Tending to Virginia (27 page)

“Then why don’t you say that?” Gram asks. “Why don’t you take him to a doctor?”

“I would take him but it costs a hell of a lot. Phisoderm is cheap and if he’d use it like I tell him to, those bumps would probably go away. If Charles Snipes can afford to remarry, he can afford dermatology.”

“You haven’t told me Charles is getting married,” Virginia says.

“Good God, Ginny Sue,” Cindy says and waves her hand. “You been laid out like a dead whale for a week. How could I tell you?”

“Your skin was never really bad, Cindy,” Madge says and Virginia listens to every word, her face still flushed by the words “dead whale.” “Chuckie got his skin troubles from Charles.”

“God, you’re telling me,” Cindy says. “Daddy warned me, told me that Charles would always have a scarred-up face, and I should have listened to him. God, to think I ever kissed Charles Snipes.”

“Cindy, I’ll help you with that, you know, money-wise. Chuckie is so self-conscious about it,” Madge says, her forehead wrinkled.
“Bless his heart. He asked me if I thought it would go away before long.”

“Roy went away,” Lena says, her eyes closed.

“Bless his heart,” Cindy mimics. “I know you’d pay for it because Chuckie is your little ray of sunshine like I never was. Charles Snipes should have to pay.”

“No sunshine today,” Gram says. “Weatherman says rain.”

“I just wanted to help is all.” Madge stacks her deck of cards and wipes the sweat that has gathered around her hairline. “I
know
it’s not easy raising a child alone.” Madge stops and stares at Cindy, the words, the tension between their stares so strong that it makes Virginia’s whole body tighten.

“A child is a big responsibility,” Gram says.

“Lord God, tell me about it.” Now Cindy laughs, her back turned to Madge. “You’ll know soon enough, Ginny Sue. Of course you’ll have a man there to help you. Everybody really does need a man there to help them.”

“Yeah, when I fall asleep there on the sofa watching TV that Roy will pick me right up and put me in my bed.”

“Well, that must have been a hundred years ago,” Cindy says.

“No sassy messy mouth, it wasn’t,” Lena says, but Cindy ignores her.

“If we can ever have a little privacy, Ginny Sue,” Cindy says. “I’ll tell you all about my latest.”

“This is my house and if anybody gets privacy, it’s me,” Gram says.

“Oh, Ginny Sue,” Madge says suddenly. “Mark called you bright and early today, said he was going to take his test and would call back later.”

“Why didn’t you wake me?” she asks, an accusing tone that makes Madge’s eyebrows go up. Her heart quickens with the thought of what he’s going to say.

“It isn’t her fault,” Cindy says. “Your mama, St. Peter, has told us all not to disturb you.” Cindy sits forward with her feet pressed together like she’s doing yoga.

Esther goes and opens the front door. “Thank God, Hannah’s
here. Maybe I can get out and do a few things myself. I have a life, too, you know?” Esther faces them all now and Virginia lies back down, closes her eyes, thinks about what she will say. A baby cannot hold a marriage together. It’s hard to raise a child alone but it can be done.

“I could use a little help,” Hannah comes through the front door with a bag under each arm, her hair all blown every which way and there they all sit.

Cindy does not make one move from her spot on the floor to help. Madge follows Hannah into the kitchen and sits down to watch.

“I see you still buy Crisco in the can,” Madge says and Hannah just bites her tongue and nods, keeps unloading the groceries. “Hannah, let’s me and you go down to the beach one weekend. Let’s go sit and talk.” Hannah stops unloading for a minute and stares at Madge. How in tarnation does she think Hannah can just drop it all and go to the beach? “I’ll pay for the room,” Madge says.

“Money is no issue,” Hannah says now, determined to make a point. “I sold the shop for a large sum; I have money. Time, time is the issue.”

“Esther could stay here,” Madge says, her words picking up speed. “I mean after Ginny’s well, of course. Just a day and night, you know, to talk.”

“You might ask Esther,” Esther says and steps into the room.

Hannah looks at Madge. “I’ll have to see.” Lena’s hat is cocked off to one side and Hannah goes over to straighten it, though God knows it won’t stay straight. “Roy’s dead, isn’t he?” Lena asks slowly and Hannah nods. “Hannah, you are a good child, sweet; you look just like me,” and Lena reaches out and touches Hannah’s hair. All through childhood, Hannah imagined looking just like Aunt Lena, the flashy clothes and dangling earrings, and now, all of that time has passed and it is like seeing what she will be in twenty years, thin little vein-streaked wrists and tired dull eyes.

