Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen (6 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

Confessing My Sin with a Teacup in My Hand

D
addy once told me that if you asked somebody where he was when he heard the news that President Kennedy had been shot, he could tell you right where he was standing. Daddy said the human mind can call up all sorts of details from the very moment of hearing something traumatic. He was right.

I was sitting in the third row, second seat from the left in home economics class when Mrs. Gulbenk announced that, with Mother's Day just around the corner, she wanted us girls to try something new this year. Instead of sewing the expected, ruffled gingham apron that everyone could give their mothers as a present, she wanted us to celebrate our mamas' steady love and devotion by honoring them with a special tea.

I was halfway looking forward to making that silly-looking apron, having always admired all the frilly aprons Ruthie Morgan's mama had hanging on a hook in her kitchen. I thought I might wear it on Thursday nights when I made meat loaf, something I had been doing since my thirteenth birthday and Ida Belle had given me the
Better Homes and Garden Cookbook
—a must, she said, for every kitchen. But a tea, I wasn't so sure about that. And the more she talked about it, the more uncomfortable I got.

Mrs. Gulbenk had gone to Memphis the summer before and her sister-in-law had taken her to the Peabody hotel for some kind of fancy tea party. She was so taken with all the beautifully decorated cakes and delicate, little sandwiches which had been served that she wanted to share the experience with us—broaden our horizons, was the way she put it.

I didn't mind the idea of broadening myself, but I surely couldn't see how sipping tea from a china cup was going to accomplish that. Heck, the woman had been to Graceland, but she didn't seem the least bit interested in broadening our musical horizons. Oh no, all she wanted to talk about were pretty pink petit fours and perfectly cut lemon wedges, not one word about Elvis and rock ’n’ roll.

Ruthie Morgan and Shelley Hatfield, the first sophomores in Ringgold High's history to make the varsity cheerleading squad, were sitting in front of me, and I could tell they were grinning from ear to ear even though I couldn't see their faces. Their ponytails were swaying back and forth from left to right with such harmonious rhythm it was as if those girls were tapping their feet double time to the same silent beat.

“Mrs. Gulbenk,” Ruthie Morgan interrupted before she could get her arm fully extended in the air. “My mama went to tea at the governor's house down in Atlanta once. I'm sure she'd be more than happy to help you, if you'd like her to.”

Ruthie Morgan's father was a real live World War II hero. He ran away from home and lied about his age just so he could fight for his country. He was barely sixteen and serving in the South Pacific when a Japanese torpedo hit the tip of his submarine. Ruthie Morgan's dad pulled five other sailors to safety before they were surely going to be sucked out into the ocean. So whenever the state of Georgia wanted to honor its veterans, some government official called Ruthie Morgan's dad, and that's how Ruthie Morgan's mom ended up at the governor's house drinking tea.

“Oh Ruthie, dear, thank ya. That's a lovely idea. I never cease to be amazed at what your mama can do.”

I had always liked Mrs. Gulbenk, despite her obsession with the tomato, until this very moment. I appreciated her teaching me to sew a button on a jacket and how to properly season a new cast-iron skillet. I never really figured either one was going to be particularly important to my personal survival, but somehow I just felt a little more womanly knowing how. But sitting in the third row behind Ruthie Morgan's ponytail, I suddenly hated her and this broadening notion of hers and Mother's Day and everything else that made me remember that I was the only girl in my entire class who didn't have a living and breathing mama. Besides, nobody with any sense drinks hot tea in May.

With all that hate swarming through my body, I barely heard Mrs. Gulbenk calling my name, “Catherine Grace, child, are ya in there?”

And in her well-intended effort to ease my discomfort, she only made it worse. “Catherine Grace, I'm gonna need one gul to help me pour the tea. It is a big responsibility, and I need someone with a mature demeana and a steady hand. I was wonderin’ if you'd help? Of course, you should know, you won't be able to spend much time socializin’ with the otha guls.”

The
other
girls in Mrs. Gulbenk's tenth-grade home economics class instantly turned to look at me with their sappy, sympathetic stares, letting me know that they had already deciphered what she was trying to say in polite code. Catherine Grace, since you don't have a mother, I have a very special job for you. That ought to make it all better, right dear? That ought to make that dull, aching pain you've gotten used to feeling in your heart soften a bit, right?

