Maggie Sweet (6 page)

Steven got up from the table, went out to the kitchen, and checked the menu. When he returned he said, “Hmm, I could have sworn it was fish stick night. Oh, well, eat your meat loaf, Amy.”

“Well, then, pass the ketchup,
please
,” she said.

“Jill,” Steven said. “What on earth’s wrong with your ears?”

For the first time I noticed there were plastic strings hanging from Jill’s ears.

“Nothing’s wrong. I got my ears double pierced. I have to wear nylon fishing line in the holes ’til they heal. If I wear earrings too soon, I’ll end up with running sores for earlobes,” Jill said.

“That’s disgusting,” Amy said.

“Do we have to discuss infection at the table?” Steven said.

“But, Daddy, you asked.”

“I also told you over and over again that you weren’t allowed to get your ears double pierced.”

“God, Daddy, you’re so old-fashioned. All of my friends—”

“I don’t care about your friends.” Steven said.

“Her friends are nothing but pure trash,” Amy said, sniffing.

“At least I have friends,” Jill said.

“It’s a pity none of them are human,” Amy said.

“Shut up.”

“You shut up.”

“Jill, when I tell you something, I mean for you to listen. By the way, have you sent those college applications off like I told you? It’s April and you’ve already been turned down by eight schools,” Steven said.

“I told you I ain’t going. I’m sick of school. I can’t stand the thought of four more years,” Jill said.

“If you don’t go to college, I’m signing you up for computer school. You can work in a bank or an office. And don’t say ‘ain’t.’ Only low-class people say ‘ain’t,’” Steven said.
“Well, if that makes me low-class, I guess I’m low-class,” Jill said.

“You’re not low class. You’re anything but low class,” I said.

Amy smirked, but I glared at her and she didn’t say anything.

“Not everyone’s cut out for college. Mama never went,” Jill said.

“Well, that’s some recommendation,” Steven said.

“Thanks a lot, Steven,” I said.

“I didn’t mean it that way. You know I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant…I’m paying her way through college and you’d think I’d insulted her. Why does she have to act so contrary—so odd.” Steven’s face was getting red.

“She’s not
acting
odd. She
is
odd,” Amy said.

“Everyone’s odd one way or another. There’s no law against being odd in my book,” I said.

“Thanks a lot, Mama,” Jill snapped.

“This subject is closed,” Steven bellowed. “Tomorrow you
will
send those applications and I don’t want to hear another word about it. Now, Amy, pass the ketchup.”

Amy passed the ketchup.

Everyone stared at their plates. There was about a pound of ketchup on each plate. The meat loaf, potato pancakes, and butter beans were all swimming in ketchup. We used a ton of ketchup now that Steven was doing the menus. Maybe if we didn’t have to use so much ketchup we could afford better food.

When we were almost finished Steven said, just as casual as you please, “Maggie, did I tell you Mother’s coming for a visit tomorrow? I’m picking her up in Chapel Hill
in the morning.” He said this like he was just reminding me of something he’d already told me.

Well, this went right through me. I was already worked up over everything else and now Steven had invited his mother to visit without even mentioning it to me. Steven knew Mother Presson and I never got along, which was why he was bringing it up now at the table. He figured I wouldn’t make a scene at the table in front of everyone.

For the girls’ sakes, I tried to be real calm. “Lord, Steven, she wasn’t supposed to come ’til the girls’ graduation in June. How long have you been planning this? You never even mentioned—”

“Well, she’s coming and that’s all there is to that.” He took a last gulp of his coffee.

Well, my whole week had been decided and nobody even thought to mention it to me. Nobody thought I might have an opinion on the subject.

I was clearing the table when Steven locked himself in the den, Amy went to her room, and Jill went out to the garage workshop. A minute later, I heard the chain saw start.

While I was still washing dishes, Steven left the house for a while. He returned with six bags of groceries. Special groceries that hadn’t been on our menu in months.

He brushed past me, plopped the bags on the kitchen counter, and said, “I think I’ll shower and turn in early. I have that long trip to Chapel Hill in the morning.”

“Steven, we need to talk,” I said, pulling a can of Earl Grey tea from the sack. He buys generic tea for us, but his mother gets Earl Grey.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” he said. Then he went upstairs to shower as if it was all settled.

