“What is it, child?”
“I’m Susan, Dr. Duggan. Remember me? How’s our grandmother?”
“Grave situation, Susan. Miss Sophie’s unconscious. I’ve given your mother something to help her rest and I’m taking your grandmother over to St. Francis. We’ll know a lot more after we see how she does tonight.”
“Golly. Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving. She can’t die now!”
I worried that Sophie would be snatched from us like Tipa was. After his funeral, Sophie had reverted to her former behavior. She no longer spoke. She wouldn’t bathe, except when Livvie took charge. She rarely left her room. Still, she was my grandmother and I wasn’t ready for this. And she had helped me to my room in the dark that horrible night.
The ambulance arrived quickly. Maggie was upstairs giving the twins a bottle; Timmy and Henry were changing into their pajamas. I was entrenched in the kitchen, making a platter of sandwiches for a quick supper. When I saw the medical team come in I stopped slapping ham on mayonnaise to see what was going on.
I peeked in Grandma Sophie’s room. They were lifting her onto a stretcher. They buckled big straps around her tiny body and covered her with a white blanket. She seemed so small. I thought she might get cold and hurried around them to her closet to get her bathrobe and slippers. I pressed them into Uncle Louis’s hands.
“She’ll need these,” I said.
“You’re a good girl, Susan,” he said. “Tell MC that I’ll call her later. Your Aunt Carol and I are going to spend the night at the hospital. Ask your daddy, when he gets home, to call over there too.”
“Okay.”
I followed them out the front door and down the steps. A terrible fog was rolling in. It was awful to see an ambulance parked in front of our house in the mist. Nightmarish. I stood on the porch for a few minutes after they left, listening to the siren wail. It became faint and then finally I could hear it no more. I leaned on the banister and listened to the ocean. Mrs. Simpson’s porch light went out. She’d probably seen the whole thing.
The screen door closed behind me and I knew without looking that Livvie had come to make sure I was all right. She put her hand on my shoulder.
“Gone be all right, chile, gone be all right.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Come on back inside now, this porch is a pneumonia hole tonight.”
“Think she’s gonna get well, Livvie?”
“Chile, we can’t see what’s in Gawd’s mind, and you know your grandmomma ain’t been right since Mr. Tipa gone. Might be she time, but only Gawd knows that.”
“Livvie, Maggie and I got you something for Thanksgiving.”
“What you talking about?”
“Well, we got you a big box of chocolate candy. I hope it cheers you up. You’ve been so, I don’t know, different lately.”
“Oh, chile.” She heaved a great sigh. “I guess I been carrying the world. Don’t you worry. Livvie’s alright and you gone be alright too, ’eah?”
“We could open it and look at it. If you want to, I mean.”
“Let’s do that, ’eah? We could all use some sweetening up.” She smiled at me and latched the screen door.
We went into the living room to turn out the lights and Livvie gave the mirror a hard look. It was irresistible, the temptation to peer into the future, I supposed. I knew that if I could’ve seen anything in the darn mirror, I’d have been looking all the time. She rubbed her eyes and looked again.
“Can’t be,” she said.
“What? What’d ya see? Tell me!”
Ignoring me, she went to the old round mahogany table, which held old family photos by the dozens. She picked up a picture of Daddy’s momma, who had died before I was born. She lifted another one of Grandma Sophie and Grandpa Tipa on their wedding day.
Livvie clenched her jaw and replaced the photograph, wiping her fingerprints away from the silver frame with her apron. She started to sing.
“Livvie, talk to me!” I was becoming frightened.
“Chile, listen to these words,” she said and started to sing.
“Sometimes I feel discourage,
and think my work’s in vain,
but then the Holy Spirit
revive my soul again!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means when trouble come knocking on your door, you turn your mind to the Lawd, that’s what.”
“You saying trouble coming ’eah?”
“Mizz Susan, I’m saying that Gawd put me ’eah in this house for a reason. Iffin trouble does come knocking, I gone hold you together. You ’eah me?”
