The Future Homemakers of America (32 page)

Miss Lady was all in baby blue, including the ribbon in her hair— what there was left of it — and her dog had a ribbon the same colour too. The dog was called Precious, ugliest creature I ever seen, looked like it had collided with a wall at high speed. I could see Lady Hoose weighing me up.

‘Dewey?’ she said. ‘I don't know your people. Are you from out of town?’

Grice jumped right in. ‘Peggy's husband was an East-Coaster,’ he said. ‘Peggy was a Shea, one of the San Antonio Sheas, but of course we're related through her mother's line, the Sherman County Terrys.

‘Well, now,’ she said, ‘I
think
I can place you.’

We had another round of gin fizz, and Grice steered the conversation towards London, England.

‘How is Her Majesty?’ she asked. ‘Will she step aside, do you suppose, when Prince Charles makes a suitable marriage?’

This was a subject I'd heard plenty about from Kath. She was of the opinion those up-coming Silver Jubilee celebrations were just a way of preparing the public for a new monarch, and she was all for it.

‘That boy needs a job,’ Kath had said. ‘A job and a woman. Then he'll be golden.’ I repeated this to Miss Lady. Her eyes glittered.

‘But he already has a job,’ she said, ‘serving his mother and Queen. That's job enough for any man.’

Grice had already explained to me that Miss Lady didn't like Tucker going into business, not even as an investor. Still, Grice himself didn't seem afraid to contradict her. He said, ‘But, Miss Lady, I believe Tucker's late father had a job, and while his mother still lived. And he was highly respected for it.’

Tucker's pa was Judge James Tucker Hoose.

‘That's a different matter,’ she said. ‘When a family faces ruin, on account of certain events, on account of certain weak links in the chain, a man has to do whatever he can and Tucker's daddy was meant for the law.’

Tucker smiled.

Miss Lady turned to me.

‘It was half-brother Jack Hoose was to blame. Blood will out and some of those Shelby County Hooses have very bad hair. My advice is, Queen Elizabeth should not abdicate her throne and the son of Judge James Tucker Hoose should not be dabbling in trade.’

Tucker opened his mouth to say something.

‘I decline to discuss it further,’ she said. ‘Now, I do believe dinner is served.’

The table was set with Repoussé silver and Crown Derby china. We had mock cooter soup, turkey with oyster dressing, creamed peas, strawberry jello fruit-salad and buttermilk pecan pie. Only I hardly ate a mouthful, I was so anxious Miss Lady would get back to the subject of my family.

‘Do you hunt?’ she asked. ‘Judge Hoose and I rode out with the Creek all our married lives.’

Tucker said, ‘She was still riding when she was seventy-two. Weren't you, Darling One?’ He called her Darling One all the time.

‘I was not,’ she said. ‘I hunted till I was seventy-
three
.’

It was an amazing thing to see how sharp she was. She was old enough to have been the mother of some of the old wrecks I'd seen in State Hospital. But I couldn't take to her. She was a person who had a very high opinion of herself, and all her life nobody had dared to say different.

‘Is the Thursday Luncheon Club still going, do you know?’ she said. We had withdrawn, back to the wood fire, for port wine and Grice had discovered the varmint Precious gagging on the remains of my fake pearl necklet which he had stolen out of my bag. Ask me, he was closer kin to a peccary than he was to any make of dog I ever seen. Grice scooped my pearls into his pocket silk and gave it to the help to take away. All my life I was jinxed with jewellery.

‘Of course, I was a founder member of the Magnolia Club,’ she said. ‘We played bridge till there wasn't enough of us left to make a four.’

Tucker said, ‘That's because you never let in any new members, Darling One.’

‘We didn't want any,’ she said. ‘After the war, you couldn't get the right kind of people.’

I had really had it with Miss Lady, sitting there at midnight, holding court, quizzing a person on their cousins.

I said, ‘I never had time for lunch clubs, nor bridge clubs. I had a daughter to raise and a living to earn. And even if I hadn't had to, I still wouldn't have cared to sit around all, day gossiping.’

She gave me a thoughtful look. Grice got to his feet.

I said, ‘Thank you for your kind hospitality, ma'am, but I believe I have to get some sleep. Travel is a tiring, thing.’

Grice kissed her goodbye. ‘Good night, Miss Lady,’ he said.

