Hot Fudge Sundae Blues

by Bev Marshall

  I wasn’t mad at her. I sort of loved her already. But I was mad at Papaw.We’d buried Grandma only six months back, and it looked to me like he had already forgotten her, wiped her out like chalk letters on a blackboard. He was moving Miss Louise into their big bedroom where Grandma’s clothes were still hanging in the closet. Dating Miss Louise was one thing; moving her into Grandma’s house was another. I didn’t smile, but I said, “Sure, Miss Louise, we’re friends. I don’t know what we’d have done without you after Mama came home from the hospital.” Above her head, I could see Papaw peeling the cellophane off his King Edward, ignoring me, like I was some bellowing calf he’d have to feed eventually. “And Mama’s grateful, too. I guess she’ll be surprised when she hears she’s got a stepmother now.”

  That got Papaw’s attention. He licked his cigar to soften it before he said, “Well, Frieda’s gonna have to accept the fact, surprised or not.”

  I wasn’t so sure she did have to, but I kept my mouth shut for once. I dreaded finding out who was right about her reaction. Either way I wasn’t going to be happy.

  Miss Louise wanted to go home and I’m sure Papaw did, too, so he could get on with the honeymooning, but they knew I’d tell Mama their news, and they were determined to deliver the glad tidings themselves.

  We ate hamburgers from the Tastee-Freez that Papaw picked up since Miss Louise couldn’t find anything worth cooking in our house, and after we ate, she suggested we play poker, but we didn’t own any cards. Mama hated games and I had no one to play with, so we’d never bought a deck. I wished we had as the hours we waited seemed like days, and Ed Sullivan didn’t have anybody I was interested in on his big sheeow.

  Around nine o’clock when we heard Mervin’s Cadillac, all three of us jumped up like we were fifty-yard-dash sprinters who’d been waiting for the starting signal. We stood crowded together at the door, waiting for Mama to come in. In the large square of porch light cast across the front lawn, we watched her and Mervin get out of the Caddy Mervin had parked behind Miss Louise’s Corvette. As they approached it, suddenly, Papaw sprang out the door, ran down the drive, and met them as they leaned down to look in the Corvette’s passenger window. Miss Louise shrank back against me, and then I knew. She was scared of what Mama was going to say about her new stepmother.

  After showing Mama and Mervin every little thing on the car (he cranked it up and even tooted the horn for them as though a Corvette’s sound was special), Papaw pointed toward our heads framed in the panels of the kitchen window where Miss Louise and I had gone for a better view. I watched Papaw’s cigar waving faster in his mouth as he told them the news. I knew this because Mervin stuck out his hand and clapped him on the back as they shook hands like Papaw had won the Indy 500. Mama stood still as the birdbath in the backyard. She didn’t wave when Mervin drove off, tooting his ordinary horn.

  Papaw said something to her, and then Mama rushed in and hugged Miss Louise. “It’s just wonderful,” she said without a slur in her voice. Although I could smell whiskey and smoke around her, she was only a little high, not dead drunk as I had feared. “Love is in the air, love is everywhere,” Mama was practically singing the words. She hugged Papaw next. “I’m so happy for you, Pop.” She obviously didn’t care one bit that Papaw had jilted Grandma, and the three of them stood in a little circle with beaming smiles all round. When Miss Louise showed Mama her simple gold band, Mama acted like she was admiring a marquise diamond Richard Burton would buy for Liz.

  Everyone was talking at once and my mind drifted away from them. I wouldn’t be going to live with Papaw after all; I was stuck with Mama unless she went to jail, and then Papaw would probably sign me over to live in foster care or maybe the home for orphans in Jackson. I was about to go to my room, unable to stomach watching the happy little three-some any longer, when Mama looked over at me.“Layla Jay. Come here. I’ve got news to tell, too.”

  I froze. “What?”