“That’s it? That’s all you gonna tell me?”
“That’s it. Now, let’s finish that stuffing for the bird, and get a little bite of chocolate.”
“Good idea!” I was suspicious. “Gosh, it’s late! Are you sleeping here tonight?”
“I hadn’t plan for that, but seeing how Mizz Asalit done gone off and all, maybe I bess stick around for the night.”
“Yeah, that’d be good.”
We chopped in silence, popping Jordan almonds and chocolate-covered caramels, except for when Livvie would sing. Rutabagas, potatoes, onions, celery, carrots, parsley. Collard greens, stripped of their spiny stems, soaked in a tub of salted water with vinegar to tenderize them. Ham bones pulled from the freezer to thaw to flavor the turnips and greens.
When Maggie came down, we added leaves to the dining room table and we got out Momma’s best cloth. The snowy damask covered the table just right. It was beautiful. We set the table with a centerpiece of fruit and nuts in my grandmother’s Waterford bowl. We put smilax leaves all around the bottom and thought it looked fine.
Livvie put the twins to bed. Momma was sleeping. The phone didn’t ring. Daddy still wasn’t home. Uncle Louis didn’t call.
“Eleven-thirty! You girls bess get on to bed and rest,” Livvie said. “I’ll just sleep on the cot in the twins’ room.”
“Where’s Daddy?”
“Chile, that ain’t for y’all to worry about. Be plenty of time tomorrow to find out. Now go on to bed. Thank you very much for the beautiful chocolate. It means a lot to me.”
“Livvie, you mean a lot to us,” I said.
“That’s right,” Maggie said quietly, “you do.”
Just knowing Livvie was two doors away, I fell asleep like a stone sinking to the bottom of a river.
Thirteen
Taking Control
1999
I was coping with my new life very well, I thought. Basically, I gave the devil to those who needed it (that would be Beth) and kissed those deserving a kiss (that would be Beth, too). It wasn’t easy, but I was putting one foot in front of the other and, like Livvie used to say, I was thanking God for my chance.
Tom was still withholding information needed to finalize our divorce settlement. Last week he had sent Beth home with an envelope containing a thousand dollars in cash. I knew it was guilt money—his guilt over the night of the storm and Beth’s disappointment. I also knew he was being paid in cash by more than a few clients and not reporting it as income. I needed the thousand but I knew we’d go through it in a hurry. I stashed the bills in my old tennis shoes and tried not to feel like a hooker for the moment.
Why Tom was dragging his feet on finalizing our separation agreement I didn’t understand. It baffled me, given the fact that Karen, the New Age Nympho, was once again living with him, or at least she was there every time Beth went for weekend visitation. I called Michelle Stoney and asked her to rattle his cage.
When Michelle asked him why he hadn’t turned in all the tax documents she had requested, he said, “I have to call the accountant.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said, “what does he think? That I have an automatic money machine in the living room? Hasn’t this gone on long enough?”
“I know. Give me twenty-four hours. I’ll threaten a lien. That’ll put a fire under his fanny. It doesn’t sit well with the bar association,
either, for lawyers to be sued for nonsupport. I’ll call you tomorrow,” she said.
That conversation taught me that even Michelle Stoney, great feminist advocate, needed gentle reminders to keep the ball rolling. I had to look out for myself.
The list went on. I still had the pleasure of Tom’s bimbo, Karen, and her mouth to deal with. She had told Beth that her sex life with Tom was so fabulous that she didn’t care if they ever got out of bed! I left a message on her machine.
“Tiger Woman?” I said. “This is Susan Hayes calling. Kindly confine the bells and whistles of your sex life with my husband to conversations with other adults. Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to educate my daughter about the joys of illegal cohabitation. My daughter is a minor and does not need to hear about how her father and his concubine thrill each other. The minute descriptions of your repugnant gymnastics are of no interest to either one of us. If this message needs any clarification, you may call me. If this continues to be an issue, my lawyer will call you. You’ll find concubine and repugnant in the dictionary—if you own one—which I seriously doubt.”
