Seeing Things (8 page)
Authors: Patti Hill
BACK AT THE WAINWRIGHT house, I stood nose to knocker with the front door, anticipating the suffocating closeness of the walls within. This was Monday. Back in Ouray, the Super Seniors Bible study had just adjourned. Super seniors, my foot! Florence was a diabetic. Joan took enough pills to choke an alligator, and I'd seen a mid-sized alligator swallow down a small deer. Audrey had no business living at 9,500 feet elevation with emphysema, but she wouldn't budge from her beloved Ouray. That left Josie, my hiking partner and best friend, the healthiest among us, although she'd been complaining about her knees lately. I brought up the rear of the Super Seniors, and I mean that literally. When the AMD went wet in the second eye within two years of the first, the fog appeared. Super or not, these ladies were the candles of my life, especially Josie whose footfalls I imitated to keep from landing on my keister on hiking trails.
From the church, we would amble toward Elsie's Diner for meat loaf night and a piece of pie. When Conroy made the cowbell jingle, fresh back from his weekly run to Durango, every diner looked up from their mashed potatoes and tomato gravy to greet him. Such congenial folks, content with the predictable rhythms of lifeâthe coming and going of a friend, sharing a simple meal, laughing and loving.
“Home,” I whispered as a prayer. But then I remembered Fletcher's pitiful litany of baseball statistics and pushed the door open.
LUPE LEANED AGAINST THE doorjamb as I sat on the bed unbuttoning my coat. “You know, this room, this is where the nanny will sleep. I should be so lucky to have a room like this.”
“What nanny? Fletcher has a nanny?”
Lupe positioned the walker in front of me. It was uncanny how she knew when I needed the thing. I leaned forward and pushed myself to standing.
“Miz Doctor Lady, she's trying real hard to get pregnant. She buys those pregnancy tests by the dozen. You know, like my sister buys toothbrushes at Costco, only Miz Doctor Lady doesn't know that I see the little wand things in the trash, so I wouldn't go saying nothing. Anyway, she's not so happy about your dog sleeping in here.”
Lupe jabbered on as I started my expedition to the bathroom. “She's all upset, says she'll have to totally redo the room.”
I ignored Lupe, as much as you can ignore, say, a magpie outside your bedroom window. If I didn't, I knew I'd hear about her aunts and uncles, her cousins in Albuquerque who opened a restaurant, and the son who'd forgotten her birthday for the second time.
“Miz Doctor Lady says she can smell the dog from the front door. She wants maybe I should get him groomed.”
“Her.
Bee is a girl dog.” I immediately regretted correcting Lupe's mistake. I'd been hooked as surely as if I'd swallowed an earthworm whole. What could I do? I stopped to reward Lupe with my full attention. As she talked, even I could see her heavy eyebrows rise and fall. Her hair blossomed around the gray fog as a coarse tangle of black and gray.
Bee is a girl dog.” I immediately regretted correcting Lupe's mistake. I'd been hooked as surely as if I'd swallowed an earthworm whole. What could I do? I stopped to reward Lupe with my full attention. As she talked, even I could see her heavy eyebrows rise and fall. Her hair blossomed around the gray fog as a coarse tangle of black and gray.
Lupe yackety-yakked. “I always wanted one of those apricot poodles, you know? My sister has one. He sits in her lap while she watches television all day. The dog messes in the bathroomâon the floor. Sometimes Dolores doesn't clean it up for days. And she wonders why nobody wants to visit her. I told her, âMarÃa Dolores, it smells worse than grandpa's farm in here. I'll be back when you get your fatâ'”
I shuffled toward the recliner.
Lupe dropped her sentence like a hot potato. She wrung her hands. “Mr. Wainwright, he says you're very religious.”
Her statement was a question I wasn't sure how to answer.
