The Ladies' Room (25 page)

Two days before Christmas, Billy Lee brought in a cedar tree
and one of those stands that holds a gallon of water so the tree
won't die and shed all its needles. He brought the decorations
box down from the attic, and when he opened it, it revealed big
antique lights and fragile ornaments in a whole array of bright
colors. Linda and Art would have drooled over everything.

While Billy Lee put the lights on the tree, I drove to the
dollar store to pick up a new tinsel garland. And that's when I
ran into Betsy and Marty-and I mean smack-dab into them.
They were coming out of the store as I went in, and there was
no hiding from them the way they used to avoid Aunt Gert.

Marty smiled. "Enough of this. We only have one another,
and I'm tired of not talking to you. I'm sorry I knew about
Drew and didn't tell you, and I'm sorry for those things you
heard in the bathroom at Gert's funeral. Forgive me?"

Betsy threw an arm around my shoulders. "Me too. We were
awful. You have a right to tell us where to go, but we miss
you."

"Forgiven," I said. I didn't tell them that it was Billy Lee's
spirit sitting on my shoulder telling me to be good that made
me do it. "On one condition," I went on.

They both looked at me.

"That you never say another mean word about Billy Lee.
He's my friend, and if you say anything nasty about him, I
intend to mop up the streets of Tishomingo with you both"

"Agreed," Betsy said quickly.

"Okay," Marty said.

"Then why don't you two come to Christmas dinner? We'd
love to have you," I said.

"We'll be there. We were just moaning about our kids all
having plans, and actually wishing Aunt Gert were still around
so we could have dinner with her like when we were kids."
Betsy grinned.

"Good. We'll see you at dinner in a couple of days," I said.

I bought three kinds of tinsel because I couldn't decide which
one I liked best. I'd never had a real tree. Momma was one of
the first generation white-tree owners with all red bulbs and
tinsel, red velvet bows, and even a red angel on top. A few years
later, white trees went out of vogue. Momma bought an artificial
green tree and decorated it with white lights, gold tinsel, and
multicolored ornaments.

When I married, we bought a fake green tree and updated it
every couple of years as the new and better models arrived on
the market. But they all paled in comparison to the cedar tree
I gazed upon as I carried a sackful of tinsel into the house. I
tossed my coat onto a rocking chair and watched Billy Lee
string the rest of the lights, plug them in, and give a thumbsup shout when everything lit up the way it was supposed to do.

"What's that all about?" I asked.

"Gert and I were always happy when the lights worked one
more year. She kept saying they should be retired, but I always
liked the big bulbs better than those little twinkling things.
Guess I've got old-fashioned bones. Grandma always had a
cedar tree even when other folks had those fake ones, and I
loved the big lights."

"I saw Marty and Betsy at the dollar store and invited them to
Christmas dinner." I rubbed my cold hands together and thought
of that lovely fireplace in the house by the lake.

"That's great, Trudy. We'll have lots of people around the
table, and it'll be a wonderful Christmas!" Billy Lee said.

"You actually like this holiday?"

He was grinning so broadly that his crooked smile wasn't
even crooked. "It's my very favorite."

He wrapped a tinsel garland around his shoulder and fore arm the way I'd seen him do extension cords before he put
them away; then he handed me the free end. "It's your job to
get it on just right. Fill in the holes where the limbs are sparse,
and make it pretty. It's my job to keep walking around the tree
until we have it all done"

I started at the top. Drape here, fill there, stumble over the
light cord, bump into Billy Lee a dozen times. I hadn't had so
much fun decorating a tree in my whole life.

"Well, dang it all, I dropped it again. I'm the queen of clumsy
today," I said.

"Who cares? 'Tis the season to be jolly, remember?"

"Then we're right in tune with the season," I said.

We finished the garland, and I threw myself down into a
rocking chair. "Break time. Let's rest a minute."

He went to the kitchen, took the quart of eggnog from the
fridge, and poured two glasses. He handed me one and settled
into a rocker. "It's looking good. Last year Gert just wanted a
little two-footer, and we set it on the dining room table. She'd
just gotten the news about the cancer, but she put on a good
front. She probably wouldn't have even put up a tree, but she
kept up appearances for me"

"You were good for her. I feel guilty that I didn't put forth
more effort to be around her."

