The Future Homemakers of America (29 page)

After Christmas she started placing advertisements and ordering supplies. Moulding plaster, borax powder, gasoline, wire, shredded wood, resin for making glass eyes. It looked like the devil's kitchen. Perpetual Pets, she was calling herself. She set up in an old studio, used to be occupied by a person, called herself a chronicler of urban life, who had moved to New York because people there were willing to pay big money for works of art made out of old car bumpers.

Her first job was a canary, which was hardly gonna pay the rent, and her second job was a garter snake for some joker who never came back to collect it, nor to pay what he owed.

I said to Grice, ‘At least in our business the customers know how to behave.’

I spoke too soon.

We had been asked to handle the Dekker-Prowers wedding. Courtenay Dekker was marrying Scott Prowers in a poolside ceremony at her parents’ lovely ranch home and we had been given a blank cheque to ensure everything was perfect, the Dekkers being millionaires practically.

The wedding colours were soft primrose and pastel-green and the bridesmaids and flower-girls were having tiny spring blooms woven into their hair, as was the bride's horse, which was invited to the ceremony like it was a human being. We had arranged for voice coaching and then a recording of the bride's mother singing ‘Hawaiian Wedding Song’, plus a string orchestra to play some Vivaldi tunes, and’ Grice had designed the pre-dance ‘n’ dinner buffet, which included a seafood mélange, served on giant half-shells instead of plates, and French champagne.

Relatively speaking, Randy Dekker was a new name in town. Grice reckoned he was all hat and no cattle. He didn't hold his drink well neither. By the time our team of meat chefs were ready to start cooking the steaks, Randy was so tight he just had to take one of those bridesmaid's into the saddle room, show her the size of his bank roll. Which is where I found him when I went to check on the powdered ice we were planning to sprinkle on the table-flowers, help them keep that dew-fresh sparkle.

The bridesmaid saw her chance and nearly knocked me off my feet, making her getaway. Randy Dekker, meanwhile, was on the floor, with his pants round his ankles and his face an alarming shade of purple. He looked like he might be having some kind of cardiac emergency, and I was bending over him, trying to loosen his collar when in walked Mrs Dekker herself, and misread the situation. Made no difference what I said.

‘Trash!’ she yelled. ‘You are fired. And I'll see you never work again in this town again. And
you,’
she yelled at him, ‘you stay outta my sight.’

That old goat wasn't sick at all. He was getting to his feet, pulling up his pants, making me look a fool. ‘Lola,’ he was crying, ‘I just had gas pains, is all. I just had to lie down, loosen this goddamned cummerbund.’

Grice came looking for me. A cold wind had sprung up and he thought it was time to implement our Bad’ Weather Plan.

‘Get off my property,’ she said to me. ‘Get outta here, and take your faggot employee with you.’

Grice said it'd blow over. He said we should carry on like nothing had happened and it'd all be forgotten and who knows, the Dekkers might even settle their account. But I knew what kind of influence a woman like Lola Dekker had. She was Trinity River Tennis Club. She had her hair done at Pierre. And I was right. Two days later Mrs Bonnie Blossburg called to say she'd be making other arrangements for her daughter's marriage to Hart Twisp.

‘Relax!’ Grice said. ‘We didn't want the Blossburg-Twisp wedding anyway. Just
saying
it was hard work.’

I said, ‘Well, I think we're ruined. And she referred to you as my “faggot employee”. What in tarnation did she mean by that?’

He said, ‘Peggy, Lola Dekker is just an ignorant and prejudiced woman. Employee! It is common knowledge that I am your personal assistant and right-hand man.’

76

Spring of ‘75, Lois got her dearest wish. They moved to New York. They found an apartment in Yonkers, near to Sandie, and Herb went as a supervisor at a sawmill.

‘That was what swung it,’ she said. ‘The smell of wood, plus he can take the dog to work.’

She was driving into the city every day, working out of a rented cupboard, selling West Side co-ops. ‘The market's been real slow,’ she said, but I'm getting there. I just sold a six-room in the Fairchild, with a park view, and my name's getting around. I've got an exclusive on a seven-room pre-war. West End Avenue. Beautiful. Everything's coming up roses, except for my idiot son.’

Kirk had gotten a girl called Marisa in the family way, and her folks had cast her out. She was staying with Lo and Herb, lying in bed all day, eating sweet pickles and picking out names.

I said, ‘Does he have a job?’ The last I had heard he was learning butchery.

