by Julia Watts
Chrys took a step back from the board and looked at the words that filled it: nice house, desirable partner, happiness, security, and love. Just like a character F. Scott Fitzgerald would have written about, she’d had it all and lost it all so fast she didn’t know what had hit her. She swallowed back the ball of sadness in her throat and asked the students to turn to page one.
Chapter Four
It had been three weeks and one day since D-Day, as Chrys had come to call it. D-Day was short for Dump Day, a phrase with a scatological ring that Chrys found appropriately distasteful.
Her life at Aaron’s had taken on a routine that she was able to drag herself through every day: wake up, shower, don teacher clothes, groom, caffeinate and ingest toast, and proceed to work where she did a robotlike but apparently credible impersonation of an English professor for the required number of hours. Then it was back to the apartment, to the couch, where she flopped, sometimes slept, sometimes stared at the TV, sometimes just stared. Nights when Aaron came home and they cooked dinner together things livened up a bit, especially if they opened a bottle of wine. But on nights when Aaron taught his improv class or went out with his tribe of guy friends, it seemed like she was counting the grains of sand sifting through a slow-motion hourglass. Those were the nights when she hit the red wine and chocolate ice cream pretty hard. She wasn’t guzzling either substance enough to be a significant problem, unless the problem of zipping her jeans was significant.
The weekends were the hardest because they robbed her of a routine she could force herself to stick to. She knew she should create her own routine, but she lacked the energy. As a result, it was now two in the afternoon and she was lying on the couch, unshowered and in her rattiest sweatpants, watching a Food Network show that was making her hungry though she lacked the energy to get up and make a sandwich. Aaron had been out of the house for hours, no doubt doing all sorts of fun but meaningful activities. She thought, not for the first time, what a drag it must be to have her crashing here like this.
But there were only two more weeks until the spring semester was over, and then she was going to Do Something to Change Her Life. She thought about this change in capital letters to make it seem more decisive, but the truth was she had no idea what to do. Before Meredith (B.M., as she had come to call it, which also generated some scatological humor) she had envisioned two possible paths for her life. The first was that she would stay at Western Carolina and work her way up the professorial ranks. She would act as mentor to more than one generation of English majors, and she would publish work in journals and maybe even produce another book. Since the place wasn’t exactly teeming with lesbians, her personal life would have suffered on this path, but a long-distance relationship would’ve been a possibility. The second path—the ideal one—was that a few years at Western Carolina would serve as a springboard to get her a job at a larger university in a more cosmopolitan area where she could have a stimulating academic career, meet someone, fall in love, and proceed to happily ever after.
But her relationship with Meredith had gotten her so far off course from her original plans that she felt like she was in the middle of a stormy ocean with no navigational tools to guide her.
The door swung open, startling Chrys from her brooding. “Hey,” she said to Aaron.
“Fresh strawberries from the farmers market,” he said, setting down a brown paper bag. “And look at you. You’re right where I left you.”
“Just like a houseplant.” Suddenly Chrys felt hyper-aware of her unwashed hair and tragic sweatpants. “God, it must be a drag to come home and always find this dejected dyke on your couch.”
Aaron sat down next to her. “You should say ‘dejected dyke on your davenport.’ That’s what my grandma called couches, and it makes for better alliteration.”
“Dejected dyke on your davenport, then.”
“But don’t be silly. I know you’d do the same for me if our roles were reversed. And if I ever managed to sustain enough of a long-term relationship for a breakup to really hurt.” He patted her knee. “Hey, the callbacks for the Shakespeare on the Square production of Midsummer Night’s Dream were today.”
“And the part you got was…” She knew he wouldn’t be in such a good mood if he hadn’t been cast.
“I’m Bottom.”
“Well, that borders on too much information. But then, I never took you for a top.”
“You vicious bitch.” Aaron laughed. “You have a PhD in English. You know damn well what I mean.”
“Yes, I do. It’s a great comic role.”
