Time Trials (22 page)

Chapter 37

Allison - 2012

Friday morning Dena drove the butt-mobile to the quaint nearby grocery store for the frozen margarita ingredients. Suzanne rode shotgun. The new and improved Little Miss Suzanne Sunshine then instructed Joseph on how to throw together the simple recipe. Good thing they had planned a three-day get-together, because the concoction took at least eighteen hours to freeze. Meaning Saturday afternoon cocktails would be pink margaritas and whatever wonderful appetizer Joseph would prepare.

Sitting around the breakfast table that morning, Allison received an unusual text from Michelle.

“Not an emergency, but call as soon as you get a chance.”

Allison excused herself from the group and stepped out on the deck before pushing Michelle’s name on her iPhone’s favorites list.

“Hey Michelley, what’s up? Everything okay?” Allison shaded her eyes against the morning sun. She thought someone on the beach must be feeding the birds due to the loud squabbling laugh from the swirling mass of seagulls.

“Where are you?” Michelle asked. “What’s that noise?”

“Seagulls. Lots of them. Didn’t I tell you? The BAGs are having a three-day weekend down at Jamaica Beach.”

“Well…that might have something to do with the dream I had last night.”

“I’m listening.” Allison put a finger in her other ear to block out some of the noise.

“It was Mom again. Guess she knew y’all were together.” Michelle paused. “I still think that’s weird.”

Allison smiled and shook her head, thinking how many battled the idea of accepting something they couldn’t easily understand or explain. She recalled one of her favorite Einstein quotes.
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”

Herself? She had no problem not having all the answers.

“Okay, so what’s your mom up to?”

“It was that dang rug again. I don’t get it. This is the third dream about that silly thing.”

“Anything different this time?” Allison had been keeping mental notes of Michelle’s dreams about Denise.

“Yeah. Hold on for a minute. I’ve got to grab Lily.”

Allison unplugged her ear as the feeding frenzy ended, sending the army of seagulls off on another food hunt.

“Okay, I’m back. Lily says hi, by the way.”

“Give that baby girl a kiss from G-Ma Ally.” Allison smiled, thinking about Denise’s latest grandchild.

“I will. Anyway…Mom wasn’t holding the rug. It was hanging on the wall behind her. She kept pointing at it.”

“Same rug?”

“I guess. Just a bunch of colored threads. I really don’t know what I’m supposed to see, but I had this really strong feeling I was supposed to let you know…like now.”

That call had ended a couple of hours ago. And after several beers on the deck with their light lunch, some of the BAGs were taking what they called their “beer nap.” Allison had opted for water at lunch and didn’t feel the need for a snooze. Not that she didn’t like beer…she had decided to pace herself, knowing more adult beverages would be flowing later in the day. Over the years, alcohol had greatly disrupted her sleep pattern. One of the issues of growing older that she found less than endearing.

Dena said the house had been professionally decorated, of course. Chandeliers, free standing sculptures, paintings, and rugs from all over the world dotted the interior of this exquisite house. She refrained from calling it a home because it reminded her more of a model-home—albeit an expensive model-home, but not one she’d feel comfortable letting her grandkids run through freely. She smiled, thinking of the finger and nose prints that would have to be wiped off the wall of windows showcasing the beach. Or the Capri Sun stains professional steam cleaners would have to remove from one of the rugs. Yikes. Yeah, not really a place for kids.

The floor plan of the house had rooms on the second and third floor angled to open up to a hallway, with a railing to overlook the great room. While the others got their forty winks, read a magazine, or had their own little “quiet time,” Allison roamed the hallway of the second floor, stopping at each of the paintings. She had taken an art appreciation class back at Sam, but she’d slept since then and nothing of any importance came to mind as she studied the paintings. One she did find particularly interesting. Not due to any artistic critique, just something that kept her rooted in front of the art piece for quite some time.

Leaving the second floor and using the back staircase, she found Joseph in the kitchen preparing their appetizers. Sitting at the bar, she watched him fill miniature phyllo cups with small wedges of brie. He then drizzled a small dab of honey on the pieces of soft cheese and topped each with a pecan half.

“Geez, it’s like watching my own private cooking show.”

“You must remember this appetizer. It is
so
easy.” Joseph rinsed off his hands. “You can use anything over the brie, any kind of preserves. I personally like the touch of the honey with the pecan. But just use your imagination. Then pop them in the oven for five to ten minutes, and voila!”

