“Right. Max, can I be real straight with you?”
“Please. I’m about as good at mind reading as you are on interviews.” He smiled and leaned back. This wasn’t going as I had visualized it.
“Look. If you like the twenty-five stories you’ve seen, I have more. I’ve been keeping a journal since I was knee-high. Here’s the thing. I need this job. I’m a single parent, my ex-husband is so tight he squeaks and I need to prove something.”
“Now you’ve got my attention. What’ve you got to prove?”
“I need to prove to my daughter that the human spirit can overcome any trial life throws your way. These stories are for women around my age, the boomers. They’re to remind them that raising kids today ought to be a breeze next to the issues we faced during segregation and the Vietnam war and all the stuff that went on thirty years ago that changed the world forever.”
“You think your generation changed the world?”
“You bet we did. This planet’s never been safer than it is today. The air’s cleaner, the water’s cleaner and the risk of nuclear war is practically nil.” You go, honey, I said to myself. I wondered if the old codger had a soapbox in the closet I could use.
“So we may assume you have other opinions about other things?”
“Yeah, I guess you could say that.” Why was I so out of control? This was no way to charm a guy, even I knew that. “I tend to get carried away.”
“Carried away can be a good thing. I have two more writers to interview and I’ll let you know by Monday. Okay?”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really. Fair enough?”
“Oh, God, yes, that’s more than fair enough! Thanks, Max, listen, this is all just draft, you know, I could polish it up—”
“Quit apologizing for your writing. God, all writers are the same.” He got up from his desk and opened the door for me to leave. The interview was over. I had spent eight hundred and fifty dollars on this black widow’s outfit for a five-minute interview.
“Max?” I extended my hand to him and he took it. “Thanks. I really mean it.”
“Sure thing, Susan Hayes, with opinions galore! I’ll call you either way by the end of the weekend.”
I called Maggie as soon as I got home.
“Let’s get drunk,” I said.
“Love to oblige, but I have to take the boys to football practice tonight. My turn to carpool. How’d it go?”
“Then can I borrow a Valium?” I twisted the phone cord around my elbow and hand, knotting the whole thing up.
“God, I wish you’d get your own. Ask your doctor. Tell me how it went. Was it a disaster?” Why was she so cranky? Get my own Valium?
“No, I don’t think so, I mean, I don’t really know. It was so fast.”
“Has he got your portfolio?”
“Yeah, he had read the stuff already. I guess he just wanted to see my face. I’m gonna be a wreck until he calls. Can I come over?”
“Sure.”
I don’t remember driving to the Island, but I came out of my trance in Maggie’s kitchen as she put a bottle of peach-flavored Snapple in my hands.
“Peach-flavored tea? How can you drink this stuff?”
“It’s better for you than all those nitrates you guzzle.”
“Maybe. Maggie? Is something wrong?”
“I haven’t seen my husband in two days.” She leaned back against the sink and she had the strangest expression on her face. “Susan, Grant’s having an affair,” she said.
“What in the hell are you telling me?”
“I’m telling you Grant is putting away some little nurse at the hospital.”
She burst into tears. I knew she sounded funny on the phone! No wonder she told me to get my own drugs. I put my arms around her.
“Come on, now. How do you know this is true? I mean, are you sure?”
“I found a matchbook with a phone number written on it in his jacket pocket.”
“Call the number?”
“Yeah. Answering machine. ‘Sheila and Debbie aren’t home right now…’ What would you think?”
“I’d think what you think, but you know what? You should ask him. Just ask him.”
“Here I am in this perfect life, in my clean house, and my husband is screwing around and I didn’t even suspect it. But, lately, he’s gone so much, I don’t know, I just started getting this rotten feeling in the pit of my stomach, you know what I mean?”