“Yeah, but I’ve done Shakespeare on the Square before, and it’s crazy. You’re out there in the middle of the square surrounded by bars and restaurants. There are drunks and hecklers and children—”
“Just like the actors in Shakespeare’s day had to put up with,” Chrys said. “You can just pretend Elizabeth the First is in the audience.”
“Well, if my friends come, there will definitely be some queens.” Aaron reached into the paper bag. “Have you eaten? I bought a hunk of Havarti at the farmers market. It’ll go great with the strawberries.”
“No, I haven’t eaten. Eating would require moving from this couch, which I’ve been too shiftless to do. But I solemnly swear that by the time Midsummer Night’s Dream opens, I’ll be off your couch for good. I don’t know where I’ll be, but it won’t be here.” As if to illustrate, she rose from the couch and followed Aaron into the little galley kitchen.
He got out a colander and started rinsing the strawberries. “It would be cool if you could find an apartment around here. We could go from roommates to neighbors.”
Chrys set the wedge of Havarti on a plate with a knife and some of those table water crackers she liked even though they were largely tasteless. “That would be cool. I don’t know, though. I feel like suddenly at the age of forty I’ve decided I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. I don’t totally hate my job, but without Meredith, the job’s just not enough, you know?”
They settled at the kitchen table—maybe because Aaron was trying to steer her away from the couch. “It would be nice if you could get a job at the university,” Aaron said, then popped a strawberry into his mouth. “That way you could teach English majors—maybe even graduate students.”
“Yeah, but hiring over there doesn’t work like that.” Chrys cut a sliver of Havarti and placed it on a cracker. “Even if the English department did have an opening, they’d do a national search, and I’d be way out of my league with that competition.”
“Being a grownup sucks, huh?” Aaron gave a rueful smile and poured them some ginger ale since it was too early for wine. “So many compromised dreams. You know, when I was six years old, nobody could tell me that I wouldn’t be the world’s first black male Radio City Music Hall Rockette.”
Chrys smiled. “Well, you do pretty well for yourself anyway.”
“It could be worse. Massage therapy is a pleasant enough way to pay the bills, and I feel like I’m actually helping people. And I get to be in two or three local productions a year. But still, it’s not exactly living the dream, is it?”
“Because you’re not a Rockette?”
“No, because I’m not a professional actor,” Aaron said, popping another strawberry. “You know, right after I graduated from UT, I moved to New York. I told myself I’d try it for a year to see if I could make it happen. I worked for a temp agency, shared a one-room apartment with two other people, and went to every audition I could. The only part I got was a non-paying role in this crazy performance piece that ran for four performances at a public school in Brooklyn. After a year of barely making my part of the rent and surviving on a bowl of oatmeal and a bowl of ramen a day, I came back to Knoxville on the Greyhound of Shame.”
“You had no reason to be ashamed. You gave it your best shot.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, but then I had to start compromising. I learned that a big part of being a grownup is deciding what you can live with.�
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“God, that’s depressing,” Chrys said, reaching for a strawberry. It burst in a sweet, juicy explosion in her mouth. “But one thing that makes me feel a little better is that these strawberries are really, really good.”
* * *
Chrys was waiting in her car in the parking lot of the Country Cookin’ Buffet. The CCB, as Chrys called it, was not her usual dining choice, but a couple of days earlier her mom had called saying it was time for Nanny’s annual visit with her rheumatologist at UT Hospital. It was a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Piney Creek to Knoxville, which made it not only the longest trip Nanny made all year, but with the exception of one bus visit to Detroit in the 1960s, the longest trip Nanny had made in her life.
The yearly trip to Knoxville was a big deal for Nanny, and her post-appointment treat was always lunch at the Country Cookin’ Buffet on Clinton Highway. The sign outside the restaurant said All You Care to Eat, which Chrys always found rather damning, as though the restaurant’s proprietor was implying that given the quality of the food, you wouldn’t care to eat much.
