“Pure luck. His wife died last year.”
I looked at Sister to see if she was serious. She was.
“What?” she asked when I frowned. “What?”
“It wasn’t very lucky for his wife.”
“It might have been. You don’t know.”
There was no way to answer that. I pushed my chair back and announced that I had to go home.
“To fix Fred’s supper?”
“Why not?”
Mary Alice followed me from the shop and across the street to the parking lot. “You two need a break from each other.”
“Nope.” I unlocked the door of my ’87 Cutlass Cierra. Heat rolled out to meet me. “We’re just catching on to this marriage thing.”
“Dear Lord!”
“Call me in the morning. And thanks for the movie.”
Sister nodded and headed toward her car, a new black Jaguar; I headed home happily to Fred.
Birmingham is a lovely city, never more lovely than in June when it becomes what people envision when the word
South
is mentioned. If spring is a riot of colors, early summer is a riot of smells. Gardenia bushes are so laden with blooms their branches brush the ground; magnolias are everywhere. Mix in the tea olive bushes and the honeysuckle vines on every fence and you have a heady mixture, one that makes a porch and a swing a thing of joy after dark.
Fred and I live in a neighborhood where most of the houses were built in the 1920s and 1930s, many of them with stucco exteriors. It’s a quiet neighborhood with sidewalks and big trees, convenient to everything. It was, and still is, a good place to raise a family.
I left the Piggly Wiggly with a barbecued chicken and with some peaches, the first of the year, and headed down the shady streets. To my right, atop Red Mountain, the statue of Vulcan, the largest iron statue in the world, gleamed in the summer sun. Actually, Vulcan was mooning me, since he faces downtown Birmingham and I was in the valley behind him. His big iron rear end is such a familiar sight, that I usually don’t notice it. Today, though, there were scaffolds hanging from the statue. Surely, I thought, they weren’t going to actually extend the old boy’s apron around to cover his prodigious backside as they had been talking about doing for years. Surely they were just patching some rusty places. I tried to remember if a petition had been tacked on the bulletin board recently at the local Quik-Mart to be signed by people offended by the big bare butt. That happens fairly frequently. But I didn’t remember having seen one.
My neighbor, Mitzi Phizer, was in her yard dead-heading a huge gardenia bush. When I parked my car, I walked over to ask if she had heard anything about Vulcan. She hadn’t.
“It’s got to be repair work, though. They’d be crazy to cover him up. It would be like the folks in Copenhagen putting a bra on The Little Mermaid.”
Comparing the statue of Vulcan to The Little Mermaid was quite a leap of artistic imagination, but I knew what Mitzi meant.
I grinned. “He just wouldn’t be as much fun with clothes on, would he?”
“That’s the way life is, Patricia Anne. I keep having to remind Arthur.”
“Surely you jest.”
We smiled at each other in the companionable way of friends who have lived next to each other for almost forty years. We had helped each other through births, deaths, miscarriages, in-laws, children, grandchildren.
Mitzi nodded toward my groceries. “The Piggly Wiggly’s been slaving over a hot stove again, I see. That barbecue smells wonderful.”
“Mary Alice and I went to a movie. She wanted to tell me she’s decided not to be sixty-six on her birthday. She’s decided to reverse the arrow of time.”
“If aybody can do it, she can. Does she have a specific plan in mind?”
“Lying. Consider yourself forewarned.”
Mitzi laughed. “You want some gardenias?”
I did. By the time Fred got home, the whole house smelled of gardenias and peach cobbler. Ah, summer!
Fred owns a small metal fabricating plant and loves it. I think he was hoping that one of our sons, Freddie or Alan, would join him in the business. Instead, both of them live in Atlanta where Alan works with a utility company and Freddie solves problems in a “think tank.” Lord only knows what kind of problems he solves, but he makes a lot of
money doing it. Our daughter, Haley, calls him “the thinker.” Haley, at thirty-four, is our youngest. She’s a surgeon’s assistant in an open heart unit. She was widowed a couple of years ago when her husband, Tom Buchanan, was killed by a drunk driver, but has recently been seeing someone seriously. Freddie’s still “thinking” about getting married, and Alan has a wonderful wife, Lisa, and two boys.
And all of this because of the man who had just come in the kitchen, the man who was hugging me and asking, “Is that cobbler?” Damn! Forty years and that hug still gets to me.
“Fresh peaches.” I snuggled against him.
“My cup would runneth over if I had a couple of aspirin and a beer.”
I leaned back quickly. “What’s the matter?”
