Bingo (27 page)

“Who knows?” John shrugged.

“We can.” I was firm. “We used to and I don’t see why we couldn’t do it again.”

“No way.” John disagreed, as I knew he would. “You can’t compete for the advertising dollar. Two papers flourished here before television but they flourished everywhere. Hell, New York City had more newspapers than the fingers on my hand once upon a time. The fact that two papers lasted here as long as they did is testimony to how backward this place is.”

“Or testimony to the fact that we don’t watch television,” Roger said. “I don’t watch it.”

“Me neither,” Michelle supported him.

“It’s beneath contempt. The pabulum of the mind.” John fixed another cup of coffee. If this kept up he’d fall asleep or get belligerent, and he was leaning toward belligerent.

“I like it,” I piped up.

“What?” They all looked at me as though I were a sea slug.

“No, I really do. I don’t watch much of it because I’m busy and because we know each other here.”

John cut me off. “I don’t get the connection.”

“I mean we make our own fun. If I lived in a big city and lacked the close friends that I have here, I know I’d watch TV a lot. The characters on the shows would become fantasy friends, kind of.”

The AP wire coughed then and began chugging. Paper spewed out on the floor. Roger got up to check the news as John, Michelle, and I continued a spirited discussion of TV and the concept of pitching to the lowest common denominator, since that was John’s view of how networks choose programming and people get to be stars. Roger appeared spellbound by the AP machine.

“Roger, what are you doing?”

He couldn’t lift his eyes off the copy. “You’re not going to believe this.”

We bumped into one another racing to the wire. He was right. We couldn’t believe it. The PTL Club story blew apart into sex, sin, and seduction. It was scandal too good to be true. Jim Bakker, head of the PTL Club, was accused by another TV preacher of practicing oral sex in a Florida motel room with a secretary, of having homosexual encounters and group sex.

I grabbed the phone off Roger’s desk, since his was the closest to the AP machine. “Mother. Get down here.”

“You’re a dutiful daughter.” John laughed. He knew this news would be like cayenne on Mother’s brain.

Within minutes she and Goodyear burst into the room, having dashed through the alleyway and entered through the back press entrance. Her Adidas running shoes were grass-stained, so Mom must have cut across the neighbors’ yards.

“What?” She was breathless.

Michelle, Roger, and John respectfully stood aside while I took Mother to the machine and handed her the copy, some of which had spilled onto the floor. She pushed her glasses up on the bridge of her nose and read. And read. We watched. She was silent. Then she smiled. This was followed by a girlish giggle, overcome by a laugh, until Mother was leaning against the machine helpless with laughter. I fetched her a cup of coffee while Roger, a gentleman, gave her his chair.

She recovered enough to talk. “There is a God!”

Surprised, I said, “You had doubts?”

She nodded. “Every now and then, like when Wheezie got that first date with Ed.” She wiped her eyes. She’d been laughing so hard she had tears in them. “I guess Jim Bakker turned ‘Love Lifted Me’ into a porno song.” She sang a few bars.

“You have a lovely voice, Mrs. Smith,” Michelle complimented her.

“Oh, honey, you’ll have to go to lunch with me so I can tell you how Celeste Chalfonte, Ramelle, Fairy Thatcher and Fannie Jump Creighton, Ev Most, and myself went across the county singing that very song. Why wait for lunch? Come on and I’ll buy you an omelet.”

Michelle looked beguiled.

“You can go, Michelle.” I okayed the defection and turned to Mom. “Why aren’t you calling Wheezie?”

“Because I’m going to wait until fifteen minutes before the noon news. Then I’ll call. It’ll drive her up the walls. Which reminds me. Mr. Pierre and I settled on a frothy apricot, so you figure out when you can paint. Come on, dear.” She touched Michelle’s elbow and off they went.

I’d forgotten about painting Mother’s living room. I dialed Mr. Pierre.

“
Bon soir.
”

“Mr. Pierre, it’s morning.”

“
Bon
morning,” he replied.

“What’s this I hear about a frothy apricot?”