"Gert understood. She knew you a lot better than you realize.
I might have been good for her, but it was a two-way street. She
was good to me. I loved that sassy old girl."

I'd finished most of the eggnog when the doorbell rang.
Figuring it was a salesman or a religious group playing on the
season for a donation, I dragged myself up out of the chair and
hitched up sweatpants that were hanging off my hips. That
alone was a Christmas present. Just that morning I'd looked in
the mirror and found the hip bones I hadn't seen in at least
fifteen years.

A cold north wind whipped around the edge of the house
and through the doorway when I opened it. Crystal stood there
like a stone statue.

I stared at her as if she was an apparition.

"Momma?" she whispered.

Her pretty blond hair, usually cut and highlighted to perfection, hung in limp strands. Swollen, red eyes and a fresh blue
bruise across one cheekbone were the only things that gave
color to her face. She wore sweatpants cut off raggedly right
below her knees and old rubber flip-flops. She hugged herself
in an attempt to keep warm.

Her voice quavered. "May I come in?"

I grabbed her arm, pulled her inside, and slammed the
door. "I'm so sorry. You surprised me. Get in here out of the
cold. You want some hot chocolate or coffee? Here, let me get
you a quilt to wrap up in. You're trembling like a leaf. Have
you got a fever? Where is your coat?"

"In the car with everything else I own, which is precious
little."

I yelled toward the living room. "Billy Lee, it's Crystal!"

He peeked around the edge of the door.

I turned back to Crystal. "We're putting up the tree. Let me
make you something hot to drink, and then you can help us, if
you're staying that long."

She hung her head, and my heart went out to her. Who on
earth had broken my spirited child down like this? If I found the
sorry sucker, he was taking a midnight swim in Lake Texoma
with a pair of concrete boots and a .38 slug between his eyes.

"Hot chocolate, please," she mumbled.

I went to the kitchen, and they both followed me. "Chocolate will warm you up. You're frozen"

She sat down at the table. "I need to talk to you."

Billy Lee pulled out a chair and sat down.

She pushed her chair back so fast, it hit the floor. I expected
the fight to begin. She'd yell enough to wilt the Christmas
tree. But she took two steps toward me, threw her arms around
my neck, and broke into sobs so hard, she could scarcely
breathe.

I hugged her tightly and patted her back, soothing her the
way I did back when she was a little girl and someone had hurt
her feelings. "Shh. Shh. Stop that right now, and tell me what's
happened."

"I don't have anyplace to go, and I've been so mean to you,
and he left, and I quit school without telling you. Daddy said I
was a disgrace and I couldn't live there because he won't be
disgraced again, and I'm afraid, Momma. Jonah said he
wasn't ready to be a father, so he went home to Pennsylvania,
and he's divorcing me. I've lost my job at McDonald's, and I
don't know what to do," she said between sobs and wiping her
nose and eyes with the Kleenex Billy Lee handed her.

I maneuvered her across the room and back to the kitchen
table. "Sit down, and start-from- the beginning."
"

She melted into the chair Billy Lee had set upright, laid her
forearms on the table, and kept crying. "I'm such a fool."

Billy Lee reached across the table and touched her arm. I
expected her to go up in flames and pull away from him,
maybe even give him a royal piece of her mind, but she looked
into his understanding eyes, stood up, and threw her arms
around his neck and cried on his shoulder.

I hurriedly made microwavable hot chocolate and set it before her. She finally let go of Billy Lee and sat down but kept
her hand on his right there on the table. When I sat down, she
ignored the hot chocolate and grabbed my hand with her other
one. "I've made a mess of my life. I'm being punished for
treating you the way I did."

.,start at the beginning," Billy Lee said softly.

"Jonah and I had this big fight when I got pregnant. It was
an accident, but he wouldn't believe me, and he's gone back
to Pennsylvania, and he took everything we had with him."
She looked so miserable that it broke my heart all over
again.

