“You gotta prepare yourself,” Lucy said. “I’m gonna give you a book to read called
The Relationship Book
. Find out his birthday.”
“What do you mean?”
“This book is amazing. And I mean that if you want a man to call you, you have to be ready when he does!” she said. “Y’all might think I’m a screwball sometimes . . .”
“We think no such thing!” Daddy said.
“Never!” I said.
Always,
I thought.
“Just hang on and listen to me. I’m taking you shopping, Anna. Okay? And, you’re gonna find out his birthday. Is that okay? And I’m gonna put some makeup on your face.”
I started laughing. Lucy started laughing.
I might read the book but there was no way Lucy was coming near my closet or my face. No way.
Nine
Miss Mavis Says, Check Your Roots
T was another Sunday. Some days it seemed to me that all I do is go from my bed to my kitchen and then to my pink recliner. At least I had Sunday Mass to break things up. Oh, I played with my kitties and watered my violets, but it was pretty dull. I can promise you that! Yes, it was, dull as dirt. Speaking of dirt, I was standing by my curtains, looking down on my neighbor digging up flower beds, and I thought to myself that there was something odd and familiar about her. How could that be? I knew I was getting on in years and that the mind plays tricks on old people, but before I let myself go and turned into some crazy old lady people talk about, I decided to investigate. I took off my cardigan and went outside.
Moses! It was hot! Well, Angel would say that I was feeling the heat so bad because I kept my air conditioner so low during the day. So what? That’s my business! I paid the bill! In fact, I paid all the bills! What a nuisance!
The oleanders between our properties were another nuisance, I’ll tell you. No matter how careful I always was walking through them, they always seemed to snag my hair. The stems were like long fingers, just waiting to annoy me. I got my hair washed and set every Tuesday and it had to last me a week. I’d admit that I wasn’t very good with my hair. When a disrespectful branch of some overgrown bush would grab me and a big lock would shoot out from the side of my head, well, there was a good chance it would stay that way until the following Tuesday. That day, I didn’t care. I was determined to find out what it was that bothered me so about that girl next door.
“Anna?”
“Hey, Miss Mavis!” She stopped digging her hole and stood around to face me. “How are you this fine day?”
“Thinking about fixing to go on and get ready for church. Do you go to church?” Now, don’t tell me it’s none of my business what this young woman did with her Sundays.
I know that!
However, I feel that I am entitled to an inkling of the morality of at least my direct neighbors.
“No, ma’am. Not in a long time. But I should. Where do you go?”
I knew it!
“Oh, it depends on my mood,” I said, just as sweet as pie, hoping she would understand that decent people kept the Lord’s day holy. “Mostly, I go to Stella Maris on Sullivan’s Island. That Father Michaels is a handsome devil. Smart too. Gets to the point and doesn’t fool around. I like that. But if Angel is in the mood to drive, she’ll drop me off at Blessed Sacrament across the Ashley. I haven’t missed a Sunday in over thirty years!”
Think about that, missy!
Do you think a shred of guilt crossed her face? No!
“Blessed Sacrament? That’s a long way, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is. But then I can get her to go with me to the S&S Cafeteria over there on Highway 7. That way we don’t have to cook. And, they have bread pudding and I can have as much as I want.”
“I like bread pudding,” she said. “Fattening, but good.”
“Humph! I don’t worry about that nonsense at my age. My doctor, that old fool, says I should watch what I eat. But I figure, I’m already past eighty, so what if I don’t live to one hundred! I’ll live to ninety-nine instead.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She was just standing there, shifting her weight from one hip to the other. I kept staring at her and I knew she was waiting for me to say my piece. So, before she thought I had lost my marbles, I just came out with it. Besides, the gnats were out and I hate them! Nasty things, trying to get in my eyes.
“I know you!” I said. There. It was done.
“Yes’m, and I know you too.”
“You do?” Lawsa mercy! Who was this woman?
“You took me in the day my mother died, Miss Mavis. Don’t you remember? I’m Anna Lutz.”
“Great God in heaven!” I thought I would collapse! Collapse and die right on the spot! “I had better sit down.” The shock was too much for my delicate nature.
