Michael Tolliver Lives (11 page)

“I like it,” I told her. “It’s very becoming.”

“Patreese did it. My new hairdresser…ssss…Black as the ace of spades…ssss…but very talented.”

In the old days, I would have taken issue with her phraseology—and she would have accused me of overreacting—but it was way too late for all that now.

Mama shot a nervous glance toward the door. “She didn’t…ssss…come with you, did she?”

I was confused. “Your hairdresser?”

“No…ssss…Lenore.”

“She’s over at the mall,” I said. “I wanted this to be just us.”

“I hope she didn’t…ssss…bring those puppets!”

I chuckled. “No…well, they’re in the van, but…I think we’re safe.”

“She like to bored us silly last week…ssss…Set up the stage in the dining room without so much as…ssss…a pretty-please to anyone…ssss…Then she went and…ssss…told the whole blessed world I’d turned blue.”

“Well, that’s not very discreet.” I could have been a lot more supportive, but I hadn’t been expecting an open invitation to lay into Lenore.

A sly light came into Mama’s eyes. “I never had so many…ssss…visitors in my life…ssss…all of ’em lookin’ for the Famous Blue Lady…ssss…I think the young’ns…ssss…were expectin’ a Smurf.”

When I laughed hard at that, she looked rather pleased with herself. Mama had gotten sassier in these last two decades without Papa. I’d always assumed she was trying to channel him a little, thereby taking up the slack in the pissing-and-moaning department.

She shook her head slowly. “I’ve never understood it.”

“What, Mama?”

“What Irwin sees in that…ssss…
Jesusy
woman!”

“Well,” I said, dragging up a chair and sitting down, “it’s a damn good thing
we’re
not married to her, isn’t it?” I reached for her hand and held it for a while. It was small and unnaturally plump and—yes—a little bit blue.

“Some of us don’t need puppet shows,” Mama declared with a righteous scowl. “Some of us would like to…ssss…worship the Lord in silence.”

I gazed down at her nebulizer mask, that ugly Muppet nose, lying abandoned in her lap. “Shouldn’t you be wearing that thing?”

She shrugged. “I can…ssss…take it or leave it.”

“Well, take it, then.”

She resisted.

“C’mon, lady. Humor me.”

She looked at me wearily for a moment, as if on the verge of saying something, then picked up the mask. “It’s just medicine…ssss…it doesn’t do anything.”

“Be that as it may…let me do the talking for a while.”

So Mama stayed on the nebulizer while I rattled on about the gardening business and the nice weather in Orlando and the landscaping at the Gospel Palms. My eyes, meanwhile, roamed the room for evidence of anything more substantive. I found it on a shelf by the window: the framed snapshot of Ben and me at Big Sur that I’d mailed to Irwin for Mama’s last birthday. I’d apparently shamed him into giving it to her.

She caught me looking at the photo and pulled off the mask. “So where did you hide…ssss…the young feller?”

Normally, she wouldn’t pronounce the word that way; she was being cute. She was doing her best Granny Clam-pett, to let me know she wasn’t nearly the rube I took her for. It was a sweet gesture but unconvincing; somewhere beneath all that white makeup and blue skin, the same old red-state heart was beating. Mama was a proud member of the Greatest Generation—or at least its ladies’ auxiliary—and those folks don’t
have
to approve of you to love you. They can forgive you until the cows come home.

I gazed back at her calmly for a bit. “What bothers you more?” I asked. “The young part or the feller part?”

“Well,” said Mama, “we’ll just…ssss…have to see, won’t we?”

Ben returned from Starbucks minus Lenore. She had some shopping to do, he said, but she’d be back in an hour to pick us up. I figured she knew the limits of Mama’s energy and thought it best to give us a deadline. That was fine with me; I wasn’t even sure how well I could fill up the time. Ben made a valiant effort by dumping a handful of cellophane-wrapped cookies on the bedside table as soon as I’d introduced him to Mama. “I thought we should try these,” he said. “They’re madeleines. Ever had one?”

“Not from
Starbucks,
” I said, giving him a jaundiced look as I took one.

Ben mugged at me and turned back to my mother, who seemed to be studying his face for some killer final exam. “How ’bout you, Alice?”

Jesus fuck! He called her Alice.

Mama blinked at him for a moment, then reached primly for a madeleine. “Don’t mind if I do,” she said.

