The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady (7 page)

“She left when I wasn’t even a year old,” Caroline answered. “Never heard from her again.”

“Oh, dear. I’m so sorry.” Nance set the photograph back down in
front of the others, positioning it carefully. “She must’ve been out of her mind. Simply out of her mind to do that.”

“Okay, time to eat.” Suzi knew when to head her mother off. She herded her new friend, both of them clutching their cake plates, forks, and napkins, over to the old red armchair in the corner, where Nance settled down.

Suzi, her wild curly hair pulled back in a ponytail, plopped down between Caroline and Vic, emitting waves of lemony smelling perfume.

Nance sat on the edge of her seat and began to eat daintily, careful not to drop a crumb. She was the kind of person who was easy to overlook. She had a short white cap of hair and pale skin. She had a dark place on one cheek, like an age spot, and legs speckled with bruises, which Vic assumed were from bumping into things. She wore a flowered skirt and tucked-in blouse, and the whole affair rode up too high on her waist. This was the only fashion faux pas Vic ever noticed in anybody, because he’d once been accused of high-waistedness himself.

In between bites of cake, Suzi reached over and adjusted the strap of Caroline’s tank top so that it was covering the tattoos on her left shoulder.

Caroline, his former sprite of a wife turned menopausal mess, yanked her strap back down.

“You’re just as cute as your daughter,” Nance said to Caroline.

Caroline shook her head, ungracious about the compliment.

She used to be cute, Vic thought, until she gave up on herself and everyone except Ava. When Vic met Caroline she’d been a fashion merchandizing major at the University of Iowa, working part-time at a clothing store, called Barbara’s, in downtown Iowa City. After she graduated and married Vic she was promoted to store manager. Women from all over Johnson County—and surrounding counties—flocked into Barbara’s to get Caroline’s sartorial advice. She used to wear slightly unusual but pleasing combinations of clothes, like plaid
Bermuda shorts and a ruffly top, or a slinky dress and cowboy boots, and she’d always gotten stylish haircuts. Back then she’d had a calm sense of purpose about her, but these days she was either comatose or bristling with manic, angry energy.

Now she was wearing a pair of baggy, ripped-up shorts and a tank top with Gumby on it, her face puffy from an earlier crying jag. She’d scrunched her hair up in a bunch of tiny ponytails to keep it off her face and neck, which made her look like a crazy person. She’d tendered this invitation to Nance as a concerned parent, but she did not project either competence or hospitality. What Nance didn’t know was that she’d actually dressed up for her. She’d put on a bra!

Vic knew how he looked to Nance—a run-of-the-mill middle-aged white guy, curly hair in need of a trim, an eager-to-please smile meant to cover up his desire to get the hell out of there.

Nance was glancing around the room like she was looking for something or someone. She turned to Caroline. “Your yard is so beautiful. Who does it?”

“We do,” Vic said.

Caroline gave him a cold smile, because, it was true, she’d been doing the yard work of late, but it was because he was either at work or at soccer with Suzi.

Nance smiled eagerly. “I believe I’ve seen your father out there from time to time. I’d love to talk to him about Memphis. I lived there for years.”

“Oh,” Caroline said.

“Is he here?”

“He’s napping,” Caroline said.

“Maybe another time?”

“Sure.”

Vic sighed. Why were they talking about Wilson and Memphis instead of Italy and Suzi?

“This is just the best cake, Caroline!” Nance said, dabbing at her lips with a napkin.

Vic waited for Caroline to correct Nance and give Suzi credit, but she didn’t.

“I made it,” Suzi said. “For Mom’s birthday.”

“All by herself,” Vic added.

“Well, it is scrumptious!” Nance said, then went on nervously. “It’s so nice to meet more neighbors. I feel so blessed. I just happened to buy a house across from the youth minister at the Genesis Church. What church do ya’ll go to?”

“We don’t,” Caroline said.

“Not very often,” Vic added, trying to smooth over his wife’s bluntness.

“I go with my friend Mykaila,” Suzi said. “Mykaila’s African American, but they go to a white church.”

“I swan,” said Nance.

Everybody went back to eating.

A churchgoing Southern lady who used old-timey expressions like
I swan
and took vacations in Italy. She was too good to be true, like some innocuous creature in a mystery novel who actually turned out to be a ruthless criminal.

