Well, she’d shown Cindy Gallamore, hadn’t she? She wondered what old Cindy was doing now. Probably giving herself home perms and changing diapers in one of these dismal little cracker boxes while Tess McPhail’s latest number-one country hit wafted from the radio behind the piles of dirty dishes on Cindy’s kitchen cupboard.
Tess reran the tape of ‘‘Tarnished Gold’’ one last time, listening with a critical ear. Overall, she liked it. Liked it a lot, with the exception of one single harmony note that continued to bother her after listening to the cut perhaps fifty or sixty times during her drive up.
She passed Judy and Ed’s house on Thirteenth Street. The garage door was up and a car was visible inside, but Tess went on singing harmony with herself and gave the place little more than a hard-edged glance. Judy and her damned peremptory summons.
‘‘Momma’s got to have surgery on her other hip and this time you’re taking care of her,’’ Judy had said.
What would Judy know about the demands of a major career? All she’d ever done was run a beauty shop. Why, she hadn’t a glimmer of what it meant to be pulled away from your work midway through recording an album that a whole record label was planning to release on a date that had been set more than a year ago.
But Judy was jealous, always had been, and throwing her weight around was how she got even.
The last thing Judy had said on the phone was, ‘‘You’re going to be here, Tess, and don’t try to get out of it!’’
Then there was Tess’s middle sister, Renee, on the other side of town, whose daughter, Rachel, was getting married in four weeks. It was understandable that Renee had plenty to do during these last few weeks before the wedding, but couldn’t they have scheduled it and the surgery a little further apart? After all, Mom had known she needed this second hip replacement ever since she’d had the first one two years ago.
Tess turned onto Monroe Street and memories rolled back while she traveled the six-block stretch she had walked to elementary school every day for seven years. She pulled up at the curb in front of her mother’s house, killed the engine and stared at the place. Lord, how it had deteriorated. She unplugged her cellular phone, got out of the car and stood beside it, pushing her narrowlegged jeans down off her calves, a size-seven woman in oversized sunglasses, cowboy boots and dangly Indian earrings made of silver and turquoise, with hair the color of an Irish setter and fair, freckly skin.
Her heart sank as she studied the house. How could her mother have let it get so shabby? The post–World War II bungalow was made of red brick, but the white wood trim was peeling and the front steps were listing badly. The yard looked just plain pitiful. The sidewalk was pitted, and the arbor vitae had grown taller than the living room window. Dandelions spangled the yard.
What does Momma do with all the money I send her?
Years past, Mary McPhail wouldn’t have stood for any kind of weed disgracing her lawn. But that was when her hips were healthy. Tess reached into the car, shouldered an enormous gray bag of bread-soft leather, slammed the door, then headed for the house. Walking up the cracked sidewalk she was reminded of how her little girlfriends used to push their doll buggies along it while she took Melody, her singing doll, and put on performances on the front steps.
As she approached those steps now, her mother appeared in the door above them, beaming. ‘‘I thought I heard a car door!’’ Mary McPhail’s joy was unmistakable as she flung open the screen door and both of her arms. ‘‘Tess, honey, you’re here!’’
‘‘Hey, Momma.’’ Tess vaulted up the three steps and scooped her mother up hard. They rocked together while the door sprang shut and nudged them inside a tiny vestibule. Mary was half a head shorter and forty-five pounds heavier than her daughter, with a round face and metal-rimmed glasses. When Tess pulled back to see her, there were tears in Mary’s eyes.
‘‘You sure you should be up walkin’ around, Momma?’’ You could still hear southwest Missouri in Tess’s voice.
‘‘ ’Course I should. Just got back from a tour of the operating room and they drawed some blood and made me blow into some little plastic tube to see if I got ’nuff air in my lungs to withstand the operation, and I do, and if I can manage all that, I can hug my daughter hello. Take them durned glasses off so’s I can see what my little girl looks like.’’
Tess smiled and removed her sunglasses. ‘‘It’s just me.’’ She held her hands out at her sides.
‘‘Just you. That’s for sure—just you who I haven’t seen for nine whole months.’’ Mary shook her finger under Tess’s nose.’’
‘‘I know. I’m sorry, Momma. It’s been crazy, as usual.’’
‘‘Your hair is different.’’ Mary held her in place by both elbows, giving her the once-over. Tess’s hair was cut in a shag that fell in disheveled layers well below the neck of her T-shirt in back, while in front it just covered her ears.
‘‘They styled it for my next album cover.’’
‘‘Who?’’
‘‘Cathy.’’
‘‘Who’s Cathy again?’’