“Madeleines seemed appropriate,” Ben said, looking hopefully from mother to prodigal son as we nibbled away. “They’re for remembering, right?”

“Only if you’ve had one before,” I replied. “Only if you’re Proust.” I shared a private grin with him. “My madeleine would be a Moon Pie.”

Ben laughed.

“That’s a big fib…and you know it.” Mama was eating and talking at the same time, which was something of a stretch. Madeleine crumbs had assembled unlawfully in the corners of her mouth. “I never…ssss…fed you boys Moon Pies in my life.”

I chuckled. “I didn’t say you fed us. I said I ate them.”

“I’ll tell you another thing…ssss…I know who Proust is…ssss…so don’t you get snooty with me.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Where’d you get ’em?”

“What?”

“The Moon Pies.”

“The Esso station down on the highway. Mr. Grady with the drool rag. Same place I got the key ring with the wiggly naked lady inside.”

Mama was fierce. “I don’t remember any…ssss…key ring.”

“I don’t know why not,” I said. “You confiscated it. You said you never wanted to see me with a naked lady again as long as you lived.”

Her mouth went slack. “I never said…ssss…any such thing!”

“Well,” I said darkly, “it’s how
I
heard it.”

“Michael.” Ben was using the careful intonation of a kindergarten teacher. “Stop with the Norman Bates, please.”

“She knows I’m kidding,” I said, slipping my arm around Mama’s shoulders.

Sulking, Mama smoothed the front of her blouse. “Don’t think you can…ssss…blame me for your”—she searched for the right word—“good times.”

“My good times,” I echoed to Ben. “Blame her for my good times.”

“Give it a break,” he said. “Who’s Mr. Grady with the drool rag?”

“He worked at the gas station,” I said.

“He had a condition, “Mama added.

“So I gathered,” said Ben.

“He was sort of a popular freak show for us kids,” I said. “He had this long string of drool—”

“Ugh,” said Ben.

“I know,” said Mama, looking slyly at my husband. “You could never buy a blessed thing out of a wrapper.”

It took him a moment to recognize her humor, but he finally smiled. “You’re a pistol, aren’t you, Alice?”

He could not have pleased her more. She smiled at him faintly, then turned back to me. “How did you ever meet…ssss…such a gentleman?”

I was feeling so comfortable by then that I almost brought up the website, but I thought better of it. “Just lucky, I guess.”

“I was lucky, too,” Ben told her.

Mama caught the look that passed between us. “Is that so?” she asked him.

He returned her gaze. “Yes, ma’am. It is.”

Their eyes stayed locked for a while before she turned back to me. “Why don’t you…ssss…go out and play?”

“What?”

“You heard me,” she said, shooing me with a plump pastel hand.

I spent the time in something called the Prayer Gazebo, which was just what it sounds like: a gazebo in the form of a miniature chapel. It wouldn’t function well as either, it seemed to me, but there were nice cushions that kept me comfortable while I was killing time. I was still killing it, by the way, when Lenore came back to pick us up.

“What happened to Ben?” she called.

“He’s inside with Mama.” I rose and walked toward her out of the gazebo.

I caught the raw scent of new-mown grass and felt suddenly, curiously buoyant.

“What are they talking about?” Lenore asked.

“I have no idea.”

“Oh…
now
.”

“I’m serious,” I said. “I’m clueless.”

Lenore pursed her lips. “Mikey, listen, I don’t know what y’all are up to, and I don’t wanna sound like some rhymes-with-witch, but Mama Tolliver can’t take any stress right now…and just because y’all’s political agenda means tellin’ the whole blessed—”

“It was
her
idea, Lenore!”

Lenore looked satisfyingly blank.

“Mama
asked
to be alone with Ben.”

“She did?”

“Yes. And lay off that agenda crap, Lenore. I hear a lot more about
your
agenda than you ever hear about mine.”

“Oh, hush,” she said. “We need to figure this out.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s up to somethin’…”

I just shrugged. “I think it’s kinda sweet.”

“Listen, if you think for one minute that she’s in there givin’ him her blessing on your…let’s just say it, Mikey…cradle robbin’—”

“Oh, please,” I said. “We’re not asking for her approval. Or yours, for that matter.”

Lenore’s faced clouded with thought. “What is it, then? She just met him, didn’t she? Doesn’t that make you a little nervous?”

