The Ladies' Room (10 page)

Sweat had slicked up every inch of my overweight, overforty body by the time we pulled up the carpet, but I danced a
jig when we found oak hardwood floor, the movement of my
feet sending dirt flying up around my sneakers and settling
into the grooves of my turned-down bobby socks. Suddenly I
could see the house in all its potential glory, just waiting to
be turned from the girl in ugly rags to a princess, the belle of
the ball.

"Don't take much to make you happy, does it?" Billy Lee
chuckled.

"It's going to be a grand house when we get done"

"I've wanted to do this for years, but Gert wouldn't have
any part of it. She said she was too old to be in the middle of
remodeling, and she'd grown to like her life the way it was."

"I can see a vision of it finished, and you can too. It's plain
as day in your eyes. Speaking of which, when did you stop
wearing glasses? Did you get that new surgery?"

"No, just contacts. The doctor says I'm not a candidate for
the surgery, or I'd have it."

"Not me. If I was nearsighted, I wouldn't have it."

"Why not?" he asked.

"If I was nearsighted, then I could choose what to see or not
see"

"Trust me, it doesn't work that way," he said. "If I don't have
my contacts in, I stumble around like a drunk."

My stomach growled loudly. I hadn't had food since breakfast, which was something new for me. I always had tea and
cookies midmorning.

"Sounds like you're about to starve," he said.

"Let's go up to the SONIC and get some lunch before we
clean the dust away and start to work for real."

"Want to go over to the park across Pennington Creek to
eat?"

My stomach set up an unladylike howl. "I'd eat in the truck"

"Truck's hot. We might catch a breeze in the park."

I smiled, and it felt good. "I wouldn't waste a breeze"

We ordered foot-long cheese Coneys with extra onions, Tater
Tots, and one of those big drinks that hold a quart of Coke.
While we waited for the waitress to bring our food, Daisy Black
and her daughter pulled up beside us in a late-model Cadillac.
From the passenger seat, Daisy looked at me as if I was something she had tracked in from a pig lot.

She was the one who'd gone to church with Aunt Gert
and had slept with Uncle Lonnie. But then, maybe she'd had
a come-to-Jesus experience and repented of her sins. Jesus
might instantly forgive her, but it was going to take me a while
longer.

"How you doin', Miz Daisy?" I asked.

"I'm doin' just fine. I heard you moved into Gert's house
and that you and Drew had a big argument on the porch this
mornin'. It's not too late to undo what you're doin' and go on
back to Drew."

"No, thank you"

"Think about it before you make a bad decision. How's
your momma doin'? I been meanin' to get out to the nursing
home to check on her, but I don't drive since I had my knee
replaced."

"Momma's fine. Some days are better than others, but that's
the way of her illness. She gets things all confused at times," I
said.

"Well, when she's having a good day, you tell her that I
asked about her, and I'll get on out there one of these days,"
Daisy said.

"Momma always likes company."

They brought out her milkshake. She and her daughter
drove away.

"She was one of Uncle Lonnie's women, one of the first
ones. What gives her the right to give me advice?" I asked.

"Age"

I looked at him quizzically.

He shrugged. "Old folks have seen more than we have. They
know more."

"Are you telling me to go back to Drew?"

His eyebrows shot up. "I am not! You should have made
this decision years ago"

"I might have if someone had stepped up to the plate and
told me what was going on. Why didn't you?"

"Would you have believed me?"

I had to think about that. By the time I had an answer, our
food had arrived, and he was driving down Main Street. "No,
I wouldn't have believed you, Billy Lee."

"Who did you finally believe?"

I got the giggles and told him about the ladies' room, and we
were both laughing when he parked the truck beside a picnic
table under a shade tree. He got out and hurried around the truck
to open the door for me.

"World is a strange place we live in," Billy Lee said as we
laid our food out on the table.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "You knew, didn't you? You
knew that Uncle Lonnie cheated on Gert back in their younger
days too"

He cleared his throat. "Some things don't have to be written
in a book down at the courthouse for everyone to know."

"Such as how Lonnie and Drew were just alike?"

"I ain't goin' there with you. I'll just say that what's past is
past. Let it go, and get on with your life. You always were too
good for Drew Williams" He changed the subject abruptly. "I'm
glad to see you eatin'. I was afraid that episode this morning
would ruin your appetite. Never did like a woman who didn't
appreciate a good meal."

Now, wasn't that a hoot? Drew thought I had a fat rear end,
and Billy Lee wanted me to eat. I polished off every crumb of
the hot dog, didn't leave a single Tater Tot in the paper bag,
and kept at the Coke until the straw made slurping noises at
the bottom of the cup.

I saw the Disney movie Bambi when I was seven years old.
It was the day before deer season opened in Oklahoma. When
my dad began to clean his gun in preparation for the big hunt,
I set up a howl. My father wiped away my tears and explained
that the state game commission had a big refuge for deer and
other animals. On that refuge those animals could never be
shot, and we had such a place right there in Tishomingo. He
promised to take me for a drive through it so I could see all
the wild creatures. But outside that place, he said, if hunters
didn't kill deer sometimes, there would be too many of them,
and that made a problem with nature's balance.

I wanted to believe him, but a little part of me always wondered which story was true. Bambi's tale of the evil man who
killed his mother, or my father's? Thirty-three years later, the
idea of deer hunting came to mind as I read through the divorce
papers the sheriff had delivered to my house that morning. It
was really quite simple. Drew got everything "in his possession," and I got everything in mine.

I picked up the pen and signed my name at the bottom with
a flourish.

In his mind, he'd just bagged a trophy divorce.

