Boys like us, p.8
Boys Like Us, page 8
“Oh, yeah,” she croaks. “I remember everybody.”
Mom pulls a gown down from the rack.
Norma objects. “Edie, you’ve been wearing those frilly things since you were twelve. It’s high time you picked something with a little more sophistication. Especially for a second marriage. Take this elegant silk gown, for instance, with a matching robe.”
“Oh, Norma!” Mom squeals. “It’s perfectly gorgeous!”
“Yes, and rather expensive.”
“We needn’t worry about that. Not today. This is all going on Aunt Tula’s account.”
“Just my luck,” Norma mutters. “Getting her to pay’s like squeezing whiskey from a stone.”
“Sold!” Mom beams, admiring herself in the mirror. “Sold to the blushing bride.”
“Blushing?” quips Norma with a half grin. Norma can only grin in halves thanks to her most recent stroke. “Everybody knows you’re only marrying him for his money.”
“What?” says Mom. “Why, that’s a bold-faced lie! What everybody knows is that his second wife got away with most of it, and he spends the majority of what’s left supporting his good-for-nothing son!”
Norma wraps the goods in tissue paper, places them in a box, and puts the box in a bag. “Then why are you marrying him?”
“Because he asked me to.”
Mom sashays out the door and leads us on to Friday’s Florist, where we’re greeted by the equally anorexic Vichtor. And yes, according to his name tag, there is an H in the spelling of his name.
His hands dart about the air in a frantic fashion. “The usual, Miz MacNoo?”
My mother, for no apparent reason, bursts into tears.
“What’s the matter?” I ask her.
“He means Sparky’s arrangement,” she sobs. “The one he always has me pick up for the table whenever he’s in town. Orchids, roses, lilies, the most beautiful things Vichtor’s ever had the pleasure of putting his hands around.”
“I somehow doubt that.”
Vichtor looks at me with a raised brow.
Mom blows her nose loudly, then says in a pitiful tone, “No, Vichtor. Just something simple today. I’m only getting married.”
“Married? Why, congratulations! Who’s the lucky groom?”
“J.B.” She sniffles.
“Well, I hope you’ll be very happy.”
“So do I, though I’m not counting on it.”
“And is this to be the bridal bouquet?”
“Yes. Nothing too fancy. Wildflowers, I think. Just a few simple somethings for me to hold on to.” She blows her nose again. “You remember my son, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t believe I’ve ever had the pleasure.” Vichtor extends a limp hand, which I attempt to shake.
“Well, here he is!” she wails, pushing me forward. “I’ll be in the car,” she calls over her shoulder, running from the shop. “Finish the order for me, Zero. I just can’t bring myself to do it!”
Vichtor winks. “Quite a lady, your mom.”
I follow him into the work area. “Yeah.”
He starts poking daisies into a Styrofoam ball. “When do you need the bouquet by?”
“Noon tomorrow.”
“Do you know what color the dress is?”
“Cream.”
“So tasteful.”
“Well, you know her: Miss Arkansas Aristocracy, Queen of the Hillbillies.”
“Stop.” Vichtor giggles.
“Listen,” I say on another subject altogether, “could you possibly tell me where people go to socialize these days?”
“That depends on what you’re looking for,” he answers coyly.
“You know what I’m looking for.”
“Just checking,” he says. Then back to the daisies. “There’s always Discovery. It’s in that warehouse down by the river. Huge place. Disco in the back, drag show up front. Used to be a lot of fun, though I haven’t been there in ages. I never go out anymore except to Phoebe’s, which is mainly for dykes and transsexuals, but they have fifty-cent schnapps between eight and ten and I just love schnapps.”
“Good. Thanks for the info. And I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
I go out to the car and find my mother doubled over the steering wheel still heaving with sorrow.
“It’s not too late to call it off.”
“No. I’m going through with it. It may not be the easiest thing in the world, but it certainly won’t be as hard as living as somebody’s” – she searches for the right word, then blurts it out – “whore!” She wails even louder.