When I heard the shower water running and Steven singing “Oklahoma” loud and off-key, I turned on the kitchen hot water full force till I heard him howl. With our old plumbing nothing but ice cold water was hitting him upstairs in the shower.

It was childish and nothing was solved but it made me feel a whole lot better.

Mother
Presson visits us four times a year and stays exactly one week. One week is long enough to bring some culture into our lives. Long enough to do her duty and yet not so long our tacky ways rub off on her. If she stayed even one more day she’d see me beating my head against the walls, which would prove her point that
anyone
can live in Poplar Grove, which she loves to say over and over again.

For nineteen years Steven has told me, “You’re being childish, Maggie Sweet. Being nice to Mother is a sign of maturity.”

I’ve tried to be good. I mean, she
is
Steven’s only living relative.

Used to, I got blinding headaches when she called me “Steven’s child-bride,” ’cause I knew she meant Steven’s little redneck bride. I got bearing-down pains when she’d say our house was “a dollhouse” ’cause I knew she meant tiny and tacky. I’d all but foam at the mouth when she called Mother and Mother Dean “diamonds in the rough” ’cause I knew she really thought they were hicks. At night
after we were in bed I’d cry to Steven, “Why should I have to be
that
mature?”

Saturday morning, while Steven drove to Chapel Hill, I bit my lip and did what I’d always done: cleaned the house, put the good percale sheets on the guest room bed, cooked two kinds of meat, five vegetables, crescent dinner rolls, a Dutch apple pie, a chocolate pie, and a Dirt cake (the one with Oreos in it). Then I made the girls set the dining room table with the works—the good tablecloth, cloth napkins, candles, and flowers.

When Mother Presson visits, it’s like the Almighty Himself is coming.

At five-thirty sharp they pulled into the driveway and Steven all but carried his mother to the door on a pillow.

When I met them at the door, she brushed her cheek against mine, “Margaret, my dear, how are you?”

I choked back “I’m doing all right,” and said, “Very well, thank you.” (She’d taught me to say it that way over the years.) When we went into the dining room, she took one look at the table I’d been so proud of and made a face like she had a migraine, moved the water glasses from left to right, and whispered, “I don’t think anyone else noticed, dear.”

Steven looked like the children did when they had the colic.

The girls had been coached from the time they were babies so they knew the rules. Rule number one is the first night of their grandmother’s visit, they eat with us in the dining room and mind their manners. After that, it’s every woman for herself.

We’d barely sat down at the table when Steven said,
“Mother, it’s such a shame that I’ll be s-o-o b-u-s-y all week. I’ll barely be here for meals. But you and Maggie will have all the time in the world to visit.”

While he said this, he sliced the ham and avoided everyone’s eyes.

Everyone but Amy was nervous and shifty-eyed. ’Course, Amy and her grandmother have this special understanding, both of them being too good for the rest of us and all.

After dinner, Amy and her grandmother went out to the front room for a
real
talk. Instead of getting hurt feelings over not being included, Jill grinned and offered to help me with the dishes. She hummed as we worked, and I could see that far from feeling left out, she considered herself the twin with the naturally curly hair, her sister the twin with the Toni.

We were just finishing when the telephone rang. “Mama, it’s Mama Dean,” Jill sang, handing me the phone. Then she slipped out the back door to her chain saw and freedom.

Mother was working a swing shift at the hospital, so Mama Dean needed me to drive her to the doctor Wednesday morning. Since Steven was already hiding in the den and Mother Presson was waiting to corner me in the front room, I stayed on the phone as long as possible, listening to all of Mama Dean’s symptoms and all of her friend’s symptoms, too.

We were just about to hang up when Mother Presson came into the kitchen. “Margaret, we really must talk,” she said.

I figured it was serious. In nineteen years she’d never set foot in my kitchen before. I hung up the phone and followed her to the front room.

“Margaret, my dear, I’m on the horns of a dilemma. I wouldn’t hurt your feelings for the world…I just feel it’s worth it if I can salvage…” She sighed, then made a face like her teeth hurt. “Perhaps, I should just say it. After all, we
are
family. What I’m trying to say is…Amy is an exceptional child.”

“Hmm,” I said, wondering where in the world she was going with this.

“You do want what’s best for her, don’t you?”

“Well…sure.”

“Margaret…Amy is wasting herself here in Poplar Grove. Won’t you please let her spend the summer with me in Chapel Hill?”