“
Ma cherie
, light as an anemic peach. We’ll do the woodwork in a linen-white and I’ve ordered teal pillows and even a magenta one to accent Mama’s hair.”

I groaned to myself. “She doesn’t have enough money for that.”

“Discount. I motored up to York and hit the fabric discount house that Bob and I found years ago. Better than that, my precious Nickel, I’ve found someone to paint a coffee table faux marble.”

“Who?”

“Peepbean.”

“Peepbean!”

“He’s very good. Millard has developed in his nephew an aesthetic impulse.”

Millard had developed little else in Peepbean.

“All right, how much do I have to lend her?”
Lend
was a euphemism for cough up cold cash.

“Umm, maybe three hundred dollars—if we’re careful. Maybe a teeninesy bit more.”

Well, there went my renegade bingo pot. “Okay, but you’ve got to watch her every minute. Mother has never heard of the word
restraint
in these matters.”

“You may depend upon me. And might I remind you, Nickel, that if it weren’t for me she would have rushed out and purchased these things retail?”

“And might I remind you, Mr. Pierre, that if you didn’t keep those fancy interior decorating magazines in your shop she would never know the difference?”

“How wrong you are. Your mother is naturally creative.”

“My mother is naturally nuts.”

“I shall strike that from my memory. I do have customers, you know.”

“I know. I see the results daily. One more small thing. I believe you should take a coffee break and come over here.”

“Why?” His voice rose.

“Why not?” My voice was playful.

He was by my side before I blinked. I showed him the AP wire and swore him to say nothing, not so much as a syllable until fifteen minutes before the noon news when Mother would be telling Wheezie.

“What I sacrifice for you.” He mocked sorrow and then maliciously, with a smile, said to John: “This will go down as the most expensive blow job in history.”

John could not bear gay men but he did laugh. So did Roger. By now Arnie and the guys from the back were stooped over the machine, too, all of them laughing.

Mr. Pierre kissed me on the cheek. “You are a true friend, darling, to give me such pleasure. I shan’t forget this.”

“Good. You can be on my fence committee for the Tri-Delta
horse show.” I pushed him toward the door as he sputtered a refusal, which settled into a rancorous agreement.

He paused at the door and dramatically threw his bottle-green scarf with thin yellow stripes around his neck. To those assembled he said, “The Bakkers are a good example of why some animals eat their young.” He exited amidst laughter.

O
rrie Tadia blew back into town today at noon. Although her airplane touched down in Baltimore at nine-thirty
A.M
. and it couldn’t have taken more than an hour and a half to reach Runnymede with her son-in-law, Mac Marshall, driving, she lurked on the edges of town until noon. Noon, even in bad weather, meant the Square would be filled with anybody who was anybody and Orrie would not be denied her entrance.

Lolly Mabel, Pewter, Michelle, and I were cutting across the Square to peek inside the old Bon Ton building, since we couldn’t believe what John told us about Diz buying the thing. No sooner had we reached the midpoint of the Square—now a riot of blooms, since both sides competed even in gardening—than we heard a horn honk. Then another one. Soon the horns were honking around the Square. Mutzi Elliott dashed out of his greengrocer store with his cowbell. Lolly started barking and Pewter growled. The girls hate loud noises.

Mother and Mr. Pierre ran out of Daddy’s hardware store. Louise was coming down the steps of the library, without books this time. Aunt Wheezie, her devout Catholicism notwithstanding, had lectured Mother and me the night before at dinner on the meaning of karma. She hated being behind her sister in hearing the PTL news and covered up with a burst of religious mysticism and refinement. She also told me more than I ever wanted to know about soul travel. She said she would be practicing leaving her body tonight when she went to sleep. I asked her if she would
come visit me at the farm and she said no, she’d always had a hankering to see Paris. Mother wanted to know what happened to Louise’s body during her travels and Louise replied that her body stayed in the bed. Mother suggested that while Wheezie’s soul was out there in the Great Beyond, she might want to pick up a new body, a younger model. This didn’t go down with Aunt Louise, and dinner at Luigi’s plunged into recrimination.