“If I should suddenly get quiet and not have anything to say,” Emily says, her hands gripping the edge of her lap robe and holding it up to her neck. “I don’t want any of you to bother me, I don’t want anybody trying to get me back.” She looks around the room,
Lena with that fake fur cocked to one side. They just come in and make themselves right at home when there’s so much to be done to get ready.

“Are you fixing to die?” Lena asks and hands the filter of her burned-out cigarette to Hannah. “‘Cause I am. I’m fixing to die.”

“Now you two stop it.” Madge drains the last of her iced tea and goes in Emily’s kitchen.

“I get so tired of this,” that sassy Cindy says to Ginny Sue like she might own this house and they are the only two in it. “I wish you could get out and do something.”

“Well, there’s a plenty to be done right here,” Emily says. “The wedding is today and there’s plenty to do.”

“What wedding is that?” Hannah asks and Emily laughs, turns the TV up louder with her remote control. She’d rather listen to what they’re saying on TV anyway. Hannah wasn’t even at the wedding, wasn’t even born, so how would she know about it? It makes Emily laugh until tears come to her eyes.

“Let’s talk about getting your hair fixed.” Hannah gets up and turns off the TV.

“Before the wedding?” Emily waits, green eyes staring, until Hannah nods.

“God, it’s always a wedding or a funeral,” Cindy says. “They don’t even know they’re on this earth, Alzheimer’s, and it really pisses me off the way everybody goes along with them.”

“You talk so filthy,” Emily says, shaking her finger, so thin beneath that gnarled knuckle. “What I don’t know is how you all found me here and some not even born or invited.”

“I said who’s getting married?” Lena tugs on her hat. “I thought we were at Emily’s house.”

“No, we’re way up North at the Kennedy wedding,” Cindy says. “And then we might go to England for the royal wedding.”

“We are at Mama’s house,” Hannah says over Cindy and Lena lies down, lights a cigarette.

“I know where I am,” Emily says. “It was James’s idea that we marry here.”

“Where are we then?” Cindy asks. “I just want to hear it.”

“Tessy ought to wear you out for that sharp tongue,” Emily says and shakes her finger again. “And for painting your face.”

“My grandmother is dead!”

“So is Roy,” Lena says and puffs out a cloud of smoke. “I wish I was.”

“James said South Carolina is a nice place to marry,” Emily says. “So here we are.”

“South Carolina?” Lena sits back up.

“You heard it. South Carolina, Boston, England, all at the same time.” Cindy goes in the kitchen and opens the refrigerator and just stands there looking in.

“Don’t let all the cold out,” Madge says and fans herself with one of Emily’s old paper fans like the funeral homes used to give out.

“Don’t, don’t, don’t!” Cindy yells. “Here I am with a child, two husbands under my belt and all I ever get is
don’.”

“I don’t remember coming to South Carolina,” Lena says.

“You didn’t.” Emily pulls out her tin of snuff. “Me and James didn’t tell you where we were going because we eloped and you stood there at the edge of the yard and pitched a fit because you didn’t want to stay home with Mama.”

“Well, you must have brought me with you, else why am I here?” Lena drops her cigarette in the ashtray and just lets it burn. “Wedding,” she sighs. “I ain’t about to put on a pair of hose.” Lena sits up straight and looks at Hannah. “I remember coming by car. We all must have come by car, Roy’s Lincoln.”

“I flew,” Cindy says. “My lover rented a jet and flew me here and Ginny Sue came by Trailways and Mama got brought by some men from another planet.”

Madge is too tired to say anything, just looks out the window where Felicia is standing in her half of the yard, folding a yard chair and looking up at the sky. Sometimes, Madge can almost see why Felicia chose her way, life without men, and Felicia is not even a big woman.

“Cindy is teasing,” Hannah says to Emily and Lena. “She made all that up.”

“I haven’t made a thing since I tried to make me a purse at the
hotel school,” Lena says. “I didn’t want to make a purse. Straw shit, cheap straw and so Roy said don’t make a purse, Lena, for godssakes don’t make a purse; I’ll buy you a purse when we go to Chicago.”

“I’ll not go to Chicago with anyone,” Emily says.

“It’s not Chi
car
go, even I know that.”