Oh, Lord. We’d just finished our first meal together and she was already starting. “Mother Presson, Amy is doing all right. She’s in the school orchestra, the National Honor Society. Besides, Poplar Grove is her home.”

Mother Presson closed her eyes and sighed again. “I know, dear. And I could just weep for her.”

I didn’t say anything. I just sat there, wondering why Steven was never around when she started in like this. As far back as I could remember Steven has always been “s-o-o b-u-s-y” when his mother visited.

“I know you’ll manage,” he’d say on his way out the door to do good works for the church, the Sons of the Confederacy, the Band Boosters. The last time she was here, I followed him out on the porch and shouted, “Steven Presson, charity begins at home.” He acted like he hadn’t heard me and drove off.

Monday
morning, while I rushed around the kitchen fixing Mother Presson’s breakfast, she was upstairs in bed, dressed in lacy pink bed jacket and pearls, ringing a bell.

Now, I didn’t mind serving her breakfast in bed. I didn’t even mind the bed jacket and pearls. If she wanted to lie around all morning dressed fit to kill, it was all right with me. But that bell is something else again. It’s sterling. The kind people used to call their maids in the old days. When Mother Presson visited, I was the maid.

I couldn’t help but notice that for such a delicate woman, her right arm (bell ringing arm) had the strength and endurance of a prizefighter’s. And to keep up her strength she’d ordered fresh-squeezed orange juice, a pot of Earl Grey tea, two two-minute eggs, a huge slab of country ham, and a toasted English muffin.

While I waited for the tea to brew and tried to ignore the bell, I wondered if there was such a thing as the perfect crime.

That’s when the telephone rang.

“I’ll be late tonight, don’t wait dinner for me,” Steven said.

“Steven, don’t do this to me.”

“Are you there, Maggie? We must have a bad connection…I can’t hear you…now, you girls have a nice visit,” he said, just before he hung up.

I hung up wondering if Steven lived on Fantasy Island. Could he really think that since “girls” enjoy visiting and his mother and I are both “girls,” we’d just naturally enjoy visiting with each other? But living on Fantasy Island was great for Steven. It freed him from the what-will-I-do-
with-Mother? problem, and he didn’t have to feel guilty.

Mother Presson, who’d been quiet for about thirty seconds, picked that second to ring the bell, and something in me snapped. I carried the tray up the stairs and while she was checking to see if I’d remembered everything, I swiped the bell and put it in my robe pocket.

When I got back to the kitchen, I hid the bell in the tea canister, poured myself a cup of coffee, and lit a cigarette, right there in the kitchen, in the middle of the morning.

For a long time, I sat there drinking coffee, smoking, and wondering why in the world it had taken me so many years to think of hiding the bell.

Then it hit me. I’d been raised to be a good woman.

When my daughters come to me for advice on their wedding day, the one thing I’ll tell them is never be a “good woman.” Over the years, I’ve learned that good women get to carry their own groceries, take the children to the emergency room alone, help shingle the roof, and make due with appliances that haven’t been right since 1976.

I’ll tell my girls to be delicate. Steven’s mother is delicate. She has enjoyed poor health since Steven’s birth, forty-eight years ago. Delicate women get breakfast trays carried to them every day of their lives by good women. Delicate women get bad news broken to them gently, after the emergency has been handled, by guess who? Good women.

“Play the role,” I’ll tell my girls. “And play it to the hilt.”

The day I told Steven I was expecting the twins, he got pale, made me sit down, waited on me hand and foot, and hated himself for being the no-account man who’d got me into that fix in the first place.

Did I bless his mother, who had paved the way for me to go back to bed with several good books ’til the babies were born? Lord, no. I was a good woman. I told him being pregnant was a normal condition, that I was strong and healthy and he shouldn’t make a fuss.

He believed every word.

By the time I saw I wasn’t as strong and healthy as I thought, Steven had decided that plenty of exercise was good for pregnant women. He never made a fuss again.

“But, Mama,” my daughters might say, “how can you ask us to be so phony, so conniving, so unfair?”

And I’ll say, “It’s easy, sugars. It’s real, real easy.”

Tuesday afternoon, I took Mother Presson to Millie’s Percolator Grill. They have the best steak sandwiches in town but she just picked at hers. After lunch we went shopping, which I hate, but I planned to keep her out of the house ’til Amy was home to entertain her.