“Just a headache. The damn air conditioning broke down in the office again today. I’ll grab a shower and I’ll be fine.” He reached in the refrigerator for a Lite. “Did you and Mary Alice go to the movie?”
“Yes. Get your shower and I’ll tell you about it.”
“I’ve got something to tell you, too.” The serious expression on his face scared me. This was totally unlike the Fred who has spent forty years allaying my fears.
“Oh, God,” I whispered. I could feel the blood draining from my face. He had a brain tumor, inoperable.
“A man called on me today from Universal Metals in Atlanta. Jake Rice, nice fellow. He offered me an interesting deal, one we need to talk about. I’ll tell you about it as soon as I get cleaned up.” Fred disappeared down the hall.
I pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down weakly. Damn it! All Fred had said was he had something to tell me, and I had him dead and buried. This would not do.
The timer on the oven buzzed and I got up and took the
cobbler out. Fred and I would sit at the table at the bay window and eat supper and he would tell me his news. Then while I straightened up the kitchen, he would read the paper or go out and walk around the yard and give our dog, Woofer, a treat. We’d watch the Atlanta Braves or some sitcoms. At ten, we’d watch the news and Fred would go to sleep before it was over. I would read a while longer before I turned out the light on my side of the bed. This was what we had done the night before, what we would do tomorrow. This was what every marriage of forty years should be: calm, happy, still a nice spark from a hug. A total fusion of two into one. Scary.
I reached for the phone; Mary Alice answered. “I need an adventure,” I said.
“You got anything in mind?”
“No. I may need some help.”
“Are we talking physically adventurous like white-water rafting or bungee jumping?”
“I don’t know.”
“Hmm. I’ll think about it.”
I was hanging up the phone when a refreshed-looking Fred reappeared.
“Mary Alice?” he asked.
I nodded. “Did you know she has four dimples in her back?”
“Is that all?” He picked up the paper, sat down at the table, and looked at the front page.
“Fred,” I said, “do you ever feel like you need an adventure?”
He spread out the paper. “Not really, honey.”
Which, of course, was one of the reasons I loved him. Sometimes things don’t make a grain of sense.
“A
nd this Universal Metals wants to buy Papa out?” It was the next morning, and our daughter, Haley, was sitting in the den with a glass of iced tea.
“It’s not exactly a buyout,” I explained as best I could. “It’s a merger. Instead of being the sole owner of Metal Fab, he’ll own a comparable share of Universal Metals. Metal Fab will become part of the larger company.”
“Is that good?”
“Your papa seems to think so. He’s going to Atlanta next week to talk to them more in depth and look at their operation. He’s also going to visit a company in Chattanooga that became part of Universal about a year ago. He knows the man who owned it and says this man will be honest with him about whether he’s satisfied.”
Haley reached over and put her glass on the coffee table. She has recently had her strawberry blonde hair cut short
and highlighted. I think it looks great, but she calls it her Little Orphan Annie look. “The thing about it,” she said, “is that Papa won’t know how to act without Metal Fab. I mean, think about it, Mama; he eats and sleeps that shop. Always has. Remember how upset he was when he was considering selling out?”
“Well, they’ve assured him he can stay on as manager as long as he wants. So maybe being a small part of a big company is the answer. He’s sixty-four, you know. Or will be soon. He needs time for some fun.”
“Mama, Papa’s idea of fun is unlocking the door at Metal Fab every morning.”
“I know,” I agreed. “Financially it’s a good deal, though.”
We were both quiet for a moment. I had been putting Woofer in the backyard after our morning walk when Haley showed up, and I had started telling her Fred’s news right away. Now I asked her, “How come you’re not at work? Nobody’s heart’s plugged up?”
“The doctor’s on vacation. I’m on call for emergencies. No regular schedule.” She got up and walked toward the kitchen. “You want some more tea?”
“No thanks. How’s Philip?” I could hear ice clunking out of the icemaker.
“He’s fine,” she called. Philip Nachman is a very nice man, the nephew of Sister’s late second husband (also named Philip Nachman, which gets slightly confusing). Haley and Philip met at their mutual cousin’s, Debbie Nachman’s, wedding in March and have been inseparable ever since. Philip is a doctor, an ENT, (ears, nose, throat) which is great; he’s also twenty years Haley’s senior, which worries us.
Haley came back with more tea and sat down on the sofa. I had been so preoccupied with Fred’s news, I hadn’t paid
much attention to her. Now I realized something was bothering her.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Philip and I seem to be at a crossroad.”
“A serious one?”