“Looks great,” Allison said, wondering when and where she’d ever have the occasion to serve something so elegant. Simple yes, but elegant. Her usual evening appetizer with a glass of wine consisted of pretzels and chunks of cheddar cheese. “Uh, you wouldn’t happen to know the history of some of these artifacts, paintings, stuff like that, would you?”

Joseph moved the baking sheets with the afternoon’s appetizers to the counter next to the double convection ovens. “Of course. I’m sort of the museum curator of this place. What would you like to know?”

After grabbing a bottle of water from the huge sub-zero refrigerator, she returned to her spot at the bar. “I’ve been looking at one of the paintings on the second floor.” She opened the water. “The one closest to the front staircase. What about that one?”

The museum curator/overseer of the property/chef pulled a large bag of shrimp from the refrigerator and dumped the fresh beauties into a colander he’d placed in the sink.

“Ah, that’s my favorite.”

She watched as he started the process of removing the shells and deveining.

“So, what’s the scoop?”

“That was actually done by a local artist who is good friends with the owner of this grand place. It’s actually a painting of a tapestry the artist once saw. It’s quite—”

“Wait. What…did you say?” Allison’s hands gripped the water bottle.

Joseph eyed Allison. “It’s a painting from a tapestry.”

“Tapestry.”

“Yes. The artist had seen this particular tapestry at an exhibit down in the Museum District in Houston.”

The rest of Joseph’s story blurred in Allison’s mind. She nodded occasionally just to be polite, then excused herself, slipped up to the second floor for another glance at the painting, and headed to her room. Quietly closing the door behind her, she pulled out her iPad and hopped up on the elevated bed.  Just last night the BAGs had brought up the Carole King-James Taylor debate over their “theme song.”

“Not that I agree with the outcome, but I thought we’d put that to rest,” Dena had said.

Allison looked up “tapestry” in the dictionary.

A fabric consisting of a warp upon which colored threads are woven by hand to produce a design, often pictorial, used for wall hangings, furniture coverings, etc.

She rubbed her nose. “The rug,” she said softly.

Next, she Googled the word tapestry. After the ads at the top of the page under the heading of tapestry, the first two links were actual sites to purchase wall hangings. The third link read:

Carole King –
Tapestry
– Amazon.com Music

Allison fell back on the mound of pillows covering her bed, stretched out her long legs, and placed her hands behind her head. She could not keep the smile off her face, reflecting on the song, “You’ve Got A Friend,” and the battle over the artists after all these years.

“I’ll be damned. Denise finally chose. We’re tied again.”

EPILOGUE

The Bad Ass Girls were “Baby Boomers,” an explosion of births adding 76.4 million babies born between the years 1946 and 1964. Most attributed this to the post-depression era and people getting back on their feet, marrying, and setting up house. Suburban neighborhoods shot up outside the large cities, with developers producing inexpensive tract housing and the G.I. Bill subsidizing low-cost mortgages for returning soldiers.

In January, 1961, John F. Kennedy took office and spoke the famous last lines of his inauguration address.

“And so, my fellow Americans:

ask not what your country can do for you;

ask what you can do for your country.”

The country felt relatively safe and united for a short while, until the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, which involved Soviet ballistic missiles deployed in Cuba, aimed directly toward the United States. The Crisis was the closest the country had ever come to a full scale nuclear war. The Bad Ass Girls still remembered the Civil Defense drills practiced in elementary school.

On August 27, 1963, one of the largest political rallies for human rights in U.S. history took place in Washington, D.C. (at least 250,000 participants), calling for economic rights for African Americans. The following day, Martin Luther King, Jr., standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, delivered his historic “I Have a Dream” speech, which was a call to end racism.

Three months later, on November 22, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, which seemed to end the age of innocence. Ask any one in the United States about that day and they will give you details of how they heard the news and where. The Bad Ass Girls had been in fifth grade that year. They often relived November 22, 1963, and being from Texas, they all felt shame and embarrassment that this horrific act happened in their own state.

John F. Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, passed an order in 1965 for the United States to enter the war with Vietnam. The draft was in place at that time, and by November, 1967, the number of American troops deployed approached 500,000, and U.S. casualties alone reached 15,058 with an additional 109,527 wounded.

The girls were eleven years old at that time, and because of their young age, JFK’s death felt more monumental than the Vietnam issue. However, in later years they would come to understand the full impact of LBJ’s decision to enter the war, especially Janie, who had lost Buddy. Not through death, but Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Sadly, the PTSD classification was not introduced in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) until 1980, leaving postwar vets without much help or understanding for the traumas they suffered during wartime. In later years, the diagnostic classification filled an important gap in theory and practice for psychiatrists and psychologists in the treatment of all people suffering from a trauma, especially military veterans.