“Cindy,” Madge says, still watching Felicia who is now pulling some weeds from around her shrubs. Felicia has probably never had a man that made her do something she didn’t want to do. Felicia has never had a child. Madge looks away from the window when it looks like Felicia is looking in her direction. Madge tries to focus on her card game but she can’t help but wonder what Felicia would think of her, if a woman interested in other women would find her just as unattractive as Raymond had. And what becomes of people who are so unattractive that nobody, not man nor woman, wants them?

“Don’t marry anybody unless it’s really for love,” Madge’s mama had told her. “You’d be better off right by yourself. A person might as well be right by herself and all alone than to live a life that’s nothing but a lie.” And her mama was so rough-looking, even then; she looked like those pictures of old rough farm women with her worn out high-tops and little pipe. That was a mouthful for her mama to say because she rarely talked at all except to tell Madge to do something, feed the chickens or go get a bucket of water.

“Tessy knows what she’s talking about.” Madge’s daddy was in the doorway and she hadn’t even heard him come in. Her mama didn’t even flinch with his voice but set her mouth straight and tight with a determined look while she licked the end of a thread and guided it through the needle. Madge waited for her mama to say something but she didn’t and he just stood there, a big man with wild gray hair that he didn’t even cut in those later years. Her mama just kept right on quilting, staring down at those tough old hands. And Madge felt the tension there between them, her daddy’s hard stare and her mama’s spine rigid as a post.

“What did he mean?” she had asked when her father went out the side door and let it slam behind him.

“Nothing. Didn’t mean nothing,” her mama said without even looking up. “I’m just saying you’d be better off alone than with a man you don’t love and got no hopes of loving.” And she had wanted to ask her mama questions but those dark brown eyes silenced her.

“Come live with me and be my love,” Raymond had said. He had a car, an old Bel Air, and when they’d drive down that filthy dusty road into town to go to the movies, he’d put his arm around her and pull her close on that seat. “No wife of mine will ever have to work in a field like a nigger,” he told her.

“I hear he’s fast,” Hannah had said one day at school. “And he’s a lot older.”

“Just eight years,” Madge said. “Daddy is ten years older than Mama.”

“Find yourself a young man,” her mama had said.

Raymond had taught Ben how to drive, all of them laughing at the way Ben was so stiff and nervous behind the wheel, couldn’t even put his arm around Hannah or smoke a cigarette while he drove he was so nervous.

“I like it when you drive, Ben,” Raymond said, those wingtips propped on the front seat between Hannah and Ben. “I like having Madge back in this backseat all to myself.” She had to fight that man every inch of the way, fought him right up to their wedding night when she stood in the bathroom in a motel in Florence, South Carolina.

“I’m ready,” Raymond had called through that closed door. And she had brushed her hair down around her shoulders, taken off the locket her mama had given her, a locket that Madge didn’t even know her mama had. “Just take it,” her mama said. “And don’t tell nobody I gave it to you.”

“Hope you come with a guarantee little country mouse,” Raymond called and when she opened the bathroom door, he was sitting in the bed with the sheet pulled up to his hips, that blonde hair combed up off his forehead; his large blue eyes were taking in every inch of her. “I’m ready,” he said and lifted a shot glass. Madge would not want to go back; she would not want to relive one minute. She watches Felicia pulling weeds and she is relieved that it’s all over. Now all she has to do is tell Hannah.

“You could pick the time and place, Hannah,” Madge says. “You know if you feel like you can get away for a day.” Hannah steps in from the bathroom, wiping her hands on a towel. Lena is pacing and muttering now, a towel wrapped around her head.

“I’ll talk to Ben,” Hannah says and follows Lena. Madge turns back to the window, feeling more hopeful every time she asks Hannah. Soon she will say yes; she will have to say yes. Madge can’t carry it any longer. She is thinking about the words, her letters, when a car pulls up to the curb and stops. Madge sits and waits to see who will get out. Felicia has turned from her weeding and is watching, too.

“Roy and I used to go to the beach,” Lena makes a face and says, “sh sh shit,” when Hannah starts combing out her hair, her head jerking forward with each sh. “They had sand fleas where we stayed. Roy said he liked the way I hopped around.”

“Nobody wants to hear of it,” Emily says. “Somebody go to the door. There’s a man on the porch.”

“Yeah, boy, banjos and all,” Cindy says.

“There really is a man,” Madge says. “It’s a black man with a Bible.”