‘‘Cathy Mack, my stylist—I’ve told you about Cathy.’’
Mary flapped a hand. ‘‘I guess you have, but you got so many people working for you I can’t keep ’em straight. And land, girl, you’re so skinny. Don’t they feed you down there in Nashville?’’
‘‘I work at keeping thin, Momma, you know that— and you know it doesn’t come naturally—so please don’t start pushing food on me already, okay?’’
Mary turned away and hobbled into the house. ‘‘Well, I should think, making the kind of money you do, that you could eat a little better.’’
Tess resisted rolling her eyes and stuck her sunglasses back on, following Mary inside. They went through a shallow living room that stretched across the entire front of the house, a west-facing room with bumpy stucco walls and well-used furniture, dominated by an upright piano. Three archways led off the opposite wall, the center one upstairs, the right one to the bathroom and Mary’s bedroom, the left one to the kitchen at the rear of the house. Mary stomped through the left one, still talking.
‘‘I thought country singers wore big hair.’’
‘‘That’s old, Momma. Things’re changing in country.’’
‘‘But you flattened all them pretty, natural curls right out of it. I always loved them natural curls of yours.’’
‘‘They want me to look up-to-date.’’
Mary’s own hair could use some styling, Tess thought, studying a pinwheel of exposed skull on the back of her mother’s head. She’d given up coloring it and let it go natural, which proved to be a peachy gray. The remains of an old set clearly disclosed the need for an update. More important, however, was the pained gait with which she moved, lurching sharply to the right each time she put weight on that leg, using whatever furniture or walls were available for support.
‘‘Are you sure you should be walking, Momma?’’
‘‘They’ll have me off my feet plenty after the operation’s over. Long as I can hobble around I’m going to.’’
She was a squat, squarish woman of seventy-four, wearing a disgusting old slacks set made of polyester knit that had begun to pill. The pants were solid lavender, the top had been white once, and was stamped with a cluster of pansies so faded their edges had lost distinction. The outfit had to be a good fifteen years old. Tess wondered if this was what her mother had worn when she went to tour the hospital today. She also wondered about the stylish silk trouser outfit she’d had shipped from Nordstrom’s last fall when she’d been on tour in Seattle.
‘‘The kitchen looks the same,’’ she remarked while Mary turned on the water and began filling a coffeemaker.
‘‘It’s old but I like it this way.’’
The kitchen had white metal cupboards with brown Formica tops that were so worn they looked white in places. No matter how many times Tess had scolded Mary for not using a cutting board, she continued doing her chopping directly on the Formi
ca to the left of the sink. The kitchen walls were papered in a ghastly orange floral, the two windows hung with orange floral tie-backs from a mail-order catalogue. There was a wall clock with a painting of a lake on its face, an electric stove with a chip in the porcelain where Judy had clunked it with a kettle one time when all three girls were fighting about who would make the popcorn. And beside the stove, on the dull brown Formica countertop, a homemade pecan pie loaded with about three hundred calories per slice.
Tess’s eyes moved no further. ‘‘Oh, Momma, you didn’t.’’
Mary turned around and saw what Tess was ogling. ‘‘ ’Course I did. I couldn’t let my little girl come home and not find her favorites.’’
What was it about being called her little girl that touched a nerve in Tess? She was thirty-five and had been gone from home since she’d graduated from high school. Her face and name were as familiar to most Americans as those of the president, and her income topped his many times over. She had accomplished it all with her own talent, creativity, and a business acumen worthy of Wall Street. But her mother insisted on referring to Tess as ‘‘her little girl.’’ The few times Tess had corrected her, saying, ‘‘I’m not your little girl anymore,’’ Mary had looked baffled and hurt. So Tess let it pass this time.
‘‘Are you making that coffee for me?’’ she asked.
‘‘Can’t have pecan pie without coffee.’’
‘‘I really don’t drink coffee much anymore, Momma . . . and I really shouldn’t eat the pie either.’’ Mary glanced over her shoulder. Her exuberance faded and she slowly shut off the water. The baffled look had entered her eyes again, that of one generation struggling to understand the next. ‘‘Oh . . . well, then . . . shoot . . .’’ She glanced down dubiously at the half-filled pot, then turned on the tap and resumed filling it. ‘‘I’ll go ahead and cook some for myself then.’’
‘‘Do you have any fruit, Mom?’’ Tess went to the refrigerator and opened the door.
‘‘Fruit?’’ Mary asked, as if her daughter had asked for pâté de foie gras.
‘‘I eat a lot of fruit now and I could sure use a piece. I haven’t eaten since breakfast.’’