Mom pulled into the parking lot in Nanny’s lane-hogging Oldsmobile, which dated from the eighties when Papaw was still alive. When Chrys and her brother Dustin were teenagers, they used to think it was hilarious that their then-ancient-seeming grandparents tootled around in an Oldsmobile. If Batman drives a Batmobile, they’d say, then what do old people drive?
The Oldsmobile squeezed into the parking space next to Chrys’s, and her mom waved cheerfully. When Mom got out of the car, Chrys saw that the current do-it-yourself hair color was a not-found-in-nature burgundy, and her nails were painted to match. Mom would never pay for expensive highlights and a manicure at a salon, but she was a frequent visitor to the hair dye and nail polish aisles. Meredith (Chrys winced) always called Chrys’s mom’s look “drugstore femme.” Chrys got out of the car and met her mom for a hug.
“Lord, I hate driving that old thing,” Mom said. “Might as well bring your nanny in a tank. Her walker’s in the back if you want to help with it.”
“Sure,” Chrys said, used to her mother’s scattershot speech pattern.
Mom opened the front passenger door and Chrys steadied the walker. “Hi, Nanny,” she said.
Nanny’s silver hair was arranged in a cap of rigid curls—she always went to the beauty shop the day before her annual road trip. Giant hoot-owl glasses which would’ve been in style around the time the Oldsmobile was purchased framed her eyes, and she was wearing one of her three good dresses (this one peach) that signified a special occasion. “You come here and give me some sugar, child,” she said, holding out her arms. “You look good. You’ve plumped up a right smart since I seen you last.”
Chrys kissed Nanny’s cheek. She knew Nanny had meant the acknowledgment of weight gain as a compliment; she always said thin women looked “poorly.”
At the CCB, patrons had to pay upon entering to prevent them from pulling a dine and dash after having all they cared to eat. As always, Chrys offered to pay for Mom and Nanny’s lunch and they held up the line by arguing with her for a couple of minutes but then relented.
Once the cashier unceremoniously handed them a pile of plates, Chrys helped Nanny through the buffet line, dipping whatever foods she indicated: fried chicken (which Chrys knew from experience was greasy on the outside and dry on the inside), instant mashed potatoes, canned green beans and corn. When they were seated and eating (the chicken pot pie wasn’t bad, though Chrys suspected it was recycled from past-its-prime fried chicken), Chrys said, “Nanny, I never can figure out why you like this place so much. Not a single thing they have here is half as good as what you make.” Nanny’s cooking wasn’t for the faint of heart—the amount of bacon grease she used would put anyone in danger of a bypass—but everything she cooked was delicious, and her chicken and dumplings were the stuff of legends.
“Well, I believe you just answered your own question,” Nanny said, spooning up some corn. “None of this stuff is as good as what I cook, but I like it ’cause I didn’t have to cook it. Plus, there’s plenty of it, and when you came up like I did, sometimes it feels good to know you can eat till you’re about to bust if you take a notion to.”
Chrys smiled. “I can see that.” Nanny was born at the height of the Depression. It was no wonder she liked a plentiful spread.
“Of course it ain’t like I can cook the way I used to,” Nanny said.
“I don’t know,” Mom said. “Them chicken and dumplings you made at Easter was the best I ever tasted. It was too bad you couldn’t come, Chrystal.”
Only Chrys’s family called her by her given name. She had switched over to “Chrys” in college, finding her real name declasse, and was always quick to tell professors to call her Chrys before they called roll on the first day of class. “I wish I could’ve been there, too,” she said. She and Meredith had spent the long Easter weekend in Key West, where Chrys had basked on the beach, innocent of the knowledge of Meredith’s new girl.
“Well, maybe you can make it for Thanksgiving,” Mom said. “That’s the next time we’ll put on a big feed.”
“I should be able to,” Chrys said. “It’s not like my social calendar is exactly full these days.”
“You know, that always used to puzzle me,” Nanny said, gesturing with a chicken leg, “how a pretty girl like you could still have no husband and no young ’uns. But now I think I’ve got it figured out.”