As long as I was telling her off, I figured an extra drive-by shooting couldn’t hurt.
And I could never overlook Mitchell Fremont, the most irksome man in the galaxy. He was like one of those Bop ’em Bob dolls. My brother Timmy had one when he was little. He’d punch its red nose and it would keel over and pop back up for another punch. Whenever I caught Mitchell eyeing me in the office, I’d shoot him a Warrior Princess death ray, then watch him keel over and pop back up. Mitchell had evolved to comic relief of a sort.
On the happier side of things, my first column ran on Thursday as Max Hall had said it would. We had entitled it “Geechee Girl Remembers,” which seemed clever enough. I thought the column and the cartoon looked pretty good, but it had been edited without anyone telling me. That upset me because I would’ve been happy to make changes but I wouldn’t have made the same changes. In any case, it would earn me a hundred or so dollars and that was good. Beth’s feet were still growing and I was still shrinking. Journalism was a new universe and I’d just learned my first lesson there too.
It turned out that Maggie was wrong about Grant, thank God. He did indeed have a pack of matches but said he had picked them up from the boys’ room, worrying that they were smoking. Their son Bucky apparently admitted they were his and, yes, he had been smoking and, yes, he was grounded for two weeks. That was a huge relief. One divorce in the family at a time, thank you very much.
Maggie had called me to congratulate me on the column and we were talking about trusting men when my other phone line beeped. I put her on hold, thinking that call waiting was a fiendish device. I should cancel it and give Beth her own line as soon as I could afford it. It was Roger Dodds.
“Hi, remember me?” he asked.
“Roger Dodds? Roger Dodds? Aren’t you a doctor or something?”
“Ah, the brutal Ms. Hayes. Yes, I’m the foreign physician from Aiken who put the kabosh on your daughter’s nightclub and den of iniquity three weeks ago.”
“Oh, I remember you! How are you?”
“Good, thanks. Um, I’m sorry I haven’t called sooner. When the storm hit I had to go up to Aiken for a few days to help my old aunt and uncle. Their house was completely demolished.”
“Oh. That’s awful. Sure you weren’t at the Indianapolis 500?” I didn’t yawn in his ear, but I didn’t quite swallow the story either.
“Very funny. No, I’ve given up car racing. Anyway, Uncle Richard’s eighty-two and Aunt Frieda’s eighty-something also. You know how it is with old people, they get scared and confused,” he said.
“Yeah, well, I’m twenty-seven and I get scared and confused too,” I joked, figuring maybe it wasn’t a total line of bologna. “Can you hold on a minute? I’m on the line with Maggie. I’ll tell her I’ll call her back.” I clicked and reclicked and finally found Roger.
“Anyway, I’d like to see you again,” he said. “What’re you up to this weekend?”
“Oh, the usual list of household stuff. Not much.”
“Want to have dinner?”
“Sure, sure. In fact, I’d love it. What night?”
“This Saturday?”
“Great. What time?”
“Eight, no, seven-thirty. I’ll pick you up?”
“Why don’t I drive this time?”
“Women. Why are you all always worrying?”
“Preservation of the species. Hey, I know what! I’ll have Beth make cocktails.”
“What a night that was for you. Did everything work out okay?”
“Well, aside from the fact that they trashed my house and my daughter sullied her pristine reputation with the entire student body, things worked out fine.”
“Kids.”
“Yeah, I’ll see you Saturday. Hey, Roger?”
“Yeah?”
“I can’t wait to see you. It’ll be fun.”
I called Maggie back right away.
“Hey! Guess what?” I said. “That was Roger Dodds. We have a date Saturday night.”
“No kidding, that’s great!”
“Yeah, I guess my life is finally moving on,” I said.
“Listen, Susan, if he wants to go to bed with you, do it,” she said.
“What? Are you crazy? I hardly know the man!” Sometimes Maggie was a little cracked. Seriously.
