What I Remember Most (20 page)

But even that side of me, Covey liked. He told me, “I love the rough rider side of you, sweetheart, that ball breaker, but can it when we’re at the governor’s mansion for another one of those endless charity events, will you? Now hop on top of me, you gun-slinging, deer-hunting, target-shooting, red-necked Amazon woman.”

He did not ask many questions about my past. Initially I saw this as sensitive. He could tell I didn’t want to talk about my childhood much, the lack of any family. I gave him only the barest bones. I thought he was respecting my silence and privacy.

The truth was, he didn’t want to go that deep with me. I was sexy, curvy, mysterious, independent, ran from commitment, challenged him by being a smart aleck, and had a tough side. He didn’t see me as intellectual, as bright, so I was no threat to him. I was an artist, which he later told me he thought was an “adorable hobby, sweet cakes. Let’s get naked and use your paintbrushes on each other.”

He didn’t want to know who his Dina Hamilton had been when she was Dina Wild, and he especially didn’t want to know Grenadine Scotch Wild.

Oh no. He didn’t want to know Grenadine Scotch Wild at all.

He had to study the original nursery rhyme for two days. He sang it repeatedly, as loud as he could.

He pulled out three hairs, then tipped his head back and balanced all three on his nose. He licked them. The licking gave him an idea.

Brilliant! He was brilliant! He bit off part of his pencil and chewed on it. It made him giggle. He was a giggler! And a poet!

On my first day at Hendricks’, Rozlyn came and grabbed me at my desk, as I was too shy to walk into the employees’ lounge, stand around, and not know where to sit. It would be like the torture of the school cafeteria all over again. “Get on in here, Grenady,” she said. “Come meet Eudora—she’s my idol—and Marilyn, who I can barely stand. When I’m having menopausal rage problems I want to smack her.”

Eudora stood and shook my hand, smiled, and said, “It’s a pleasure. Don’t forward Dell’s calls to me. I went out on three dates with him and now I can’t shake him off. I may have to shoot him.” I agreed not to forward the calls. She said something I couldn’t understand.

“Pardon?”

“I said, in Russian, I would put him in the gulag if I could, no vodka.”

“I’m Marilyn.” Marilyn stuck out a limp-fish hand, and I shook it. She did not bother to stand. I knew her already. She was in sales. I had said hello to her that morning. She had stopped when she saw me behind my desk, eyed me up and down, and a sour and hard expression settled on her face like a rock. I knew she didn’t like me.

“Marilyn is in a bad mood often,” Rozlyn said. “I would like to blame her hormones, but I think it’s her personality.”

“That’s true,” Eudora echoed, crossing her thin legs and swinging a black heel with a red sole. “She’s naturally petty.”

“I am sometimes because of a stressful life.” Marilyn sighed before going off on a bunch of piddly complaints about how she was so “overwhelmed” with work at Kade’s, her home and garden, her husband. Then she smiled at me, but it was a mean smile, one poised for attack. “You”—she pointed at me with her fork—“are a wife’s nightmare.”

“Gee. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” She tilted her head, examining me as one would a specimen. She smiled again, tight and derisive. “Your contacts are such a bright green! Do you like them like that?”

“I’m not wearing contacts.”

I could tell she was surprised.

“She has gorgeous eyes,” Eudora said. “Do try to be pleasant, Marilyn, no matter how bad it hurts you.”

“Shut up, Marilyn,” Rozlyn said. “Get your personality disorder under control.”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t know they were real.”

“Most people’s eyes are real,” I drawled. “Although there could be people running around with fake eyes. The ones you take in and out of your eye socket. Pop in, pop out. But these are both mine.”

Rozlyn and Eudora snickered. Marilyn blushed.

A few days later, Marilyn was at it again. I could tell she had planned how to torpedo me. “I used to own a hair salon, so I know about hair. You do have thick hair, that’s a plus, but have you ever thought about cutting your hair shorter, perhaps to your chin, so it’s more . . . how shall I say it? Controlled. A better fit for your age.”

“No. I don’t need controlled hair.” I let my eyes drift over her mop ever so slowly. “I don’t want hair that is flat and sticks to my head like a sick gopher.” I coughed twice, like a sick gopher.

Rozlyn said, “Shut up, Marilyn. You’re jealous. Tell Mildred, your meanest personality, to go back inside your head and be quiet.”

Eudora said, “Your hair does resemble a sick gopher, Marilyn.”

“Let’s not get offended, dear.” Marilyn patted my hand, ignoring the other two. The word
dear
was so condescending. “I’m simply suggesting that you don’t need to flash it.”

I put down my sandwich and faced that pudgy and jealous witch, my temper triggered. “What, exactly, do you mean by that?”