Lolly Dempsey was sitting next to me. She looked me in the eyes and mouthed two words, “I'm sorry.”

“Me, too,” I mouthed back.

I don't remember much more of that day except Mrs. Gulbenk's persistent rambling ringing in my ears. She kept talking in an unusually high, giddy tone that plainly revealed her excitement about her newly invented Mother-Daughter Tea. But every word fell into the next, and from the second seat in the third row, it all sounded like a lot of noise about nothing.

Lolly followed me out of the classroom as if to provide some sort of human shield between me and the other girls, you know, the girls with mothers. Lolly definitely had a mother, but mostly I think she wished she didn't. Her mama was almost fifty when Lolly was born. Mrs. Dempsey told me once that she was done taking care of babies when she got the news she was going to have another. It seemed like a mighty strange thing to be sharing with a child, but Lolly said her mama reminded her almost every day that she had been the product of a night of drunken thoughtlessness.

Lolly wasn't allowed to have many friends over to her house. Her mama said it was too much work, and taking care of Lolly was already work enough. She'd let me come now and again, but only because I was the preacher's daughter. You don't want the preacher thinking unkindly of you even if you don't attend church on a regular basis.

But I never cared to spend much time at the Dempseys' house. I didn't like the hateful way Lolly's mama talked to her. Sometimes I wasn't so sure if Mrs. Dempsey really knew how ugly she sounded. I think it had just become another one of her awful habits, kind of like those Virginia Slims she was always sticking between her lips. She would draw the smoke deep into her chest and just let it set there for a minute before blowing it out through her nose, sometimes right in Lolly's face. It was as if her mama blamed Lolly for simply being, and poor Lolly Dempsey knew from the very beginning what I had learned only at six—life's not fair.

Standing in front of our gray metal lockers, Lolly and I griped about Mrs. Gulbenk's new class assignment, trying to comfort each other by joking about how stupid a tea sounded and how making a quart of tomato aspic would be ten times better than this. We imitated Ruthie Morgan throwing her arm in the air and offering her mother up as some sort of statewide, recognized tea expert.

“Hey, you can bring my mom, Catherine Grace. I'm sure she'd rather go with you anyway,” Lolly said with a look in her eyes that told me she wasn't kidding anymore.

“Thanks, but I'll be Mrs. Gulbenk's trusted little helper, the girl with the steady hand,” I said, thinking as I looked back in Lolly's eyes, maybe it was better not having a mama than to have one who doesn't want you.

“Catherine Grace, seriously, I've got an idea. Why don't you bring Gloria Jean? You know she'd love to come. All you have to do is ask, and she'll be picking out the perfect shade of nail polish just for the occasion.”

She was right. Gloria Jean would be thrilled to be my mother, even if it was only for one afternoon. She'd never had any children of her own, although she said she had come close once or twice. She said she had an angry uterus that just never took to growing a baby. But she loved every opportunity to dote on Martha Ann and me, even calling us the children she always dreamed of having.

Lolly was also right about the nail polish. But I already knew the shade she'd pick. Cherry Blossom Pink. Gloria Jean always said that Cherry Blossom Pink was just the right shade for bridal showers and ladies' luncheons, and I figured a tea fell somewhere between the two.

Most people in Ringgold didn't appreciate Gloria Jean's colorful sense of style. Gloria Jean called herself a liberated, modern woman who wasn't afraid to express her inner self. I knew that was talk she had picked up from one of those ladies' magazines she was always reading, and I also knew that the other women in town had less-flattering names for her.

When I was no more than seven or eight, Gloria Jean would take me to town while she did her weekly shopping. Everybody we passed on the sidewalk acted real friendly to her face. But I could tell that when she walked away, they were passing judgments. They'd lean into one another and whisper in each other's ears. I eventually figured out what they were saying. They thought her blue eye shadow was tacky and her red, silky blouse that pulled too tightly across her chest was whoreish. I knew they were wrong, and I tried to tell them by casting a scolding, evil stare in their direction. But they never paid any attention to a little girl.