"Well, that's probably a good thing. It would be wise for
him to stay in his part of the world if he wants to live to see
his next birthday," I said with absolute conviction.

"Don't worry. He won't ever be back," she blurted out.

"Keep going," Billy Lee said.

She sipped the hot chocolate, and a little color came back
into her ashen face.

"When I told him I was pregnant, he said I had to get rid of
it, because he wasn't being saddled with a kid."

Billy Lee patted her hand and waited patiently.

I still had visions of feeding a fifty-pound catfish the remnants of a pretty boy's body.

She continued in a broken voice. "The rent is due in five
days. I got laid off from my job yesterday. The food is gone.
I've got ten dollars and a tank of gas. I went to Daddy and told
him about the baby, and he told me to get out."

Billy Lee's expression was pure disgust. "You did the right
thing, coming here, Crystal. Your momma has missed you"

I patted her hand with my free one. "We'll get through this.
I've got a lovely spare room upstairs you can stay in. Then,
when the semester starts again, we'll go find you another apartment"

"I'm not going back to school. I hate it. I was on probation
all last semester. My grades were horrible," she said.

That put a whole new light on the issue. I was barely getting
my own life together. I had a mother with Alzheimer's, a fresh
divorce, and it wasn't an easy job keeping my emotions in
check with Billy Lee. But this was my child, and I loved her
so much that her pain was tearing my heart out.

"We'll talk about that later. Right now, we'll help you bring
in your clothes."

"There's only one suitcase. We've pawned everything I had
to keep going. Daddy cut off my credit cards when I got married. I got a job at McDonald's, but Jonah said he wasn't working fast food."

That fellow wasn't going to be tossed into the lake. I'd think
of something much more painful and longer lasting than a
simple bullet or drowning.

"I'll go get your suitcase, then, and you finish that hot chocolate," Billy Lee said.

"You had any supper? Billy Lee and I made vegetable soup
today, and it's still on the back of the stove," I said as I hugged
her tightly.

"I am hungry," she admitted.

The tone of her voice sent chills up my spine. My child was
scared, pregnant, and hungry, and her father had turned her
out. Maybe he'd join this Jonah-whoever in a shallow grave.

"Momma, I am so sorry. I didn't mean to butt in on you and
Billy Lee. You don't need me messing things up for you," she
whispered when Billy Lee was out the door.

"What are you talking about? You're not messing anything up"

"But I thought he lived with you"

"Billy Lee doesn't live here."

"That's what Daddy said. He said you traded him in for the
village idiot." She blushed.

"Billy Lee is my best friend and the most caring, kind man
in the world, but he goes home at night, Crystal."

I set about heating a bowl of soup in the microwave and
uncovering the leftover corn bread. "Milk or tea?"

"Milk, please. Momma, I can't believe you'll just take me
in when I've been so mean"

"Do you want to get rid of that child you're carrying? Have
you had a single doubt about letting it live, even though its father is a fool?"

She shook her head. "Never."

"I feel the same about you."

Tears filled her already swollen eyes and flowed down her
cheeks. "I don't deserve this."

"You are going to be a mother. Congratulations. Once a
mother, always a mother. You don't ever get to quit or retire.
Soup's hot. I hear the front door. Billy Lee will take your
things up to your room, and tomorrow we'll go buy whatever
you need."

"Thank you, and I mean it," she said humbly.

She dug into the soup with gusto. When she finished that
bowl, she asked for another and even washed the dishes when
she was done.

"Now, was there something about a Christmas tree?" she
asked.

"Billy Lee cut it out of the forest," I said.

Her eyes finally had a little life in them. "A forest in Tishomingo? Come on, Momma"

Amazing what a bowl of soup and the promise of a warm
bed will do. Drew ought to be covered in honey and staked out on a fire-ant mound. Denying his own child a place to stay
must have broken her as badly as Jonah's leaving had.

I amended my story. "Well, then, in the woods out behind
his house. Tomorrow I'm going to the Dollar General and
buying one of those ornaments for Baby's First Christmas. I'm
going to be a grandmother!"

Crystal picked up an ornament and hung it on the tree.
"Momma, are you sure you're all right with this?"