Louise Franks laughed and said, “Elner, you say that every year.”
Elner said, “Well, then it must be true.”
Susie, the Weight Watchers leader, helped herself to a second helping of the sweet potatoes with the marshmallows on top, and added, “Everything here is delicious.”
Elner looked at the assortment of pies and cakes at the end of the table and said, “I can’t wait to hit the coconut cake and that lemon icebox pie, can you?”
“No,” confessed Susie, “me either.”
The next morning when Linda came to pick up Apple, who had spent Easter night with Elner, Sonny the cat was hiding under the couch, and couldn’t wait until she left. He was tired of being picked up and almost squeezed to death by the little girl. It wasn’t until they were on the plane flying home that Linda noticed something on her daughter’s hand. “What is that on your thumb?”
Apple proudly held it up. “Aunt Elner took my fingerprint. Did you know that nobody in the whole world has one just like it?”
Falling in Love Again
5:48 PM
Aunt Elner’s near-death experience had a profound and unexpected effect on Macky. Almost losing one person you love shines a bright spotlight on life, and suddenly strips you of everything but your real feelings. And after the close call with Aunt Elner, for the first time, Macky saw the true facts as clearly as if a fog had suddenly been lifted. He realized that what he had felt for Lois had never been real love. Not the deep-down-in-your-bones-and-marrow love he had for Norma. Lois had been an infatuation, an ego boost, a last grab at youth fantasy. Over the years Norma had become so much a part of him that he had almost forgotten that she was his whole life. What the hell had he been thinking, for one second to even seriously entertain the idea of going off with a stranger? He had come so dangerously close to wrecking his life. Some great act of fortune or luck or something had saved him. That afternoon Norma walked in the door, exactly as she had a thousand times, but this time he really saw her and she was as beautiful to him as she had been at eighteen.
“What are you looking at, Macky?” she said as she put the mail down on the hall table. “Are you sick?”
“No,” he said. “Have I told you lately that I adore you?”
She put her purse down. “What?”
“Did you know that you are more beautiful than you ever were?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
Norma looked at herself in the mirror. “Me? How could you think that, with my gray roots and wrinkles and old tired saggy body, and now these red things on my nose? I’ve just fallen into a heap.”
“Maybe so, but you’re my heap, and you don’t look old to me.”
Norma said, “Well, don’t ever get your glasses changed, because you are obviously losing your eyesight, because I look just like the wreck of the hespers.”
He laughed. “What are hespers?”
“I don’t know, but that’s what I look like.”
“Well, you look like a million bucks to me, and I just want you to know that you are and always will be the only girl for me.”
She walked over and put her hand to his forehead. “Macky, you’re not sick are you? Is something wrong and you’re not telling me?”
“No.”
“Have you been to Dr. Halling behind my back?”
“No, I’ve never felt better in my life. How about we pretend it’s Sunday?”
“Sunday? Why…” Then it dawned on her what he meant. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Macky, it’s only Tuesday.” And she looked back at him. “Do you really think I still look OK, or was that just a come-on?”
“Norma, of all the women in the world, to me you are the best-looking. And I can see fine, just like Aunt Elner says…all the way to the moon.”
Norma sat and stared at him for a moment, then said, “You know what?”
“What?”
“I think I just heard church bells…. Did you?”
“What?” Then it dawned on him what she meant. “Oh, yeah. I hear them.”
“Let me go and have my bath. Can you hold that thought for thirty minutes?”
“Barely, but I will.”
As he sat waiting, he thought, “Marriage. Isn’t it great? Each time you fall back in love with your wife, it gets better and better.”
As she sat in the tub, Norma was so relieved and happy. She knew Macky like the back of her hand, and she could tell by the way he looked at her that he was finally once and for all over that Lois. He thought that she hadn’t known about it, but she had.
The Letter
9:18 AM
A few days after Easter, Elner went to the mailbox and pulled out a letter, postmarked Kansas City. She did not recognize the handwriting. She opened it, and read what was written.
Dear Mrs. Schrimfinkle,
I want to thank you for that mighty fine cake recipe you sent to my daughter. I enjoyed it to the highest.
Yours truly,
Mrs. Teresa McWilliams
Elner laughed at the way her named was spelled, and sat down and wrote her a note back.
Dear Mrs. McWilliams,
I am so happy you are enjoying the recipe. If you are ever over close to Elmwood Springs, please drop in and see me.
Sincerely,
Elner S.
A Surprise for Linda
6:31 PM
A few months later, Linda Warren was making dinner for herself and Apple when the phone rang. She almost didn’t get it. When the phone rang at dinnertime, it was usually a telemarketer, but it kept ringing.
When she picked it up, a man’s voice asked, “Is this Linda Warren?”
“Yes?”