I used to feel so hurt for Gloria Jean, even though she never seemed to notice. But as I got older, sometimes I found myself feeling more embarrassed than hurt. And then that left me feeling guilty and shallow. I just wasn't sure what to think anymore. One minute I'd be crying, the next I'd be laughing. Gloria Jean said it was nothing but
horrormones,
as she liked to call them, running wild throughout my body. But I wasn't so convinced that I could blame the way I was feeling on something I had never seen or heard of before.

But I did know one thing for certain, I wasn't feeling up to drawing any more attention to myself; being the only motherless child in class was bad enough without having to listen to all the talk about my special, colorful friend. No, I would just pour the tea and make myself feel better by spitting in Ruthie Morgan's cup.

For the next two weeks, Mrs. Gulbenk talked on and on about tea and tea parties. She said some English duchess back in the nineteenth century came up with the idea of serving tea in the afternoon so she could make it to dinner without fainting from hunger. We learned to make these tiny cucumber sandwiches, which were nothing more than two little round pieces of white bread with a slice of cucumber and some cream cheese between them. I didn't know about that English duchess, but even I knew it was going to take more than a piece of cucumber to quiet a growling stomach.

Mrs. Gulbenk insisted on serving her special tea. She said she found the recipe in the back of a
Good Housekeeping
magazine and that we should file this one away in our personal recipe boxes that we decoupaged last semester. She even wrote the mixture on the board so we could copy it onto one of those white index cards she kept stacked on the corner of her desk for us to use for jotting down a good recipe whenever one came our way.

1/2 cup Lipton Instant Tea
1 large jar of Tang Drink Mix
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/2 tablespoon ground cloves
Add water to taste. Heat. Serve hot.

That was it. Her special tea. And since I was her special helper, I was the one entrusted with the responsibility of mixing the tea together in the school cafeteria. Mrs. Gulbenk insisted I make a batch a whole week before the party and then practice serving it to the class. I told her I didn't think that was necessary seeing how there were only six ingredients and one of them was water and I had been pouring iced tea into jelly jar glasses since I was no more than four years old.

“Catherine Grace, a good hostess always prepares new dishes for herself first, even tea, before serving it to her guests.”

In that case, I asked if Lolly could help, pointing out that I might need an extra hand carrying the tea back to the classroom. Mrs. Gulbenk thought that was a smart idea, and Lolly and I were both relieved to get out of the room where all the other girls were giggling with excitement as they practiced decorating trays with miniature cakes and sandwiches and sprigs of parsley.

I had not mentioned this tea to anyone, not Daddy, not Gloria Jean, not even Martha Ann. I wanted to warn my little sister that in two years, she was going to be Miss Gulbenk's special helper at this sure-to-be-annual-mother-daughter event. But I didn't want to burden her with it. She hated these things as much as I did. So I kept it to myself.

Of course, what I wasn't expecting was for Miss Gulbenk to blab all about it to Gloria Jean. Other than just a polite hello, those two women have probably exchanged words a sum total of three times since the day I was born, and one of them was a week before the Mother-Daughter Tea.

“Catherine Grace,” Gloria Jean announced one night when I had come over to watch
That Girl
on her new color television set. “I ran into Miss Gulbenk today at the post office. She told me all about the tea you girls are having at school, and she thought you might like it, sweetie, if I came, so you wouldn't be there without a mama and all. You know I'd love to. Just tell me when and where I need to be.”

I mumbled something about needing to prepare the tea and how I'd be busy in the kitchen and not wanting to leave her sitting in the classroom with all those other mothers. “Really,” I said, “I wouldn't want to bother you. I mean, you'd probably be bored stiff seeing how I'm Mrs. Gulbenk's special helper and all.” I sat there listening to myself lying all the while acting as though I was only doing what was best for Gloria Jean.

Surely I had wounded her, too, just like I had Miss Raines, except that Gloria Jean was the closest thing I was ever going to have to a mama. And I just sat there on her soft velvet sofa staring at her television and stomping on her heart all at the same time. But she just smiled.