Going Overboard (16 page)

“Of course,” she said. “What's up?”

“I'm sitting in the closet.”

“Oh, dear!” she sighed. “What now?”

“Do you really think my friendship with the Cute Doctor is inappropriate?” I chewed on my thumb and waited while she chose her words.

“Let's just put it this way,” she said. “I couldn't bare my chest to a doctor who seemed anything less than asexual to me. Doctors
are supposed to be invisible. They aren't supposed to be sexy or cute or involved. They're supposed to be like parents—only not your parents. They're supposed to be there for you, but without even the slightest hint of sexuality. It just isn't right.”

“So what am I supposed to do?” I said.

“Um, hello!” she cried, her voice getting all uppity. “You could switch doctors! That's what I've been telling you to do for months!”

I started to say, “It's not that easy—” but Courtney interrupted: “It's not easy because you like him. Because you're his grass-skirt girl or whatever. Because you, my dear, need a pedestal.”

The next day, Mom and I loaded the boys in the car and went to the train station to get Doris. The terminal was in the middle of downtown and covered with the familiar smog and soot of most urban buildings. Inside it smelled like greasy metal and travelers who hadn't bathed, and as always, I found myself wishing I had a personal gas mask for such environments.

We took our seats on benches that were fitted with thick, oily plastic and I reminded Ford, “Don't you touch a THING!” (I had my waterless soap just in case.) He was fidgeting and kicking his feet against the bottom of the bench, a blatant rebellion against me. Mom sat with her stiff leather purse held tightly in her lap and rocking Owen's baby carrier on the floor with the toe of her shoe.

Neither of us spoke as we stared out at the bustling station. The only noise between us was the thumping of Ford's shoe against the seat.

“Ford, stop kicking,” Mom said.

And he did.

When an announcement came over the loudspeaker that the “train from Birmingham” had arrived, we collected our
belongings (there's always so much baggage when you have kids) and headed toward the double doors leading to the tracks. Passengers wheeling suitcases whizzed past us without nodding or acknowledging us, much like they do in airports, with only one distinct difference: Train travelers are usually gritty from the long trip and they walk with a slant, as if their equilibrium is trying to adjust to a motion other than the clickety-clack of the tracks. They have no business being so hoity-toity, and I smiled and said hello to every one of them just to prove my point.

In the distance, through all the hurried travelers in suits, I saw Doris stepping down from a passenger car with the help of a tall, skinny porter dressed in a gray uniform. I smiled when I saw her faded chambray skirt and white top with the sailor collar: She had been wearing the same outfit since I was six years old. She had on a pair of old Nike tennis shoes (hand-me-downs from me) and a purple wool sweater wrapped around her neck like a scarf and covering her brittle silvery hair. She refused to have her hair cut at a beauty parlor like most grandmas, and therefore it always looked a lot like a bird's nest. Today was no different.

Even though she was still too far away, I knew she had on white panty hose with no socks, and that her deceased father's tie clip was fastened like a brooch to her collar. It was her “uniform” of sorts, and I never expected anything less. Only Doris could get away with wearing panty hose, tennis shoes, an old wool sweater, and an antique tie clip all in the same outfit.

She walked toward us, a subtle frown on her soft, wrinkled face and her full skirt swishing behind her, then gave us her typical hello: “Well, I declare! I've never seen such gooney people in all my life. I tell you, I'm never traveling by train again.”

I hugged her around the shoulders and could feel her frail bones beneath my arms. “Hello, Doris,” I said. “Good to see you.”

“How are you, dear?” She pulled back from my embrace and studied my face. “Am I ever happy to be here! Lord willing, I'm
never riding by train again. Did I already say that? I've never seen such goofy people in all my life.”

She bent at the waist to look at Ford and coo at Owen. Mom and I each picked up one of the Adidas duffel bags at Doris's feet and started to lead her toward the door. I knew Doris would complain about the trip the whole way home, and that she would say a few more times that she would never travel by train again, but neither Mom nor I believed her. Doris is terrified of flying—a trait she has passed down to her daughter and granddaughter—and though she would talk about all the “gooney people” on the train, after the shock of the trip wore off, suddenly she would tell us they were the most magnificent and interesting people she had ever met. “In fact,” she'd say, “I think I'll write a book about them.”

From the backseat, Ford was mesmerized by Doris's commotion—her loud voice and nonstop chatter—reminding me of the way I felt as child . . . like Doris was a one-woman circus.

Doris had never been to my new house, and I was both excited and anxious to see her reaction. When my grandfather Big Jack died two years before, Doris had to move out of her home of more than thirty years and take up residence at a “retirement apartment.” During the transition, she gave me many of her most treasured belongings that wouldn't fit into the new place. Those pieces—an antique sideboard standing against my red wall, an oil painting of a basket of flowers hanging above, and Mom's old red rocking chair from when she was a baby—filled the front room of my house with the comforting smell of baby powder and old wood I remembered from Doris and Big Jack's home. On the piano's ledge, next to the metal lamp, was a framed picture of Big Jack standing on the beach, waving hello with his hat, and a brittle sand dollar Doris had found in the sand for me when I was younger.

We stepped inside the front door and Doris put a hand to her chest when she saw the room. “Lord, have mercy!” she said. “It's gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous!”

“So you like it,” I said. “You like the red? Mom thinks I need to change it.”

“Heavens, no!” Doris said, tightening the wool sweater around her neck and throwing a loose end over her shoulder. (She wears a sweater at all times—even indoors and in the heat of summer. She says it makes her “sinuses feel better.”)

“See, Mom,” I said. “I knew that color was perfect. Even Doris likes it.”