“Well, there’s no reason you can’t see Sparky on the side.”
“On the side?” she replies, horrified. “I’ll have you know I take marriage seriously!”
“So does Spark.”
That prompts another anguished cry.
“Oh,” she says, dabbing her eyes, “if he just hadn’t written me that letter, this all would’ve been so much easier.”
“What letter?”
“Just the most beautiful thing, all about our eternal love. He even compared us to butterflies, and you know I love butterflies almost as much as I love zebras.”
“But did he say anything substantial?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like did he offer you any alternatives? Some kind of arrangement –”
“No. He just said he should’ve set me free years ago, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. And that he didn’t know what he’d do without me.”
“I’m sure what with Hilda and his newspaper empire he’ll manage to keep himself plenty occupied.”
The very name “Hilda” transforms Mom’s sorrow into rage.
“That woman!” she spits, revving up the motor with a vengeance. We lurch out of the parking space at a dangerous speed. “Did you see her picture in Time last month?”
“What was she doing in Time?”
“Snipping some ribbon at the Denver Ballet.”
“No.”
“Well, remind me to show it to you when we get home. It’s right up your alley. Absolutely pickled to the gills. Sparky probably had to pay a fortune to even get it printed. And she had on some million-dollar gown you know she’ll never wear again, plus that awful Doris Day wig perched on the side of her head like an abandoned bird’s nest.”
“I didn’t know she wore wigs.”
“Oh, yes. Ever since her chemo. Hasn’t got a hair left on her body. But don’t you worry, she’ll outlive us all.”
“She’s been awfully nice to you, all things considered.”
Mom swerves into the parking lot of Terry’s grocery store. “Of course she’s nice. She’s no idiot.” She gets out of the car, slamming the door as if to add an exclamation point to her fury, and stomps her way into the store, back toward the meat counter, with me in her wake.
“You remember my son, don’t you?” she says to the butcher.
The old fellow looks at me with a blank stare. “Why, yes, ma’am, I sure do.”
“Well, he’s come all the way from Canada just for one of your pepper hams. How’s that for a dedicated customer?”
“That’s wonderful, Miz MacNoo, but we’re right out of pepper hams today.”
“What? I’m serving a pepper ham at my rehearsal dinner tonight!”
“Should’ve called beforehand. Pepper hams are in big demand.”
“Called? When I’ve been shopping here for the last twenty years?” She fixes him with a cold stare.
Finally he mutters, “Well, I do have one on reserve for somebody I can probably put off till tomorrow, seein’ as how it’s your – what’d you say it was?”
“Rehearsal dinner.”
“Yes, well, seein’ as how it’s that.” He disappears into the walk-in fridge.
“I don’t know why that man doesn’t retire,” says Mom. “There’s nothing worse than living too long. I hope you’ll have the good sense to put me on an iceberg with a gallon of scotch when I’m that age.”
The butcher returns with the ham.
Mom takes it from him, thanking him excessively, then proceeds next door to the liquor store.
She fills a shopping cart to the brim with gin, vodka, bourbon, scotch, and tequila. “That oughta just about do it, don’t you think?”
“How many people are you expecting?”
“‘Bout seven.”
“Then unless it’s W.C. Fields or Liquor Annie, I should say so.”
Mom says to the checkout clerk, “You remember my son, don’t you?”
Another blank stare. “Fine-looking young man.”
“Well, children grow up so fast these days you can hardly keep up with ’em.”
“I stopped growing fifteen years ago,” I grumble.
“And it’s been just about that long since you’ve been home!” She waltzes out the door into the blazing sun, leaving me to carry her two bags full of liquor.
I struggle my way into the car. She’s busy aiming an air conditioning vent up between her legs. “God, it’s hot!” she says. “I believe I need me something wet. How ’bout you? ’Bout ready for some lunch?”
“Sure.”
