I Still Dream About You: A Novel (15 page)

“Yes, hello … uh, I’m going to be out of town this Christmas, and I was wondering if I could have flowers delivered to my parents’ graves. Do you deliver to cemeteries?”

“Yes, ma’am, we sure do, and I’d be happy to arrange that for you … Is that going to be Forrest Lawn or Pine Rest?”

“Forrest Lawn. I have the location numbers. Lot 7, Section 196, and the names are Anna Grace and William Herbert Fortenberry.”

“That’s Anna Grace and William Herbert?”

“Yes …”

“And what price range would you like on that, hon?”

“Oh … I was thinking around seventy-five?”

“Seventy-five … alrighty then, we can do up something real nice for that, unless you want balloons. If you want balloons, that’s fifteen dollars extra.”

“No, just the flowers. I think.”

“Okay … that’s fine, and what do you want on the card?”

“The card?” Maggie was suddenly caught off guard; she hadn’t thought about the card. “Oh … well. Oh dear, uh … just say, ‘Love, Margaret,’ I guess.”

“Okay, hon … we’ll have it out there for them bright and early Christmas morning, and how do you want to pay for this?”

“MasterCard.”

“Can I get that credit card number from you?”

“Yes, but I’m also going to need to have you give me the total cost for arrangements for Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Memorial Day.”

The woman sounded surprised. “Oh, I see … well … just how long do you plan to be out of town?”

There was a pause. Then Maggie said, “About twenty-five years.”

The conversation did not go well after that, but after talking to the woman for a while, Maggie convinced her that she was serious, and the woman finally took her credit card number and started the process. Before she left, Maggie would send a check to MasterCard to cover the exact amount plus whatever other expenses she might have.

A
FEW MINUTES
later, Mrs. Thelma Shellnut, the woman at Bon-Ton Flowers, walked into the back and said to her husband, “I swear, Otis, what some people won’t do to get out of going to the cemetery.”

Otis looked up from his
Reader’s Digest
article. “What?”

“You should have heard the tall tale this woman told me: said she was going to be traveling and needed to have arrangements delivered for the next twenty-five years. Traveling, my left foot—she’s just too lazy to visit her parents’ graves, if you ask me.”

The truth was, Maggie was not totally without a living relative. She had one: Hector Smoote, a distant cousin of her father’s who lived in western Maine in a double-wide trailer that he and his wife, Mertha, had named Valhalla. Maggie had tried to keep in touch with him after her parents died out of some kind of family obligation, but every time she called, Hector hurt her feelings so badly, that eventually she’d stopped calling altogether. However, under the circumstances, she supposed she should try to end on a good note. Maggie dialed his number.

“Hector. It’s Maggie from Birmingham.”

As usual, he started in. “Well, hey there, little old honey pie … how y’all a-doing way down there in redneck land?”

“Oh, just fine, thank you.”

“How’s my little old country cousin? Are y’all still watching
Hee Haw
?”

Maggie tried to laugh. “No … not lately … I think it’s been off the air for some time now. Anyhow, I just wanted to call and say hello. I’m sorry we haven’t seen each other in so long.”

“Yeah, me too. Hey, why don’t you move out of that hellhole and come on up here with us? It’s not much, but at least we have running water.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s lovely there … but …”

He interrupted her with “Hey, Maggie, they still shooting Yankees down there?”

“Oh, yes … uh-huh, the streets are piled up with bodies as we speak. Well, anyway … I just called to say hello.”

“I’m glad you did and next time, don’t be such a stranger; let us hear from you more often. You hear?”

“Okay. Well, my best to Mertha. Bye.”

Maggie hung up. It was just no use. She had been thinking about leaving her Miss Alabama crown, sash, and trophy to Hector and Mertha, but it was probably best she didn’t.

If Maggie had any passion left at all, it was for Birmingham and Alabama. Like everyone who loved their home, she was probably far too thin-skinned and had lost her sense of humor, but to her, talking to Hector was like pouring salt in a wound over and over again.

M
AGGIE HAD HEARD
other people say about their state that they “couldn’t wait to get out and go somewhere else,” but not her; from the first minute she left, she couldn’t wait to get back, and if it hadn’t been for Richard, she would have come home much sooner. She couldn’t imagine being from any other state. What if she had been Miss anywhere else but Alabama? Most of the other girls in the Miss America Pageant had traveled to Atlantic City by plane, an automobile, or by bus, but she had traveled on her own private train car, aboard the beautiful
Silver Comet
, renamed the
Miss Alabama Special
for the trip. She had been given a huge send-off at the station, with
bands playing and
GOOD LUCK
banners flying everywhere; and unlike most of the other girls, she had arrived with an entire entourage of people to see to her every need. She had been so surprised when several of the girls told her that winning the title in their state had been no big deal. That was certainly not the case in Alabama. In Alabama, it was
the
beauty contest, second in size only to the Miss America Pageant, and it offered the largest prize money and scholarship of any pageant in the country.

The reason she had entered the contest was to try and win a scholarship to modeling school. She had done some teen modeling at Loveman’s department store downtown, and her mother’s friend Audrey, who worked there, had encouraged her to try for it. Maggie had certainly not planned on winning, and that night, nobody was more surprised than Maggie. And for a poor girl like herself, winning Miss Alabama had been a very big deal. She had been awarded ten thousand dollars, which had helped her parents buy their first home. She had been given beautiful, expensive jewelry and a complete wardrobe from Loveman’s, designed especially for her, plus a gray mink stole from Carlton’s furs, which she still had.