“He doesn’t want any more children. He says he’s had as much getting up with sick babies and as much Little League as he can take.” Haley’s eyes filled with tears. “And I can understand that, sort of. Matthew’s married, and Jenny’s a senior in college, so Philip’s free for the first time in twenty-five years.” The tears spilled over. “But I want my own child. I want my own family.” The family she should have had with her young husband Tom Buchanan; the future that a drunken driver had stolen from her with one swerve.
I moved to the sofa and held Haley while she cried. So much for being “free” when your children are grown.
“He knows how strongly you feel about this?”
Haley nodded, wiped her eyes, and straightened up. “He says he loves his two dearly, but they’re grown and that’s that.”
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry.
Haley nodded and sighed. “I want Philip and I want a baby. I just don’t think I can choose, Mama.”
I had no easy answers for her.
As soon as she left, saying she was going to go shopping for an outfit, that maybe that would make her feel better, I dialed Sister’s number and got the answering machine. “About the adventure,” I said, “get busy with your thinking. Haley might want to join us.”
“Men!” my friend Frances Zata said at lunch later that day. We were eating at The Oak Cupboard, which is a lovely restaurant if you don’t mind foliage getting in your food.
Plants are everywhere in The Oak Cupboard, hanging from the ceilings and windows, cascading from planters between booths. Mary Alice has quit eating there since an encounter with a hanging basket of asparagus fern left her with a knot on her head. She says there’s too much oxygen in the place for her; it makes her dizzy. As for me, I’m neutral. But Frances loves it. She says it’s like eating in a rain forest. Cozy. I’ve never thought of rain forests as being cozy, but, like I say, I’m neutral. And the food is about as close as Birmingham gets to exotic cuisine. That’s because Mrs. Peck, who has owned The Oak Cupboard as long as anyone can remember, considers the diner’s plate her canvas. She’s even had this philosophy printed on the front of the menu. What it means, I’ve decided, is that she believes she can get away with serving almost anything if the colors are pretty. Most of the time, it works. Especially when she gives the dish a French name and charges a fortune for it.
“God’s truth,” I said, agreeing with Frances’s indictment of the whole male sex. I eyed a forkful of something red and orange with green polka dots on it. “This,” I said to Frances, “looks a lot like what was in a jar of orange-cranberry relish I threw out yesterday that had been in the refrigerator since Christmas before last.”
“It’s some kind of carrot souffle,” she said. “It’s good.”
“What are the green and red things?”
“Mint and some cherries cut up, or maybe cranberries. It could even be some of that red stuff they put in fruitcakes.”
“That red pineapple stuff?”
“Just try it.”
I stuck the fork in my mouth. The souffle was delicious.
“I told you,” Frances said when she saw my pleased expression.
“Beats the school cafeteria to hell and back,” I agreed.
Frances’s fork stopped halfway to her mouth. For a moment, the carrot souffle hung in the air like a teeny orange sun. Then Frances lowered her fork to her plate. “Am I going to be sorry, Patricia Anne, in September?”
What she was talking about was the fact that she had just retired from Alexander High after a career of thirty years, the last fifteen as counselor. I had retired the year before from the same school where I had taught English for thirty years.
“The day after Labor Day, you’ll be dancing a jig.”
“You’re lying, but thank you.” Frances picked up her fork again. “You and I are both such old war horses, we’ll chomp at the bit for the rest of our lives when we hear a school bell.”
“True. But it’s time to find out what’s beyond those school walls.”
“I know. But I’ll miss the kids. Hell, I’ll even miss the lunchroom food.”
“Yes,” I admitted, “you will.”
Frances is one of the most elegant looking women I’ve ever known. She’s sixty, just a few months younger than I am, but she looks, maybe, fifty, thanks to a discreet visit to a plastic surgeon in Atlanta a few years ago. I had gone with her and had been sorely tempted to have my eyes done. When school started and everyone told Frances how “rested” she looked, I wished I had given in to temptation. Now I thought that maybe that could be my adventure. Have everything lifted, tightened, lightened. Have my naturally curly hair straightened and tinted Marigold. Wear it back in a chignon like Frances.
“Looks like he would have known Haley would want a family, young as she is,” Frances said, getting back to the subject “Men!”
“None of Mary Alice’s three older husbands balked at her getting pregnant. In fact, they were all delighted.” I forked up the last of the carrot souffle. “Of course that was Mary Alice, not Haley. She probably didn’t give them a chance to balk.”
Frances laughed. “How’s she doing?”
“She’s fine. She was in a swivet yesterday because she had a date with a man who wasn’t ninety. She was nervous about going out with some man who is actually a few years younger than she is. Says she’s going to start counting backward on her birthdays.”
“Good for her. Is she still on the museum board?”