“That Reverend Coffey’s daughter’s kind of strange,” Nance continued. “I came home from Publix yesterday and found her in my carport, just sitting there!”

“Did you ask her what she was doing?” Suzi asked.

“She wanted to know could she wash my car for eight dollars. I found that peculiar. Why eight dollars?”

“I know her,” Suzi said. “Rusty. She must need the money for drugs.”

“Well, that’s just great,” Nance said, waving her hand dismissively. “I live next door to a dope fiend.”

“Let’s talk about Italy!” Suzi announced, setting down her cake plate on the coffee table.

“Yes, let’s do,” Vic said, setting his plate down, too.

“Italy?” Nance said.

“
You
know,” Suzi said, speaking to Nance like she was a child. “Our trip to Tuscany. How about early August? After soccer camp and before school starts.”

“Sounds good,” said Nance, nodding vigorously. If she was surprised by Suzi’s insistence, she didn’t show it. “That would be the
perfect
time.”

“You really want to take Suzi?” Caroline asked. “May I ask why?”

Did she have to be so openly suspicious of the woman? “We wanted to make sure,” Vic said, “you know, that Suzi didn’t misread your invitation.”

“No, she did not!” Nance smiled at Suzi, who glanced down at the carpet, pleased. “One of my childhood friends has a villa just outside Lucca,” Nance said. “Her better half recently died and she’s been after me to come visit and I’ve been itching to go, but I need this young thing to come along and help me.”

A villa outside Lucca. Sounded heavenly. He and Caroline were the ones who ought to be going there.

“I’ve
always
wanted to go to Italy,” Suzi said. “Ever since I saw
Under the Tuscan Sun
with Diane Lane. You didn’t tell me about your best friend’s villa, Nance.”

“We can’t afford that kind of trip right now,” Caroline put in.

“Maybe Suzi could earn the money,” Vic suggested, realizing that he was mostly championing the trip because Caroline was against it.

“I’d pay for everything,” Nance said. “Should’ve mentioned that right off. Money isn’t a problem for me, thank the Lord.”

“But why Suzi?” Caroline persisted. “You just met.”

Nance explained that she didn’t have any children and that she herself had been an only child and didn’t have any other living relatives. “I lost my daughter a long time ago,” she said. “Suzi reminds me of her. I’ve never stopped missing her.”

Vic said he was sorry, but Caroline said nothing.

Suzi said, “What about your son? The doctor?”

Nance looked briefly confused, then she smiled. “That’s my stepson,” she said.

Suddenly Caroline turned to Nance, and asked, in an accusatory voice, “How long did you live in Memphis?”

“Since the early fifties.”

“Have you lived anywhere else?”

“Little Rock, when I was a child. After the war I moved up to Memphis with my first husband.”

“So you’ve been married more than once,” Caroline said.

“Twice. Just had the one daughter. But I didn’t get to see her grow up.” Nance set her empty cake plate and fork down on the mosaicked end table and dabbed at her little bowlike mouth.

Caroline handed Vic her empty cake plate, like he was supposed to do something with it. He set it down, too hard, on top of his.

“That spot on your face,” Caroline said. “Has it been there a long time?”

What was with all these random personal questions?

Nance touched her cheek. “It’s a birthmark.”

Now Caroline seemed agitated. She shifted around on the couch, tucking her legs underneath her. Vic could tell that she wanted to get back to her bedroom and shut the door on all of them. Their bedroom had somehow become
her
bedroom. In the last few years of their marriage, Vic had been eased into the category of people who got in Caroline’s way.

Now it was Nance’s turn to ask Caroline a question. “When did your father live in Memphis?”

“He grew up there. Got his first job there, after medical school.”

“How interesting! And where did you say his job was?”

“I didn’t.”

Why was Caroline being so grudging toward Nance? She was the one who’d insisted on inviting Nance over. It was obvious Nance was lonely and Memphis was something they had in common. Would it hurt to just humor her a little?

“Wilson was a researcher at the medical school,” Vic said.

“I wonder if I ever ran into him,” Nance said. “I went to the free clinic at the medical school. Lived in Lauderdale Courts at the time. Didn’t have much money then.”

There was a loud startled cry and then, with a great flapping, Ava swooped down the hall into the living room. She perched on the ottoman, knee up like a large bird. She wore white cotton socks with her shorts because her feet were always cold. “Where did you say you lived in Memphis?” Ava asked Nance.

