The Ladies' Room (19 page)

I thought before I spoke because I was afraid any show of
anger could set her back. "I like the book."

"I'm glad. You should have a nice birthday. Did I tell you
Marty came by today? She was all up in arms about seeing
you coming to the fireworks with Billy Lee. Said the whole
town was saying you gave up Drew for him."

"Momma, I really don't care what anyone says. I only have
to live with me and my heart"

"Well, I'm glad," she said. "I wish you'd had that kind of
backbone when you were married. What on earth changed
you?"

"Eavesdropping in the ladies' room at Gert's funeral on
Marty and Betsy bragging about all the women they knew
who'd slept with Drew. Remember? I told you all about it," I
said.

She hugged me tightly. "Both of them act like their sorry daddies. Now, tell me all about the house. When can we go
see it?"

"Right now, Momma. We can go this very minute, and we'll
go down to the Dairy Queen and get some ice cream while
we're out. Would you like that?"

"I'd love it. Do I have to change clothes?"

She wore khaki slacks and an orange-and-white-checked
shirt. Her hair was combed neatly, and her Keds were spotless,
but I looked her up and down for effect, anyway. "You look lovely
just as you are. Would you like to drive past our old place?"

"I would, but after we see your new house. I want to see for
myself if those floors shine like they did when I was a little
girl."

I drove straight to the house, fearing every moment that
Alzheimer's would claim her before she saw the floors. She
walked inside and clapped her hands together. "It's just like it
was in the old days when Granny Molly lived here."

I floated on a cloud high above heaven.

She claimed a rocking chair in the living room. "Okay, now
tell me again, how long have you lived here? I forget sometimes, you know."

"Since Aunt Gert died. I moved in the very day of her funeral. It'll take a year or more to make it all pretty again, but
I've got lots of time. I don't think I'm going back to work at the
school this fall."

"Looks to me like you've got enough to keep you busy right
here. Wouldn't be any need to work anywhere else. Are you
okay with this divorce thing?" She took my face in her hands
and looked right into my eyes, the way she had when I was a
little girl and she wanted nothing but the truth.

"You always told me when I was dating and broke up with
a boy that I could only be sad for one day. I was sad that long
and then mad for a couple of weeks. Most days I don't even
think of Drew anymore. He's fading away pretty fast for a
man that I lived with for twenty years"

She kissed me on the cheek. "That's real good. I'm glad. I'd
like to see you married again, but be careful who you date. If
it don't feel right, don't do it."

"Momma, I don't care anything about marrying again.
Look what Lonnie did to Gert and what Drew did to me. We
trusted them, and we got our hearts broken."

"You got Crystal out of the deal, so it wasn't all bad. Don't
waste an opportunity for happiness. Just be wise," she said.

We visited for a while and then went to the Dairy Queen.
Momma had a banana split, and then we took a long drive.
The light was fading fast by the time we got back to the nursing home. We were walking down the hallway to her room
when she stopped and studied my face. "Trudy, sometimes I
don't remember things. I hope I remember today for a long time.
It was so good to spend it with you"

I hugged her tightly. I didn't want to let her go or for the day
to end. "I love you, Momma"

"I've loved you your whole life. Now I'm tired and ready
for bed, so you run along home and get a good night's rest."

"How about I just sit with you for a while until you go to
sleep? Then if you remember anything else you want to tell
me, I'll be here," I said.

I stayed with her until she fell asleep, but she didn't say
anything more.

Billy Lee was sitting on the porch when I pulled into the
driveway. He brushed at his pants legs, but he still looked like
he'd walked through a sawdust tornado. He held up a sweating
can of Coke, and I took it without hesitation. If it got any hotter, the devil would be moving his furnace to Tishomingo.

"Have a good visit with your momma?" he asked.

"She had a good day. I treasure each and every one when
she knows me." I rolled the cool can over my forehead and
face before I pulled the tab and sucked in the first cool foam.

He sipped his. "I'm glad she was good today."

"So what did you do this evening?"

"Worked in my shop. Painters are coming tomorrow to start
scraping and painting. You sure you want the house yellow?
This is your last chance to change your mind."

I nodded. "Original as I can get it, so no plastic siding, thank
you. Think they can save all the gingerbread?"

"What they can't, I'll duplicate. They'll be taking it down and stripping it. Take a while, but it'll look better. You want to
start in Lonnie's room next?"

"Guess we might as well. Gives me hives."

Billy Lee set his empty can on the porch. "Lonnie died, and
he's gone. Ghosts don't live in houses"

"Why not? There's a ghost in the haunted hotel at Jefferson.
If one can live there, why can't one live in Lonnie's bedroom?"

Billy Lee chuckled. I prized the times when he laughed as
much as I did Momma's good days. He was pretty serious by
nature. Maybe that's why folks thought he was odd. I wanted
to lean across the distance between us and kiss him. I blinked
a dozen times to erase that crazy notion. What was I thinking?
Billy Lee Tucker was my friend, and one kiss could spook
him and ruin our friendship.

"You ever miss your momma?" I thought it was a good,
neutral question to get my mind off his lips.

He looked away, and I wished I could call the words back.

"I didn't know her. She died when I was just a little kid.
Grandma and Gramps adopted me and raised me as their child.
I didn't know my father, either. He died before I was born. He
and my mother were only married a few weeks. I miss my grandmother the way a person would miss a mother."

I changed the subject. "Sometimes I worry that I'll get
Alzheimer's."

"Trudy, don't worry about tomorrow or let the past ruin today. If you get Alzheimer's, we'll deal with it then. Don't fret
about it today."

"You're right, Billy Lee. Life's too short for fretting." I didn't
miss the "we" he'd mentioned. He was promising to stand
beside me in friendship through thick and thin, and I appreciated it.