‘‘I’ve got some canned peaches.’’ Mary opened a lower cupboard door and attempted to lean over stiffly.
‘‘Yeah, that’ll be great, but I can get ’em. Here, why don’t you sit down and let me?’’
‘‘It’s no better when I sit. I’ll do it. Why don’t you get your things out of the car and take them upstairs?’’ Mary had found the peaches and was taking a can opener from a drawer. Tess reached into the drawer and covered her mother’s hand.
‘‘ ’Cause I came home to take care of you, not the other way around.’’
Stillwater, Minnesota
June, 1996
Dear Reader,
It’s been a busy year at the Spencer house, with so much activity that I wonder how I packed it all in and still got a book written. Somehow I managed, and that book— Small Town Girl —is about a country-western singer of major fame. To write it, I needed to observe a recording session, so I prevailed upon Reba McEntire to let me do exactly that. Last July, my husband, Dan, and I flew to Nashville and not only got to meet Reba, but she graciously welcomed us into the studio to watch and take notes while she recorded her hit song, ‘‘On My Own.’’ She was absolutely as nice and congenial as anyone could be. It was a real thrill for both Dan and me to meet her, her husband, her producer and the studio musicians.
In September, Dan and I went on a twenty-four day trip around the world on the Concorde. It took us to Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia, Beijing, Hong Kong, India, Kenya and England. Each country had its highlights—the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, a private concert by the Queen’s royal guard in London, an opera in the Sydney Opera House. It was all pretty fabulous, but our favorite part of the trip was Kenya where we stayed at a tent camp and saw so many wild animals we were amazed. Close up, too! We traveled over the African plains in a Land Rover, and then in a balloon from which we watched the sunrise and the animals moving below us. When the balloon landed we had a grand breakfast on tables spread out right there on the plain with zebras and wildebeests visible all around us. Best of all the animals was a herd of elephants we estimated at over a hundred. It was absolutely awesome to see them moving among the trees and bathing in the river. We want to go back to Africa someday and take our grandchildren.
In November, Home Song was made into a movie, and I went up to Vancouver to the set for a few days to meet the actors and watch some of the filming. Lee Horsley, Polly Draper and Deborah Raffin played the leads, and I really liked how it turned out. The movie aired on CBS-TV in February with very favorable ratings. Actually, the numbers grew every half hour the show was on, prompting CBS to immediately give the go-ahead for the next movie which will be Family Blessings, to be filmed in July ’96 in Regina, Saskatchewan.
Christmas with our first grandson was exciting to plan—Gee, it’s fun to spoil him with gifts!—but being under a year old, he slept through most of it and let us adults celebrate without him. He did, however, get in on the visit from Santa on Christmas Eve with a bunch of his little cousins here to help him learn who the fat guy was and what would happen at midnight. The holiday season was filled with friends and family, parties and get-togethers, and lots of entertaining, as usual.
In February, we spent three weeks in Hawaii with two different sets of guests joining us. We snorkeled a lot, chartered a yacht twice, swam with the sea turtles and came home wild to see our new grandson who was born while we were gone.
Logan Harrison Kimball is a perfect darling, healthy and beautiful, and we’ve delighted in every moment we’ve spent with him. Now that there are two grandchildren it’s double the pleasure, and we intend to be with them every chance we get.
In March, we took a brief trip to Florida, visiting with Minnesota friends who were wintering in Orlando. Then, on to Sarasota where we got together with some new friends we met while on our Concorde trip. One of the nicest aspects of my life is having opportunities to meet new people and make new friends, and we’ve made some really nifty ones this year that we intend to see a lot in the future.
Most of you have idols; well, so do I. Mine, since I was about nine years old, has been Esther Williams. I got a chance to meet her in May when she was here in Minnesota promoting her new swimsuit line. I got the big lump in the throat, and the shakes in the belly, realizing my lifelong dream of actually shaking her hand and having my picture taken beside her.
So now it’s early June. I’ve been on my knees gardening for a solid week, adding to the rose garden, planting vegetables, watching the backyard get torn up in preparation for a big project that’ll mess up our entire summer. We’re having a swimming pool put in and an addition put onto our house. The commotion is constantly interrupting my book in progress, a 1950s story about a nun who falls in love, set in my home town of Browerville . . . but more about that next year.
Till then, thank you for your many letters, and for buying my books. This year That Camden Summer spent twelve weeks on the New York Times list, and Home Song, nine weeks. That’s a record for me, and I thank you for making it happen.
Hope you all have a year with a little excitement, a lot of contentment, and at least one new friend to add to your joy in life.
Sincerely,
That Camden Summer Page 34