My timing was perfect. Amy met us at the door. She could hardly wait to get her grandmother alone. They went to the front room so Amy could read an essay she’d written in English class: “The Person I Admire Most—My Grandmother Presson.”

While they read this little ditty over and over again, I did some things I enjoyed more, like hosing out the garbage cans and scrubbing the commode.

For two solid days, Steven and Jill stayed out of the house until dark.

After supper, Mama Dean called to remind me about her doctor appointment. She’d been busy, she said. Our town flasher had finally come to trial, so she’d been camped on the courthouse steps all week, hoping to get a
peek at “Some filthy man getting his.” I told her I wished I’d been with her and meant it.

At the
clinic Wednesday morning, the receptionist told us that Dr. Helton, Mama Dean’s regular female doctor, had been called away on an emergency. Dr. Pinckney, a male doctor, would be seeing all of Dr. Helton’s patients. Mama Dean set her jaw, but went off with Patsy Jo, the nurse, when her name was called.

For the first time in days, I sat back and relaxed. It was wonderful. I flipped through the pages of
Mademoiselle
and thought about the reunion and Jerry. I wondered what I would wear now that my good beige church dress had gone all to pieces in the washer. Maybe I’d buy a new one—streak my hair, borrow Mary Price’s sunlamp. Maybe there was time to develop a bust.

Sinking into the Naugahyde couch, I thought back to high school when my future seemed filled with exciting possibilities. I was deep in thought when Patsy Jo came back to the waiting room. “Maggie, we need you in the examining room.”

While I’d been daydreaming about the reunion and Jerry, something had happened to Mama Dean. I was paying for my sinning in advance. I followed Patsy Jo’s starched back up the hall, my mouth so dry I could barely whisper, “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, Maggie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just…your grandmother won’t let Dr. Pinckney near her.”

When we got to the examining room, Mama Dean was sitting with her arms crossed over her chest, wearing her shoot-if-you-must-this-old-gray-head look.

Dr. Pinckney had dark hair and round glasses and reminded me of John Lennon. I liked him right away. I could see he was trying hard to stay patient with Mama Dean. Even though he smiled, he kept working his jaw muscles.

“Mrs. Presson, please tell your grandmother this examination is routine,” he said.

“Mama Dean, this examination is routine,” I repeated.

She just sat there. She didn’t blink or budge. Finally Patsy Jo took over, taking Mama Dean’s blood pressure, weighing her, listening to her heart. When they were through, Dr. Pinckney said, “Mrs. Pruitt, have you had any problems since your last visit?”

Mama Dean glared at him like he’d insulted her, then she said, “You’re the doctor. You tell me.”

All
the way home, she didn’t say the first word. She just sat there in the passenger seat, her jaw pooched out, and her arms folded over her chest like an old Indian.

“Well, I hope you’re proud of yourself,” I said.

“Hmph.”

“All you did was waste everyone’s time.”

“Hmph.”

I wasn’t getting anywhere. “All, right, Mama Dean, let’s forget the whole thing. Next time we’ll wait for Dr. Helton. I’m sure it won’t hurt Dr. Pinckney’s feelings one bit.”

The traffic light in front of the bank turned red, so I stopped the car. On the next block, in front of Woolworth’s, I saw a man who looked just like Jerry. I craned my neck. He had long, thin legs, the same shock of dark hair and the walk I thought I’d forgotten.

For years, I’d “seen” Jerry in malls, on the street, in every crowd. My heart would do flip-flops, but when I got closer it was always a tall, dark-haired stranger. It’d been years since I’d “seen” Jerry like that. I hoped all the reunion talk wouldn’t start all those old feelings again.

By the time the light changed, the man had disappeared and Mama Dean was muttering something about “Stinking men. Even with all those diplomas on the wall they all just want one thing.”

I put the Jerry look-alike out of my mind and stepped on the gas. In a few minutes I’d drop off Mama Dean and go home. Then it hit me: why did I want to get home? Mother Presson was waiting for me at home.

Mama Dean sniffed and dabbed her eyes.

“Now what’s wrong?” I said.

“Nothing. I’m fine! Just fine! Don’t bother to take me home. I know you can’t wait to get shed of me. Just drop me off here. You don’t even have to slow the car. I’ll jump.”