  Mama ignored the scowl that must have appeared on my face as I stood waiting for her answer. “Love is in the air, just like the song says. Tonight Mervin told me that he loves me, and he wants to take me on a trip.” Mama’s hair swung on her shoulders as she turned back to Papaw and Miss Louise.“Of course, we can’t go until we get all this manslaughter mess cleared up, but after it’s all over, and he’s sure I’ll get off, then he wants to drive all the way down Florida to Key West. He says a lot of artists like him live there and we can watch the sun go down in the water, snorkel and see colored fish, dance beneath the stars. It’ll be so romantic.”

  Maybe I hadn’t been paying attention, but I was pretty sure she said “take me,” not us. Papaw and Miss Louise were going west, Mama and Mervin south and east, and I was the center of the compass that was stuck in place, going nowhere. Mervin had invited me, hadn’t he? So it was Mama who didn’t want her baby bird chirping in her love nest.

  “How exciting!” Miss Louise said. “We’re going to take our honeymoon at the same time, going all the way to California and stopping at the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas on the way.” No one had given a thought as to what would happen to me, where I’d be, while everyone was on their dream trips.

  I backed down the hall toward my room as they all babbled on about their plans. Mama hadn’t said she loved Mervin, only that he loved her, but I thought that maybe she did. She hadn’t gotten drunk and stayed out late like she usually did.That might be a sign. And if Mama did love him, she’d marry him, and then I’d be getting a new stepfather besides a new stepgrandmother. I was just too too lucky. I kicked my bedroom door shut.

  I stood with my back against the door wondering if they’d even notice I had vanished. I took the photo of Daddy to my desk and sat staring at him, willing him to speak to me. If only I could have heard his real voice just once, to know the tone and timbre he would have used when he said “I love you, Layla Jay.”

  After a while, the excited voices died away and soon I heard Papaw and Miss Louise at the door.“We’re leaving,” Papaw said.“Come give us a kiss good night.”

  “I’m not dressed,” I said. “Bye.”

  “Bye, sweetie.You come out to visit soon,” Miss Louise said.

  “Okay,” I responded, and then, “Don’t hold your breath,” too softly for her to hear.

  Mama changed into a long mint green nightgown before she opened my door without knocking. I was still sitting at the desk, and silently she walked over and lifted the picture of Daddy, staring at it for a long moment before she said,“I wish you could have known him.” She traced his grainy face with her forefinger.“Every time I’m with Mervin, he reminds me more and more of your daddy. Something in their way of gesturing when they speak. And their hands are alike, long tapered fingers. Artist’s or pianist’s hands.” She handed me the photograph, twirled around and fell onto her back across my bed. “Oh, Layla Jay, I think Mervin is the one I’ve been waiting all this time to give my heart to.”

  I couldn’t help it; I was so mad and hurt the words just popped out. “Well, you’ve given just about everything else to half the men in Zebulon,” I spat at her.

  She sat up. Her jaw dropped down. I could see bewilderment in her eyes. “Layla Jay! What a thing to say to your mother.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  She stared hard into my eyes, and then lowered her voice. “What’s the matter? You’re starting to sound like Mama. Judging me like that. Next thing you know you’ll be quoting scripture, too.”

  “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” I scooted my chair closer to the bed and leaned forward with my palms on my bare knees. “Or how about thou shalt not kill.”

  Mama’s head snapped back like I’d slapped her. The color drained from her face. “Oh, my God,” she said. “What’s happened to you? You know I didn’t mean to kill Wallace. And the only reason it happened was that I was trying to protect you. I saved you.”

  “You were just mad. Jealous maybe th
at Wallace wanted me.”

  Mama opened her mouth a couple of times but no words came out. I lowered my eyes to her arm where the scar rose red and ugly against her white skin. And then all my anger left. It had felt so good to hurt her, but now I felt only pain. The vision of her calling all those mothers on the night before my birthday came to me, and then I saw us eating hot fudge sundaes together, remembered us in The Ideal Shop dressing room, her hugging me and saying how beautiful I was. And there were the marks of love she’d wear until the day she left the earth. She wasn’t anything like June’s mother, but she had been a good mother at least some of the time.“I’m sorry, Mama,” I said, looking down at the scarred oak floor. “I didn’t mean it.”

  When I dragged my eyes up, Mama patted the bed beside her. “Come here.We need to talk.”

