Dear Maggie,
I am so glad you are alive and not hurt. Please come out and see me again soon. I miss you. The Conways send their love and said to tell you thank you for all you did to help them with the insurance claim.
Love,
Your friend, Leroy
Oh no, that really was very sweet of them, but why today, of all days? It was obviously some kind of food because the box had PERISHABLE, PLEASE REFRIGERATE written all over it. She couldn’t leave it sitting out on the stoop in the sun—nothing smells worse than spoiled goat cheese—so she pulled the box inside the foyer and opened it and saw that they had sent twenty-four cartons of goat yogurt and at least ten pounds of a variety of goat cheeses. She had just spent over an hour cleaning out her refrigerator. She tried to think of someone she could give it to, but who would ever want this amount of goat products? She couldn’t think of a single person, and she couldn’t just leave it sitting in the foyer. There was nothing she could do. She was going to have to take it all out and put it in the refrigerator, and hopefully, Lupe would find it on Monday and take some of it home. As she was busy unloading the box, her phone rang, and she was so rattled, she completely forgot that she wasn’t going to speak to anyone and picked it up. “Hello.”
“Hey, it’s me.” Maggie winced when she realized what she had done. It was Brenda. Too late. Now she was caught.
“Can you hear me?”
“Just barely … where are you?”
“I’m at the Kate Spade sale. We got here early this morning, and I just got six bags for half price. I’m standing in line right now, waiting to pay for them.”
“Oh, great, honey, that’s wonderful.” Maggie tried to sound interested and still concentrate on getting all the yogurt into the refrigerator.
“What are you doing?” asked Brenda.
“Oh, just putting a few things away. What’s up?”
“Listen … I don’t want you to get excited, but I may or may not be having a heart attack. But if I were, what would be the symptoms?”
Maggie was suddenly alarmed. “What? What makes you think you’re having a heart attack?”
“I said, may be. I didn’t say I was.”
“Oh, my God. Have you called Robbie?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because. I don’t want to hear her say ‘I told you so’ until I’m sure.”
“Are you having chest pains?”
“Uh-huh, sort of. Off and on,” Brenda said as she moved one step closer to the check-out counter.
“Are you short of breath?”
“A little.”
“Brenda, don’t fool around with this. You get out of that line right now and go get help.”
“I can’t. I haven’t paid for my bags yet.”
“Forget the damn bags! You find somebody right now and tell them what’s going on, and I’m not hanging up until you do!”
There was a pause; then Brenda said, “I’ll call you back …” and hung up. She was sorry she had called now, but since she’d never heard Maggie cuss before, she figured she’d better do what Maggie said, so she tapped the lady in front of her on the shoulder and said, “Honey, would you do me a favor? Could you hold my bags and my place in line for me for just a minute? I have a little emergency.” The woman said she would, and Brenda looked around the room and spotted a young security guard backed up against a wall, trying to stay out of the way of the crowd of stampeding women running through the store. The pain in her chest was getting worse as Brenda pushed herself through the crowd, and when she finally got to the guard, she looked at his name tag, then said, “Listen, Dwayne, I may or may not be having a heart attack, but if I was, what should I do?”
Dwayne looked at her wide-eyed and immediately pulled out a black walkie-talkie and yelled into it, “Heart attack in the basement! Heart attack in the basement!” He then asked her if she was there by herself, and she told him her sister was with her. Brenda started to go and find her, but he stopped her. “Don’t move; wait right here,” he said. “I’ll find her; what does she look like?”
“She’s a heavy-set woman in a black dress, wearing a red wig.”
Dwayne quickly waded into the crowd and suddenly realized that the entire room was full of heavy-set women in red wigs, wearing black dresses.
Maggie stood in the kitchen, not knowing what to do. Should she wait for Brenda to call her back? Oh, Lord … what do you do when someone you know may or may not be having a heart attack? She tried to call Brenda back, but she didn’t pick up. Brenda had been calling Tonya, who was standing in line on the other side of the store, and finally, Tonya answered.
