The Ladies' Room (29 page)

I heard an old pickup rattling across the bridge, but I didn't
look up until a door slammed. Crystal plowed across the dead
grass with determination and more than a little worry in her
eyes.

"What are you doing out here?" Crystal sat down across the
table from me.

I shrugged.

"Tell me what happened"

I shook my head. How did I tell my child that I woke up
that morning resenting her?

"What are you upset about?" she demanded.

Be honest! It was as if Aunt Gert was sitting right there giving me advice.

"It was there when I woke up this morning. I've loved you
from the minute they laid you in my arms when you were
born. But today I woke up resenting the heck out of you"

Tears welled up behind her beautiful eyes and spilled down her face. "Why? I thought things were finally going well between us."

"They are, but I'm mad because ..." I stopped.

"You might as well tell me," she said, regaining her composure. "We're doing `honest,' remember?"

I sighed. "Okay, honest it is. I wanted to wait for a baby
when your father and I married. I hoped to go to school and
get a degree, but your grandparents really wanted a grandchild, and they pushed hard for that. I think they had visions
of Drew going on to something big, like politics, and a stay-athome wife and a baby would look good"

"Dad's no politician, Momma. He's a small-town lawyer. Politics might have been the Williamses' dream for their son, but
Daddy never would have that kind of discipline or drive. He was
way too spoiled, and he is what he is."

"How'd you get so smart?"

She smiled and reached across the picnic table to touch my
hand. "Go on, Momma"

I went on. "Anyway, we had you, and I loved you to pieces,
but I guess I always felt I'd been cheated out of my dreams. I
basically had to walk two steps behind Drew and cater to his
every whim. Then, when you were about two, I wanted another
child, but your father said no way." I stopped. "I don't know
why I'm telling you this."

"Because I asked and because you resent me," she said
honestly.

"Oh, stop that. We both know I've always loved you no matter how spoiled and demanding Drew and I let you becomeespecially when you were a teenager, though I pretended that
that was just a phase. And I allowed it because I couldn't stand
fighting. I love you, and you know that, and that's all that
matters. Now let's go home." My stomach hurt, and I had a
headache.

"No, not until we've talked this through."

"I can't."

"Oh, yes, you can. Are you upset because of the baby?"

"It's not the baby. It's me. I'm forty, and for the first time I
have a life all my own, and now ..

"I can get my own place. I don't have to live with you," she
said.

"I like having you live with me. I love sharing our lives."

"Well, you have to decide. If I'm upsetting things in your
new life and making you have these moods, then please tell
me. Maybe you could give me a loan until I can get my business up and running. But if you want me to stay, then you have
to remember that we're both adults now. You can come and go
and do as you please, and you don't have to explain anything
or answer to me or take care of me as if I was still a child."

That took me by surprise; my daughter was trying to meet
me halfway, just as a grown-up would. I guess I'd figured
she'd flounce back to Billy Lee's truck and throw gravel all
the way home.

"How are you going to manage with a baby and a new business?"

"I'm going to be a mother who runs a business." Her eyes
glittered at the prospect. "I'll have a crib and playpen in the
greenhouse, remember? That's the beauty of having my own
business. I can do both. I'm not asking you to take care of me
or my child, Momma. All I need from you is to always be my
mother. A real one. Not a perfect one. I don't even care if
some days you hate me, as long as most of them you love me."

I almost cried at how smart and logical she had become. I
stuck my hand across the table. "Deal"

She shook it firmly. "Now, let's go take care of the rest of
this. Might as well finish up the year by throwing out the old
and starting off tomorrow with a clean slate."

"What are you talking about?"

"Get into the truck. We're going to see Daddy."

My stomach did two flips, and my gag reflex almost lost the
war. "I can't. Let's just go home"

She opened the passenger's door of the truck and literally
shoved me inside. "Nope. He's at Grandmother Williams'
place, and you can unload on the whole bunch at one time.
Don't hold a single word back, either. Cuss, rant, rave, even
throw one of her fancy-pants vases at him if you can get your
hands on it. It'll cleanse the soul-believe me"

Later, I'd wonder how she knew where Drew was that day,
but at the time I was so nervous over confronting him and my
in-laws that I wasn't sure I could utter a word when we got
there.

Crystal parked the truck in the circular driveway as if it was
a limo and jumped out, motioning for me to follow. I made it
to the front door of the house at about the time she pushed the
doorbell.

The housekeeper, Elise, opened the door. "Miss Crystal.
Miss Trudy ... oh ... my!"

My ex-mother-in-law, Ruby, peeked out the den door into
the foyer. "Who is it, Elise?"

Crystal marched right in, and I followed.

"Neither of you are welcome in this house," Ruby said. "And,
Elise, if you let her in here again, I will fire you."

"When she does, come see me, and I'll put you to work," I
said.

"Tell me why we aren't welcome," Crystal said.

"Because you broke your father's heart"

"Is he here?" I asked.

"We are all in the den, but you aren't coming in."

"Yep, Grandmother, we are. Come on, Mother."

I followed her even though Ruby looked like she was about
to drop dead of a heart attack.

"What are you doing here?" Drew's eyes shot pure hatred
at me.

"Momma has something to say," Crystal said.

"We don't want to hear anything you have to say," Ruby said.
"This is my home, so get out, and don't ever come back."

"You'd better sit down, because Momma ain't leavin' until
she speaks her mind," Crystal said.

Ruby pointed a finger at me, but she didn't sit down. "You've
changed. You are no longer the woman we chose for our son.
You have been nothing but vindictive and mean."