“This is my daughter Ava,” Vic said.

“Hello, Ava. Nice to meet you. We were living in Lauderdale Courts. Public housing.”

“Wow,” said Ava. “I can’t believe it.”

“Oh no,” Suzi groaned. “Here we go.”

“Did you ever meet Elvis?” Ava asked Nance. “He lived there in the early fifties.”

“I knew who he was. Didn’t really know him. He used to play his guitar in the courtyard.”

“
Oh my God!
” Ava jumped and began to pace back and forth, back and forth, the width of the living room, head tilted, twiddling the fingers of one hand, the way she did when she got excited. Vic watched Nance watch Ava curiously, wondering, no doubt, what was up, why a young woman would act this way. The pacing was an Asperger’s thing, and Vic found it charming, because she did it when she was excited and happy. Caroline, however, found it embarrassing.

Sure enough, Caroline told Ava to sit down.

Ava didn’t seem to hear her mother. “Did you talk to Elvis?” she asked Nance, pacing.

“Not really,” said Nance. “Just to say hello. To me he was just a white boy singing colored songs. How wrong I was!”

“Oh, I wish you’d talked to him when you had the chance!” Ava said. “You’re so lucky! Mom and I went to Memphis over Christmas break. We got to see Graceland and Lauderdale Courts and Sun Studio and Humes High School. All the old Elvis places.”

“Please stop talking about Elvis,” Suzi said. “We’re trying to plan our trip to Italy.”

“Please be nice to your sister,” Caroline told Suzi.

“Please sit down, Ava,” Suzi, the assistant parent, put in.

“Please shut up,” Ava told her.

“You shut up.”

“Stop it, you two,” Caroline said, in that same flat voice she’d been using too often lately.

“Nance’s going to think you fight all the time!” Vic said.

“We do fight all the time,” said Ava.

“It was a joke, Ava,” Vic said.

“A lame joke,” Caroline said, without looking at Vic. “Go finish your homework, Ava.”

“I can’t. I’m going to fail!”

“No, you’re not.”

It was obvious by then that Vic’s family couldn’t hold it together for five minutes, not even in front of a guest. It’s time to go home, lady, Vic silently told Nancy Archer. Just leave us to feast on one another’s carcasses. “Good-bye, Ava,” he said. “Do what your mother asked you to do.”

“I taught at Humes High School,” Nance put in, “for fifteen years.”

To his relief, Ava didn’t respond to this. She slunk back to her room.

“So that’s what you were doing,” Caroline said, half under her breath.

Nance turned to Vic and asked him about his work.

Vic picked up his favorite pillow, a suede pillow with a fuzzy dog embroidered into one side, clutched it to his chest, and told Nancy all about the portfolio project. As he talked, he thought of something he could do for Nancy, a way he could arrange for her to meet more people, nice people, unlike his wife. “We’ll start scoring about the middle of June,” he told Nance. “You probably don’t need the extra income, but if you want to get out of the house, it might be fun. We hire lots of retired people. All you need is a bachelor’s degree. The scoring will last about a month. You can set your own hours!” Vic was aware that he sounded like a game show host, but his enthusiasm wasn’t put on and he knew that some of it had to do with Gigi.

Nance clapped her hands together. “I swan. I just might. Thank you, Vic!”

“Will it be over by the time we go to Italy?” Suzi asked.

“It’ll be over in about six weeks,” Vic said, “God willing.”

“Dad went to graduate school in English,” Suzi told Nance.

“He had to drop out so he could support us,” Ava yelled from her bedroom.

Ava was right … well, half right … but Vic hated to hear such excuses. He’d applied to graduate school because he loved Fitzgerald and Hemingway, but not long after he’d enrolled he was informed that his literary heroes were beyond passé, a couple of sexist old drunks, and he felt trapped in classes where politically correct theory heads pontificated. But he’d dragged his family down to FSU from Iowa so he’d hung on for a while, too long maybe. Finally he grabbed his M.A. as a kind of consolation prize and got on with things, taking a full-time job at FTA. He was fine with his decision. He actually liked his job at FTA and was good at it.

“Is Dr. Spriggs going to score papers for you, too?” Nance asked him.

Caroline answered for him. “Dad’s memory’s not so good.”

“How bad is it?” Nance frowned intently.

“Bad,” said Caroline.