“Now wait a minute,” Doris said, her face suddenly turning into a scowl. The jowls on the sides of her face shook. “I didn't say nothing about likin' that red wall. Don't you be dragging me into the middle of this. I meant that my piano is gorgeous. Simply gorgeous.”

I sighed with defeat.

Late that night, after Mom and the boys had gone to bed, I stayed up to sit with Doris on the couch. Doris never sleeps in a bed. Even before Big Jack died, she slept on the couch while he went upstairs. It wasn't that she didn't want to be with Big Jack—even if he was a Republican—it was more about Doris's anxiety, or her “sinuses,” as she liked to say. The couch was her personal crutch, and when she settled into the throw pillows on my sofa, I knew she wouldn't be getting up again for the rest of the trip, except to get a cup of coffee and to use the restroom.

“How are you, dear?” she said and patted my knee. Tanner was lying nestled against her shoes. She had always been fond of Doris, and seemed to be the most comfortable near her.

“I'm fine, Doris. Just fine.” I looked down at her hands, the loose skin and spots of brown across them.

“Sarah! Herren! Rutherford!” she said, squeezing my knee hard. “Don't you be thinkin' you can just say ‘I'm fine' to me. This is your grandma Doris talking. Don't you forget, I can see right through you like Saran Wrap.”

I laughed as I watched her set her lips in a determined frown meant to prove her stubbornness.

It worked. There was no use hiding anything from Doris.

“I just feel overwhelmed sometimes,” I said. “I'm not sure I'm cut out for this. I'm not a strong military wife like Mom has always been.”

“Sarah Herren,” she said. “You mean to tell me that little girl who organized all the neighborhood children to make a homemade sequel to
Gone With the Wind
isn't capable of this? Don't you be telling me you can't make it without a man! Lord, have mercy, you rule this roost anyway! What makes you think you can't survive without that ol' Dustin? I don't call you Madam Queen Bee for nothing.”

She paused for effect and looked me directly in the eyes. “You are Sarah—Sarah Herren Rutherford. There isn't anything in this world you can't do. And don't you forget it. And don't you forget that your momma—as high and mighty as she may seem—has had her moments, too. She just doesn't talk about it like you and me. You know, you and me, we're talkin' folk.”

I patted her hand. “Yes, Doris, yes, we are . . . talkin' folk.”

Doris has this way of seeing through me. Sometimes I'm afraid even to have the slightest thought in front of her because I know she'll be able to read my mind in an instant. I wouldn't dare think about sex in her presence! If anyone has ever truly had telepathy, it would be Doris. She says the ability is something she inherited from her grandmother, but I don't know, sometimes I think Doris is merely a reflection of myself, and vice versa. No one can keep me in line better than she can.

Doris adjusted the sweater around her neck and sat back into the cushions. “Did I ever tell you about the time Big Jack moved me all the way to Boston, away from my daddy, and we didn't even have a car?”

She had told me the story many times before, but I didn't say so and let her reminisce.

“There I was with a newborn baby,” she said. “I didn't know a soul in the whole darn city. And where was Big Jack? Off studying law. Can you believe that? After all those years being away with the war, then he comes back and hides away in an old law library. I felt certain that old man was having an affair on me. One night I found a phone number in the pocket of his jacket. I said, ‘Jack, whose number do you have in your jacket?' and he just smiled at me. I said, ‘You old bird, tell me whose number this is or I'm going to stay up the entire night singing “I'm Henry the Eighth”!' And wouldn't you know your grandpa didn't answer! No, he let me sit there singing all night like a fool. The next morning, he was walking out the door, on the way to that old law library, and he said, ‘Doris, the number in my pocket is ours.' ”

Doris laughed and put her palms against her moist cheeks. “Lord, have mercy!” she said. “That old man, I tell you. What a fool I was. I didn't even know my own phone number. Talk about being stupid! Boy, was I ever unprepared.”

She sighed and bent down to pat Tanner at her ankles. “Oh, but I miss that old bird,” she said. “I miss him every day. There's not a day in my life I would change . . . not for all the money in the world.”

Tanner moaned happily and turned onto her side so Doris could pat her belly.

“Speaking of money,” Doris said, “I hope you don't let your husband give you an allowance.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I mean, don't just sit there like a fool and let your husband do everything while you wait on him hand and foot, cooking and cleaning and . . . and . . . and being stupid. It's not ‘his money' or ‘your money.' It's your money together. And don't you forget it.” She frowned. “Do you own a calculator, Sarah?”

“Well, of course.”

“Do you know how to use it?”

“Doris! Don't be silly.”

She stopped patting Tanner and folded her arms across her chest. “I'm just sayin' you wouldn't believe all the women who have no idea about their family's finances. Some women go their whole lives letting the man do everything, and where does it leave 'em? It leaves 'em at my retirement apartment helpless and pathetic without their old bird. You don't want to end up some ninny who can't take care of herself, do you?”

She paused and looked up at me real hard, squinting her eyes, and making me feel transparent again. Had I thought something out of line?

“What?” I said defensively.

“Oh, I've been watching you, honey,” she said. “The way you stare off into space at the kitchen table. The way you mope around when someone mentions Dustin. Oh, yes, I've been watching you.”

Her gray eyes, which always have a white light in them due to cataracts, looked me up and down. She drew in her bottom lip and set out her chin, almost pouting.

“And that answering machine message,” she said.

“What? What are you talking about?”

She was nodding her head slowly now. “When you and your momma were out getting the boys' dinner tonight, I played the message on your machine from that doctor person.” Her eyes narrowed. “And I know
exactly
what's on that mind of yours, Sarah. I can read you like a book. But you listen to me. You've got a beautiful family, a fine husband, and this gorgeous house. Don't you dare go doing something stupid and mess all that up.”