down the front of her blouse. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t bear to watch any more of this. But I couldn’t stick my fingers in my ears, so I heard her say, “As you might guess, I had more than my share of admirers.”

  The service wasn’t supposed to start for another fifteen minutes. Folks paying their respects continued to arrive. I looked around for Lane Carlée but didn’t see her. While Mom prattled, I eavesdropped on other conversations.

  “We’re flat out of options. We should have made the change while we still could,” said a man in a pin-striped suit as he rubbed the back of his neck. “This couldn’t have happened at a worse time.”

  “She didn’t plan to die,” said a nervous-looking man wearing a blue tie.

  “None of us do,” said Pin-Striped Suit.

  Isn’t that the truth? I thought to myself. A one-way ticket with no ETA.

  “See these legs?” I glanced over in time to see my mother hiking her skirt. Quick as a snap, she grabbed the hand of an elderly man and guided his palm to her upper thigh. “Feel this! Hard as a rock! That’s all those years of dancing!”

  “My, my,” he said.