I knew her type. Throw mean comments, a slight jab, a fake smile, pretend you are trying to
help
someone improve one of their glaring flaws.

“I mean that some men lust over women like you, and you have to ask yourself if you want that
kind
of attention.”

“What do you mean that
kind
of attention? And what do you mean, women like me?”

“You have an image that says . . .” Marilyn waved a hand. “I’m available. Anytime.”

Rozlyn slammed a hand down on the table. “Damn it, Marilyn. She does not, and why are you so disagreeable? You’re like killer gas.”

“Vicious and silly woman,” Eudora said. “That is enough.”

“You mean, I look like a whore?” My temper was now at a dull roar.

“That language!” Marilyn squirmed, lips tightening. “Not
quite
like a whore.”

“Not quite like a whore?” Roar again.

“Do you want to know the truth?” Marilyn asked, eyebrow arched.

I hate that question. People preface rude and critical statements with that line. I didn’t even answer.

“You’re throwing yourself out there for any man. All that reddish hair. That bust. Those eyes. Your lips are . . . so puffy. And with you being a bartender, too. Perhaps you need a more restrained style, not so suggestive.”

Any man? Man, I was pissed. “Let me tell you what I need. I’ll say it slow because you don’t seem too bright to me. I need to stay employed. I need to work hard without people like you getting in my way. I am grateful for the job, but I stopped taking shit a long time ago and I’m not taking it from you. I get what you’re saying, so shut the fuck up.” Roar!

Marilyn sucked in her breath.

“You don’t like me because of my hair and puffy lips and boobs. You don’t even know me, but you’re going to judge me harshly because you feel threatened about your own life, your gopher hair, your husband, your lard butt, or something else. I don’t know what it is and I don’t care. But if you ever say, or imply, that I look like a whore, I’m going to take that as an invitation for me to shove my sandwich down your fat throat until you choke. Do we have an understanding?”

“Goodness.” She flushed bright red. “I think you’ve threatened me.”

Rozlyn crossed her arms in front of her. “Yes, disagreeable one, do you understand?”

Eudora glared at Marilyn and said, “Why so spiteful? In my previous work, people like you ended up in rivers.”

“I don’t think I’m going to sit here anymore,” Marilyn said. She stood up, then paused as if waiting for someone to tell her to stay. “I’m leaving.”

I stood up, too. I was taller than her. “Don’t ever talk to me like that again.”

She waved a hand. “My, you have a temper.”

“You have no idea.” My temper was flaaaamming.

This time, she backed off. I saw her hand shake as she picked up her lunch bag. I had shocked her with my response. That kind of person lays her power down by assuming no one will challenge her.

I sat back down. “Would you like me to leave?”

Rozlyn hit the table. “No! I can’t stand Marilyn! And now she’s gone and I’m a happy hormonal woman!”

“You stay right there,” Eudora said. “It will be the three of us. A lusty menopausal woman, a woman who threatens to shove her sandwich down an irritating woman’s throat, and me, a world traveler who has done naughty things. Cheers to Grenady. Welcome to The Wood Gals Gang.”

I wondered what the naughty things were. We toasted our water bottles together.

I ate lunch with The Wood Gals every day from then on. It was fun. It was entertaining. Eudora was humorously snippy, and Rozlyn lived and thought at full speed.

I liked them.

But what would they think of someone who had been in jail for theft, fraud, money laundering, and embezzlement?

I had my car window fixed. I went to Billy Squared, and they handled things with my insurance company. They were, as I’d been told, the best. Friendly and funny.

When I left they said, “We’re coming to visit you at the bar, Grenady!”

I said I would love to see them.

There sure were a lot of nice people here.

But not Marilyn.

My attorneys called. Neither had pleasant news. Swing me a cat, the conversations were downright scary.

On Sunday I slept until eleven, then found a long wood table at the thrift shop for my artwork. The owner’s son brought it over, and we carried it up the stairs.

I put it against the wall to the left of the French doors. I set up my brushes and paints: Teal. Amber. Turquoise. Lipstick red. Gold. Deep purple. Magenta. Forest green. Lemon. Pink. Honey. Maroon. Orange. I transferred my art supplies from my kitchen table to this table. My heart felt better, yes it did. I would buy canvases this week.

I made chocolate chip cookies and brought some to Rozlyn and Cleo. Rozlyn was on the couch with an ice pack over her head because of a headache. She whispered to me, “I think I’m getting these headaches because of a lack of sex with Leonard.” We both laughed, and I heated her up some bread and minestrone soup she’d made.

While I did it, I studied another quilt she had hanging on her wall. It was the backside of a woman—quite curvy, black hair like Rozlyn’s—in front of a lake, a rose in her mouth, a purple lacy thong up her rear. It rocked.