I laughed until my sides hurt. If he'd known what I was worth,
he'd have been fighting me for half of my possessions!

My mind went back to Bambi. If there were too many deer,
then hunters were given the opportunity to shoot them. Cheating husbands were also a problem in the balance of nature, and
there were far too many of them. Why couldn't there be open season on cheating husbands? Deceived wives could purchase
a gun, take lessons, and receive a cheating-husband hunting
license complete with a big red A label to tie to the man's zipper
after the kill. Open season could be scheduled months in advance to give the husbands a fighting chance. They could hide
in refuges or stay home and take their chances at being shot
through the living room window as they watched Monday Night
Football.

The licenses would bring in tax revenue, and resorts could
hire employees to cater to cheating husbands during the open
season. The staff could put up a razor-wire-topped chain-link
fence, guard it with attack dogs and ex-Navy SEALS, feed
the husbands home-cooked food like their wives made, iron
their clothing, charge them a fortune, and send them home
when the season was over.

As I carried the divorce papers out to the car to take back to
Drew's office, I wondered how many women I could get to
march with me in Washington, D.C., to lobby for just one day
a year of open cheating-husband season.

I spotted Aunt Gert's old adult tricycle in the garage. How
much trouble could it be to ride four blocks to Main Street,
three back east to his office, and then up to the nursing home
to visit Momma?

I was so happy, I forgot that every muscle in my body ached.
Billy Lee and I had filled two galvanized buckets with soapy
water and set about removing ten layers of wallpaper once we
cleaned all the dirt from the floors. We'd thought it best to start
at the top and work our way down, which seemed like a good
idea at the time. I had stretched as high as I could, then I'd sat
Indian style and bent every which way. No gym could have ever
given my muscles such a workout.

Someone had said that fat cells were like globs of bacon grease
and had no feeling. Whoever said it had lied. Every fat cell
seemed to have a sensory fiber attached to my eyelids, which
sent out screaming signals when I opened them that morning.

Standing up was agony. They should send criminals into
Aunt Gert's house and make them strip wallpaper from daylight to dark. That would sure enough reform them.

I figured a short cycle trip to Drew's office would work out
the kinks and embarrass him even further. By the time I'd gone
a block, though, my thighs were quivering, and the muddy water
in the puddles left by a late-night rain began to look good. But
I was on a mission, and, by golly, I would get it done, and I
would not die! Because if I did, Drew would get all my money
to spend on his teenage queens. I'd taught the alarm clock a
lesson; the bike was next.

Heat waves rose from the road, and the humidity was at
least ninety percent. I felt like a turkey in the oven on Thanksgiving morning. Three blocks later, sweat poured down my
neck and hit the dam made by the elastic of my bra. There it
lay in salty glory, eating away at the fabric. Next week I'd have
to make another trip to Durant to buy more bras.

I parked the bike in front of his office in full view of Drew's
secretary, Georgia. She was the only woman I was sure he'd
never had a fling with. She wore her gray hair in a tight bun at
the nape of her neck and always came to work in a no-nonsense
suit, either navy blue or black, with a paler blue or a gray silk
blouse to match.

I stepped inside the cool office and almost swooned at the
wonderful central air-conditioning. "Good morning, Georgia."

She eyed me from the toes of my ratty sneakers up to the
top of my sweaty, kinky hair. "What are you doing out in public looking like that?"

I dropped the divorce papers onto her desk. There were a
few smudges of sweat on the front page, but I'd signed all the
lines that had had the little markers. "Bringing you this."

Her eyes bugged out, and she gasped. "You signed that farce?"

"Yep, I did. He keeps what is his, and I keep what is mine,
and I take my maiden name back. Right?"

She nodded. "But you are entitled to-"

"I don't want his money. I took what I wanted out of our
joint accounts last Friday. It doesn't compensate me for twenty
years of infidelity, but it embarrassed him. Not as much as
I was when I learned what he'd been up to for most of our
married life, but it made me feel better. So here it is, signed
and delivered. When is he sending you to file it?"

"This afternoon"

"The sooner the better. I am now officially a Matthews again.
Off with the old, on with the new. Good-bye, Georgia."

"Trudy, should you be riding that old tricycle on Main
Street, dressing like..

I finished the sentence for her. "Dressing like a woman who
intends to go back home and apply stripper to baseboards all
day or finish removing the last of the wallpaper from a bedroom wall? One who has a house to remodel? I don't reckon I
need a Liz Claiborne or a Versace suit to do those jobs, do I?"

"Is it true that you are already keeping company with Billy
Lee Tucker?"

I shot her one of Marty's patented "drop dead" looks. "I'll
answer that when you supply me with the long list of names of
the women you've sent flowers and expensive gifts to with
Drew's name attached, the way you did for me on anniversaries and my birthdays."

She was still sputtering when I walked out the door. Getting back onto that bike was no picnic, but a whole cheesecake
waited at the Sooner Food's grocery store on the way back
home as a reward. Thinking of the first bite helped, but I still
groaned when I pushed the pedals to get started toward the
nursing home.

Mother was sitting in the lobby when I arrived. Lessie shook
her head when I walked in the door. It wasn't a good day, and
I'd so hoped it would be. I wanted to tell my mother about
the divorce. I pulled up a folding chair, sat down, and patted
Momma's hands. "Hi, Momma. How are you today?"

She jerked her hands back and blinked several times as if
trying to put my face in focus. "Who are you? I'm not your
mother. You stink. You should have taken a bath before you
came to my home"

"Miz Clarice, this is Trudy, your daughter," Lessie said.