Ready, Scrap, Shoot

by Joanna Campbell Slan

  “Ja, the schedule says—” she waved a paper at me “—you come in at eight. To run this store properly—”

  “I know what the schedule says. To run this store properly, we need to act like a team. Did you prep any kits? Did you start the handouts for tomorrow’s crops? Did you divide up the supplies for tomorrow’s make-and-takes? Did you work on the May Day album? Hmm? Did you?”

  I continued, “You didn’t, did you? You don’t know how, do you? I can make a schedule. I’ve put in orders. But you know nothing about scrapbooking or papercrafting. Nothing. Let me translate for you. That’s nichts. In Spanish, it’s nada. In English, that’s zip, zilch, zero. So unless you can do it all, I suggest you put a sock in it. Because I’m doing the very best I can and my being late is NOT MY FAULT.”

  After hearing Robbie compliment me for ruining the most important friendship of my adult life, after being assaulted by Brenda Detweiler, and after riding in a police car because the officers thought I pulled a gun in a crowded restaurant, I was in no mood for lectures from a living, breathing, complaining Hummel statue dressed in a gaudy, unnatural shade of lime.

  My back hurt, my boobs felt like they’d been used as punching bags, my eyes twitched with exhaustion, and my stomach roiled. Added to those miseries was a creepy-crawly feeling, no doubt caused by vermin hitchhikers from the back seat of the patrol car.

  “Put a sock in it?” she stared at me, her goggle-eyes swimming in convex lenses.

  “Ja, Maul zu!”

  Margit’s body quivered. “You speak German?”

  “Nope. I speak Internet.” My high school chemistry teacher also taught German. When our class acted rowdy, he shook a stern finger over us and intoned “zip it” in his adopted language. To be sure of the pronunciation, I’d looked up the phrase thinking it might come in handy. And it had.

  The older woman’s body sagged, her shoulders rolled inward and an air of defeat pressed mightily on her.

  In response, I felt shame and I burst into tears. She pushed me. She made me angry. But I don’t want this sort of relationship with her. I want us to get along.

  Margit’s jaw drooped as I sobbed uncontrollably. I wanted my old life back. I wanted to repair my friendship with Mert. I wanted Brenda Detweiler and Bill Ballard out of my hair. And I wanted my mother … to go home!

  “I apologize,” I said between hiccups. “I’m not feeling well. Forgive me. I am sorry I arrived late. I was unavoidably detained.” With that, I moved past her and started collecting supplies for another May Day album.

  Fifty-one

  I phoned CALA and asked to speak to Lane Carlée. The receptionist told me she was out sick. While I felt bad for Lane, I breathed a sigh of relief because I wanted to do a little more work on the Edwina Fitzgerald album. I knew it was foolish; I’d done enough already. But I really wanted it to show off my talents since the finished product would be on display at CALA.

  I hand-colored more embellishments and while they dried, I turned my attention to the May Day album. By noon, I had the May Day background pages assembled, but I was still a long way from finished when Dodie phoned. “Sunshine, I need a break. Can you come spell me? The crowd here at Faust isn’t large, but it’s steady. I’ve been on my feet all morning.”

  “Of course. I’m on my way.” Crying had done wonders for my disposition, clearing my mood like a pelting summer rain.

  “Grab lunch for me, would you? One of those chicken pecan salads from Wendy’s? And a large ice tea. My throat.” She stopped.

  “Gladly.” I knew it was tough for her to say she was hurting.

  “Can Margit handle the store?” A note of doubt crept into Dodie’s voice.

  “You hired her. Can she?”

  Dodie chuckled. “You’re making me pay, aren’t you?”

  I told her goodbye and walked into the backroom. Margit sat behind the big desk, punching buttons and tallying up numbers on the old adding machine that Dodie refused to replace. I watched the tape spit out a total before I rapped on the doorframe. “Dodie needs me at Faust Park. You’ll have to handle the sales floor here.”

  “I—I don’t,” she caught herself. Adjusting her glasses, she stared

  at me in a manner almost accusatory. “You haven’t shown me how to run the cash register.”