"Me? I've been mean? Lady, you'd better wake up and smell
the coffee burning. Your son cheated on me most of our married life. He's bought fancy cars and gifts for his bimbos and
even coerced his daughter into covering for him."

"If he did those things, it was because you weren't a good
wife. A man will find happiness. If not at home, then away
from home," Ruby said.

That lit the fuse and loosened my tongue. I slapped her finger away. "I'll get to you later."

I pointed a finger at Drew. "I can't think of anything vile
enough to call you, Drew Williams. I was a complete innocent
when we married, and-"

Ruby's temper flared. "Don't you call my son any names!"

One look from me and she grabbed her mouth.

"I said I'd deal with you later. This one is between me and
Drew." I raised my voice an octave or two or forty. It sure felt
good to be standing in her living room yelling like a fishwife.

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

"Like I said, I was an innocent and thought you walked on
water. I ignored the signs right in front of my nose and didn't
face up to what you were doing. Right up until Gert's funeral,
when my two cousins came into the ladies' room talking
about all your affairs. How could you treat someone so badly?
Why didn't you just leave me when you found out you didn't
love me?"

"I never did love you! I never wanted to marry you!" he yelled
back.

"Shut up!" Ruby whispered.

"Well, I didn't. I didn't want to be tied down to a wife or a
baby. But Mother and Father thought I needed stability, that if
I married, my law practice would be more solid. And it was.
They were right."

"So you stole twenty years of my life to make your law
practice solid?" I shouted even louder. "Did you ever give a
thought to how I might feel?"

"I liked the way you took care of things, and you had a
place in society. You had been trained well."

"You really are a coldhearted bastard," I said.

"Don't you call him that," Ruby said.

I shook my head in disbelief. How could I have been so
naive? "He's just like you"

"Be careful, Trudy. She's my mother," Drew warned.

"She had to have known what you were doing. Everyone
knew."

"I didn't care what he did as long as he was discreet. I told
him he could have all the mistresses he wanted, but he needed
a good woman to serve as his wife. You were that, Trudy, until
you went off the deep end," Ruby said.

"What about you? Did you know?" I asked my former fatherin-law.

He shrugged.

I looked back at Ruby. "I suppose you'd be fine with Andrew
flaunting a mistress and you being the good woman to serve as
his wife?"

"Get her out of here. She's nothing but trash," Ruby said.

I shook my head. "I've said my piece. Now I'm leaving of
my own accord"

I marched out of the house.

Crystal followed me. "Feel better?" she asked, when we got
to the pickup.

,.You will never know how much. Thank you"

Acold north wind stirred the lake into frothy whitecaps.
Wrapped up in blankets, Billy Lee and I sat on the deck watching the old year die after we'd feasted upon grilled steaks and
stuffed baked potatoes. I loved the lake house and could live
there forever, if only Billy Lee would sell it to me.

I was glad that Crystal had forced me to face my past and that
Billy Lee had wanted to drive the Caddy to the lake house to
ring in the New Year. Peace reigned deep inside of me in a way
it never had before.

"It's because we were raised only children," Billy Lee finally said.

"What?"

"That's why we hate fighting. We didn't have siblings so we
could learn how to do it properly. But sometimes we don't have
a choice. You feeling better or worse for clearing the air earlier today?"

"Much, much better."

"Good. I'd hoped everything about Drew would go away
and never bother you again, but that's unrealistic. You two
share a child, so there'll always be that"

"I suppose so. What time is it?"

"Eleven thirty. Another half an hour and this year will be
finished. What's been the good, the bad, and the ugly for you
this year?" he asked.

I had to think about it for a while, but he waited patiently
for my answers.

"The biggest ugly was the episode in the ladies' room at
Gert's funeral, for sure."

"And that was?" he asked.

What is said in the ladies' room generally stays in the ladies'
room. A guy would never understand. Still, I told Billy Lee the
whole story, even about wiggling at the funeral and putting a
hole into my panty hose.

"And you let them live and even invited them to Christmas
dinner? I always pictured you as a take-charge, don't-messwith-me woman"

"Billy Lee, you've pictured me all wrong. I'm a wimp."

"A wimp wouldn't have cut her ties as cleanly as you did.
So you didn't want to know what was going on. At least when
you found out for sure, you didn't sit around moping and feeling sorry for yourself. You walked out and started all over."

"But Gert made that easy to do," I answered.

"You'd have pitched a tent alongside Pennington Creek and
used a public restroom before you'd have lived with Drew
Williams after you found out he was cheating."

How had this man come to know me so well?

"The good?" he prompted.

There had been so many good things. To list them would
take more than the time I had left in this topsy-turvy world that
had spun my life in a hundred-eighty-degree turnaround.

"Good would be that Crystal and I are forming some kind
of adult relationship. That Momma has had a few good days
and that we got to celebrate the holidays with her. That I've
got a house full of gorgeous things built by a new friend I
cherish. Good would also be the mornings when I smell bacon
and coffee as I stumble half asleep toward the kitchen. It's
finding baby kittens and feeling safe. The good outweighs the
ugly by far."

He smiled. "The bad?"

"Today," I answered honestly. "I hate confrontation. I still
don't know how I had the courage or the anger to have that
showdown with the Williams bunch. Dealing with Marty and
Betsy was easier than that"

"If you could go back and redo any of it, would you?"

"No."

We sat there a few more minutes before I realized I'd just
bared my soul. "Aunt Gert used to say that turnabout was fair
play. So it's your turn, Billy Lee. The good, the bad, and the
ugly of the whole year."