“Then why don’t I take us up to the Little Rock Club? It’s got a great view, though the food’s not much.”
“Don’t you have to be a member?”
“Sparky’s a member,” she chirps.
All the service employees at the Little Rock Club happen, in the grand tradition of the South, to be black. Mom studies the waitress as she takes our cocktail order. “Did you, by any chance, go to Central High?”
“No’m.”
“Well, I’m the marimba teacher for the school district, and I could just swear I taught you.”
“No’m. I don’t know nothing about no ‘rememba.’ I’m from Camden. Just been in Little Rock a few weeks now.”
“You certainly didn’t waste any time getting a job.”
“Just luck.” She grins.
Before Mom can launch into her I-am-just-so-happy-to-see-you-young-black-girls-making-something-of-yourself-these-days, I ask, “What’s good to eat?”
“Shrimp salad’s always a favorite with the ladies, but the gentlemen tend to prefer the ribs. Can I get y’all something to drink first?”
“Vodka tonic for me,” says Mom.
“A dry martini, straight up, with an olive. And the assorted finger sandwiches to eat. I’m not that hungry. But no mayonnaise or butter.”
“I’ll try the ribs,” says Mom enthusiastically.
Once our drinks arrive, Mom turns to me full of expectation. “Tell me about yourself, Zero. What’s new in your grand scheme of things?”
“Oh, not too much. My boyfriend. And taking care of my friend Randy.”
“Is he the one with –”
I nod.
She takes a long sip. “I certainly hope you’re being careful,” she says. “I sure wouldn’t want to see that happen to you.”
I sigh uncomfortably. “Well, I’ve practically lived like a nun since 1983, but the virus’s incubation period seems to get longer and longer.”
“Like how long?”
“Some say up to fifteen years.”
“Which is exactly when you quit your college and ran off to San Francisco with that Charles Manson look-alike.”
“Steve did not look a thing like Charles Manson.”
“How would you know? You were too drugged up to know what anybody looked like.”
“I was not!”
“Are you trying to deny that you tried drugs when I know for a fact you did?”
“I might’ve done some experimenting, but I always did so in a responsible fashion.”
“Quitting college because you have a vision on LSD is hardly what anybody could call responsible.”
“For a woman who takes a tranquilizer to get up in the morning, a couple of drinks with lunch, several more with dinner, and a sleeping pill to go to sleep at night –”
“Well, I didn’t do any of it until I was over thirty.”
“And I haven’t done any of it since I turned thirty.”
“Then let’s not waste our time bickering about it. What’s done is done.”
“Amen!”
With that, Mom polishes off her drink. Then, in a completely different tone of voice, she says, “Tell me how that nice boy David’s getting along.”
“Fine. Actually we see quite a bit of each other.”
“I don’t know why you ever had to break off with him. He was so easy to get along with.”
“If he was so easy to get along with, why didn’t you speak to him for the first five years we were together?”
She gives me her classic Southern belle smile, a perfect combination of innocence and viciousness.
“That’s not what I call an answer,” I say.
“Well, I changed, didn’t I?”
“Yes,” I have to admit, “you did.”
The waitress brings our lunch.
“My!” Mom exclaims. “That was quick! Don’t tell me the Little Rock Club’s using a microwave.”
“No’m. Just have it all ready for the lunch crowd. Y’all need ’nother drink?”
Mom rattles her ice cubes. “I believe I’m ’bout ready. Zero?”
“Sure, why not?”
Mom picks up a rib and takes a juicy bite. “What did you mean last night when you said you weren’t writing your little plays anymore?”
“Just that. I’ve finally put my hobbies on hold and gotten a real job.”
“But your writing could do something for you someday.”
“I thought you hated my writing.”
“That doesn’t mean it isn’t any good. You’re too much like your father.”
“That’s funny. He’d say I was too much like you.”
“Then he needs more help than I ever thought possible.” She picks up another rib. “Why did I ever marry that man?”