“No, listen, I read this article that said the first sexual encounter after a marriage is the most nerve-wracking. The sooner you get it over with, the better.”
“This might be the most hare-brained thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“It’s the truth! I mean, if Grant and I got divorced, it would be very hard for me to undress in front of someone else, let alone get in the bed!”
“First of all, I haven’t used any birth control in a million years. Secondly, oh, good grief, Maggie! I can’t think about this!”
“Well, think about it. He could be a good transition person. But you’re right, you need to think about protection from disease. Who knows where he’s been?”
“Jesus,” I said, “thanks for the thought.”
I had two days to transform myself for my second date. Beth and I decided to get new haircuts and manicures. We went out to the Citadel Mall and found a new salon that had just opened. A tiny, young, beautiful blond with an angular haircut and without one freckle, wrinkle or chipped nail was at the front desk. One look at her makeup and her pierced eyebrow and I knew I was at least a thousand years old. Great.
“Can I help you?” she said. Her voice was pleasant and professional.
“Yes, I’d like to make an appointment for a haircut and a manicure for my daughter and the works for me,” I said.
“When would you like to come in?” she said.
“Well, we can shop until someone is free.”
She checked the schedule book while I worried that—in this excellent adventure into beauty—they would give me a haircut like hers.
“Um,” I said, “do you have someone on your staff who cuts hair for the aging?”
At least she had the intelligence to giggle. “Yes, ma’am. Kim. From New York and very good. He’s also the owner. His fee is a little higher than the other stylists, but I think you’d be happy with him.”
I just loved when they called me “ma’am.” It reminded me to eat roughage.
“We need this, don’t we?” I said to Beth.
“Oh, Mommy, in the worst way!”
“Okay, sign us up.”
“Manicure and pedicure for you?”
“Yes, please.”
“Wax?”
“What do you wax?” I asked.
“Legs, eyebrows, bikini line, just about anything that has hair.” She giggled again.
Was I ever that silly? Sillier. “Sure, you can wax me too. Why not?”
She told us to come back in an hour and we agreed.
We ambled into Dillard’s to shop for makeup. I roamed aro
und the counters until someone from my decade at the Chanel counter asked if she could help me. Her black jacket had a tag that said her name was Eva.
“Yes, you can,” I said, “I’d like a lipstick that will change my life.” I was only half joking.
“Got just the thing,” she said. “Why don’t you sit right here?”
I climbed up in the chrome bar stool and she looked at my face and then at my naked hands.
“Honey? You’ve got dry skin. Do you have about ten minutes?”
“Sure. Yeah, I know, my skin’s sensitive.”
“I’m gonna give you a new face. You ready?”
Eva held several different colors of makeup base next to my skin and tried one on my chin.
“This looks good,” she said. “Good coverage. Do you sit in the sun?”
“Not anymore, but I grew up on the beach. I’m from the baby oil and iodine generation.”
“Me too.” She leaned back and looked at my face and said, “Oh, yes, this is perfect for you.”
I stopped and looked in the mirror. All the little lines around my mouth seemed to have disappeared. The crow’s-feet around my eyes weren’t as noticeable. This was miraculous!
“Contact lenses?” she asked.
I nodded and she said, “Okay, I’ll be careful. Just look down for me.”
I’d been wearing them full-time. Beth came wandering over with her mouth hanging open.
“Wow, Mom! You look like a total babe!”
“You got a pretty momma,” Eva said. “Now let’s figure out what you have to have here.”
I stared at my reflection. I had enough makeup on to be in a Mardi Gras parade, but if I toned it down a little, it wasn’t all that bad.
“Here, honey, I wrote down everything for you so you can remember what to do with all this stuff. You look great, you really do,” Eva said, taking my MasterCard. She reached under the counter and put handfuls of samples in my shopping bag. “I gave you some perfume samples too.”
“Thanks, Eva,” I said, “really. Thanks for all your help.”
It was time for our salon appointments so we hurried back. I changed into a robe and was led to the waxing room.