“Really?” Chrys exchanged glances with her mom. When Chrys had finally come out to her parents, her mom had been fine after a ten-minute crying jag, and her dad had been okay after a weekend-long fishing trip. But both Mom and Daddy had insisted that Chrys shouldn’t tell Nanny about her sexuality. Nanny was of a different generation, and she was a Free Will Baptist. She wouldn’t understand, they said, and it would just upset her. As a result, while Chrys had never told Nanny she was straight, she’d never told her she was gay either.
“You know what it is?” Nanny said, still using the chicken leg as a talking stick. “Men’s scared of smart women. Unless you’re dumb or act dumb, they run like scalded dogs. And I’m proud to have a granddaughter who ain’t willing to play dumb just so she can get a man.”
“Thank you, Nanny. So how did the doctor’s appointment go?” Chrys was eager to shift the topic away from herself.
“It was all right, I reckon,” Nanny said. “He wants me to do—what’s it called, Joyce?”
“Physical therapy,” Mom said. “He wrote a prescription for it and for more pain pills since we needed more after what happened.”
“What do you mean?” Chrys pushed away her plate, having had all she cared to eat the first time around.
“We had to fire the last girl we had staying with your Nanny,” Mom whispered as though the girl herself might be nearby. “She was stealing pills.”
Chrys’s jaw dropped. “She was stealing Nanny’s pain medicine?” Nanny’s rheumatoid arthritis kept her in constant pain. She stayed off the medication during most days, but she needed it at night so she could sleep.
“She was,” Nanny said. “She was right sneaky about it at first, so I didn’t catch on. She’d just sneak two or three pills out the bottle—enough that when I’d come up short I’d just think I’d counted them wrong. But then she got careless, and she’d take out a bunch of pills and replace them with mints thinking I’d not notice.” She shook her head. “Now who with at least half their wits about them wouldn’t know the difference between a pain pill and a mint? I’m old, but I ain’t stupid.”
“I don’t know if she was taking the pills or selling them,” Mom said. “But your brother told me druggies’ll pay fifty bucks for one Oxycontin. I reckon she could make more money that way than what we could pay her to look after Nanny.”
Chrys couldn’t wrap her mind around the callousness of someone who would steal medication from an old person in pain in order to support a habit or turn a profit. “Did you have the girl arrested?”
“No,
we just fired her and told her to be glad we didn’t call the law,” Mom said. A rueful smile crossed her lips. “And your brother told her she oughta be glad she’s a woman because if any man was to do his nanny that way, he’d beat the hell out of him.”
“I don’t blame him,” Chrys said. “I’ve got half a mind to beat up this girl myself.”
“No, she already got what was coming to her,” Nanny said. “Losing that job really tore her up. You know, she wasn’t but twenty years old, and when Joyce fired her, she cried like a little girl. I told I’d pray for her, and I did.”
“So now we’re looking for somebody else to stay with Nanny,” Mom said. “But it’s hard to find somebody you can trust. If we could afford to hire a real nurse, it’d be different. But a lot of the people who’ll work for what we can pay is the type who’d just take the job so they could get at the pain pills or whatever else there was to steal.”
“That’s rough,” Chrys said. If she were still with Meredith, Meredith’s deep pockets might be able to help with the problem. But on her own, Chrys’s pockets were as shallow as an heiress with a purse dog.
“You know what?” Nanny said, reaching out for both her daughter’s and granddaughter’s hands. “I don’t want us to spend our special time together talking about our worries. I think we ought to have something sweet. I’ve been dying to try that dessert bar ever since I heard they added a chocolate fountain.”
Chrys didn’t want to think about the germs that were surely lurking in the Country Cookin’ Buffet’s much dipped-in chocolate fountain. But she had always found Nanny’s sweet tooth endearing. “Well, a chocolate fountain does seem like a pretty good place to drown your sorrows,” she said.
Chapter Five
“Isn’t the crown molding nice?” the perky young woman asked.