“What?”
“Listen, Tonya, I may or may not be having a heart attack … and I—”
Tonya, who could hardly hear her above the crowd, interrupted: “Who’s having a heart attack?”
“Me. Well, maybe. Anyhow, I have to go to the hospital, but I need you to go to the line at the cash register and pick up my bags from the lady who’s holding them for me and pay for them, okay? She’s wearing a black dress.”
Tonya frantically looked around the room, searching for her sister, but she didn’t see her, because at the moment, Brenda was being taken in a wheelchair to a waiting ambulance. At every big discount sale, there was always an ambulance waiting outside. They knew they would be called sooner or later.
As soon as she saw Brenda in the wheelchair, Tonya dropped all her purchases where she stood and began pushing her way across the store through the crowd, just in time to see Brenda being driven away in the ambulance with its sirens blaring full blast. Tonya was beside herself; she didn’t know whether to do what she’d been told and go back in and try to find the woman with Brenda’s bags or to just go on to the hospital. As she stood there trying to decide, a lady carrying two large shopping bags came out of the store and walked up to her and asked, “Do you know that lady they just took away?”
“Yes, she’s my sister.”
“Well, here are her bags. When she didn’t come back, I just went ahead and paid for them. Tell her she can send me a check; I put my name and address inside.”
“Oh, thank you so much.”
“Well, that’s all right. Tell her I hope she feels better. She got some great bags!”
A few seconds later, Maggie’s phone rang again, and it was Brenda.
“Hey, it’s me,” she said.
“Brenda! Where are you? Are you all right?”
“Honey, I’m flopped up in the back of an ambulance, so they won’t let me talk long.”
“An ambulance! Oh, no. Where are they taking you?”
Brenda said, “Hold on,” then asked somebody, “Hey, where are y’all taking me?”
Maggie heard a man in the background say, “University Hospital,” and then heard Brenda say, “University? Can’t I go to Providence, out in West End? I’d much rather go there.” Then a man came on the phone and said, “She can’t talk now,” and the phone went dead.
Maggie stood in her kitchen in shock. Oh, my God, her poor friend Brenda was in an ambulance on her way to the hospital. All she could think about now was getting over there as fast as possible. She was in her FISHERMEN DO IT WITH A BIG POLE shirt, but it couldn’t be helped. She ran out the door and saw her taxi up the street. Thank heavens, she had a car waiting. She was so upset, she would have probably had another accident trying to get there and trying to park. Once she got in the backseat, she told the driver where to go. As they drove, she dialed Robbie’s number at home, but no one answered. She just hoped and prayed Robbie was on duty at the hospital today. Although University Hospital was not far from Maggie’s house, getting there turned out to be a long, slow process. Today was the annual Do Dah Parade, and they had to wait at every intersection. Life was so bizarre. While her best friend was possibly dying, she had to sit and watch people marching by with plastic trash cans on their heads.
As they slowly made their way across the south side to the hosp
ital, she started to panic. God, what if Brenda died before she got there? In her preoccupation with making all her plans, she’d never dreamed Brenda could go first. What if it was too late? She hadn’t even really said goodbye or told her that of all the people in the world, she would miss her the most. Now she might not be able to tell her anything ever again.
It’s Good to Have a Sister
ALL OF BRENDA’S EFFORTS TO HAVE ROBBIE NOT FIND OUT THAT she might be having a heart attack had been in vain. She had forgotten that Robbie was the first person listed on all her ID cards to be called in case of emergency. But as the pain in her chest grew worse, and it dawned on her that she might really be having a heart attack, she got scared. When the ambulance finally arrived at the emergency room entrance, Robbie was the first person out the door. Brenda had never been so happy to see anyone in her life, even if she was going to get fussed at.
But Robbie was not mad. She just took Brenda’s hand and smiled and walked alongside the stretcher, giving instructions to the attendants about where to take her. Then she said to Brenda, “Don’t worry. Everything is going to be just fine.”