“Who works for AT&T?”
“Yes?”
“Oh, well, I don’t know if you remember me or not, it’s been a while, but I was one of your aunt’s doctors, Brian Lang the neurologist. I spoke to you when she was in the hospital?”
“Oh yes, of course.”
“How is she doing?”
“Just fine.”
“I hope you don’t mind me calling you like this, but I was just transferred to St. Louis, and…well, I wondered if I could take you to dinner or lunch…or something.”
“I see, well, I think that would be very nice.”
After they had set a date for that Friday night, she hung up and was strangely excited. Of course she had remembered him. She remembered thinking that he would be someone nice for Apple to get to know. He was one of the best-looking Chinese men she had ever seen. She wondered if he knew she had a Chinese daughter.
Of course he knew. Elner had told him. Besides, when he’d first met Linda, he’d thought she was one of the best-looking girls he had ever seen.
A daddy for Apple. What a happy thought.
He sat in the phone booth at the airport and thought, “I hope she likes me.”
She thought, “I liked him right away.”
He thought, “Maybe I’ll find out what area of town she lives in, and get an apartment nearby.”
She thought, “I need to lose three pounds before Friday.” It would be hard. It was already Thursday.
He thought, “I liked her right away.”
She thought, “Don’t get excited, it’s just dinner.”
He thought, “I’ve been looking so long, maybe she’s the one.” Maybe they were supposed to meet.
Someone knocked on the door of the phone booth.
“Are you finished?”
“Sorry,” he said, and he picked up his bag and walked out, thinking, “I could be just starting.” He looked around the St. Louis airport. It suddenly looked so nice. June was suddenly bursting out all over!
“Oh, dear,” he thought, “I am in trouble.”
Going on a Trip
5:00 AM
Elner had a plan: she knew better than to ask Norma if she could go, so she left a note on the front door.
Norma, have gone with Luther and Bobbie Jo to get married. Will call when I get h
ome.
Love, Aunt Elner
At around twelve that afternoon when Norma found the note, she called Macky immediately. “Macky! Aunt Elner’s gone off with Luther to get married. Did you know she was going?”
“She said something about it.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“She didn’t want you to worry.”
“Where did they go?”
Macky chuckled. “Dollywood.”
“Dollywood! My God, that’s all the way to Tennessee. She’s gone all the way to Tennessee in a truck! And you let her go?”
At five o’clock that morning Luther and Bobbie Jo had picked her up in his eighteen-wheeler truck and they had hit the road headed for Tennessee. Bobbie Jo had always wanted to be a June bride, and Miss Elner had always wanted to go to Dollywood, so Luther thought it was a fine idea to be married in the little chapel on the grounds, and kill two birds with one stone.
The next day Bobbie Jo, a happy new bride wearing a tank top and shorts, stood holding her wedding certificate and her free corsage the folks at the chapel had given her, watched as Luther and Elner rode on Thunderhead, the largest roller coaster at the theme park. That night at a wedding dinner at the Cracker Barrel, Elner was beaming as she ate her liver and onions. “I’m so happy for the two of you, I just don’t know what to do.”
When the waiter came up and asked if they would be wanting to order dessert, the new bridegroom said, “Does a cat have a tail?” Bobbie Jo thought it was about the wittiest thing she had ever heard.
When Elner got back home a few days later, she called Norma, and as she expected Norma was upset.
“Aunt Elner, why would a woman your age want to get in a truck and go all the way to Tennessee?”
Aunt Elner said, “Norma, that’s just it. At my age how many more chances to get to Dollywood do I have? I just figured I’d better go while the going was good, don’t you think?”
Norma Puts Her Foot Down
4:32 PM
The next day as she drove over to Elner’s house, Norma was determined to put her foot down once and for all, but when she walked up onto the porch, before she could say a word, Aunt Elner hit her with a question.
“Hey, Norma, do you think that woman on that beeper commercial is an actress or a real person?”
“What woman?”
“The one that’s fallen and can’t get up.”
“Oh, that one. I’m sure she’s an actress.”
“She didn’t look like an actress to me, she could be a relative, don’t you think?”
“A relative? Whose relative?”
“Of the beeper people. She could be a family member, couldn’t she?”
“I suppose so, Aunt Elner, but speaking of that, I want to talk to you about something, and I want you to listen to what I have to say and not interrupt me.”
“Uh-oh,” thought Elner. From Norma’s tone she knew whatever she had to say was not something she wanted to hear.
Macky was in the kitchen chewing on the pimento cheese and celery sticks she had made to tide him over until dinner when Norma got back home from Elner’s.
He looked at her. “What did she say?”
Norma sighed and put her purse on the counter and washed her hands.
“Exactly what you said she would say. She won’t go.”