‘Not exactly,’ she said. ‘That was what I wanted to ask you. You know he's mad on fishing. Ain't a thing he don't know about flies and all that. Would Vern know of anybody might be able to give him a start? He'd be willing to relocate.’

I said, ‘What happened to the Institute of Meat?’

‘Didn't work out,’ she said. ‘He didn't like the noise. All those guys hauling beeves around.’

I said, ‘Wouldn't they be better off staying put? There has to be more work in the city.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I think he needs a smaller place. A nice friendly little business somehere. If you could mention to Vern?’

Sounded to me like Lois wanted Kirk and his girl out of her hair. I guessed she didn't want calling on for babysitting, just as her big career was taking off.

I did call Vern. ‘For Herb Moon's boy,’ he said, ‘I'll put the word out.’

Me and Kath hardly ever talked about Lois, but I did tell her there was a grandbaby on the way.

‘I see,’ she said.

I said, ‘Poor Sandie keeps trying, gets to three months then she loses them. Kirk hits the jackpot before he even has a job or a home.’

‘How is he?’ she said. ‘He still a bit of a tearaway?’

I said, ‘No, according to Lo he's turned all peaceful and retiring. Likes a quiet night in, tying fishing flies.’

She laughed. ‘Well, I'm glad to hear it,’ she said, ‘that temper he had on him. Still … he was a funny little noggin. You just had to handle him right.’

She said she was bored. ‘Every day it's the same,’ she said. ‘Backing round the same old corners time after time. Reminding them to check their mirrors. You can tell some of them till the cows come home and they still won't remember. At least you get a bit of variety in your business.’

But things had gotten so bad in
my
business, I had had to give up my office downtown and work outta my spare bedroom. Lola Dekker had spread poison. Next thing was gonna be having to let Grice go.

We had only one wedding left on our books then it'd be Labor Day weekend and after that nothing much would be going on, even when the good times were rolling.

Grice said to me, ‘Can we talk?’ He had been with me eight years and never a cross word.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘we can't continue like this, now, can we? And you're too young to retire.’

I said, ‘Honey, I'm too
poor
to retire.’

‘That too,’ he said. ‘So here's an idea. I'll buy you out. Then you can come and work for me.’

I said, ‘I don't have anything to sell you.’

He said there was my address book, my contacts. As I pointed out to him, my address book was hardly worth a cent any more. Besides which, he knew the contents of it as well as I did. He could just take it.

‘Well, I could,’ he said. ‘But I wouldn't. Also, I'd be buying your wisdom and experience.’

I said, ‘There's something else. I'm sick of weddings.’

‘Me too,’ he said. ‘I'm thinking bigger. I'm ranging wider. I'm thinking sparkle and glitz and fun, fun, fun.’

So that was the start of Swell Parties, the complete party-planning service. Crystal turned up and the three of us went out for Chinese, by way of a celebration. Time was when we'd have gone to the Black Diamond Grill or the Cotillion Room, but we were tightening our belts.

Crystal said, ‘How come he can afford to buy you out? You been paying him too much?’

I said, ‘No. He has a friend willing to inyest.’

‘Oh yeah?’ she said. ‘Would that be a long-time companion kinda friend?’

‘Enough of your impertinence, child,’ he said. ’Just show a little respect to your mother's new employer. Now tell us, how are things in the pet eternalisation business?’

‘Why?’ she said. ‘You got your eye on my assets too?’

‘Never,’ he said. ‘I cannot abide the smell of acetone.’

Truth was, Crystal was struggling. Most of the enquiries she got was for game heads and fish, and as soon as the customers realised they were dealing with a female they tended to go elsewhere. Then she'd discovered what a cranky bunch pet-owners could be, especially in the throes of grief. If they didn't feel she had exactly captured the personality of their loved one, she had a hard time of it getting them to settle their account. There was a woman claimed her curly-haired retriever had been returned to her looking sly and evil. She never paid a cent.

I said, ‘Grice, what will be my vacation entitlement in my new position?’

‘I'll need to check with personnel,’ he said. ‘Okay, I just checked. It'll be the same as before. When we're busy I won't be able to spare you and when we're not I won't be able to pay you. My advice is, take your vacation now, while the going is good.’

And that was how I ended up in Norfolk, England, in the fall of ‘76.

77

Crystal drove me to the airport.

I said, ‘I wish you were coming with me.’