  “Gee, I would have thought you’d want to learn that first thing. Dodie didn’t show you?”

  She colored. “Ja. But I …”

  For a long moment, I let her flounder. It did my heart good to see Miss Priss try to admit she didn’t know something.

  I’m not a mean person by nature. Usually, I’m the first to bend over backward until I’m doing a series of one-handed flips. But Margit had rubbed me wrong. Bama had too. Neither paid me the sort of respect I felt I deserved. Both seemed more ready to deliver criticism than give me credit. With Bama, I’d rolled over and bared my jugular vein in submission. That proved disastrous, so I decided to take a new approach. There was just one problem: I couldn’t find a good middle ground. I wanted to be assertive but not pushy, confident but not cruel, and instead I was coming off nasty.

  Watching Margit’s face crumble with embarrassment, I felt awful. Sure, she slapped down arrogance like it was a winning hand at the poker table. Sure, she hassled me about arriving late. But I didn’t want a repeat of my situation with Bama. Some of that particular hassle had been Bama’s fault, but I could accept my portion of the blame.

  “Come on. I’ll show you.”

  Margit proved a worthy student. I praised her as she mastered the most basic steps to ringing up an order. Fishing around under the drawer, I found the instruction manual. “I’ve marked the pertinent passages with a highlighter. Call me if you have questions. Or problems.”

  “Clancy comes in at three. It’s on the schedule.”

  I nodded. “I hope so. Her mother took a tumble yesterday.”

  “Is she all right? The mother?”

  “I don’t know. I tried to call Clancy last night. She didn’t answer. Clancy’s very reliable. If she couldn’t come in, she would have called by now.”

  “She is a good daughter.” Margit confirmed, more to herself than to me.

  “Yes. Clancy’s a good friend and a good worker, too. But this business with her mother, well, it’s hard.”

  “We must honor our mother and our father. The Bible tells us we must. This is one of God’s own commandments.”

  “I know.” I struggled to make sense of the law. Did honor include getting walked on? Did it mean that I should honor every one of her requests? Did it mean I should never criticize Mom or disagree with her? Never complain about her to my friends?

  Or was it enough to love her, to want the best for her, and still take care of my own needs? Was it honoring her when I told a little white lie rather than hurt her feelings or get crossways with her? Was it honor that caused me to try to win her favor? That forced me to keep in contact with her even when she hurt my feelings?

  I tried to treat my mother with respect. But did I give her “great respect and admiration” as the dictionary defined the word “honor”? I admired her for her achievements. She pursued a career back when most women were content to marry and live through their children. She raised my sisters and me almost single-handedly. But I didn’t admire her self-centeredness, her insatiable desire to hog the limelight, her unbridled need to take credit for every accomplishment that Catherine, Amanda, and I eeked out of life. Nor did I admire the way she demanded that her needs trump all of ours.

  I hated the way she had allowed our father to abuse us. When I thought back to the circumstances leading to Catherine’s departure …

  I couldn’t go there.

  Fifty-two

  As if summoned by my musings, my phone rang and I recognized the number. “Mom?”

 
“I want to go shopping.”

  I couldn’t take her. Neither could Sheila. I knew my mother-in-law was spending the entire day working with her caterer, Leon Coleman, a person clearly destined for sainthood, if his African Methodist Episcopalian Church approved the promotion. So far, Sheila had changed her entire menu three times. She demanded to see Leon’s recipes and handed him her own “improved” versions. When she tried to cut back the number of items being served, his fingers pushed his reading glasses up the bridge of his broad nose. Looking suspiciously like Morgan Freeman, he said, “Jews don’t set no skimpy tables.”

  Sheila capitulated. It might not have been the scolding. It might have been because Leon Coleman was Linnea’s second cousin. We all wanted her back. Soon. As in yesterday.

  “Mom, I can’t take you to the mall. Not this afternoon.”

  She whined like a toddler who’d tossed all his toys out of his playpen. “I’m bored. You can’t expect me to sit around all day with nothing to do.”

  “Why don’t you watch TV?”

