Authors: Emma McLaughlin
Chapter Nine
Lindsay’s memoir was to be released the Monday after Thanksgiving and Jeanine landed her a spot on Good Morning America to promote the launch. Final confirmation from CBS didn’t come through until we were parting for the holiday and Jeanine was so elated I thought she was going to break me with her bony hug.
I had been desperate to finally have four whole days to spend with Billy and Ray Lynne, and assumed Pax was going to be joining his family for their annual trip to his aunt’s in London. But when he started asking about Luker ‘Thanksgiving traditions’ I realized he thought he was coming home with me. Having no idea how to casually tell him
over my dead body
I found myself riding shotgun on the four-hour drive to Tallyville.
I was feeling disoriented, as always, by our relationship. In the books I read as a teenager intimacy builds in clear steps. Date one: come check out my mill. Date two: let’s run through the moors. Date three: I discover you have a wife locked in the attic. Somehow, ultimately, happiness prevails. But Pax and I kept skipping around on the timeline. We’d seen each other naked years before we kissed. Our first six–week run was all sleepovers and no dinners. And now we essentially lived together on our weekend visits, cooking meals, folding laundry, but then subsisting for weeks in between on texts. And here I was bringing him home for Thanksgiving, which felt simultaneously premature and long overdue. The very phrase conjured parents waiting to greet us in matching sweaters, a graying childhood pet running out to the car as we arrived. It would not be the scene at Grammy’s, that much I knew for sure.
Not that the Lukers didn’t have traditions. You could set your watch to Thanksgiving growing up. Refusing to go to Grammy’s, Mom waited until the last minute to start cleaning up the trailer for her mother’s visit. Having been cooking since dawn, Grammy stoically drove the meal over in her red cooler. Greeted with harried annoyance, she then made no secret of her desire to leave, further compounding the insult to Delilah.
One year mom stepped out for a smoke and Grammy asked me where the mess was hidden. I admitted it was wedged under Mom’s bed tighter than the Stouffer’s in the turkey. Mom returned and asked why we were laughing so Billy, too young to know any better, told her. One hundred percent of the time the holiday ended in tears. Still, we persisted in attempting it as if the government had assigned us the ritual. Which it kind of had.
Since Tom made a televised appearance at the Riverside food drive on Wednesday night, we drove down from my apartment late Thursday morning and were standing on Grammy’s porch by mid-afternoon. “Enjoy this last moment of silence,” I whispered to him as he squeezed my hand. “You’re about to experience the Miss America Pageant as scripted by Tennessee Williams.”
“Well, look at y’all,” Grammy came to greet us in her fanciest apron. “You didn’t have to do all that.” She took the bouquet Pax brought for her, obviously tickled.
“Thank you so much for having me, Mrs. Luker.” He held the door for me.
“Please, now. It’s Grammy.”
Ray Lynne leaned out from the kitchen doorway with that shy smile of hers and I rushed to hug her, now that was she a first grader and too big to scoop up.
“You two must be tuckered. Amanda, show Pax to the living room so he can relax.” Ray Lynne and I automatically stopped in the doorway, but he went directly to the family photos on the side table.
“Grammy says we can’t play in here, Mandy.”
“I know,” I said, overcoming my own childish trepidation. “But we’re not going to play. We’re going to visit.”
“I don’t want to visit. I want to take my Barbies to the Dream Castle.”
“Yes, totally do that.” Not wanting to miss a minute of her, I reluctantly gave permission and she darted off. Pax bent to study a yellowing picture of me on a neighbor’s Slip n’ Slide.
“So, Mandy had a thing for Princess Jasmine,” he observed.
I felt like I’d left my clothes in the car. I’d never brought anyone here. “Me and every other seven year-old.”
“I was more of a Genie guy, myself.” He smiled. “I always try to imagine you little and the best I can do is your head, but on a little body. But you were really were little,” he said tenderly.
“I sprouted up in eighth grade. That suit was too big but Mom knotted the straps with a twist-tie. I’m sure you’ll hear all about it.”
“I’m counting on it.” I realized he was actually excited to be doing this thing that I was siphoning breath to get through.