“Do I know? Yeah, I know. I just can’t believe Grant would do that, Maggie. He’s a Eucharistic Minister, for Christ’s sake, no pun intended. I mean, guys who dispense Communion every Sunday are unlikely to have affairs! I think you need more facts. Just ask him straight out. Say, ‘Grant? Are you having an affair?’ Just as he’s about to bite into dinner, you know, catch him off guard.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that, Susan, I don’t have the nerve.”
“Yes, you do. Then he’ll say, ‘Why no, honey, why ever in the world would you think that?’ Then you say, ‘Because I found these matches in your pocket from the White Horse Saloon with a phone number, so I called it and a girl named Debbie answered. I told her I was your wife and you’re HIV positive and on a mission to infect all the sluts of the world, that’s all.’ That’s what you say. Then you look at his face to see if he’s choking or turning red or whatever.”
She cracked up. I cracked up. Humor. It never fails.
“You’re the best, Susan. I’m gonna do it.” She paced around the kitchen table. “What do you think? Should I wash my hair?”
“Definitely. I don’t want to put pressure on you, but pretend you’re getting your picture taken for Town & Country, know what I mean? Put on the dog and when he takes the bait, whammo!”
“Whammo, huh? At this moment, I’d like to whammo him straight to McAlister’s Funeral Parlor. The son of a bitch.”
“Maggie! Such language! Honey, get the facts first. I have the feeling this is all a big misunderstanding. I can’t for the life of me see Grant sneaking around. He loves you, first of all, and second, he’s not the type.”
“Livvie used to say all men were the type.”
“Yeah, well, Gawd rest she soul, I’m sure that even she would’ve been wrong this time.”
I drove back to the city with a heavy heart. Grant was fifty-one. Prime target for a nurse and an affair. It was true, he hadn’t been around much, only to take the boys fishing and Sundays he’d take everyone to church and then to do something else, like see a movie. I thought about it some more and wondered what indeed would Maggie do if she were right. I knew I’d better prepare myself to step in and help her like she had helped me.
The house was quiet that night. I was watching television and Beth was reading in her room. I had decided to give myself a break in the writing business that night and just catch up on sitcoms and paying bills. At eleven o’clock, I turned off the lights and went upstairs. Beth’s light was still on.
“Night, sweetie!” I blew her a kiss through the door.
“Hey, Mom! Wanna see something outrageous?”
“Why not? Today’s been a day for the outrageous.”
“Look at this catalog! This is what I’m gonna wear on my wedding night.”
I sat on her side of the bed and she showed me a picture in a lingerie catalog of an emaciated blond with enormous breasts and big, pouty, slippery lips, wearing a white, sheer, nylon, poor excuse for a gown and robe trimmed in feathers. For a moment, I didn’t know what to say. It was the worst thing I could imagine she would want to wear in front of anyone. It bordered on pornography.
“Where did you get this catalog?”
“Cool, huh? Jennifer gave it to me.”
“Who’s Jennifer?”
“A girl in my biology class.”
“That figures. Listen, sweetie, throw that in the trash. When the time comes for you to get married, we’ll go to Atlanta to shop.”
“You swear?”
“Mother never swears, Beth, you
know that.”
MONDAY AFTER WORK I was coming through the door with groceries for dinner and Beth was on the phone, as usual, and animated like a lunatic, waving her arms at me. The kitchen was a wreck, also as usual, but I was so stressed out that I didn’t even start yelling at her.
“Sure, she’s right here.” She handed the phone to me. It’s him! she mouthed, pointing to the phone. The guy from the Post & Courier!
“Hello?”
“Susan? Max Hall here. Nice girl you’ve got, nice girl.”
“Thanks.”
“Well, if you still want the job, it’s yours. I know I shouldn’t say this, but I saw those other two people and I swear to God, what some people think passes for entertainment, you wouldn’t believe.”
“Right. Well, I still want the job. Very much!”
“Well then, we need to settle a few things. First, we will use a number of the essays you’ve given me, but not all of them. So why don’t you come by and we can talk about them? I have a list of possible topics for you too. You know, education, the arts, local sports, that kind of thing.”
“Sure! No problem.”