Unfortunately, we, as a country, did little to break down the biases of the adamant opposition to the war versus the Vietnam veterans, who returned receiving less than a warm welcome. Tragically, PTSD ran rampant and is still a major issue today. According to the U.S. Department of Veterans’ Affairs in 2012, a person in the U.S. military (veteran or active) commits suicide every eighty minutes, totaling eighteen service people a day. 

In 1968, the girls were fourteen, barely teenagers, when Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. were assassinated only two months apart. Both were proponents of the Civil Rights Movement.

With the unrest of more troops being sent to Vietnam with no progress being made, a march of over 250,000 on November 19, 1969, gathered outside the Pentagon in a peaceful protest calling for the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam.

The number of protestors against the Vietnam War reflected in the music of the late sixties. Artists like Bob Dylan, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Cat Stevens, Simon and Garfunkel, and Buffalo Springfield were among those who specifically wrote music protesting the United States’ involvement in Vietnam.

Besides the songs about war, musical artists of the ‘60s and early ‘70s wrote and sang songs that had “staying” power through the years. James Taylor, Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, Elton John, Rod Stewart, Carole King, Janis Joplin—way too many to name—recorded songs then that are now termed “classics” in the music industry.

Motown also hit big about that time. The musical and business success of the mostly African-American groups, songwriters, and singers had a major influence, breaking down the barriers of segregation. African Americans were granted their deserved right as rock ‘n’ rollers and pop artists. Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, The Supremes, Gladys Knight and the Pips, The Jackson Five, The Temptations, and Aretha Franklin, among others, all became well-known and loved artists of that era.

Of course, the Beatles, hitting American soil in 1963, changed rock and roll forever. To this day Frannie could still remember, but could not put into print, her dad’s comments about “those long hairs.” Her dad felt the upcoming generation was going to hell in a handbag. Interesting term, whatever it meant. Though, she later learned the phrase was a common assumption older generations had toward the young. However, each succeeding generation not only survived, but found a way to thrive.

Back in the mid-sixties, a Supreme Court ruling gave married couples the right to use birth control pills. Sadly, millions of unmarried women were denied the right. In 1968, Congressman George H. W. Bush sponsored a family planning bill, making the birth control pill more affordable for lower income women. And it wasn’t until 1972 that the Supreme Court legalized birth control for all citizens of this country, irrespective of their marital status.

In 1974, a woman was actually allowed to have a credit card issued in her own name. This took the term “we’ve come a long way baby” to a whole different level.

The introduction of
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
in 1970 was a television breakthrough, portraying the first never-married career woman living an independent life as the central character. In 2007,
Time Magazine
labeled
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
as one of the “17 Shows That Changed TV.” The show characterized not only women, but grownups in general, having adult conversations with real issues.

The purpose of this little history lesson is to help explain growing up in the sixties and seventies for the Bad Ass Girls. Weekly allowances were mostly spent at record stores, purchasing 45’s or 33 LP albums to play endlessly on record players. If girls were lucky, they had parents or mentors who planted the idea of having a career by pursuing a college education.

There was fear. There was unrest. There was naiveté, yet an awakening of every layer of society. It was a hard time, yet many have fond memories of “those” days. The Bad Ass Girls came of age when so much change took place in the country. Years later they decided each decade they’d traveled through had its own share of pros and cons. And so they adapted; because really, what was the alternative? The BAGs went from watching three television stations to hundreds through cable providers and Direct TV, not to mention NetFlix. The plethora of different media outlets continuously spread every current event happening around the world. 

Why these eight young women came together back on the ground floor of that freshman dormitory will probably never be fully understood. But for them, that’s okay. With their diverse personalities and different backgrounds, except for some hiccups through the years, they maintained that bond. To this day, the debacle continues over Carole King and James Taylor, but the lyrics remain the same. Whether Carole or James, The Bad Ass Girls, now the “Bad Ass Golden Girls,” hold the words close to their hearts…
ain’t it good to know you’ve got a friend. Ain’t it good to know…you’ve got a friend.

A phrase from
Anna and the King
often comes to mind….

It is always surprising how small a part of life is taken up with

meaningful moments. Most of them are over before they start.

Although they cast a light on the future and make the person

who originated them unforgettable....

Erik Erikson ended his “Eight Stages of Man” or in this case “Eight Stages of Woman,” targeted toward people sixty-five years of age until death. The Eighth Stage is titled “Maturity”.

Go figure….