Tending to Virginia (43 page)

“Well, the leopard has changed its damn spots,” Cindy says. “Listen, I got to tell you my news. I’ve decided me and Chuckie are gonna buy one of those solar condos that my sister has been pushing on me forever.”

“You are?”

“Yeah, and what’s more, I took Mama to Merle Norman’s like what Hannah did, and I left her there, wasn’t about to let them mess
with my face. But, when I picked Mama up, I couldn’t believe it, night and day, and then she went and got her hair frosted so it looks kind of blonde instead of gray and
then
we drove over to Ivey’s in Clemmonsville and Mama bought herself a whole new wardrobe. I even picked out some of it. I got me some black leather pants for the fall.”

“I’m glad y’all are getting along.” Virginia is staring at the phone now, wondering if this is really Cindy on the line.

“Well, she gets on my nerves so bad still, but we’re trying,” Cindy says. “And I got no choice but to be nice to slutbucket and likoor-sucker if I’m buying a condo through her.”

“Now you sound normal,” Virginia says. “Have you seen Charles?”

“Yes.” There is a stillness at the other end. “Got hitched, ah, I guess about an hour ago. Mama bought Chuckie a new suit and he looked real cute when I dropped him off at the church, face is getting better since he went to the dermatologist. Charles is paying for it.” Cindy pauses again, sounds like she moves away from the receiver for a second. “Charles saw me when I pulled into the parking lot there. He waved and I tooted the horn, made him laugh. You know he probably needed to laugh, probably was scared and I know how his neck will start to sweat if he’s scared.”

“I’m sorry, Cindy.”

“Yeah, well, I had my turn. Now it’s his turn, and who knows what’ll ever happen,” Cindy whispers. “I wanted to tell you that and too, shit, honey, I met the cutest doctor and he ain’t married; he’s so cute, too, and cute like I like it, a little rough-looking but clean. He’s so cute that I don’t say ‘ain’t’ in front of him, told that drug pusher to fuck off. I said, ‘fuck your wife, buddy. That’s what she’s for.’”

“Cindy!”

“Now, don’t climb on my ass over liberation. I mean you can look in my wallet and know that I am, look at me, but he probably has the kind of mind that that’s what made sense to him. I’m through with him and anybody like him.”

“Good,” Virginia says, straddling her legs and lifting her skirt a little in front of the floor fan so that the cool air will billow up her
dress. “Come see me soon. Please. We’ll be moving in five weeks.”

“Hell, I will,” Cindy says. “But I want you to have that baby and take up smoking again before I do. Good God, I was telling Mama that I never want to sit through such a hell-hole time as we all did that day at Emily’s house.”

“I know.”

“Don’t you ever tell all that went on,” Cindy says. “I’d be embarrassed for people to know that I come from such.”

“Who am I gonna tell?” Virginia asks and laughs. “The old folks? Constance Ann? Earl Conners in front of Endicott Johnson’s?”

“Yeah, yeah, make up something of your own for a change,” Cindy says and pauses. “But you know, that was something what Emily said to me wasn’t it?”

“What?”

“About getting me a green dress and dancing,” Cindy says and laughs softly. “It seemed so real, too, didn’t it? You might think Grandma Tessy turned into a tree but I think she’s off somewhere dancing with that man.”

“I never said she turned
into
a tree,” Virginia says slowly, though still feeling a prickle over her scalp from Cindy’s words.

“I’m still your favorite cousin, though.”

Virginia goes out onto the porch, that Virginia Slims still wrapped in a baggie on the rafter. “Sure I saw it,” Mark had said and laughed. “But God knows with the way you were acting, I wasn’t about to touch it.” She takes it down and drops it in the trashcan, walks out into the yard where it seems the weeds have grown a foot overnight.

“Sure is hot isn’t it?” Mrs. Short calls from her side of the fence.

“Yes,” Virginia nods and bends to pick the wild violets growing there.

“Your husband told me you were sick a while back but I see you ain’t had the baby.”

“Not yet.”

“Well, it’ll come when it’s ready.” Mrs. Short steps close to the fence, her body greased in suntan oil even though there’s no sun and her hair pulled up in a blue floral towel. “Husband tells me y’all are moving North, too.”

“Just to Richmond.”

“Well, I’m sorry to hear it. I’ve felt right safe with y’all here beside me and I was telling my Buddy the other day,” she pauses. “You know my boy, Buddy? One that drives the flashy car?”

“Yes.” Virginia squats there to pick more violets, pull the milkweeds.

“Well, I told him that I’ve felt right safe with you two here. I mean you just never know who you’re gonna end up living beside.” Mrs. Short talks on and on and Virginia smiles and nods but the words all escape her and she concentrates on the way she’s feeling, a strange way that takes her breath. She sits and stretches her legs out and watches the gray clouds gathering and she turns until the breeze is blowing into her face.

“Looks like more rain,” Mrs. Short says. “First we go on and on without it and now it seems like it’s rained for a month.” And now Mrs. Short is folding her lawn chair, going inside while Virginia sits and watches the clouds, names coming to her mind. Mark will be home for lunch soon just as he promised when he leaned over her this morning, Colgate and shaving cream. She can’t wait for him to get home, now. She holds her breath, waits and it disappears again, leaving her feeling odd and uncertain so she concentrates on names like Emily and Lena, James and David, and the sky is getting darker, so she concentrates on Mark getting home, thinks about how she will arrange the furniture in Richmond.

In just a few minutes the wind has picked up and the umbrella of Mrs. Short’s patio table is rocking back and forth. She smells the clear sharp smell of rain; it is coming, she knows and she watches the clouds gathering in the distance like dark swirls and it seems like she should be thinking of something that can slow it all down, some secret that she will remember forever, but all she can think is that she wishes Mark would hurry; all she can think is barefoot and pregnant, drop a rusty nail in a bottle of vinegar. She thinks of that cloud rushing towards her and how right now that cloud is probably over Gram’s duplex and her parents’ home, and how very soon it will be right here, in her yard. Something is about to happen and she knows it with the first cool drop of rain, that cloud letting go.
I’ve always known when the time was right, Gram says, I’ve just always known. I would never leave you, she told Mark and buried her face in his warm neck, there is no one who could ever take your place. I’ve known that river my whole life, Gram says, it’ll rise come a rain. And she sees that river so far from its source, growing and rushing as if there are not enough places or hours in the world. Easy does it, Gram says and the june bug twirls faster and faster around her head while she digs her feet in that warm black dirt and Gram stoops and picks her way down that garden row, then disappears in the thick field of corn. I’ll always be with you, she says.

published by
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225
in association with
Taylor Publishing Company
1550 West Mockingbird Lane
Dallas, Texas 75235
© 1987 by Jill McCorkle.
All rights reserved.
Cover lettering by Marcy Kass.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
McCorkle, Jill, 1958–
Tending to Virginia.
1. Title.
PS3563.C3444T4
   1987   813’.54   87-1481
E-book ISBN 978-1-61620-201-9