“Mandy?” Mom came clomping down the stairs in her white patent heels. She hugged me tightly and I dropped my head to her shoulder to keep from coming away with a cheek full of her foundation. “The nerds are winning the war, huh,” she summed up my outfit. Despite expecting that she was going to comment on my navy shirt-dress’s lack of bedazzling, I had no rejoinder.
Unaware that this was unprecedented—that the last time the two of us stood in this house together I was inside her—Pax came over to give Delilah a kiss on the cheek. “Great to see you again, Delilah. Happy Thanksgiving.”
“What are we doing in here?” she asked, as confused as Ray Lynne.
“We’re having a cocktail before we sit down for dinner,” Grammy instructed as she brushed past us with a tray of them. “These two have been driving all day.”
“And we’re using the good glasses?”
“Yes, Delilah,” Grammy said, her smile straining as she set it on the coffee table.
I heard Billy jogging down the stairs and turned to see his hair had been shaved on the sides. Tossing a “what up” in our direction he collapsed into the couch, arms crossed. Grammy smoothed her skirt and sat down, indicating we should follow. She handed Pax a little embroidered napkin and gave the plate of pimento cheese and crackers to Delilah to offer him. Mom looked at me and then at Pax and her turquoise-rimmed eyes narrowed. None of her boyfriends had been invited into this room, let alone this house. The plate stalled on her lap. “Someone’s getting the VIP treatment,” she said before taking a swig of her drink. Grammy cleared her throat and slid a coaster under Mom’s glass before if returned to the table.
“So did Mandy have a pet rabbit?” Pax generously prompted her, pointing at a photo. “How old was she there?”
If we’d been at the trailer I knew what would’ve come next. Mom would launch into stories of her carousing intended to embarrass her mother. But we were not and to my alarm Delilah did the one thing she never had. She went silent. Immune to the potency of her sullen expression, Pax chatted with Grammy, an expert at ignoring her daughter’s gathering storms. Billy and I avoided each other’s eyes.
When we sat down to eat Mom drank steadily, fidgeting with her napkin ring as if waiting to be excused. I was so grateful that Grammy’s receptionist skills kept the conversation moving, almost as grateful as I was that Pax’s grooming left him immune to the swaying head of an inebriated dining companion. I didn’t taste a bite of it, but by the time Grammy pushed back her chair to get the pie from the oven I thought we might actually have made it through the meal.
But as soon as the swinging door to the kitchen closed, Mom asked, “What’s Jacksonville like?”
“It’s nice.”
“That’s what I imagine,” she said to the flower print on the wall. “Nice.”
I stood up to clear the plates.
“We should come to Jacksonville.” She swung her smile past the kids. “Wouldn’t that be nice, guys?”
“Yes, definitely,” I answered automatically.
“Right? It’ll be fun. What’s her place like, Pax?”
“It’s cute.” He squeezed my knee as I cleared his plate.
“Aw, he’s sweet, Mandy.” She stared at me, her eyes watery from the wine. “We could use some cute.”
I clustered all the silverware in my left hand. “Great. After dinner just let me look at Tom’s schedule and we’ll pick a weekend I’m not flying.”
“No, no, no, honey.” She dropped her fists on the table, rattling the china. “We’re gonna come stay with you. How ’bout it?”
I glanced sideways at Pax. “How about drinking some water?”
“And let’s all finally take that trip down to Disney World.” She looked at Ray Lynne. “Wouldn’t you like that, baby? Meet a real princess?”
Ray Lynne nodded eagerly.
“Okay, Mom.” Billy pushed back his chair.
“Your guy, Davis, can hook us up with some of those passes that let you cut the lines.”
“Really, Mandy?” Ray Lynne asked.
I stacked the last plate and Pax stood to gather the serving bowls.
“January,” Delilah continued. “That’ll give me time over the break to get them registered at their new schools.”
“Mom, my place isn’t really big enough for—”
“Is it bigger than the trailer?” Her voice was suddenly sharp, like a knife surfacing from syrup.
“Y-yes.” I lifted the stack into my arms. “But I’m sorry. I just don’t know that this is the time for travelling when you need to focus on figuring out a job—”
“I’ll have much better luck in a city—look at you. It’s settled!”