Cleo was singing a song about snails and girls who wear bonnets at the top of her lungs, which couldn’t have been good for Rozlyn’s head, so I asked her if she wanted to come over and help me sew pillowcases for my pillows with the deranged-looking flowers.

She said, “Yes, yes, cowgirl yes,” and jumped up and down. “I do.” She was wearing silver sequined go-go-type boots; what looked to be a prom dress of Rozlyn’s, which she’d hiked up with a belt; and a hat with a dog on it.

On the way over we greeted Liddy, and Cleo horse-talked with her. Liddy’s head actually bobbed up and down, as if she understood the gibberish. “Liddy says she wants to be a space alien, too. Like me.”

I nodded sagely. “I’m not surprised.”

We cut out fabric, then sewed it up on my old sewing machine. Cleo was pretty good on the sewing machine because of the quilting her mother did. We made the five pillow covers for the family room, then I showed her how to sew buttons on the fabric to make it more interesting. She was a quick learner.

On the candy cane red pillow, we used one large, gold circular button in the center, then surrounded it with five gold circular buttons to make a flower. On the two blue and yellow pansy pillows, we used three white flower buttons in the centers of three of the flowers, and on the white and yellow tulip pillows, we put two fun buttons—a squirrel and a silver horseshoe—in the middle of each one.

As we worked, Cleo kept saying the funniest things:

I wish I had a sixth toe, then I could climb walls better.

Do you think I look like I have a little dolphin in me?

Do you think there are people living on the inside of Pluto but they hide whenever we point our telescopes at them?

“I’m glad you moved into the big, red barn, Grenady.”

“I’m glad, too.”

Rozlyn’s headache hadn’t gone away by the time Cleo and I walked back over. I told her to go to bed. Looking at her hurting was making me feel ill. I made spaghetti for Cleo, cleaned up, then I read her three books and tucked her in. She gave me a hug.

“Night, night,” she sang. “Don’t let the bed bugs bite. If they do, smash them with a shoe in the bumparoo.”

“I’ll do that, sweets.”

“Don’t leave until I’m asleep, okay?”

“Okay.”

“You can beat back any bad dreams that come.”

“I promise you I’ll beat ’em back.”

I sat there for a full two minutes, her hand in mine, until she conked out.

I turned off the lights, double-checked the stove, locked the doors, and headed back over to my place.

I wondered what it would be like to have a child. If she was a kid like Cleo, I thought it might be darn fun.

“Grenady, can you please, please, please help me with tables seven and eight?”

“Sure will, Monique.” Monique is spitfire and honey mixed together. Her mother-in-law has moved in with her and her husband, and World War III had broken out, minus the bombs.

She tells Monique, who is a vegetarian, that being a vegetarian is “grossly unseemly,” that she works “too much and will age rapidly at this rate. I can already see it happening,” that she does not know “her place as a wife, my poor son.”

The other day I said to Monique, in the kitchen, “How are you?” and she picked up a huge knife and killed a cucumber. A week ago I said to her, “Hi, Monique,” and she said, “Hi, Grenady,” then hugged me and cried. When she was done she cut up
a salad
with two butcher knives.

“Thank you, Grenady,” Monique said. “I have to call my husband and tell him that if he does not move that Satan witch out of our house, I will move out.” She tipped back a shot glass full of vodka. Tildy does not allow any staff to drink alcohol at any time at work, and Monique knows it.

I took it as a sign of her desperation.

“I’ll get the tables, Monique, no problem.”

She reached for a second shot of vodka, but I grabbed it. “Go ahead and make the call.”

She stalked away, muttering about moving to Guam. I don’t know why she chose Guam.

I turned around and grabbed the food from the cook’s window and took it to table seven, smiled, and got them ketchup. When I brought the food to table eight, a woman there, all prissed up with blondish hair curling like a bell under her chin, said, “I thought I told you that I wanted my hamburger to be well-done, not medium.” She pushed the plate toward me with two manicured fingers as if she couldn’t bear to touch it.

“I’m not your waitress, but I’ll take it back and have the chef make you a new one.”

“You are my waitress. You were just here. Did you forget?” She rolled her eyes at me. “Why wasn’t it done right the first time?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll take care of it.” I tried to smile. Her companions, one woman and two men, probably their husbands, looked embarrassed.

“It’ll be fine, Anna,” one of the men said.

“No,” Anna snapped. “It’s not fine. You have your food. I wanted to eat
with
you, not
after
you, like a servant. Can you hurry this up?” Her face twisted, red mouth tight.

I studied her for a second. She had that vain, shallow, pampered appearance. The one that says, “I spend an hour and a half getting ready for my day. I don’t have anything going on. I don’t work, I don’t volunteer, but I do have shopping, manicures, and facials to attend to. And Pilates. And gossip.”