“You can’t force her, Norma. Everybody wants to be independent for as long as they can. I’m sure when the time comes—”
Norma interrupted him. “When the time comes? Macky, if you knock yourself out falling out of a tree and think you’ve just seen Ginger Rogers and orange and white polka-dotted squirrels and then you run off to Dollywood, I would say the time has come, wouldn’t you?”
“I know, but I think for her to have to go to a place like that would be terrible.”
“Well, I don’t know what’s so terrible about assisted living. Personally, I can’t wait to have somebody assist me. I’d go early if I could. I understand why people want to be movie stars, it must be nice to have people waiting on you hand and foot, catering to all your whims, is all I can say.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You’d hate not being in charge of everything.”
“I would not, and what would you know about it anyway? You’ve had assisted living all your life. First your mother, then me. You’ll sail on into it and not miss a beat. I’m telling you, Macky, I am one step away from checking myself into a room over there at Happy Acres for good, then you and Aunt Elner can be independent for as long as you like.”
Macky said, “They may call it an assisted living facility, but it’s still an old folks’ home no matter what fancy name you give it.”
“And what’s the matter with an old folks’ home? She is old. How old, we will never know, thanks to Mother.”
Back in Kansas City
10:48 PM
Winston Sprague had finally been knocked off his high horse, not by a person, but by a shoe. The lawyer sat staring at the golf shoe he now kept under his bed, and pondered the same old question that had nagged at him for the past weeks: “How in the hell had she known it was there?” Franklin Pixton had been sure there was a logical explanation, but Winston had not been as sure, and had done a little investigating on his own. He had spent hours going through the old hospital archives and had discovered that at one time, before the new hospital building and trauma center had been built, there had also been a helicopter pad on top of the building. He had searched through the data they had on microfilm and had found out that between the years 1963 and 1986 the old hospital had flown in over nine hundred and eighty patients suffering from heart attacks. Three hundred and eight had been flown directly from the many golf courses around the area, including six cases of men who had been struck by lightning while playing golf. So it was certainly possible that in the rush to get them off the helicopter and onto a gurney, one of the three hundred and eight golf players might have lost a shoe. But still…the question remained, “How could the old lady have seen it?”
Norma Gives Up
11:14 AM
The day after Elner refused to go to Happy Acres, Norma made a phone call to their family physician. Maybe Tot had the right idea, she took tranquilizers.
“Dr. Halling,” she said, “I wonder if you could give me something for stress?”
“Stress?”
“Yes. A few months ago I broke out with rosacea, and the dermatologist said it was caused by stress.”
“I see. Well, why don’t you come in and let me take a look at you?”
“No, I really can’t do that right now. My nerves are just too bad. If there is something seriously wrong with me, I really don’t want to know.”
Dr. Halling said, “All right, but come in and let’s at least talk about it.”
Dr. Halling knew Norma well, and he knew he would never get her to come in if he threatened her with any tests. She was the biggest hypochondriac he had ever encountered in all his years of practice.
The next day Norma sat in Dr. Halling’s office as far away from him as possible. Even though he had promised no tests, she was still nervous.
He looked at her over his glasses. “So, other than rosacea and your hair falling out, any other symptoms?”
“No.”
“Are you still walking thirty minutes a day?”
“Yes, well, I try. I used to go to the mall and walk twice a week with Irene Goodnight and Reverend Susie, my minister, but I haven’t gone in a while.”
“I see. Well, you need to do that. What is your average day like?”
“Oh, nothing much. I get up and clean the house, do the laundry, visit a few friends.”
“Any outside activities?”
“Besides church and Weight Watchers? No, not really.”
“Hobbies?”
“No, not really. Other than cooking, taking care of the house, and trying to look after Aunt Elner, of course.”
“Well, I’m going to give you a prescription for something to help you slee
p, but I think your main problem is that you have too much time on your hands, too much free time to worry. Have you ever thought about going to work?”
“Work?”
“Yes, have you ever worked?”
“No, not outside the home. There was one day I worked as a hostess at the pancake house, but I hated that so I quit.”
“I see. Well, I think you should consider getting a job. Maybe a part-time job?”
“A job? At my age? What kind of job?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Something you might enjoy. What do you like to do?”
As Norma walked out to the parking lot, she kept thinking, “What do I like to do? What do I like to do?” At one time she had considered opening her own Merle Norman cosmetics store. But that was only because she had been afraid they would change the original cold cream formula. When she got to her car in the parking lot, she looked and read the bumper sticker she had on her back fender: I BRAKE FOR OPEN HOUSES. And it came to her. Real estate! That’s what she liked to do. Every weekend she and Irene Goodnight went to all the open houses. And she never missed House Hunters on the Home & Garden television channel. Her friend Beverly Cortwright had even said she should go into real estate with her.