“Oh! Please,” she said and took my arm. “Come inside!”
I let her lead me in to her couch and allowed myself to fall back against the pillows. It was a pretty couch, slipcovered in ivory linen, but not very practical. “Thank you,” I said.
“I’ll get you a glass of water,” she said.
Well, this gave me a moment to look around her living room. Not that I approved of snooping, but you can tell a lot about a person by their possessions. She had a very nice bookcase that looked foreign, but very nice all the same. And she had one ton of books. Maybe she was a teacher after all. Well, I would find out. Anna Lutz! She had been a nice little girl, high-spirited, but nice.
She returned and handed me the glass of water, which I was very glad to have. I took a long drink and laid back against her sofa again.
“This is a shock!” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me who you were?” Suddenly, I was provoked with her for playing this game with me.
“Miss Mavis? I wasn’t sure it was you either, and when I realized who you were, you were already halfway out the door. I figured we’d get around to this conversation sooner or later. Do you remember when I used to steal your plums?”
“Do I? Humph! All you sassy little children running around here, making noise and driving me crazy! Oh! Those were wonderful days!” I took another drink and put the glass on the coffee table, feeling much, much better.
“Yeah,” she said, “they really were.”
“Little Anna Lutz! Where do the years go?”
“I don’t know, Miss Mavis, I surely don’t know.”
Well, she sat down opposite me on the edge of her coffee table and we just started to talk. Glory! It felt so good! Everything was going along so nicely until she brought up her mother. She started to get upset.
“I never got over it, the horrible embarrassment she was to all of us. Poor Daddy. Then my grandmother Violet all but wrecked my life . . .”
“Now wait just a minute, young lady,” I said. “See here! I think you’re old enough to consider both sides, aren’t you? I
knew
your mother. She was a beautiful woman! And a good woman too! She tried and tried to please your father, but let me tell you this, and if you repeat one word, I’ll say you’re lying . . .”
“Promise,” she said. She had a funny look on her face.
“In those days, your father was a difficult man, Anna. He probably still is.”
“Aren’t all men difficult?”
I had to agree on that. “I imagine they are, but your daddy had a way about him that, I swanny, well, it wouldn’t have made even
me
cut up the fool, ’eah?”
“What do you mean?”
Here sat this nice young woman, years after she had gotten over her mother’s death. Was it my business to tell her what I knew? Yes, I decided, it was. Somebody needed to set her straight. Why was I
always
the one who had to do this?
“Anna, there was a time when your momma and daddy first moved over to the island. We were great friends—Percy and I along with Mary Beth and Douglas. We were all young and gay, going up to the Seaside for a drink together or sometimes we would play canasta. When your daddy was at work, your momma would come sit in my kitchen and tell me stories about your daddy and the war and all the hell he went through along with
his
parents. They only wanted to get here, become Americans, work hard and be somebody.”
“Daddy never talks very much about his parents or immigrating, and when he came here he was just a kid.”
“Well, that may be, but your momma had plenty to say. Someday I’ll scratch my head good and try to remember some of the stories. You just need to know this much today. First, you take a young, beautiful, high-strung woman and marry her off to somebody a lot older, who’s never home. Then you stick her in a drafty old beach house at the end of this island. And, finally, you let your mother run your marriage and never give your wife any spending money. You think that’s a pretty picture? Now, it’s ten o’clock. I gotta get myself to eleven o’clock Mass by ten-thirty or I won’t get my seat.”
I stood up to leave then turned around and had another look at her. Her jaw was hanging open and her confusion was as plain as day.
“Don’t go,” she said, “wait. Please. Talk to me.”
What was I supposed to do then? Leave this child all upset? Heavens to Betsy! What a predicament! I just couldn’t forsake my religious obligation. I was too close to death to take any chances on earning more time in Purgatory.
“I’ll tell you what, dear. You come over for dinner and I’ll talk to you all you want. Angel always makes fried chicken and red rice for Sundays. We eat at three. All right?”
“Yes, thanks. I will.”
“Now, let’s have a smile, okay?”
