The Future Homemakers of America (35 page)

‘Only thing I got insurance on is your daddy's life,’ she said. ‘He goes before I do, I get one thousand dollars. Why didn't you get a preacher, make a proper job of getting married? You looked into the legal side of this? You need to know where you stand in a court of law. You drop dead tomorrow, he might stand to get your worm inheritance. Or he might not. I don't know. A lawyer'd tell you, but he'd send you a bill for doing it. That's a lawyer for you. He'll pocket your hard-earned money just for telling you the time of day.’

Filomena smiled some more.

Crystal said, ‘You ready to eat, Gramma?’

‘I'll just suck on a little lobster,’ she said. ‘Don't bother bringing me none of that nigger corn.’

We had applesauce layer-cake and drank their good health in blush wine and then we sailed back to Camden, to wave them off to Africa — first stop, the honeymoon suite at the Lake Alamoosook Sunset Hotel.

‘Mom,’ she said, when she was hugging me goodbye, ‘this was worth waiting for.’ And her big bear of a husband put his arm around my shoulder.

‘You haven't lost her,’ he said. ‘You just gained me.’

Read me like a book. I never did like the winding up of a wedding party.

‘Well,’ Vern said, ‘if ever you're Skowhegan way …’ Like I ever would be.

‘Yes,’ Martine said. ‘Don't be a stranger now. We are family.’

I thought to kiss Vern goodbye and may be Martine too, once on each cheek. We do that all the time in Dallas. But Vern of course wasn't accustomed to it. We ended up banging noses.

I caught a whiff of him, though, just took me back all those long years. He still smelled of Vitalis. Vitalis and pie.

90

I sent Kath pictures of the wedding.

‘What a lovely couple they make,’ she wrote back.

I've seen some nice sheepskin rugs on the market I thought they might like, be nice for a bedside mat, but if there's something else you think of let me know. I expect they've already got table mats.

Now, I'm after your money. It's called a sponsored walk, all along the coast road, Hunstanton, Wells, you'd know the route. You can do five miles or ten or fifteen and we have to get people to pay us, so much the mile. Me and May are trying for ten miles, so we're in training. You should see the plimsolls we've got. It's in aid of Huntington's Disease.

I phoned her. I said, ‘What's the best offer you've had?’

‘Pound a mile,’ she said. ‘That's from the man I always go to for my motors.’

I said ‘Okay, I'll double that. What's Huntington's Disease?’

‘That's our family trouble, that I mentioned,’ she said. ‘In the nerves. They haven't found anything can be done for it so far, but we keep hoping. And of course, that takes money, keeping the scientists going. So there's twenty of us, doing this walk. Dennis Jex is going to try for the fifteen miles. I told him, though, we might need him following behind with his St John bandages. Now, how's Betty going on?’

Betty and Slick were going great guns with their fat-burner product. They had ten distributors working under them, paying them a percentage, and they still did their own selling, out every night, going into people's homes, showing them before and after pictures of satisfied customers.

I'd said to her, ‘I hope you're enjoying all that money you're making. I hope you're not giving it all away.’

‘Giving it away is what I enjoy,’ she said. ‘Tell you what, Peg. Doesn't matter how much we make, it can't buy me the two things I want.’

She wanted a new pair of legs and to know that Delta and the great-grandbaby were safe, wherever they might be.

I said ‘Have you tried support hose?’

‘Tried everything,’ she said. ‘Makes no difference. And there's still no word from Delta.’

She had had Delta staying with her, carrying Bulldog's child. Then she just took off. Carla's theory was, Bulldog was back on the scene. Deana had said if he was he better watch out because she had a mind to shoot him, and Delta too, and any brats they brought into the world.

I was always glad to hear Carla pick up when I called Betty. She had a wry way about her, reminded me of Crystal.

I said to her, ‘Does Deana have a gun?’

‘I believe she does,’ she said. ‘Course, whether she knows how to use it is another question. She could take out half the city before she got a fatal slug into Bulldog. That brain of his is a awful small target.’

I said, ‘Carla, that kinda talk makes my blood run cold. Don't Deana have any motherly feelings for Delta? Don't she care she's got a little grandbaby out there?’

‘Aunty Peggy,’ she said, ‘what the hell do I know? I can't even believe I'm related to her. If it wasn't for Mom, I'd have changed my name and gone away long ago. North Dakota sounds about right.’