‘You're not going?’ she said. ‘But we haven't played cards yet.’

‘Tomorrow,’ he said. ‘We'll play tomorrow.’

‘I could be dead tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Why do you have to go? Doesn't she have a driver?’

We could still hear her as we left the house. ‘Gauche little thing,’ she said. ‘Precious didn't care for her. Do you suppose she's a Communist?’

85

First week of February two things happened, left me feeling like a big pit opened up under my feet. First off, Crystal called, all excited ‘cause they'd hired her at this new wildlife museum.

‘I was the only one they interviewed had the sense to bring along a sample of my work,’ she said. ‘Soon as they saw the otter, the job was mine.’

I had to be pleased for her, got no more than she deserved after all that studying and ruining her hands, but still, it meant she was settling near Vern and I'd be lucky if I got to see her more than once a year.

‘Don't go all sad on me now,’ she said. ‘If I can't get down to you, you can always come up see me here.’

Sure. Go wandering into Vern's territory. I hadn't seen him since he went home to bury his pa and we split up for good, although we didn't know, at the time, that's what we were doing. We'd been cordial, I suppose, specially since his wormery did so good and he didn't feel like a wash-out any more. But I had no desire to see him. He had a different life, playing happy families with folk who were nothing but names to me.

Crystal said Martine was back in harness after her illness, busy raising baby worms. And Eugene's little wife, Filomena, was helping out in the yarn store, even though Mom Dewey didn't believe a person from the Philippine Islands could ever learn about yarn or the English language.

Crystal said, ‘You should see Gramma. She has this perfect recall of every piece of knitting any of her customers ever did. They come in trying to match the colour and she's ten steps ahead of them. She's like an old rooster. The older she gets the tougher she grows. Up and down the step-ladder, yanking out bales of yarn, yelling at Filomena in some kind of native talk she seems to think is called for. Good job Filomena's got a nice nature. Only way I can see Gramma ever meeting her Maker is if that ladder gives way.’

I told her about Tucker Hoose's mom. I said, ‘She's another one. Have to drop a nucular warhead to get rid of her.’

Crystal didn't care for that kind of talk. She still had a strong streak of red running through her; I hoped her darling daddy realised.

‘Mom,’ she said, ‘I'll call you in a week or two, let you know how the job's going. And … well … take care arid everything …’

She was thirty years old. Still, I felt like somebody just stole my baby.

Then I got a package from sister Connie. It contained the walrus-tusk Bambi from Alaska and a short letter.

‘Dear Peggy,’ she wrote.

Mom passed away January first. We were away to Carrizo Springs visiting with Bobby Earl's boy so the morgue had had to keep her till we come back. They say she went peaceful. I took care of the arrangements, not wanting to drag you down here from your big business and all. I enclose the bill for your attention as I know you will want to do the right thing. The house is left to me. You can see the papers if you don't believe me. Hoping this finds you as it leaves me, your sister Connie.

P.S. We had Mom scattered in the Garden of Rest.

I wrote a cheque for the funeral parlour and a letter to Connie telling her to go steady with her little inheritance, there being no more after that was guzzled away. I mailed them on my way to the office. From that day on, far as I was concerned, the only family I had in San Antonio was my old pal Betty Gillis. And I called her to tell her so, but Betty was too full of her new career to appreciate I had just adopted her as my replacement sister.

‘Peggy,’ she said, ‘I have to tell you about Lipo-Zipp. It's a miracle fat-burning product that has helped me to lose twenty-eight pounds in just three months, and I'm now an authorised distributor for Nutro Labs. We offer all kinds of dietary supplements, but Lipo-Zipp is our flagship product and I'm selling it fast as they can manufacture it. Tell you what, I'm gonna send you a one-week trial pack and you tell me if you don't feel those pounds starting to melt away.’

Seemed I couldn't find anybody to cheer me up, stop me feeling like a lonely old lard-butt. Not even Lois Moon, who must have had some kind of major brain surgery the way she was cooing over her grandbaby.

‘Oh, Peggy,’ she said, ‘he is so cute. He has Kirk's looks and Sandie's nature.’

I said, ‘What about his mother? Doesn't he have any of her features?’

I got the feeling Lo didn't rate Marisa. ‘Well, I guess he has her eyes,’ she said.

They had named him Cory and they were up in Glens Falls, living the country life. Bob Pick, one of Vern's fishing buddies, had given Kirk a start in his reel-and-lure store.