“Because he was the brightest, most promising prospect.”
“Which just goes to show what can happen to that.”
“Oh, Dad wasn’t that bad.”
“You weren’t the one chased out of the house with a saber! He’s sick, and it’s high time you children admitted it.”
“We admit it.”
“And to think I still send him an L.L. Bean gift certificate every fall so he won’t freeze to death in the winter.”
“You do?”
“Yes, but don’t canonize me. I just do it to assuage my guilt.”
“What guilt?”
“The guilt, Zero, that I might have had a little something to do with pushing him over the edge. We all might’ve.”
The waitress sets the fresh drinks on the table. Mom immediately picks hers up and swills it. “Is that where you were last night? Over at the rooming house his welfare’s got him living in?”
“No. I was over at Stellrita’s.”
“Stellrita’s? Whatever for?”
“Just to see her. To say hi. And to look at the house.”
“How can you refer to that sorry excuse for four walls and a roof a house?”
“It’s my home.”
“That house is not your home. That place should’ve been torn down years ago! Why is it every time you come down here you have to stir up the dust? Why can’t you just let sleeping dogs lie? Don’t you think everybody’s miserable enough as it is?”
“You may have divorced the MacNoos, Mom, but I didn’t. You act like that whole part of our life was some sort of freak accident.”
“It was!”
“Well, I don’t happen to see it that way, and I’m just as much a product of this place as you are. I’ll thank you to let me decide for myself which parts belong and which don’t.”
Exasperated, she studies me carefully.
A slow smile breaks across her face. “Well,” she says, “perhaps you are a little bit like me.”
Doll flies in from Oklahoma City just in time for the rehearsal dinner. She’s brought three suitcases, a hanging bag, and a makeup kit – all for the one weekend – and most of the time she’ll spend running around in her underwear looking for the one thing she forgot.
J.B.’s family is represented by his shy daughter, Ferratta, her even shyer Swiss husband, and their six-year-old son. They sit, glued as a unit, on the couch sipping ice tea. J.B. sits in the armchair, a bemused smile on his face, sipping scotch.
Mom presents him with a VCR. “He didn’t want a wedding ring,” she explains, “so with this VCR I thee wed.” The machine is already hooked up to her television.
“Why, thank you, Edie. It’s just a shame you don’t have any movies.”
“I have one!” she exclaims. It’s a compilation made from our extensive library of home movies which she had transferred to VHS a couple of Christmases ago. She pops in the video cassette and presses PLAY. The opening sequence chronicles the home birth of my brother Norm.
“Egads!” Mom screams, reaching for the remote control. “You can’t possibly be interested in this!”
“No,” says Ferratta, in an uncharacteristic outburst of enthusiasm. “Leave it. It’s fascinating.”
Mom looks at her strangely, then sits back in her chair. We all watch as Stellrita eases my brother into the world. We watch her give him a good whack. We watch his first bath.
Mom leaves the room to go clank around in the kitchen, explaining, “Childbirth nauseates me.”
Doll, in a loud booming voice, bemoans the fact that Dad stopped shooting home movies about the time she was born. Then she retrieves several of her personal scrapbooks for Ferratta and husband to view.
“Can I get anybody another drink?” asks Mom, never one to let a moment pass without food or beverage.
Doll and I are the only takers. She tops off our margaritas, warning, “Don’t y’all get too drunk.”
“Hell,” says Doll, lighting up a Virginia Slim. “I deserve to be as drunk as possible after the week I’ve had. You know those musical socks I ordered, the ones that played ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’? I had ’em stocked in all our stores for the Fourth of July thinking they’d go like hotcakes. But we hardly sold a pair, which makes me look like a marketing retard. Plus I swear I’m going deaf. Every time I step off a plane my ears are so clogged up I can’t hear a thing.” She leans her head back and administers a generous squirt of nasal spray into each nostril. This ritual is followed by a series of rapid yawns and short snorting sounds.