“What’s settled?” Grammy asked, backing through the door with her oven mitts on as Billy and I went to help Mom from her chair.
“We’re moving to Jacksonville,” Mom announced, the pendulum of her head starting to pull her body dangerously off balance.
“Oh, goodness gracious, Delilah, there you go again,” Grammy said like Mom was four.
“Stop condescending me!” Mom flailed out her arm, narrowly missing Billy as she upended the pie onto the carpet. Grammy turned red. Ray Lynne burst into tears. Mom pointed an accusing finger at me before she slid to the floor, her dress riding up to her waist as she passed out.
I didn’t sleep at all in the twin bed beside Ray Lynne’s. I kept listening for the sound of Pax’s car pulling out of the drive. His knock came just before dawn. I tip-toed to the door, half-impressed he had the courage to say it to my face. “Bob called—a pipe’s burst at the office. I’ve gotta fly back. Can you call me a cab?”
He lay with me on the living room couch until we heard the honk in the driveway. I tugged on a cardigan and walked him silently to the car. “Okay. See you soon,” he said, his kiss landing on my cheek. I turned to follow his gaze to where mom sat smoking on the far side of the porch, her knees pulled up under her Marlins t-shirt.
“Will you?”
“Will I what?” he asked, opening the door.
“Nothing. Yes. Fly safe. Good luck with the flood.”
“I just hope we didn’t lose all our computers,” he muttered, his brow furrowed.
I told myself to let go of his hand, not to run after the car as he pulled out. I could feel her eyes on me as I went up the walk. I’d make a big breakfast for the kids, take them bowling and then to the mall where I could really talk to Billy—get us out of here for as much of the day as I could. Suddenly I heard the taxi backing up and spun around. “Hey!” His window rolled all the way down. “I love you, Mandy Luker.”
I grinned. “You, too.”
“You, too, what?”
“I love you, too. Now get out of here!” I happily waved him away.
“I guess things just work out for some people,” Delilah said coolly as my fingers wrapped around the screen door latch.
“I’m not some people.” I turned to where she sat with the blue fabric stretching over her legs, her eyes shinning in darkness. Coiled up. “I’m your daughter.”
“That and a dollar.” She flicked her cigarette into the roses, waiting for me to take the bait, but I went back inside, damned if I’d give her the satisfaction.
It turned out that since moving into the Victorian Billy had developed his own strategies for avoiding Mom, meaning he didn’t want to hang out that weekend beyond my giving him rides to his friends’ houses and fronting him pizza money. So I’d drop him off and wander the half-shuttered mall behind Ray Lynne, who stood still only to change her earrings from the rainbow pack of studs she laboriously selected at Spencer’s. Watching her mush around the fountain in repetitive circles, her elbow sliding along the stone, she suddenly looked like one of the puppies I used to see sometimes with the guys hanging out behind the gas station. They were so cute, but the guys were already taunting them, already pushing and prodding at them to become fight dogs.
What way would you bet?
I wondered.
Which forces would be strongest?
Third child of a single mother who lost her trailer. A grandmother twenty years more worn out than when I got rides to the library—back when there was one. A town twenty years worse off. But she had me. The money I sent and the world I was building a bridge to. For all of us.
Leaving that Sunday I had the hardest time letting her go.
Returning to my apartment Sunday night I dumped my clothes with their tenacious smell of Delilah’s cigarettes directly into the laundry and promptly passed out. When my cell rang I bolted awake.
“Amanda?”
“Lindsay?” It was a little after midnight. I was supposed to get on a flight to San Diego with Tom in just a few hours.
“Where are you? DC?”
“Jacksonville.”
“Shit.”
“Are you okay? What happened? Is it Tom?”
“Oh my God, Amanda, Good Morning America, live, in front of five million people,” her words were a rush of panic, “When Tom said he couldn’t come I said fine, but I should have said not fucking fine and now my phone won’t stop buzzing with texts from Jeanine and their fucking speaking points. That loud stylist is going to be there with those claustrophobic dresses and I just—what I was thinking doing any of this?”
“Oh, Lindsay, you’re going to be great! And this time you won’t even have Nancy Stick-Up-Her-Ass Merrick to contend with.”