  “I have. I’ve been watching the shopping channel. I saw a chest of drawers that I like. And two dresses. But they say there’s a problem with my credit card.”

  Uh-oh. That doesn’t sound good.

  She prattled on. “Claudia called. She misses me. She wants to see me. I want to see Claudia. When can I go home?”

  Again with the Claudia stuff. I had no idea who Claudia was, but I understood having a problem with her credit card and that was definitely not good.

  “Hang on. I’ll come pick you up.”

  “Hurry,” she moaned. “I’m not sure how long I can last.”

  Fifty-three

  On my way to Sheila’s I dialed Amanda. When she answered on the first ring, I was so shocked I couldn’t manage a proper greeting. Instead, I sat too long at a green light only to be honked at by the car behind me and its driver who glared at me as he zoomed past.

  “Hello?” my sister repeated.

  The words came out in a rush. “Don’t hang up. It’s about Mom. Is she sick? I mean, she keeps having to use the restroom. What’s up with her credit cards? Why does she keep asking for Claudia. Who’s Claudia?”

  Amanda sighed. “Hello to you, too. I don’t have much time to talk. I’m getting my nails done.”

  Wow, I thought, that sounds like pure heaven to me!

  “Look,” Amanda continued, “I honestly don’t know if Mom is sick or not. She’s always been a frequent pee-er. That’s not unusual for a woman her age.”

  “Okay,” I took that onboard. “But what’s the story with her credit card? Who’s Claudia? Mom demands to see her.”

  “That’s a long story.”

  I pulled off to one side. I knew Dodie needed her lunch. I knew Mom was waiting impatiently for me. I also knew my sister. Amanda could be the slowest talker in the world when she chose to be. Hurrying her along would not help. I needed to hang in there and let her tell the story at her own pace.

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Amanda? Amanda, are you there? Look, you don’t have to handle all this alone. You get mad at me because I don’t help. Give me a chance. Talk to me. What’s up?”

  In a halting voice, she said, “Do you remember Mrs. McMurray? The red-haired lady two houses over? I think her first name is Rena. Her daughter hired a helper by the name of Claudia Turrow. A couple of times, Claudia brought Mom books that Mrs. McMurray had finished reading and wanted to share. She also invited Mom over to visit Mrs. McMurray. Once or twice she even took both the women out for lunch.”

  That didn’t sound like a problem. In fact, it sounded rather nice. I wondered why Amanda sounded upset. I kept quiet.

  “Last month Mrs. McMurray started having serious health problems. She went to her doctor. Her cancer has come back, and the treatments aren’t working. They’ve called in hospice. Claudia’s last day is next Friday, a week from tomorrow.”

  “So this Claudia person is nice to Mom? That’s a good thing, right?”

  “It would be. But I don’t trust her. Kiki, there’s something weird about her. Makes my skin crawl to be around her.”

  Fifty-four

  I sat there for a minute and watched cars go by. “What do you think is going on?”

  “Claudia is looking for her next job. She’s been telling Mom how much she admires her. Mom’s been saying weird stuff like, ‘Claudia loves me. She’s says I’m the mother she never had.’”

  Either Claudia had been orphaned at an early age or she’d been raised by a pack of feral wolves.

  Amanda continued, “I want to talk to Mrs. McMurray’s daughter and get the straight scoop, but as you can guess, the timing isn’t right. Poor old Mrs. McMurray is on death’s doorstep.”

  “There’s more to this, isn’t there?” I could feel it.

  “Last time I visited, I noticed that a few of Mrs. McMurray’s possessions were missing. An ivory mirror and brush. A signed lithograph by Erté. A small bronze statue that I think was a Remington.”

  “Mom doesn’t have much to lose.”

  “No, but what she does have should stay in the family. Even if Mrs. McMurray gave those objects to Claudia, the woman had no business accepting them. Not when Mrs. McMurray wasn’t thinking clearly.” Amanda huffed and puffed like the Big Bad Wolf in the fairy tale. “I suspect that Claudia is latching onto Mom because she’s looking for a full-time job as a caregiver.”

  “But Mom doesn’t need full-time care. She lives with you.”