  A whiff of whiskey and tobacco lingered on her body, but there was also a hint of sweetness from her Elizabeth Arden perfume. “I shouldn’t have said those things,” I mumbled. “I didn’t mean them,” I said again.

  “No, no, it’s all right for you to tell me how you feel. I want you to. I know I’ve made a lot of mistakes and I haven’t been such a great mother to you this past year. I feel terrible about what’s happened, what happened between you and Wallace. I brought him into this house, and it’s my fault, all mine, that you’ve suffered so much.You can’t know how guilty I feel, not for killing Wallace, but for hurting you, making your life hell these past years.”

  “I guess I just don’t understand you,” I whispered. “Sometimes I think you don’t even love me, and then you do something wonderful that proves you do. It’s hard to know how to feel about you from one day to the next.” I knotted my hands together, twisting my fingers back and forth until they ached.“You just confuse me all the time and it makes me crazy.”

  Mama gave me a half-smile.“You know what? Your grandma used to say almost those exact words to me back when I was a teenager.You’re a lot like your grandma in so many ways, and I guess I haven’t changed much since I was your age.”

  “Why didn’t you try harder to get along with Grandma? It seemed like you went out of your way to aggravate her sometimes.”

  “I know. I guess I did. I wish I had been different.Wish I’d told her how much I loved her. I miss her so much.When she died, before I got a chance to make up our last fight, I wanted to die, too. First Kenneth and then Mama. I can barely stand the guilt of knowing that the last words I said to both of them were said in anger.” She wiped her face with the back of her hand and sat up straighter.“But I can’t take back the things I said or did. It’s too late now. Mama’s gone and Louise will be moving in now, and I’m trying to be happy for Pop. He’s lonely, can’t cook, doesn’t know how to turn on the washing machine, I’ll bet. He needs a woman to take care of him, and Louise is willing to do those things, and she loves him.”

  “You were mad about them dating at first.”

  Mama smiled. “Yes, I was, but that was before I got to know her. She’s a nice person, has a good heart. I don’t want to make the same mistakes with her that I made with Mama. I’m going to try hard to be a better stepdaughter than I was a daughter.” Then she reached for my hand and squeezed it way too hard. “And you need to try, too.You’ve got to accept the marriage. I could tell you weren’t happy for them, or for me and Mervin. Sometimes I feel like you resent me having any fun, that you want me to be like Delia McCormick, who’s boring as a stick.”

  I pulled my hand away and looked toward my closet where I had stowed Delia McCormick’s possessions. For a second I thought Mama had discovered my secret, and as I thought of all of the shameful things I was holding inside, my face burned like fire. I tried to smile, but I gave up and bit my lip, trying hard not to cry. “I do want you to have fun, Mama. It’s just that I’m not having any, and it’s hard to be happy for others when you’re so unhappy.”

  Mama pulled me to her side and squeezed me against her. “I wish I could change things for you. Maybe when this is all over and we go on our trip to Key West, things will turn around.Who knows? Maybe you’ll meet some cute boy at the beach down there, and the four of us can go dancing together.”

  “I’m invited?”

  Mama pulled away and, drawing her brows together, she cocked her head. “What? You thought I was going to run off and leave you alone? Of course, you’re coming with us. Mervin said he’d already hinted to you about going. I thought you were only acting like you didn’t know so I could be the one to tell Pop and Louise about it.”

  This was news to me! And welcome news for sure. “I didn’t know I’m going, too. I guess I just assumed you didn’t, he didn’t, I wasn’t ...” I covered my face with my hands. “I guess I’ve got to stop expecting the worst all the time,” I muttered.

  Mama laughed. “Well, it’s pretty understandable that you would. But things are going to change. After the hearing is over and the case gets dismissed, you’ll see. Everything is going to turn out just fine.” She kissed me and then at the door, she turned around. “I’m going to sleep in my own room from now on.Wallace isn’t going to run me out of my comfy bed.Yours is hard as a rock.”