“I’d be more nervous, frankly, if it were Irwin.”

Lenore frowned. “Irwin and Mama Tolliver?”

“No. Irwin and Ben.”

I gave her a grin to let her know that I wasn’t serious, but it didn’t seem to help. “What are you talking about?” she asked, her frown growing deeper.

“Ben thinks he’s hot.”

“Hot?”
She drew the word out to at least three syllables.
“Irwin?”

“I know,” I said. “There’s no accountin’, is there?”

Lenore was dumbstruck, somewhere just short of laughing or screaming.

“It was just a remark,” I added. “He’s not trying to bag him. Don’t worry.”

“Well…” She started to say something but stopped.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing. You made me forget. You always do that.” She turned and started striding toward the building. “C’mon, I gotta be at Curves by two.”

11

The War at Home

W
hile they’d never been close, Mama and Lenore had been confidantes for decades—a paradox that’s not uncommon among Southern women. Lenore had been Mama’s wailing wall in the matter of her gay son—and later, of course, her
dying
gay son—and they had borne those crosses together like good Christians. So I couldn’t imagine what could possibly have driven Mama to find her daughter-in-law too “Jesusy” these days. I had a feeling Ben might know already, but I didn’t dare pump him until Lenore had dropped us off down the block from our B&B and rounded the corner out of sight.

“So what did your girlfriend want?”

Ben’s smile was more careful than I expected. “Just to talk.”

“I thought that’s what we were doing.”

He took my arm sweetly, naturally, and walked us to Inn Among the Flowers. I’ve lived too long not to fret about displays of male tenderness when they happen in…oh, say…the South, so I took note of the trio of baggy-panted teens slouching toward us down the palm-lined sidewalk. They passed without comment, though, causing me to wonder if this was actual progress—or if they’d just seen a guy being nice to his dad.

“So what’s going on?” I asked Ben, returning to the mystery at hand.

He hesitated. “She needs your help with something.”

“And she couldn’t ask me herself?”

Arriving at our room, he slipped the key into the door. “She thought you’d be more likely to listen to me.” He pushed open the door, turning to me with a crooked smile. “Plus she thinks I’m a gentleman, remember?”

(That’s another thing that annoys me about Southern women: they always work through the spouse.)

“Don’t get too grand about it,” I said, following him into the room. “That was her backhanded way of saying that I’m
not
a gentleman.”

We sat on the edge of the bed and, almost simultaneously, tore at the Velcro of our Tevas. Ben turned and gazed at me soberly, then sighed and took the leap. “Here’s the deal, sweetie: she wants to give you durable power of attorney.”

I blinked at him for a moment, totally uncomprehending. “What do you mean? For a will or something? There can’t be much of an estate.”

Ben shook his head. “For health care.”

“But Irwin and Lenore have always—”

“I know…but she wants
you
to handle it now…and to sign something to that effect.”

“But…why?”

Ben hesitated, assembling his words. “Her lungs are pretty much shot. They won’t get any better. She could last for another few months, but…”

He didn’t finish, but none of this was news to me. I couldn’t understand why he was still treading so lightly.

“Once her lungs go,” Ben went on, “they could put her on a respirator indefinitely, but…she doesn’t want to be around at any cost. And she’s afraid that…left to their own devices…your brother and Lenore…”

I finished the thought for him: “…wouldn’t let her die.”

He nodded slowly. “Yep.”

“Jesus,” I murmured.

“Pretty much,” he said.

A long leaden silence.

“Has she
told
them that?” I asked. “What she wants, I mean.”

“No.”

“Why not? It’s worth a shot. You never know if—”

“She’s sure they wouldn’t go for it. Especially Lenore.”

“She asked her specifically, then?”

Ben shook his head. “They used to watch Terri Schiavo together.”

“Motherfucker,” I said. “Of
course
.”

You must remember Terri Schiavo, the woman in the “persistent vegetative state” whose parents were fighting to keep her that way. Her husband had petitioned to have her feeding tube removed, and fundamentalists everywhere were outraged, Governor Jeb Bush among them. When permission was finally granted, the faithful gathered around their sets for a protracted deathwatch, a sideshow that proved so popular that the network tried it again several days later with the pope. But an old man shuffling into oblivion, however cute he might be, lacked the sheer gladiatorial drama of a good plug-pulling.