Maggie walked down the hall to the back closet, pulled it out, and examined it. It was still in pretty good shape. She put it on and looked at herself in the mirror. Too bad mink stoles went out of style, but you couldn’t wear fur of any kind without offending someone. Just one more thing she would never have to worry about: offending someone. That was one of the reasons she was always so comfortable with Brenda; she was not easily offended, and if you were to ever say something by mistake, she wouldn’t hold it against you. Not that she ever had or would purposely say or do anything to hurt someone’s feelings. She knew what that felt like firsthand. She knew all too well.

E
THEL, THE OLDEST MEMBER OF THE JINGLE-ETTES, A HANDBELL
choir that played out at the mall on holidays, had invited Brenda and Maggie to come during their lunch hour to a first dress rehearsal for their 2008 performance. Brenda said she would drive, and Maggie was glad to have an opportunity to ride with her. It would give her a chance to try to drop a hint again.

Brenda and Maggie sat in the food court and ate their lunch and enjoyed the show. Ethel was a regular virtuoso on the handbells and had a special solo spot during “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” All the Jingle-ettes wore blinking red noses, and it was very effective, drawing quite a bit of applause from the crowd that had gathered. Maggie was glad she had a chance to see it, considering she would be missing the holidays this year, and she was surprised to find herself getting a little teary.

On the way back to the office, in keeping with her plan, Maggie said, “You know, Brenda, I don’t know if you have noticed or not … but I’ve been a little depressed lately.”

Brenda rolled her eyes. “Oh right, Maggie, you have so much to be depressed about. You’re
so
ugly. It must be terrible to have to wake up and see yourself in the mirror every morning. If I looked like you, I’d be delirious. I’m the one who’s depressed. I swear, I’ve
gotten to the point to where I can’t even bear to look at myself anymore.”

“Why?”

“Because I look like a big fat Tootsie Roll in a wig, that’s why.”

“Oh, you do not! Brenda, why do you say those awful things about yourself?”

“Because it’s true … I’m ugly-looking.”

“You are not! You are just as cute as you can be; everybody thinks so. When you’re not with me, people always ask, ‘How’s that cute Brenda?’ ”

“Who?”

“Everybody … everybody thinks you are just as cute as you can be.”

“Really?”

“Yes, silly, so stop being so hard on yourself.”

Brenda seemed happy for the moment; then she asked, “What’s cute about me?”

“A lot of things … your personality for one, your smile … you have darling teeth.”

Brenda looked at her. “Darling teeth?”

“Yes, and you have a great smile.”

“Oh, I do not; now I know you’re making stuff up. I have buck teeth and a big space between my two front teeth.”

“No, you don’t, you have a great open face and a wonderful sense of humor … everyone says that.”

“They do?”

“Yes … Hazel always said you had a million-dollar personality.”

“She did?”

“Yes, you know she did.”

“God, I miss Hazel …”

They drove a little while longer and then Brenda said, “People don’t say I look too masculine, do they?”

“
What?
Brenda, anybody who wears a size 54 double-D-cup bra couldn’t look masculine if they tried. Why would you ask that?”

“Oh, I don’t know … I just worry. Since I got so fat, I think I look masculine.”

“Don’t be silly. Does Oprah Winfrey look masculine?”

“She’s skinny now …”

“Well … when she was heavier …”

“No …”

“Okay, then.”

They drove in silence a little while longer, until Maggie asked, “How are you doing with your Overeaters Anonymous meetings? Are you still going?”

“Yes, I love the meetings … it’s the not eating I don’t like.” Brenda let out a big sigh. “Maggie, if I tell you something, do you swear not to tell Robbie?”

“Of course.”

“I’m so mad at myself, I could just scream.”

“Why?”

“I had another slip. Doughnuts.”

“Oh … well, honey, just try to forget it and move on. That’s all you can do.”

Brenda smiled. “You’re right … that’s all we can do …”

Brenda then pulled down the visor and looked at herself in the mirror. “Do you really think I have cute teeth?”

“Yes.”

Brenda smiled. “I’ll tell you what Maggie, talking to you always cheers me up!”

Oh, dear. This clearly was not the moment. Maggie decided she would try another time.

A
T BRENDA’S LAST OVEREATERS ANONYMOUS MEETING, THE LEADER
had said to the group, “The problem is not what you are eating, but what’s eating
you
!” And unlike a lot of the other gals in the group, Brenda knew exactly what had been eating at her for years.

When Hazel had hired her, it had still been a pretty rare thing: a black real estate agent in an all-white firm. But for Brenda, growing up when and where she had, she had always been an experiment of some kind. Now, after so many years of having to deal with the “race issue” day in and day out, she was tired. Tired of everybody bobbing and weaving all around the subject, never saying what they really thought, herself included. And tired of always having to be careful about not acting “too white” around her own people or “too black” around white people.

When Brenda had been growing up, the issues had been the big, overt, and glaring oversights of voting rights and segregated neighborhoods, water fountains, schools, and bathrooms. But now it was the small, everyday subtleties that were so wearing. She always felt it when white people were walking on eggshells around her, nervous about saying something that might offend her. She just wished people
would act normal. When she had been in college up north, all those obsequious professors fawning over her had made her very uncomfortable.