Finally, Long Tall Sally smiled and I let myself out the door. Walking across the yard, I hollered back to her. “Three o’clock!”
“I’ll be there!” she called out.
Do you want to know something? Knowing too much about people can be a terrible burden. It’s unfortunately true.
Ten
The Chicken Was Committed
THREE o’clock had almost rolled around but not before Lucy had the chance to look in on me. I was starting to wonder heavily what these people did with their time before I bought this house.
“Hey! Anybody home?” Lucy said, calling through the screen.
“Come on in!” I said, calling back.
“Wow! What’s that smell? Lord, chile! Gimme a bite!”
I was in the kitchen, which as you know was so small you could stir a pot on the stove and empty the dishwasher at the same time. A one-fanny kitchen by anyone’s definition. I was pulling a sheet of chocolate chip cookies from the oven. My chocolate chip cookies were pretty darn good, if I said so myself. I figured after the tonnage of Miss Angel’s cookies I had eaten years ago at Miss Mavis’s the least I could do was to show up with something.
“I made cookies for the Snoop Sisters,” I said, lifting one with a spatula and offering it to Lucy. “I’m going over for dinner in a few minutes.”
“You must be crazy as hell, ’eah? Gonna be cat hair in the soup. You wanna get a hair ball?”
“Ain’t no cat gonna get between me and my dinner. Don’t worry.”
“Damn, gir’! Thith id tho goot!”
“Hot?”
Lucy shook her head up and down, whooshing air through her teeth trying to cool her mouth. I poured her a glass of water and handed it to her.
“Got milk?”
“You sound like an ad campaign.”
I poured her a glass of milk and she took it and another cookie, blowing on it first.
“Thanks,” she said. “So what’s the occasion? I mean, is there any reason for the invitation besides their usual nosiness?”
“You’re not gonna believe this,” I said, “because I can hardly believe it myself.”
“That one’s broken. Can I eat it?”
I looked at my watch and saw that it was almost three, quickly deciding to tell Lucy about the Mother of all Mother Discoveries later.
“Of course,” I said. “Oh! I’m almost late! I’ll tell you what.” I began gathering up the cookies and stacked them on a plate. “I’ll come knock on your door after dinner and I’ll tell you all about it.”
“I’ll make you supper. Should I call Dougle?”
“Sure, call him. Ask him to make pierogis. Kielbasa. Golabki. Tell him I think we might have the beginnings of an interesting conversation coming up.”
“O-kaaay! This sounds mysterious. Fun! We could use it!”
“No doubt about it.”
I left Lucy and with my plate of cookies covered in aluminum foil, I crossed the yard between the oleanders, almost pulling my hair out of my head.
“Ow! Damn! That hurt!” I would definitely take a machete to the oleanders at some point. Damn things were dangerous.
But I forged on, yanking my hair out of the branch. What could Miss Mavis tell me that I didn’t know? I couldn’t imagine that she knew much. In fact, I was very, very annoyed that she thought my mother was worthy of
anything.
How
dare
she? My mother was a huge and horrible part of my life. Okay. Maybe that wasn’t the most loving way to describe my feelings but I hadn’t had much time to prepare. Tongues of fire were waiting to throw flames, mine included.
Wait! Was I going next door to fight with a couple of old ladies? What was the matter with me? Why shouldn’t I listen to them and then think about it?
Hellfire, Anna, all they want to do is feed you and tell you how they saw things. Calm down! Isn’t anybody entitled to a point of view besides you? You claim to be such a good listener—then be one!
This dialogue with my little internal voice was about to save my ass for the billionth time.
Composed, repressed and in hospitable humor, I knocked on their door. Miss Mavis answered it and the minute I stepped inside her living room a thousand years came sliding back. I could smell the frying chicken. Delicious! And the same damn pine-scented frogs from Glade that she used to mask the cat box smell of her nasty cats. All at once I was ten years old. But if that was true, how did Miss Mavis get so old? I caught myself mid-daydream.
“I made some cookies for you,” I said.
“Oh!” she said and choked up a little. “Thank you, Anna. Come on in.”