Whether or not that affected my aunt’s reading habits, I don’t know. But when she saw Orrie in the front seat of Mac’s convertible, heard the horns, heard the cowbell, she hurried down the steps as fast as she could.

Orrie, like an aged and hefty prom queen, waved to us and we waved back.

Michelle was curious. “Does she usually get this kind of greeting upon her return?”

“No. We’re glad to see her, of course, but this is unusual.”

We walked toward the library. The Bon Ton could wait. Orrie and Mac headed, with majesty, for the library. When the convertible pulled up next to the curb there was a joyous screaming and hugging known only to Southern women. Mother and Mr. Pierre were also heading toward Orrie.

As Michelle and I came up behind the car we saw on the rear bumper this sticker:
HONK IF YOU’VE BEEN MARRIED TO MAC MARSHALL
. Mom and Mr. Pierre saw it about the same time we did.

Orrie, after more hugs from Louise, sharply turned. “Nickel Smith, what’s so funny? I haven’t seen you since Christmas and this is the greeting I get?”

“Orrie, you look tanned and wonderful.” The truth.

“We’re laughing because of your sticker.” Mother smiled but with a tart edge.

“What sticker?” Orrie flounced in her seat, bathing in the attention.

Louise trundled up behind the car. “Oh, Orrie, you’d better see this yourself.”

“I don’t want to get out of the car. Mac, what are they talking about?”

Mac’s trim moustache twitched. “I don’t know.”

As mothers-in-law go, Orrie wasn’t so bad but Mac wisely decided to check out the back of his car. He sauntered up and observed his bumper. We were quiet. Mac’s face turned red.

“Well?” Orrie demanded.

“Mother Tadia, it says, ‘Honk if you’ve been married to Mac Marshall.’ ”

“It does not. You’re making this up.” She heaved herself out of the car and came around. “It does!” Without blinking she wheeled on Mother. “Julia, you’re behind this.”

“Orrie, now why would I drive all the way to Baltimore to put a sticker on Mac’s car? Be reasonable.”

“Orrie, darling, so chic and, well, tropical, look at it this way—the only time there was more celebration in this town was Armistice Day in 1918.” Mr. Pierre charmed her.

“You weren’t here in 1918,” Louise corrected him.

I couldn’t resist. “No, but you were.”

Before Louise could hot up, Mr. Pierre returned his attentions to Orrie. “I shall expect you at my establishment at your earliest convenience. You look so youthful, Orrie, we need to change your hairstyle. Away with the old. Banish age. Let’s say hello to youth.”

Orrie ate it up. “See you tomorrow morning.” She waved to Mutzi. “Hey, Mutzi, I want pattypan squash!”

“Too early,” Mutzi hollered back.

“Start thinking about it.” She climbed back in the convertible. Mac obediently followed. “Now, ladies and gentlemen, I must unpack and settle myself after my long journey. I’ll be receiving tomorrow.”

Off they drove.

Michelle and I stayed on the sidewalk and walked around the Square over to the Bon Ton.

“Orrie’s after-dinner drink is Kaopectate and she sneaks gin
in it.” I sighed, thinking of the Orrie of my childhood and the Orrie of today, the same delightful person with the addition of a few decades.

“What’s the meaning of the bumper sticker?”

“That? Mac’s been married three times and two of those times to Orrie’s daughters. She has four, you know.”

“I forgot, if I did know. Trying to remember everyone’s genealogies is difficult.”

“I know. I’ve lived here all my life and I can’t keep them straight either, what with second cousins, third cousins, and shirt-tail cousins. Anyway, Mac lives in Baltimore with the daughter to whom he is currently married, and let’s hope it lasts. Orrie’ll kill him if it doesn’t.”

“Where’s his ex—the other sister?”

“Jackson Hole, Wyoming. After the divorce, that girl sling-shotted out of here. Wife Number One, ex-wife, I mean, lives in Red Lion, Pennsylvania.”

We stood in front of the Bon Ton, peeking in the windows.

“Looks the same.” Michelle pressed her nose against the window.