  “Not exactly. Mom has her own part of the house, her own apartment. I work all day. I have my own life. So, yes, we share the same address, but I’m not around 24/7 to babysit our mother.” Amanda sounded snippy, but I decided not to take offense.

  I’d never seen the house in Arizona, never been invited there. I guess she’d made assumptions about my life and I’d made assumptions about hers, in that ignorantly judgmental way that people do. So we’d nurtured our hurts and thought the worst of each other. Sibling rivalry doesn’t end at childhood. Instead, it smolders and flares up like a brush fire throughout your life.

  “I’m sorry if I sounded offensive,” I said sincerely. “Mom’s lucky to have you so close by.”

  “Yeah? That’s not what Claudia has convinced her. Claudia has told Mom I ignore her. She’s convinced Mom that she deserves better, that I’m a negligent, thankless child. I found a note she sent Mom suggesting that my ingratitude was sharper than a serpent’s tooth.”

  Nothing like using the Bible to divide and conquer, to sow animosity and pain. I could only imagine all the angels wincing. How did God put up with us? What a miserable lot we were.

  Amanda sighed, “Mom’s convinced she can’t live without Claudia. Wait till you hear what that woman charges for her caregiver services.” My sister named a figure easily three times my current wages.

  “And she’s not even a nurse?”

  “Nope. She’s a companion. That’s it, that’s all.”

  “That’s why you sent Mom to me?”

  “It’s one reason. Another is that I just had a physical and my blood pressure is off the charts. The doctor suggested I take a break. And yeah, I figured if Mom disappeared, she couldn’t hire Claudia. If she couldn’t hire Claudia, Claudia would move on. Problem solved.”

  Simple and elegant. I had to admire Amanda. She’d thought this through.

  “Good work, Amanda.”

  “Not so fast. We aren’t out of the woods yet. Claudia has a contract until the end of the next week, and she’s very, very sneaky. One of Mom’s friends called me to say that Claudia was pressuring her for your phone number. I’ve already made Mom’s cell phone disappear. I don’t know if you can live without yours, but you might want to be careful about answering calls from strange numbers.”

 
I thought about that. I remembered the name on my cell … Beverly Somebody. Could that have been Claudia? Or a wrong number?

  I put on my blinker, checked for oncoming traffic, and pulled back onto the street. “You were always a lot sneakier than I was. I admire that about you, leetle seester.” It was my pet name for her.

  “Thank you, big seester.”

  I grinned for the first time in several days. Despite all the stuff going wrong in my life, I felt great. I had my sister back!

  Fifty-five

  Mom stood on the curb outside Sheila’s house, chomping on the proverbial bit and raring to go. She danced around like a horse headed back to the barn.

  “I want to go to that mall. The one with the fancy stores and the piano in the center court.”

  “We’re heading somewhere much more special.” I backed out of the driveway carefully. “Put your seat belt on.”

  She needed help with that. My mom, a woman known for her physical flexibility, couldn’t twist far enough to capture the end with the buckle.

  Who is this woman? She’s not the mother I grew up with. She’s not limber, or mentally sharp. She’s more like a child than a woman in her mid-seventies.

  “This is a special event. I know how much you like history. We’re visiting a historic landmark, and there’s a butterfly house on the grounds.”

  She squinched up her mouth, pinching it tighter than a miser’s purse. “But I wanted to get a new pair of shoes. You ruined mine. You owe me a pair.”

  “Yes, but we can go to the mall tomorrow or the next day. I’m taking you to a special event that only occurs once a year and it’s this weekend.” I hesitated. Should I go over the top? I sneaked a quick glance at Mom and saw the mulish set of her face. So I added, “I’ve been bragging about you to the other vendors. They are all dying to meet you. Besides, I thought we could grab lunch.”

  She sat in the car while I grabbed my wallet and got our food. When I came back, my cell phone was sitting on the console. I didn’t recall leaving it there, but I was too hungry to worry over it and Mom began to attack her food as if she were a starving animal. This was wholly at odds with the woman who had raised me. That parent had insisted on impeccable manners.