She said, ‘I really owe you. And Vern, of course. Since they've been up there, Kirk's really settled down. And they got a good rental. You wouldn't get a closet on Hester Street for that kind of money.’

I said, ‘Lois, are you telling me you go up there visiting? You telling me you actually leave the city?’

‘Sure, I do,’ she said. ‘Herb's there more than he's here, and I go when I can. You have to. These babies grown so darned fast. Did I tell you, he knows his name and everything? His little eyes follow you round the room. And he has such a strong grasp, for a kid that's getting nothing but mother's milk. You ever see that stuff? Thin as water. Can't see there's any nourishment in it, but I have to keep my opinions to myself. He's not allowed a bottle. He's not allowed chocolate. He's not even allowed a plain old cookie. That's the modern thinking on how you raise a child. I told Marisa, if she don't start varying his diet somewhat, get him accustomed to meat gravy and Cream of Wheat, she's gonna have a picky eater on her hands. But you can't tell her anything and Kirk just goes right along. I told her, when he starts getting his teeth she'll be sorry she ever opened a milk bar inside her shirt. I told her, when mine were getting their teeth I rubbed bourbon on their gums. Never did them any harm. Probably did them some good. Way I looked at it, anything that guaranteed me my night's sleep knocked on for the whole family. Anything happening with Crystal? Any sign of babies there?’

I said, ‘Last I heard she was stuffing a Kodiak bear. Could be a lifetime's work. How about Sandie?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘They say her womb's backward, or something. Her and Gerry are like a pair of old-timers. She plays her cornet. He plays his tuba. And they keep on hoping for babies. Listen, doll, I have to fly. I've got a five-room in a white brick on 60
^th
and 9
^th
and I think I just found a buyer. But I'd just love to see you some time. Shoot the breeze. Why don't you treat yourself to a weekend in the city?’

Sounded great. Trek all the way to New York, spend two days working my way through a pile of baby photos, ‘listening to the Born Again grandmother. Probably get myself mugged, too.

86

It was Grice showed me the story, in the ‘Strange But True’ section of the
Corinth Register.

He said, ‘Is this your friend?’

And there it was, about Gayle and how her healing powers had taken such a strange turn they were doing a TV special about her.

Licenced Minister Gayle Passy of the Lemarr Passy Tabernacle, Fayetteville, North Carolina, has found an unusual specialty for her powers of healing: dental problems. When the Tabernacle Road Show was in McKenzie, Tennessee, a man reported that while she laid hands on him for the healing of a duodenal ulcer, he had felt his crooked teeth straightening in slow motion.

Pastor Gayle says, ‘I went right back to the trailer and prayed on it, and the Lord told me this was to be my new ministry.’ A thirty-minute TV program on the Praise God channel, being screened Saturday next at five p.m., features an interview with a woman from Dickson who claims her toothache was cured and a gold cross appeared over an old mercury filling that-had been troubling her. No reports of root-canal work so far, but Pastor Gayle dismisses the skeptics. ‘The Lord created the universe in six days,’ she says. ‘Why should He have trouble fixing gum disease or a few cavities?’

I said, ‘I wish you'd never showed me.’

I had been inclined to give Gayle the benefit of the doubt, before she turned into some kind of circus act.

Grice said, ‘I'm going to record that show. I have to see this fruitcake with my own eyes.’

We were doing a reception Saturday evening, for the opening of the new Weelkes Wing at Trinity River Museum. The theme was meant to be Inca because that was the stuff old man Weelkes collected.

I said to Grice, ‘Are you sure margaritas are Inca?’

‘Oh, please,’ he said.

I phoned Kath to tell her about Gayle. Course, they don't get the Praise God channel over there. They don't get anything much, but I wanted her to know.

She said, ‘I see what you mean, Peg. All the suffering there is in the world, that seems funny to be bothering with crooked teeth. But I'll hold my judgement. I should hate to think ill of her without seeing for myself. See, this is the danger, when money changes hands. I mean, we have vicars on the telly here. That's called
Songs of Praise.
But they don't get buckets full of paper money like you saw Gayle getting. Now, listen. Me and May took a run put to Ness last Sunday, thought we'd call in on Audrey and her gentleman friend, but that was all closed up. The picture gallery and the house and the phone just rings out and rings out.’