“It's okay. I don't like to talk about religion either,” she said. She moved in front of the window and threw up her arms. “Nothing but troubles. My sister the nun, Sister Corazon Barbara, never shuts up that we should be going to Mass every day. Of course, she doesn't have to take a bus to the church like I do. She lives next door, and she doesn't pay no rent. I'd go every day too if I didn't have to ride no bus for two hours. It's easy to judge when life is easy.”
I doubted Sister Corazon Barbara lived an easy life as a nun in a metropolitan city. “Lupe, if you have something to do . . .”
“I'm supposed to fix you dinner, although they didn't hire me to cook. I hardly ever cook for the boy, but when I do, he loves my tamales. The mister and the miz, they bring food home from fancy restaurantsâno grease on the stove, they remind me a hundred times a day. I'm good enough to polish the granite in the kitchen and all the bathrooms. They better not ask me to wash the windows in this place, all those little panes. I jam my fingers, and then my arthritis flairs up. Good thing they hire a company to come every week, especially with your dog. His nose is wet. Is he sick?”
Let it go, let it go.
“Miz Doctor Lady is some kind of crazy person about the wood floors. âOh,' she says, âis that a scratch? Lupe, call the floor guy and get him in here today, not tomorrow. Do you hear me?'”
She impersonated Suzanne very well.
Since Lupe wasn't going anywhere, I steered the conversation away from dog slobber and Suzanne's obsessions. “Where's Fletcher?”
“He better be at school, that's where he better be.”
“Andy told me he plays hooky.”
“I think he wants to skip high school and go straight to collegeâa college far away from Miz Doctor Lady.”
“Does he have any friends, Lupe?”
“There were some boys in the old neighborhood. They came over when the mister and miz traveled, never when they were home, not that they were bad boys. They played cards all day, never opened the blinds. I didn't see nothing wrong with it. They didn't do drugs or nothing, I made sure of that. But the miz came home a day early without the mister, and she wasn't very happy. She kicked the boys out, didn't even call their mothers to come pick them up, and it was like three o'clock in the morning. She went and fired me but changed her mind before I buttoned my sweater. She tried firing me before, but no one will answer her ads. Word has gotten out.”
The gossip about Suzanne tickled my ears. “I'm having dinner with Fletcher tonight. Why don't you go home, Lupe? I won't be needing you.”
Lupe straightened. “And
Dr. Phil
is a rerun.”
Dr. Phil
is a rerun.”
MY STOMACH GURGLED. I tapped the clock. “Eight-oh-nine p.m.”
Fletcher had twenty more minutes to produce dinner, or I'd make myself another one of those hazelnut-butter-and-marmalade sandwiches on a pita, what stood in for bread in this household. In the meantime, I double-checked the door was closed to stare in the direction of the recliner, hoping Huck might reappear.
“I could use a little visit tonight, Huck,” I whispered into the darkness. “I promise, no more stories about my family, but I've had some run-ins with wildlife that might interest you.”
Come on, come on.
“I'll tell you how I got my name. It's quite a story. It involves raw meat and mousetraps, just the kind of story boys like to hear. Of course, if you've got a story, I'd love to hear it. I've never lived as wild and independently as you. It's been a coon's age since I read about you and Tom finding the treasure in the cave. I was nothing but a girl. Won't you tell the story again?”
My cell phone rang. I jumped and knocked the water onto the floor. Pill bottles followed as I rummaged the nightstand for the trilling phone. By the time I answered, my breaths came fast.
“Are you all right, Birdie?”
“Emory.” I said his name like I was ordering French silk pie, and my pits got sticky. “Just fine. I managed to walk to the corner this afternoon, and I've met the most interesting woman. She lives right next door.”
“Can you talk? Are things going well with your son and daughter-in-law?”
Emory's deliberateness of speech annoyed me, probably a characteristic that made him an excellent pharmacist. Sometimes I wished he'd just slap me on the back and say howdy. He never would. But what could I tell Emory about a son who struggled, as we all had, to be a good parent and a grandson who recited baseball statistics like prayers?
“Birdie?”
“There's no easy answer to that question.”
“Are they taking good care of you?”