An hour later, Maggie and Tonya were sitting in the waiting room when Robbie came out and said, “They’re still running tests, but it looks like she’s fine. I’ll let you know as soon as I know more.”
“Is she awake?” asked Maggie.
“Oh, yes, she’s in there babbling away about wanting to get back over to Kate Spade’s before it closes. Tonya, do you know anything about some bags she hadn’t paid for?”
“Yes, tell her I have them.”
Maggie was so glad that Brenda was not dead, she finally began to relax a bit, until she suddenly remembered something. In her haste to get to Brenda, she realized that she had left the “To Whom It May Concern” envelope sitting on the kitchen counter, and now she had to get back home fast before anybody found it and read it. My God, what next?
Maggie told Tonya she would be back as soon as she could. She leapt up and ran out of the emergency room and down a block to the taxi stand on the corner and jumped in. It was now eleven-thirty, and she prayed the parade was over. It wasn’t, and she spent the next forty-five minutes sitting in the back of the cab, a nervous wreck. What if some realtor came by? Finally, when they got closer, she jumped out of the cab and ran the last two blocks. She flew in her door and back to the kitchen and, to her everlasting relief, the letter was still there, exactly where she’d left it, unopened. She had never done so much jumping and running in one day in her life. It had paid off. She had been lucky. It was Saturday, but not one single real estate agent had come by to show the unit, and for the first time, she actually appreciated the terrible market. Unfortunately, in her haste to get to the hospital, she had left some of the goat cheese out, and the entire place smelled a lot like Leroy. She stuck the rest of it in the refrigerator, put the box outside on the patio, and opened all the windows.
She hated to do it, but Maggie had to take the gold watch and Lupe’s cash back. She would need the money to tide her over, in case she had to stay for any length of time. She certainly couldn’t leave while Brenda was still in the hospital. Maggie then took her To Whom It May Concern letter back to her desk drawer in the den.
She would have to wait a few days, until she knew for sure that Brenda was all right, and then reschedule.
A FEW MINUTES later, Robbie called with the latest report. Brenda had not had a heart attack, as they’d first suspected. It had been an esophageal spasm, which had similar symptoms.
“Oh, thank heavens.”
“Don’t bother to come back tonight; they just want her to rest.”
“Is she going to be all right?”
“Oh, yes, you know Brenda; as soon as she found out she wasn’t dying and she got her bags, she was as happy as a clam, sitting up and asking for ice cream. Anyhow, she said to tell you to call her in the morning. We turned her phone off tonight.”
AFTER THE CALL, Maggie pulled out another sheet of stationery and started another letter that she would leave in Brenda’s desk before she left.
Dear Brenda,
I wanted you to know how much I have always appreciated your friendship and to tell you that afterward, you must never wonder if I knew that you appreciated mine. I did. You always made me smile. Thanks for all your help with the contracts. I couldn’t have done it without you.
Sincerely,
Maggie
P.S. You will make a wonderful mayor.
It was short, but it said exactly what she wanted to say.
Gus’s Famous Hot Dogs
Early April 2009
MAGGIE HAD TO FILL IN AT THE OFFICE WHILE BRENDA WAS AT home recuperating. She couldn’t leave Ethel all alone. It was another delay, but at least she could depart knowing Brenda was going to be all right. Brenda had even promised to go back to Overeaters Anonymous, so the heart attack scare must have done some good.
A week later Brenda was back in the office bright and early and seemed to be happy and doing well. She was happy mostly because in the past week, she had lost seven pounds, and her Overeaters Anonymous sponsor had stopped by her house and given her a gold star. By Friday, with Brenda back to normal, Maggie was satisfied that the time was finally right. On Saturday, she drove back to the river with all her things, and this time around, she didn’t even bother to hide them. No point. She was coming back early the next morning. She thought that since she was all ready to go, this afternoon she would go on her own private little Farewell to Birmingham tour. As she drove, a light misty rain began to fall.