“And symphony board. And Arts Council. Even the Humane Society. She was on TV a couple of weeks ago. You know those spots where they show the baby animals and try to get people to adopt them? She had a kitten that clawed hell out of her. The curator at the museum adopted it. He said you had to appreciate an animal with courage like that.”
A waiter removed our plates, checked to see if we wanted dessert, and brought us coffee. “Who’s the new, younger man?” Frances asked.
“His name is Berry West. I don’t know him.”
Frances was stirring Sweet ’n Low in her coffee and looked up in surprise. “Oh, I do. His wife was a friend of my ex brother-in-law’s ex sister-in-law. He designs those old-fashioned communities. You know, Patricia Anne, like Seaside and Blount Springs where you can walk to everything and you sit on the porch with your neighbors. Tin roofs. That kind of thing.”
I didn’t even try to figure out the relationship. “He designed Blount Springs and Seaside?”
“No, but that’s the kind of thing he does.” Frances picked
up her coffee and took a sip. “Berry West. How about that. Did Mary Alice have a good time on their date?”
“I haven’t talked to her today.”
“Oh.” Frances put her cup down, sloshing the coffee slightly in the saucer. Most of her gestures are so graceful, I looked up in surprise. Her hands were shaking, and she pressed them against her cheeks.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, alarmed at her sudden change of mood. “Are you sick?”
“Oh, Patricia Anne. I wasn’t going to talk about this at lunch, but it’s all I can think about. David’s been transferred to London. He and Sharon were married last week at the courthouse and they’re leaving for London Saturday. They’ll be there at least three years.”
“Oh, Frances, I’m so sorry,” David is Frances’s only child. She and his father were divorced and then the father was killed in an automobile accident when David was a child. Frances and her son have always been very close. David had even chosen to live at home and go to college at the University of Alabama at Birmingham rather than leave home. And now he had married a girl whom Frances didn’t care for (she had confided that to me weeks before) and was going to live in a foreign country.
I reached over and took her hand. “You should have told me right away, not let me babble on about Haley and Mary Alice.”
“It was good for me to hear you talk. I’m ashamed of my reaction, to tell you the truth.” She shrugged. “My son has married a girl he loves, he’s healthy, and he’s got a good job with a promotion. What’s sad about that?”
She was asking
me
what was sad about that? I hadn’t even been able to take my kids to college, I was so upset at their
leaving home. I was grieved that two of them lived 150 miles away in Atlanta. And she was asking
me
? Bad choice.
I didn’t answer. We drank our coffee in silence. Later on, I left another message on Sister’s phone that I had an idea Frances Zata might also want to be included in the adventure.
“I’m not your imagination,” Sister grumbled. She was sitting on my back steps looking through the newspaper when I got back from taking Woofer for a walk. “How come I’m supposed to plan things for you? You’re still blaming me because we were in Sweden when Chernobyl blew up.”
“I am not. I know it wasn’t your fault.”
“Gee, thanks.” She folded a page of the paper and handed it to me. “Look, Mouse. Here’s a picture of Berry and I at the museum reception.”
“Me. Berry and me.”
She snatched the paper back. “Do you want to see it?”
“Yes.”
“Then quit correcting my grammar.”
“For heaven’s sake, Sister, you wouldn’t say ‘here’s a picture of I.’”
“I might.”
I snatched the newspaper back and looked at the picture. In it Sister was standing between a man and a woman. All three smiled at the camera and held up wine glasses. The caption read, “Janet Rotten, Mary Alice Crane, and Berry West enjoy the bubbly at the recent champagne reception at the Birmingham Museum of Art.” Sister was a foot taller than either of the others. I was startled. This man was an Adonis? This short, balding man was the one for whom she was planning on turning time around? Not that I’ve got anything against short people, God knows. At five-one I fit
right in. But this man’s nose would fit into Mary Alice’s cleavage when he hugged her.
“He’s a little shorter than I am, but isn’t he cute?” Sister asked.
“Cute,” I said. I studied the picture. That’s not the word I would have used. But then I felt guilty. He was probably a very nice man. It was just that Sister had built his looks up so. An Adonis! Enjoy the bubbly? I thought as I handed her the paper. “How come you’re sitting out here in the heat?”
“I couldn’t find the dog turd.”
“Fred thought it was one of Woofer’s and picked it up with a trowel and threw it over in the ivy. I’m not about to look for it; there’s poison oak all in that ivy patch.”
“Looks like it would have clinked on the trowel.”
“Must not have.”
“Why didn’t you tell him the key was in it? That thing cost me eight dollars.”