“Quite lavishly, actually.” Any other answer would have brought Emory storming over the mountains to rescue me.
“You aren't pulling my leg, are you?”
“I'm living in the lap of luxury. I'm considering adding thirty silk pillows to my bed at home.”
“Birdie . . . ?”
I never could keep a secret. “Okay, it's a bit like walking on eggshells at times. Andy is tough on Fletcher, who's been a complete delight. We're listening to
Huckleberry Finn
together. Suzanne, well, is trying very hard to be accommodating. She has a lovely bedside manner, but I can't help thinking she carries an ice pick in her pocket. I'm probably being too sensitive.” And Huck had added a sense of adventure to my life I never thought possible.
Huckleberry Finn
together. Suzanne, well, is trying very hard to be accommodating. She has a lovely bedside manner, but I can't help thinking she carries an ice pick in her pocket. I'm probably being too sensitive.” And Huck had added a sense of adventure to my life I never thought possible.
“Just say the word, and I'll be there.”
The temptation of his offer pulled at me.
The doorbell rang and Fletcher pounded down the stairsâ
dumpety, thump, bump, bump, thud.
“I've got it!” he yelled.
dumpety, thump, bump, bump, thud.
“I've got it!” he yelled.
“Dinner's here,” I said to Emory.
“It's nearly nine o'clock.”
“I had a very late lunch. I'm a woman of luxury, you know.”
“I love you, Birdie.”
Fletcher appeared at the door with take-out bags smelling of soy and grease. “Are you hungry, Grandma?”
“I am, Fletcher.” And to Emory I said, “Fletcher just arrived with dinner. I should go.”
“I'm praying for you.”
“Don't ever stop.”
Fletcher made himself comfortable beside me on the bed as the narrator introduced chapter sixâ“Pap Struggles with the Death Angel.” He handed over a take-out carton full of shu mai. I considered begging off. Suzanne hadn't delivered on the antacid yet, but heartburn seemed a small price to pay for a moment of peace and enjoyment with my grandson. That night Fletcher also introduced me to wasabi, a slurry of something green that made horseradish out to be a sissy.
Chapter 9
Huck wiped his upper lip on his dirty sleeve, darkening the tip of his nose. Regardless, his face was lovely to see. Freckles. The dimple in his chin. The ease of his gaze as he watched me studying him.
“Of all the nights for you to come. I'm nearly dying. No more shu mai for me.”
Huck, clearly unconcerned that wasabi had seared a hole in my colon, chewed on his pipe.
I slung my feet over the side of the bed, eager to reach the Mylanta that Fletcher had loaned me from his bathroom. I pulled myself up, using the walker parked by the bed. “This won't take a minute,” I said. “This isn't my usual speed, you know. I pass younger people on mountain trails all the time.”
Huck pushed his hair out of his eyes, and it stuck straight up like an antennae. Come to think of it, his last bath had been a century earlier. I actually considered running a hot bath, but only a bar of Ma's homemade soap would clean that scalp. What was I thinking? Offering a bath to Huckleberry Finn was like suggesting Queen Elizabeth muck a stall.
“Have you ever seen a mountain, Huck?” I sat back down, suddenly concerned that stepping out of the room might dissipate the magic that brought Huck into my presence. “I don't know how this works, Huck. I'd hate to come back and find you gone.” I rubbed the sore spot under my ribs. “Looks like you catch me when I'm least fit for guests.” Since when did a little heartburn stop me from socializing with fictional characters? I suppose I should have been used to the oddities of my AMD-inspired visions, but Huck was special. He was responsive to my voice and close enough to touch.
“I hope you're in a more talkative mood tonight. I've been readingâwell, listeningâto your story with my grandson. And I must say, I admire your resourcefulness, Mr. Finn. How you lit out from Pap when he locked you in that shanty was pure geniusâmuch better than any plan Tom could percolate, and I'm not sweet-talking you either. You took your destiny into your hands and turned an impossible situation to your advantage. I admire that.”
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