This wasn’t her first farewell ride. When she was five, just before midnight on the night of April 18, 1953, her father had bundled her up and they had ridden on the very last run of the Ensley Streetcar No. 27. It had been packed to the rafters with people and decorated from stem to stern with balloons and banners. There had been lots of cheering as it pulled into the streetcar barn and shut down for the last time. The wonderful old streetcar was headed to the scrap yard the next day. She supposed today, she was just like Streetcar No. 27, and was making her last run.
She had seen the end of so many things. The wonderful years with Hazel, the end of her one-year reign as Miss Alabama, and her last walk around the runway. There had been lots of tears and loud cheering that night, but today, as she rode through town, there were no tears or cheering; just the sound of her windshield wipers swishing back and forth.
She then drove out to East Lake, to where the old Dreamland Theatre used to be. When she got there, she saw that the entire side of the block was now a used-car lot, but as she passed by she could still remember the theater as it once was, and she wondered what ever happened to that nice man across the street at the Western Union office who used to wave to her?
As she drove up over the mountain and past the Mountain Brook Country Club and past English Village, the image of a young girl popped into her mind, a girl she must have seen in a movie once. But which one? Was it one of the girls in The Sound of Music? As the image kept fading in and fading out, she realized who the girl was—she wasn’t from a movie; it was her. She was the one who used to feel this way, that same old melancholy feeling; a strange loneliness had haunted her, a deep yearning for something, but she never quite knew what it was she was yearning for.
Maggie felt a sudden pang of pity for that poor dumb dreamy girl with so many disappointments ahead, so many illusions to be shattered. Remembering her now was like remembering someone she had known in another lifetime.
Going back home, she drove through downtown, and just as a spur-of-the-moment thing, she did something she hadn’t done in years. After a few times around the block, she found a parking space on the corner and went into a little hole-in-the-wall place called Gus’s Famous Hot Dogs. She went in, sat at the counter, and ordered two chili dogs with mustard, onions, and sauerkraut and an orange drink. Gus’s Famous Hot Dogs was one of the few places left where she and her parents used to go when she was little and then later, as a tee
nager, she and her girlfriends had always eaten there. The place had not changed a bit, and the chili dogs were as delicious as she remembered. Then she ordered two big pieces of lemon icebox pie. Why not? On her last day on earth, why not have a little fun? She knew she would probably have terrible indigestion tonight, but it was worth it. She remembered the days when she had been able to eat anything she wanted, French-fried onions and cheeseburgers, and not have to pay for it later. The last time she had eaten there was with four or five of her high school girlfriends, when they had been running from one place to the next, going to the movies or hanging out at the record store. She wished those days could have lasted longer. It was hard to believe that most of those giggling girls were grandmothers now.
Maggie looked down at her watch. It was still pretty early, and she wondered what she would do for the rest of the day. She started toying with the idea of maybe going on to the river this afternoon and not waiting until the morning. When she paid her bill, she was pleasantly surprised to see that you could still get a good meal and a cold drink for less than five dollars. She was in a good mood until she walked outside, just in time to see the traffic cop on a scooter driving away from her car. She had just gotten a parking ticket!
Oh, no! She had never gotten a ticket in her life. What had she done wrong? She had put money in the meter. Her time was not expired. She opened the ticket and read what the woman had written: “Improper parking, too far away from curb.” She stepped back and looked. Well, maybe her car was a little too far out in the street, so she guessed she was guilty as charged, but as she read further, she was greatly relieved to see that she could pay the fine by mail; it said DO NOT SEND CASH—PAY ONLY BY CHECK OR MONEY ORDER. She was in luck. As fate would have it, her next stop was the bank, to close out her account again. Had this happened later in the day, she would have been in a bind. After she had written the check to the Department of Motor Vehicles and closed her account, she mailed the ticket outside the bank.