Club Sandwich (20 page)

Mom’s hobbling around pretty well now. Rusty left three weeks ago, taking the bearability of June with him and leaving a July much in need of a fourth person “like the Son of God” to keep us from
burning alive. No disrespect meant, just feeling confident that He’d come through for me if I needed Him as badly as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Thankfully, right now I’m doing okay, even though Mom still inhabits the dining room. Next week she finishes her rehab and will move back to her apartment. She insists on “ambling around on her own turf.” And I don’t blame her one bit. It will, however, raise the difficulty level for me. But not too much, the restaurant being down below. Brian’s thrilled. He can just run up whenever he wants and still be the fair-haired boy. We’ve hidden the DUI from Mom. He says it was such a travesty there’s no way any judge in a free country would convict him. He ended up with a slap on the wrist, it being his first offense.

How is it when I so much as look at someone cross-eyed I get the rug yanked out from under me, and DUI Brian just gets slapped on the wrist? And he thinks God’s not helping him? He’s just not aware how bad it could really be.

So anyway, Mom’s none the wiser. I even lied for him when Mom asked me if something was bothering him. It gives me further cause to believe I’m not exactly “pure and undefiled, unspotted from the world.” What did Paul write? What I want to do, I don’t do. And what I don’t want to do, I do. I’m telling you, that passage and the whole thorn-in-the-flesh aspect of the man humanizes him. If not for those passages, I just wouldn’t relate to Paul at all. When Paul says, if you want to imitate Christ, imitate me, I think … good heavens! I can’t imagine saying that about myself!

Lou visits the restaurant for lunch with none other than Miss Women’s Ministry herself, Brenda. Man, I feel so sorry for her, yet admire her at the same time. She and John are selling everything, moving to a little rancher in Lutherville, and starting an orphanage in Mexico with all their money. So, yeah, she’s excited. We’re all
excited. But she’s still scared. And there are only two women in the church she can go to with veil removed, with face pale and soft in the stark winds of the unknown. Good old Ivy and Lou: real women with real problems and real people inhabiting their real world.

Personally, I could use a little fairy-tale existence about now.

Two o’clock. The rush scurried back to work, or carpool, or more shopping, dahling, a while ago. It tickles me how many diners show me their purchases, freely offering up the prices they paid, especially if bargains were pursued and won.

Lou hugs me, Brenda too, and I show them to my favorite table, right inside the kitchen. The staff congregates here during slow times, and sometimes a party will request it to make their dining experience more interesting. They don’t request it more than a few times, obviously tiring of the cooks mercilessly burning each other. That’s enough to strangle anyone’s appetite.

“Have a seat. Would you like menus, or do you want to place yourselves in Brian’s hands?”

“Oh, let’s live dangerously.” Brenda.

She looks great in a long, slender ecru dress with lace-up espadrilles to match. She recently had her hair cut off in one of those cute pixie dos with blond-and-red frosting. Now see? I need some style like that.

I stuff the menus back under my arm. “Seafood or beef or chicken? We may even have some pork tenderloin.”

Lou requests seafood pasta, and Brenda says, “Pork works for me.”

“Got it.”

Brian’s in the dish room, rooting around for his favorite saucepan, cursing the dishwasher, who’s out back smoking.

“I’ve got Lou and a friend from church at the kitchen table. Lou wants a seafood pasta, Brenda wants pork. Do whatever you want.”

“Cool.”

He looks terrible.

“You okay, Bri?”

“Just a long night last night.”

“Anything I can do?”

“I’ll be fine.”

I leave it.

Fifteen minutes later I’m sitting with the girls, and Brenda declares she’d like to be on the Schneider house redecorating committee. And truth be known, I like her ideas. Boy, does she know where to get good furniture cheap. I see a great couch in our future.

Before they leave, Brenda lays a pink envelope on the table, my name written in the center. “You’re the type of woman who doesn’t take time to be good to herself.”

“Is it that obvious?” I say again.

“I told her that.” Lou.

Pushing my bangs back—“It’s true. When is there time?”

“It’s only there if you make it.” Brenda slides the envelope right up to where my arms rest on the table. “Go ahead and open it.”