“Then there’s the ugly business of money.”
“Right, money,” I repeated like a parrot.
“I’m afraid it’s not much, ten cents a word, but it’s something anyway.”
“That’s fine, I’ll take it!” Tough negotiator, I thought.
“First column runs this Thursday, Living section. I have a question for you.”
“Sure, what’s that?”
“Do you want to use your name or a nom de plume?”
“Nom de plume, please, too many living relatives.”
“All right. Oh, and one other thing…”
“Yes?”
“Tell Jack he’s a helluva guy!”
“Right!” Oh, shit, this beast won’t ever let me forget that one.
“Be in my office tomorrow at four?”
“You bet! Max, thanks, I mean it.”
“Quit thanking me, you deserve a chance, Susan. You’ve done a lot of living and these stories will give a lot of people something to think about.”
I hung up the phone and leaned against the wall. Beth grabbed me and we jumped up and down for a minute, whooping and hollering.
“My mom! The famous columnist!”
“Oh, God! I can’t believe he called! He’s a little bit of a stiff, I think, but who cares?”
“Right!”
Beth opened the refrigerator and found a can of Coke and I poured myself a glass of Chardonnay. We clinked aluminum and glass and I toasted myself and her.
“To the future!”
“To the future,” she said and gave me a hug.
“Hey, Mom, not to change the subject, but have you heard from Dad?”
“No, why?”
“Just wondering.” She sat up straight on her bar stool. “Okay, here’s the dirt. I saw him with her.”
“Oh, so what? Look, Beth, you’re old enough to understand this. People should live where they want and do what they want. If he wants to come back and he’s serious, you’ll be the first person I tell.”
“I guess. I wasn’t gonna tell you but now that you have some good news, I figured it was okay.”
“Right. Let them have each other. Come on!” I opened the refrigerator. “Let’s make spaghetti. Tell me what happened in school today.”
“Jonathan finally started speaking to me again.”
“Tell him not to do you any favors. Don’t we have a bell pepper?”
“Right. In the bottom drawer. So, Momma?”
I loved when she called me Momma.
“Is it hard to write?”
“Nah, it’s sort of like dancing. You find a rhythm and go to town with it. Know what I mean?”
“Sort of. I mean, it’s easy to write about good stuff, but what are you gonna do if they ask you to write about bad stuff?”
“Let’s hope they ask. Like what?”
“I don’t know, death maybe?”
“That may possibly be the toughest question I’ve had to answer all day, but even death has humor, wakes and funerals especially. I guess I’d advise people not to take hams to the bereaved. Did I ever tell you about the mountain of hams we always got?”
“You’re weird, Mom.”
Eleven
Tipa
1963
IT was a bright October morning. The last vestige of Indian summer before the gray months. I was waiting outside for the school bus with Maggie, Timmy and Henry. The twins had been home for about a month. Momma had named them Allison (after June Allison, the actress) and Sophie (after her mother) and when we took them down to Stella Maris to wash the devil out of them, they were baptized Allison Marie and Sophie Ann. They had screamed all the way through the ceremony, but from the minute they came home from the church they settled into a routine under Livvie’s care. They were good babies, Livvie said.
Momma didn’t get out of bed to cook breakfast for us anymore. Somehow we managed. Daddy was leaving earlier than ever for work. His construction of the county high school was well under way and there were problems all the time. Just the day before, someone had hung him in effigy from a tree by the construction site. I heard him tell Uncle Louis that there was a sign around the dummy’s neck that read HANK HAMILTON LOVES NIGGERS. Just last night old Fat Albert and Mr. Struthers came by to see Daddy. They sat out on the porch talking about the danger of the threats. I thought they had frightened Daddy. But, no. They had just made him more determined to finish his project. But Daddy seemed worried and he was in extremely foul humor. Needless to say, I was scared by the whole business but knew better than to bring it up with him.