  TIME CAN’T BE MEASURED with any exactitude. Sometimes it goes too fast; other times too slowly. But always when you’re anticipating something, good or bad, time damn near stands still. Each day that passed during the remaining days we waited for Mama’s hearing date seemed like a month. Mama had work to keep her mind busy and she and Mervin went out most nights, but I had only June for a diversion, so in desperation, I went over to her house. I timed my visits when I knew Mrs. McCormick would be home, so June and I wouldn’t be alone. But after I walked over on Wednesday, Mrs. McCormick said she had a meeting to attend that she’d forgotten about.“I always write down appointments in my little red book I keep beside the phone. I don’t know how I could have forgotten,” she said, after Mrs. Winrock had called her for a ride. “And I’ve been misplacing things around the house for quite a while. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  I wanted to confess that all those “misplaced” things had been placed in a box in my closet so she wouldn’t think something was wrong with her, but, of course, I couldn’t. I’d just gotten there and couldn’t think of a reason to leave, so I followed June into her bedroom after her mother left.“Want to show you something,” she said.When she opened the bottom drawer of her chest of drawers, I knew she was going to take out the photo album. I felt like I was in a movie, in the scene where some girl is standing by the window and an arm reaches in and grabs her. She knew it was out there, but she had to stand there and just wait for it to happen. June sat on the floor and motioned me down beside her. Flipping through the pages, she quickly came to the last one she had taken of me. “Look! This is what I wanted to show you. Aren’t you beautiful?” she said.“I got it developed before I went to camp at one of those one-hour photo booths while Mother was playing bridge all day.”

  I didn’t want to see that picture again, but as I stared down at it and saw that dreamy expression on my face, I thought that June was right. I was beautiful. “I shouldn’t have let you take it,” I said. “What if your mother finds it?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about it. She’d never go through my things.We respect each other’s privacy. I barely go in her room and wouldn’t ever open any of her drawers without permission.”

  I thought of all the days I had sifted through Mrs. McCormick’s lingerie, her jewelry, her makeup, her letters. June probably didn’t know that her mother had had a lover before she married her dad. “Still, I wish you hadn’t taken it,” I said. “It makes me feel weird to look at myself.”

  “You mean your boobs, don’t you? Well, they’re absolutely gorgeous. If I had them, I’d want to show them to the world.” June closed the book. “Hey, I’ve got some film. Maybe I could take one of you with your shorts unzipped and your blouse open, like the models in those magazines they keep behind the counter at
Gillis’s Drugstore.”

  “No. I don’t want to.”

  “But Layla Jay, you could be a model someday.You’re tall and you’ve got the figure. They make lots of money and live a glamorous lifestyle. I’ll bet most of them have swimming pools in their backyards.”

  “I don’t want to be a model.”

  “Then what do you want to be?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe a Spanish teacher.”

  June ran to her dresser and snatched her camera. “Well, why don’t you just try one or two shots? I’ll be the photographer and you move around while I shoot, like on a set.”

  She looked so funny crouched down like she was a professional photographer for a fashion magazine, I couldn’t help laughing at her. A flash followed a click, and I automatically lifted my hair and posed, jutting my hips left and right.“Like this?” I said, putting my hands on my knees and drawing my mouth into a cupid’s bow.

  “Yeah. Now unbutton your blouse and zip your shorts halfway down.”

  Uh oh, I thought. I didn’t want to replay the scene from the photo that was still taunting me from where June had left it on the bed. I was going to have to say something, make her understand. I dropped my hands and straightened up. “Wait, June. I don’t want to. I mean I’m not ... Can we just stop and talk? I have to tell you something.”

  June lowered the camera, her face already a mask of pain as if she knew what I was going to say next. “What?”

  I couldn’t tell her here where that shameful girl in the photo stared out at me. I walked over to June and reached for the camera. Laying it on the dresser, I said in a near whisper,“Let’s go somewhere else, the living room. Please?”

  She followed me to the couch and I moved over to the armchair where I could see her face. “June, you’re my best friend, you know that. You’ve done some things I didn’t like, but I know you’re sorry and have a good heart. I forgave you for all that lying about me at Mama’s party. That proves I care about you.”