She said, ‘Bad enough I'm a thirty year old and outta work. I don't have to go on vacation with my mom to feel like a failure.’

She had finally closed the door of Perpetual Pets, end of September, and she was reconsidering her situation.

I said, ‘It was your business failed, not you. Calf it a set-back. The only people don't suffer those are the ones who never do anything. And, by the way, you're only twenty-nine.’

I knew what she meant, though, about the vacation. Me and Kath were gonna be sitting around like a pair of old’ dodos, talking about way back when. Truth was, I was nervous about the trip. Only times I had ever flown international I had had the US Air Force holding my hand.

I said, ‘Can you remember Drampton?’

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘I remember the school. Miss Boyle's classroom. Smelled of wax crayons. And I remember having to get my dinner there, and white stuff we had to eat, like glop, and you could have a spoon of red jam to stir into it, help it down.’

I said, ‘You remember the base?’

‘I think so,’ she said. ‘Did we live next door to Gayle?’

I said, ‘No, that was Wichita. At Drampton we lived opposite Lois and Betty. Me and Betty'd take turns to run y'all to school.’

She said, ‘What kinda job did you have over there?’

I said, ‘Are you kidding! I was a DW. My duty was to stay home and make pie.’

She laughed. ‘You never made pie!’ she said.

‘I did too make pie. Make pie, wash floors, iron shirts. Defrost the Kelvinator.’

‘I can't imagine you,’ she said. ‘You're too smart for all that.’

I said, ‘Smart didn't come into it in those days. Homemaking was what we were raised to do. You kept your home nice. Kept yourself nice. Uncle Sam took care of everything else.’

‘Tell you what else I remember,’ she said. ‘My rabbit-fur mitts from Gramma Dewey. And the high fence. And selling little cups of Kool-Aid with Joey Kurlich, and Sherry's foot dripping blood on the sidewalk.’

She helped me lug my valise on to a trolley.

I said, ‘Now I wish I'd never said I'd go. For two pins I'd turn around and come home with you.’

‘Well I'm not driving you,’ she said. ‘So you may as well get yourself on that plane and start acting like a person on vacation.’

I said, ‘Did I give you Kath's number?’

‘About a hundred times,’ she said.

Peggy's Pie

Empty a can of carrots and a can of stewed beef into a pie dish. Cover it with a lid of Jus-Rol and bake it in a hot oven in time for friend husband coming from Beer Call. After three beers he'll think he married Betty Crocker.

78

I flew into Newark, then onward by red-eye to Heathrow, London, England. Kath was waiting for me at the barrier. She was wearing a beige trenchcoat, same as everyone else standing there. She claimed me while I was still looking for her.

‘Peggy,’ she said, ‘aren't these airyplanes marvellous? Look here, at all these places you can fly to. I've been studying these boards while I was waiting.’

The sky was grey. I was so tired, I just let Kath talk. ‘You won't know the old place,’ she said. ‘We've got supermarkets now and self-service petrol. We've even got different money. That's called decimal. I still think in shillings but I suppose I shall catch on to the new way eventually. And I can't wait for you to see my bungalow. I've got fitted carpet all through, even in the littlest room.’

We'd been on the road about an hour and it commenced to rain. She said, ‘That's a welcome sight, Peg. We've had such a dry summer. We've the water rationed, can you believe? Queuing up in the street with a bucket. So I'm not going to complain if we get a bit of rain. And I've got plenty of macs you can borrow. I thought I'd give you a quiet day tomorrow. I've got a lady at nine o'clock, very nervy, so I don't want her going a week without a lesson, else she'll be back to square one. So you can sleep in. Then I'm clear ‘the rest of the week, so we can go on trips out. We can take the train to London one of the days, see all the sights. Go to Marks.’

The Marks and Spencer stores were one of Kath's favourite things. ‘They have very reliable knickers,’ she said. She was talking about panties.

I said, ‘I can remember a time when you laughed at May Gotobed for wearing them. Told me you never bothered with them yourself.’

‘That's right,’ she said. ‘Fancy you remembering that. Well, I feel the cold more than I did. That's what happens when you get heating you can switch on any time you like. It turns you soft. Then I thought, another day we could drive to Ely and Cambridge. You'd like that. All old universities, that go back centuries. And Audrey wants you Friday and Saturday, only you'll have to get a hire car because there's no buses. She said I should go too, but I told her I had lessons booked. I don't like to be unsociable, Peg, but I couldn't take to her new gentleman friend when I met him.’