I asked her what she knew about this Huntington's Disease. She never even heard of it. Neither had Crystal.

‘I'll find out for you, though,’ she said.

Our season was easing off somewhat. We had a clear week coming up in June. Grice wanted to go on a trip, but Tucker wouldn't leave Miss Lady because she was predicting to die any minute.

I said, ‘If you're looking for someone to keep you company in Key Biscayne, I'm available. If you're looking for someone to babysit Miss Lady, something urgent just came up.’

He said, ‘How do you feel about New Mexico?’

I said, ‘Long as we avoid Kirtland. I already served my sentence there.’

So we agreed to go take a look at Santa Fe and Albuquerque, and Grice was just starting up, singing about being bound for the Rio Grande, when I took the call from Carla.

‘Aunty Peggy?’ she said. ‘I really need your help.’

Betty's old trouble was back. They had told her at the hospital she had to get ray treatment but that was gonna put her out of action for six weeks and she was refusing.

I said, ‘What happens if she don't take the treatment?’ Fool question.

I said to Grice, ‘Change of plan. I have to go to San Antonio, talk some sense into Betty Gillis.’

His face fell. ‘We're not bound for the Rio Grande, then?’ he said.

I said, ‘Ever been to San Antonio?’

Next thing, he was singing about Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier.

91

Betty said, ‘I don't have time for this. We just won Sales Team of the Year and we have to go to Houston, get presented with our certificate. Plus, I promised Danni a Sweet Sixteen party. Plus, my kitchen-dinette hasn't seen a lick of paint in three years and I'm ashamed for anybody to see it.’

‘Plus, Mom,’ Carla said, ‘you have an adenocarcinoma.’

I hated to be in on all this. It didn't seem right. But Carla said, ‘You're like family. You're the only one goes all the way back.’

‘Well,’ Betty said, ‘that's what they
say
I have now. They
said
I had a little wart on my insides. Before that they
said
I had a dropping womb. I'm not convinced they know what I do have.’

Carla looked worn out. ‘What can I do with her?’ she said. ‘My own mother has a death wish.’

‘Oh, stop that!’ Betty said. ‘We'll go to Houston, I'll do Danni her party …’

Carla said, ‘Mom! Danni doesn't want a party. She just wants to go to the mall and hang out …’

‘… do Danni her party, freshen up my dinette and
then
I'll think about ray treatment. If they didn't change their mind in the meanwhile, that is. Peg, who's the friend you're travelling with? Is he your beau?’

Grice was out to the Alamo. ‘Don't worry about me,’ he said. ‘Go do what you have to do. And tomorrow I'm going to the zoo.’

Carla had to go to work. Me and Betty sat out in the yard with iced tea and egg salad. ‘I'm fifty-six, Peg,’ she said.

‘Me too,’ I said. ‘You think I was getting younger?’

‘You feel fifty-six?’

‘I dunno,’ I said, ‘Sometimes, I guess. I felt fifty-two when my mom died.’

‘My body feels about hundred and fifty-six,’ she said. ‘But in my mind I'm no different than when I was in high school. That's what I don't get. How come your head don't keep in step with your insides? And where's all that time gone, that's what I wonder? Fifty-six years. I still haven't finished that quilt I started when Ed got posted to McConnell. That was to be for Deana's hope-chest. I was gonna make a quilt for each of my girls. This rate I won't even have one finished for Destiny Rae.’ Destiny Rae was the great-grandbaby. Hadn't been seen since she was six months old and Delta took off with her.

I said, ‘I wouldn't give that quilt another thought. Comforters are easier. You can just throw them in the washer.’

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Stitching them's hard on the eyes too. Then I'd had in mind to go to college. Get my exams so I could teach elementary school.’

I said, ‘Why don't you? You'd be so great at that.’ I was getting sick of the sound of my own cheeriness.

‘No,’ she said. ‘It's too late now. I couldn't leave Slick in the lurch after we've built up our Lipo-Zipp sales. Did I ever send you a sample?’

I had Betty's free samples falling outta my bathroom cabinet. I said, ‘Well at least take the treatment. How are you gonna keep your sales figures up if you're too sick to work?’

She was quiet for a while. ‘Do you know what they did, Peg? When they had me in to find out why my legs were aching so? They put stuff inside me. It lights up, kinda fluorescent on the X-ray. But they put it up my back-passage, Peg. I'd known that's what they were intending to do, I never would have gone.’