"Guess we'd best call it a day. Plumbers, scrapers, and painters
will be crawling all over the house while we strip woodwork
and start on another room. At least you can see what the landing and stairs look like for inspiration."

"See you in the morning, then," I said.

He didn't whistle that evening, and I missed it.

I unlocked the padlock on Uncle Lonnie's room that morning. If there had been even a faint rustle of the old lace window curtains or a squeak of the ancient metal bedsprings,
I would have lit a shuck for Billy Lee's house. But the room was
empty of ghosts, and a sliver of orange peeked through the
lace curtains. I went down to the kitchen and brewed a pot of
coffee. Sitting at the kitchen table, a cup of black coffee in one
hand, a piece of toast in the other, I flipped through magazines. It was time to think about furniture.

When I was younger, magazines had had glorious pictures
of the inside of houses. Now every magazine had sixty ways
to keep a man happy: been there, done that, failed in the long
run. Forty-nine ways to lose weight: remodel an old house and
be too tired to eat. Dozens of tests to see if you were compatible with the man of your dreams: didn't have one. Billy Lee
Tucker was my only friend these days.

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. Billy Lee rapped
once on the back door and poked his head in. "You're up early.
Not sick, are you?"

I shook my head. "No, just trying to decide what to do with
my bedroom. It's so pretty, I can't decide for sure what to put
in there, and these magazines aren't a bit of help. Pour yourself some coffee, and help me make some decisions. I don't
even know where to start to find something good enough to go
in there"

"I ... I ... ," he stammered. "Well ... I've got something I
want to show you before the workers get here this morning."

"You're being nice again."

"I am not. I'm just afraid you'll be nice and say you like
what I've got to show you even if you don't, just because we're
friends."

"I'm all through being nice. If I don't like it, I'll tell you."

"Promise?"

"You've got my word"

"Then follow me. And remember you promised."

I slipped my feet into a pair of rubber flip-flops at the back
door and followed him across the yard, through the hole in the
hedge, and into his yard. I'd crossed into the inner sanctum by
invitation. I'm not sure anyone in town had ever been to Billy
Lee's house. When we were kids, he'd always come to Aunt
Gert's yard when we visited.

He didn't go to his house but made a turn to the left when
we reached the gravel driveway, and he proceeded to that big
metal building set down against the tree line at the back of his
property. So much for thinking maybe he had biscuits and
gravy on the table for breakfast.

He fished a remote-control device out of his pocket, opened
one of the huge double doors, and stood to one side to let me
enter first. Was this where a secret organization took fortyyear-old divorcees to offer them up to some pagan god? Was
that why he'd been so nice to me on my fortieth birthday?
Like the last-supper request of a person on death row, I'd been
given a couple of amazing days before being stretched out on
a stone altar and a fire started under my chubby body.

If I'd realized I was going to be the guest of honor, I would
have dressed better. Maybe worn the Capri set I'd gotten in
Dallas. No time to run home and change, though. Billy Lee
and his overall buddies would have to take me as I was. Hair a
curly, tangled mess, paint-splotched stretch-denim jeans, and
a shirt that looked like it had been around since Noah crawled
off the ark.

I stopped dead in my tracks and stared wide-eyed at the
biggest Harley motorcycle I'd ever seen. I couldn't see him sitting on that thing, much less riding it around town.

"Is that yours?" I asked.

He stopped and let me look my fill of the cycle. "Yes, it's
mine. Do you like to ride?"

I reached out to touch it but drew my hand back. "I've never
been on one but always thought it might be fun."

"You can touch it, Trudy. Your fingerprints won't ruin the
paint. We'll go for a ride anytime you want to, but that's not
what I wanted to show you."

I looked around to see if there was a Mercedes parked
somewhere in the space we'd just entered, but all I saw were
several doors and a glass wall in front of an office that held
a computer, filing cabinets, a massive desk, and a couple of
leather-covered chairs.

"What is this place?" I asked.

"My business.

"Well, pardon me," I snapped.

"No, I didn't mean that it wasn't your business and mine
only. I meant it literally; it is my business, Trudy. This is Tucker
Custom-Made Furniture. It is my place of business."

"You make furniture? For how long?"

"Fifteen years. After I got my degree, I figured out what I
really enjoyed was building furniture. Gramps had a nice
life-insurance policy, and it didn't seem right to squander it,
but I gave myself a year to do what I liked before I made up
my mind what to do with my life. One of my professors commissioned me to build a few pieces of furniture, and word got
around."

"I'm amazed"

"Anyway, you said you wanted a sleigh bed for your new
room, so before you go to the furniture store ..:'

"Billy Lee, are you offering to make me a special bedroom
suite? That would be wonderful. I wouldn't have to waste time
and energy and ..

He slung open a door off to my left and flipped on a light.
My breath caught and held. There before me was the most
gorgeous bedroom suite I'd ever seen. I didn't care if I had to
sell all of Aunt Gert's good jewelry to the man in Oklahoma
City. I had to own it.

"Can you make me one just like that?" I whispered. To talk aloud in front of such splendor was sacrilege worse than taking the Lord's name in vain.

.,No, I only make one-of-a-kind furniture. That's why it's
called custom-made," he said.

I was unable to tear my eyes from the beautiful queen-size
sleigh bed, hutch-topped ten-drawer dresser with matching
chest of drawers, bedside tables, and even a tall, skinny lingerie
chest. All of which was really too lovely even for the White
House. Why had he brought me out here to show me the very
essence of my dreams if he wasn't going to make me a set like
it? I blew the bottom out of that commandment about not coveting right there and then. It wasn't my neighbor's donkey, which
the Good Book said I shouldn't covet, but rather that bedroom
suite.