I slide a piece of glossy cardstock out of the scented envelope:
A Day at the Spa at Cross Keys
. Apparently I’m entitled to The Works. And the spa is near Brett’s boutique. Maybe I can have supper with her afterward.

“Wow. This is amazing. Thanks!”

“Fact is, Ivy, the church hasn’t been there for you, and I realize
that. And I’ve been so caught up in the larger ministry I let you down. I’m sorry.”

I laugh the awkward laugh of a woman whose tactless thoughts have been exposed. Did I say anything to Lou? “You didn’t have to go to such an extreme to make up for it.”

“Oh, I wanted to do it. Believe me, I know a good cause when I see one.”

I need to be someone’s cause. Dear God, I really do.

Rusty deserves the credit. He’s a reader and brings all sorts of interesting books home to the kids, especially Persy, who loves mysteries of nature and ancient cultures, and
Calvin and Hobbes
.

Each day my son relates a startling find in his new book
Ancient Marvels and Mysteries
.

This morning I’m learning all about healing and medicine.

Persy shoves a picture in front of me of the upper portion of a skull and a large squarish hole cut into the temple.

“Persy, I’m eating!”

“Isn’t it cool?”

I can only think, “No anesthesia! No anesthesia!”

Oh, forget this plate of eggs. They look too much like yellow brains. And why did I think ketchup was a good idea? Blech.

I hand him the plate. “Here, yellow brains and blood for breakfast.”

“Cool!”

He sits down and flips to the next page. “Hey, they actually built up new noses by cutting a flap in the forehead, then twisting it around—”

“Persy! Stop it!”

“And they’d use big black ants for stitches. They let them bite into the folds of flesh, then they’d rip off the bodies leaving the heads—”

Lyra bops him atop the head as she sits. “Gross!”

An idea for a column erupts, one about those bozos who say the difference between genders is primarily the result of socialization. Those people must not have kids. Especially boys, who can fashion guns out of cutlery, toothbrushes, or a piece of pizza. And what about passing gas? This inherently embarrasses most girls, Trixie not included, and causes great amusement for the boys. Sometimes I wish these sociologists, psychologists, and scientists would stop trying to figure out what makes us tick and just enjoy the rhythm.

Oh yeah. Tony’s going to like this one.

Trixie crawls up on my lap as I write my column. It’s late, as usual. A summer storm just rolled through, and a cool breeze flutters the curtains at the opened kitchen window.

“Mama, I can’t fall asleep.”

“Why don’t you just get one of my silky bras, lay on Mama’s bed, and suck your pinkie?”

She places her pinkie in her mouth and grabs my thumb, running the pad of her index finger over the slick nail. I can’t put her to bed. I need this as much as she does.

“Mama? Lyrie’s mean to me.”

“I know she gets frustrated with you.”

“She hit me on the head today.”

“She what?”

“She told me I was a bad giri, and God gets mad at bad girls.”

Oh man. How did this happen? I know Trixie’s a pain. But that was so mean of Lyra. Just so mean.

My heart hurts. I wish I could suck on my pinkie and feel better too.

“How’s it going with the baby-sitting, Lyra?” Next morning, seven o’clock, we’re both rubbing the sleep from our eyes.

“Okay, I guess.” Classic teenage eye-roll. “Mom, Trixie won’t listen to a word I say! And Winky’s no help anymore. She’s getting absolutely bonkers, if you ask me.”

I’d noticed it too. “I know.”

The coffee maker is destroyed from having tried to brew a pot with no water one too many times. And the burner’s been left on too much for comfort.

She spoons sugar into her cup. “It’s too much for me.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“If only Daddy—”

“Let’s not go there.”

“Not that I can blame him for staying away.”

I don’t want to ask what she means.

Rusty calls. “Hey hon.”

“Hi Rust.”

“Whatchya doin’?”

“Just sat down in the kitchen to fold laundry. You should have
seen Persy this afternoon. He took the hose out and watered the mulch, then decided to unpot all my geraniums and put them in the beds.”

“How’d he do?”

“They look great. You know that boy’s got a green thumb. I’m going to the nursery tomorrow to get some pansies for him. He’s loving that book, by the way. Getting more gross-out mileage out of it with Lyra than I’ll bet even you thought possible.”