I said, ‘That why you won't take the treatment?’

She didn't answer.

I said, ‘Has Sherry visited lately?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I don't expect her to trek back here. She has her life.’

I said, ‘Ever hear from Ed?’

‘No,’ she said.

‘You and Deana speaking?’

‘Deana has her problems,’ she said. ‘She has her allergies. And she's had nothing but bad luck with men.’

I said, ‘Carla's a good kid.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘She's a darling girl.’

I said, ‘She's worried what's gonna happen to you, if you don't listen to the doctors.’

‘I'll think about it,’ she said. ‘And that's all I'm saying. What did you say your beau's name is?’

I said, ‘His name is Grice and he's no beau of mine. He's a homosexual. That means he goes with men.’

‘Peggy Dewey!’ she said. ‘I don't want to hear anything about that.’

She liked him, though, when he dropped by. He brought her candy and flowers.

‘William Barrett Travis,’ he said, ‘drew a line in the dust and said every man willing to fight to the death should step over it and Jim Bowie had them carry him over the line, because he was on a stretcher.’

‘We know,’ I said. ‘We grew up here. We heard it all before.’

‘Eighteen hundred Mexicans,’ he said, ‘against two hundred Texans. I got Tucker a Jim Bowie paper-knife from the gift store, but I've a mind to bring him here anyway. He'd love the gardens.’

Betty folded her lips, but I could see Grice was winning.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘I hope you girls are coming with me tomorrow, see the killer whale?’

So Sunday me and Grice, Betty and Slick all rode out to Sea World and when she got too tired to walk she even allowed Grice to push her in a wheelchair after he kidded her it was the only way we'd ever get to see the dolphins without standing in line. He took her fast down a slope, made her squeal, and me and Slick followed behind.

I said, ‘She shouldn't be going to Houston, Slick. Running down there just to get some certificate. She should go to State, start the ray treatment.’

He sucked his teeth a little. ‘Yup,’ he said, ‘I know. I wrote to that friend of yours. The one we seen at the Assembly of God. I reckon if there's any miracle healing going begging, Betty should get it.’

When I kissed her goodbye she whispered to me, ‘I know he's younger than you, but I still think he'd make a fine beau.’

I said, ‘And like I told you a hundred times, he has a beau of his own. This is 1980, you know? That kind of thing is all the rage.’

‘Remember the Alamo!’ Grice called to her from the car. ‘Victory or death!’

92

How fame can change the way a person lives. I called the last home number I had for Gayle and Lemarr but they had changed it. Gone unlisted. Then I called the TV station and didn't even get past first base. The girl said it was impossible for Pastor Gayle to speak personally with the hundreds of callers seeking her help.

I said, ‘I'm a friend. Me and Gayle go back more'n twenty-five years.’

‘In that case, ma'am,’ she said, ‘I guess, you have her private number.’

I said, ‘Can you at least tell me, is she still at the house in White Point?’

All else failed, I figured to write to her.

‘I have no information on that,’ she said.

I said, ‘What kind of information do you have?’

‘Tax-effective giving to the Tabernacle Ministry. Also tour-schedules through 1981.’

She told me to have a nice day.

I said, ‘Don't tell me what kind of day to have.’

Gayle Jackson. Who'd have thought it? I remember one time at Drampton, England, I had to put that girl to bed she was so wrecked.

Still, and after everything I had said, I fell in behind that old sceptic Slick Bonney. I wrote to her, sent it to the last address I had. I printed ‘
FROM PEGGY DEWEY, OLD FRIEND, URGENT
‘ all over the envelope, then after I'd mailed it I got to thinking that kind of thing was probably regarded as a guaranteed sign of a mental case, so I sent another copy, in just a plain, typed envelope.

Crystal thought I
was
a mental case. ‘You know how much money these TV preachers make?’ she said. ‘Old ladies sending in dollar bills?’

I said, ‘Well, this old lady isn't sending in money. I just want Gayle to know Betty is sick. If she can do anything, that'll be a bonus.’

‘Ask me, she shouldn't be encouraged,’ she said. ‘By the way, are we bringing lobsters?’ Crystal and Marc were coming south for Thanksgiving.

I said, ‘No. Just cranberries. We're having turkey.’

Give Gayle her due, she called me within the week. ‘Peg!’ she said. ‘It's been too long.’