The next morning, I stood in the driveway looking for the bus. It was late. Not one of us felt like going to school. The boys kicked dirt into little clouds that covered the spit shine on Maggie’s and my Weejuns. We complained in our whiny voices and they imitated us, irking us to no end.
Finally, the noisy yellow bus rolled to its screechy halt, the door was opened with the flexed muscles of Miss Fanny’s forearm coming toward us like Popeye’s. The same lady who ran the Island’s little store was our sainted chauffeur. She leaned her head sideways to greet us.
“Good morning! Come on now, let’s hurry up. You kids settle down! Hey, Billy and Teddy! If y’all don’t settle down, I’m gonna tell Father O’Brien!” She was yelling at the boys in the back of the bus, who were knocking each other with their lunch bags. “I swear to Gawd, them boys.”
I was the last to get on.
“Hey, Miss Fanny, how’re you?” I said.
“I’ll tell you how I am! Them crazy Blanchard boys gone make me an old woman before my time!”
“Don’t let them bug you,” I said, “they’re jerks.”
They were still carrying on and one of the boys screamed. In the next instant Miss Fanny was pissed off in purple.
“All right, that’s it! Teddy, Billy! Up to the front of the bus, on the double,” Miss Fanny said. “You boys can lead the bus in the rosary and if you even so much as twitch, you’re going right to Father O’Brien when we get to school!”
Taking the bus to school was an exercise in working off years in purgatory. Every day, Miss Fanny led us in a decade of the rosary as soon as we got over the Ben Sawyer Bridge. Every decade of the rosary said is the equivalent of one hundred years off in purgatory. If you say the Sorrowful Mysteries with the correct fervor, you get a thousand years off. At least that’s what we thought.
“Let’s be quiet, y’all! Come on, let’s be quiet!” Miss Fanny hollered.
We kept laughing and carrying on like a bunch of lunatics, buoyed by the sugar of our morning dosage of Alphabits and juice. I thought we prayed enough in school. But she was insistent and she got madder and, like always, she started cussing.
“Y’all children! Dammit! If y’all don’t shut the hell up, I’m gonna tell Father! Teddy! Billy! Y’all stand right there…in the name of t
he Father, and of the Son, and of the…”
The prayers began at the top of her voice, and instantly we all got quiet and prayed with her, snickering among ourselves that prayer began with threats and curses. Today we said the Sorrowful Mysteries.
“Think about our dear Lawd, His momma at the foot of His cross. Hail Mary, the Lawd is with thee, blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”
Miss Fanny led us, and the Blanchard boys stood there looking pious enough to sprout halos. We knew they were trying to make us all laugh. But we didn’t need them. All we had to do was hear the word womb and it caused a surge of giggling. In her fervor, she ignored us every time and continued.
“Holy Mary, mother of Gawd, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”
We said the fifty required Hail Marys, the four Glory Be’s and were putting the serious hurt on a synchronized Apostles’ Creed when the bus rolled into the dirt parking lot under the big live oak tree, dripping moss—with red bugs—and we scampered out to go pray and study for the day.
Maggie was a big-shot tenth grader at Bishop England High School and the rest of us were still sniveling runts at Stella Maris Grammar School in Mount Pleasant. Still, she was forced to ride the grammar school bus and another bus would take her to the city. Although she was my best friend at home, on the bus she sat far away from the rest of us, with other high school students, and spent the ride silently looking out the window, rolling her eyes and being serious.
It was my last year at Stella Maris and I couldn’t wait to get out. At about ten o’clock, I had just begun a math test when Father O’Brien came quietly into my classroom and whispered to Sister Martha, my teacher.
“Susan Hamilton?”
“Yes, Sister?”
“You’ll go with Father O’Brien. Take your things with you.”
I fumbled around and gathered up my books. Nothing was worse than being sent to Father O’Brien. He was all business and had no tolerance for children. Why somebody like him was the principal of a grammar school was merely another mystery of the Catholic Church. The scuttlebutt on him was that he had once studied with the Jesuits. That alone says it all.